{"podcast":{"title":"Wonder Cabinet","slug":"wonder-cabinet-7409328","podcast_index_feed_id":7409328,"rss_url":"https://publicfeeds.net/f/120/wondercabinet","website_url":"https://www.wondercabinetproductions.com","image_url":"https://f.prxu.org/120/images/68baf269-f9b6-40c1-be6c-30911ff8037b/Show_Cover-Wonder-Cabinet.png","author":"Wonder Cabinet Productions (hello@wondercabinetproductions.com)","episode_count":19,"summary":"Wonder Cabinet is an independent podcast from Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson, Peabody Award-winning creators of public radio's To The Best Of Our Knowledge. For 35 years, that show brought long-form conversations to 200+ stations nationwide; its interviews are now archived in the Library of Congress . Episodes feature intimate, long-form conversations with scientists, philosophers, writers, and artists who are re-imagining our relationship with the planet. Some study black holes or quantum entanglement; others map mycelial networks or count ancient tree rings. And some explore dream worlds, myths, and fairy tales to revive ways of knowing that challenge what we think we understand about the nature of reality. The name references Enlightenment-era cabinets of curiosities—private collections of shells, fossils, astronomical instruments, and saints' relics that existed at a moment when the scientific revolution was still in conversation with older ways of knowing the world. Today, another shift is taking place, as mechanistic models give way to more holistic, relational understandings of life on a sentient planet. Wonder Cabinet lives at that threshold. About the hosts Anne Stra…","last_synced_at":"2026-08-02T10:21:12.700956+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328"},"episode":{"title":"Christof Koch on the Cosmic Toad","slug":"christof-koch-on-the-cosmic-toad","published_at":"2026-05-16T11:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328/christof-koch-on-the-cosmic-toad","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328","url":"https://wonder-cabinet.ghost.io/christof-koch-on-the-cosmic-toad/","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/48/dovetail.prxu.org/120/b227bf02-bc62-4cfa-a262-7d6dd6ba816f/Koch_mix_01.mp3","summary":"What happens when one of the world’s leading neuroscientists has a mystical experience that upends his understanding of reality? In the 1990s, Christof Koch helped launch the modern science of consciousness, searching for the neural basis of subjective experience. A committed materialist, Koch believed brain science would explain how conscious experience is generated. Then several profound psychedelic experiences changed his metaphysical beliefs. “It was like an earthquake,” he says. In this conversation, Koch reflects on how those mind-bending experiences transformed his deepest assumptions about mind and matter, and whether the cosmos itself might have purpose. He talks about the power and the limits of science, and why he’s come to see consciousness not as a byproduct of matter, but as something far more fundamental, perhaps the fabric of reality itself. — Personal website Allen Institute TTBOOK: \" Your Brain on Shrooms \" — 0:00 Introduction 4:05 Pursuing Ultimate Truth 9:40 Into the Psychedelic Void 16:00 The Loss of Self 20:55 What Science Cannot Explain Wonder Cabinet is hosted by Anne Strainchamps and Steve Paulson. Find out more about the show at https://wondercabinetproductions.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast and our newsletter.","meta_description":"What happens when one of the world’s leading neuroscientists has a mystical experience that upends his understanding of reality? In the 1990s, Christof Ko…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1878,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/wonder-cabinet-7409328/episodes/christof-koch-on-the-cosmic-toad/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/wonder-cabinet-7409328/christof-koch-on-the-cosmic-toad.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}