Alva Noë
Alva Noë is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture. He is writer and a philosopher who works on the nature of mind and human experience.
Noë received his PhD from Harvard in 1995 and is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Center for New Media. He previously was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has been philosopher-in-residence with The Forsythe Company and has recently begun a performative-lecture collaboration with Deborah Hay. Noë is a 2012 recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship.
He is the author of Action in Perception (MIT Press, 2004); Out of Our Heads (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2009); and most recently, Varieties of Presence (Harvard University Press, 2012). He is now at work on a book about art and human nature.
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Commentator Alva Noë considers a surprise payment a stranger made for him. He says the best part was that his gift was free: If he had incurred a debt, it wasn't to anyone — it was to everyone. -
The power of a particular work of art comes from somewhere. Commentator Alva Noë has one idea about its source, while art historian Alexander Nagel has another. -
A new book by Scott Weems on humor and human nature raises fascinating questions about why we laugh. Commentator Alva Noë cracks up easily and asks for help collecting some more jokes. -
Could it be that we are living in a giant, convincing simulation? If so, we've got a lot to be mad about, says commentator Alva Noë. -
Recent work shows there may be differences in the brains of men and women. But what does this tell us about differences between men and women? Not much, according to philosopher Alva Noë. -
What is a brain but a cloud of elementary particles? If that's the case, then isn't the world a just figment, an image or a confabulation? Commentator Alva Noë asks if our world, the world described by science, is any more real than the stories in the Bible. -
We find ourselves drawn to the belief that physics alone investigates the basis of the universe, reality as it really is, beyond parochial human interests and values. Alva Noë asks if we can actually accept this, or if there is more to the universe than the particles and fields of physics. -
Does X-ray vision really add up? The latest Superman movie, Man of Steel, finally tries to make sense of Superman's super senses. It's a story that might well ring true to mere mortals who have gone through the experience of having a dormant sense restored. -
Commentator Alva Noë is taken by the work of Tino Sehgal at the 2013 Venice Art Biennale. It's hard to explain, but in the end he concludes that we do not stand apart from art. We are engaged with art in ways that we don't always expect. -
The work of the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer has long puzzled the art world. Some of his pieces just don't quite fit. They're a little off. What gives? Author Benjamin Binstock has an idea, an idea that commentator Alva Noë finds appealing.
