654. Predictive Brains, Placebos, Awe, and the Mind–Matter Frontier with Jo Marchant

Jo Marchant is a science journalist and podcast host, and also the author of several books. Her latest works include In Search of Now: The Science of the Present Moment and Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body. Greg and Jo discuss the shared threads across her work: a long view of the history of thought and the mind–body relationship. Jo explains how physics and neuroscience challenge a single objective “now,” describing perception as an active predictive process shaped by past experience and expectations, with examples from illusions and sensory priming. They discuss predictive coding, placebo effects, psychoneuroimmunology, anxiety as attention-weighted error monitoring, and how mindfulness and awe can rebalance attention and reduce stress. Jo also contrasts flow with mindfulness, explores choking and depersonalization-derealization as over-attention to self, and critiques medicine’s structural barriers to integrating context and meaning. unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM. Connect with us: Newsletter Signup: www.unsiloedpodcast.com/contact LinkedIn: / unsiloedpodcast X: https://x.com/UnsiloedPodcast Facebook: / unsiloedpodcast Greg LaBlanc on LinkedIn: / lablanc