Dacher Keltner — The Thrilling New Science of Awe

One of the most fascinating developments of our time is that human qualities we have understood in terms of virtue — experiences we've called spiritual — are now being taken seriously by science as intelligence — as elements of human wholeness. Dacher Keltner and his Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley have been pivotal in this emergence. From the earliest years of his career, he investigated how emotions are coded in the muscles of our faces, and how they serve as “moral sensory systems." He was called on as Emojis evolved; he consulted on Pete Docter's groundbreaking movie Inside Out. All of this, as Dacher sees it now, led him deeper and deeper into investigating the primary experience of awe in human life — moments when we have a sense of wonder, an experience of mystery, that transcends our understanding. These, it turns out, are as common in human life globally as they are measurably health-giving and immunity-boosting. They bring us together with others, again and again. They bring our nervous system and heartbeat and breath into sync — and even into sync with other bodies around us.Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and founding director of the Greater Good Science Center. He hosts the podcast The Science of Happiness. His latest book is Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.______________If you enjoy this conversation, please share it with a friend, colleague, family ... or book club! And show us some love, if you have a minute, by rating On Being in this app. It's a small way to bend the arc of algorithms towards this community of conversation and living.Sign up for our Saturday morning ritual of a newsletter, The Pause, for replenishment and invigoration in your inbox — and of course all things On Being, at onbeing.org/newsletter. And travel across our social channels (Instagram, Youtube, and TikTok) to delve deeper into ideas from the show.