Granada Theater, Dallas, 2010. A cold Sunday just after New Year’s, and the three of us, friends who felt like brothers, slid into the crush near the front. The Avetts stepped out with their arsenal of strings. Upright bass, a mournful cello, banjo bright enough to cut through winter. I felt the first shiver at the downbeat and the second when their voices locked. Two bearded men, no artifice, just the kind of harmony that makes you remember the names of your ghosts. I was carrying a lot then, fear and pride and unasked questions, and the music loosened the knots without humiliating me. It told the truth in a voice I could stand. By the end, I wanted to call people I had drifted from. I wanted to say things that had become hard to say. Some songs do not just play. They give you permission.

… Dumbed down and numbed by time and age
Your dreams they catch, the world, the cage
The highway sets the traveler's stage
All exits look the same

… Three words that became hard to say
I, and love, and you

For decades, materialism has been the dominant philosophy in both physics and neuroscience.

In this piece, theoretical physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín argues that the strict gatekeeping of alternatives to materialism is itself the most dangerous form of pseudoscience. True progress, he suggests, requires us to face what our current theories cannot yet explain.

“Psychical research offers a deluxe mirror to examine whether we live in a world where science thrives uncensored,” Gómez-Marín writes.