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The Next Big Idea · 2025-10-02 · 62 min · 12,845 words

PRIMAL INTELLIGENCE: You’re Smarter Than You Realize

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I'm Caleb Bissinger, and this is the next big idea. Artificial intelligence is coming for your job, your creativity, and your relevance. At least that's what some YouTube videos and Reddit threads will tell you. There's no use resisting, they say, AI is gonna overtake us next Wednesday, at the latest. But my guest today doesn't see it that way.

Angus Fletcher is a neuroscientist-turned English professor, and in his new book, Primal Intelligence, he argues that we have powers, intuition, imagination, emotion, and common sense, that AI is mechanically incapable of replicating. Computers think in probability. We think in stories. And when the data gets thin, when the drain is unfamiliar, that's when we shine. We can improvise, adapt, invent entirely new approaches.

The problem, Angus says, is we've lost touch with this primal intelligence. Over the next hour, he's going to show us how to get it back. It all begins with a call from the U.S. Army. Angus Fletcher, welcome to the next big idea.

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