Robinson's Podcast

Ezekiel Quittner-Strom is a physician doing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Iowa. In this episode Robinson and Ezekiel eat a three-course feast of frozen food from Trader Joe’s and talk about it while they eat it, heated up and not frozen. Said talking concerned, in addition to said not-frozen frozen food, Ezekiel’s legendary perfect score on the MCAT and how he got it. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Ethan Hoppe is a violinist and technical sergeant in the United States Air Force. He studied violin at Northwestern and Yale before the pandemic changed the trajectory of his career. We talk about the history of classical music, the power of listening to the same in an ancient world, memorizing the Game of Thrones theme song for a White House performance, and how visualization can be used as a tool to combat stage fright. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Caroline Hudson is a facial plastic surgeon completing her fellowship in Palo Alto, California. She and Robinson discuss why an ENT (ear, nose, and throat specialist) would become a plastic surgeon, the fine (or illusory?) distinction between “meh” and “tasty,” forehead lowering surgery, the nuances of rhinoplasty, and everything you might want to know about stimulating collagen to improve the quality of your skin. They also talk about baked goods and eat them while they talk about them. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

David Albert and Justin Clarke-Doane are both professors of philosophy at Columbia University. While David is one of the world’s most respected philosophers of physics, Justin has staked his own claim as the authority on the intersection between mathematics and ethics. Though this episode was unfortunately plagued by some audio problems, it proved an exciting glimpse into a debate between two leading thinkers. Before a heated discussion concerning the nature of moral facts in a physical world, David, Justin, and Robinson discuss the problem of absolute vs. relative space, physics’s potential to swallow up other disciplines, and the sophisticated relationship between physics proper and the philosophy of the same.   Instagram: @robinsonerhardt   TikTok: @robinsonerhardt   Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Graham Winn-Lee is Robinson’s best friend. Though that is how he likes to introduce himself, Graham is also an artist, graphic designer, and crocheting enthusiast with a lifelong passion for competitive dog grooming. This episode is exclusively about Robinson and Graham's respective post-apocalyptic fantasies and related feelings about zombies, dragons, and other pertinent creatures. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Haim Gaifman is a philosopher and mathematician. He teaches at Columbia University in New York City. In this episode Haim answers two questions of Robinson’s: What is philosophy? What is mathematics? Instagram: @robinsonerhardt   TikTok: @robinsonerhardt  Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Philip studied neuroscience at the University of Michigan and is one of Robinson’s oldest friends. In this episode, Robinson forced Philip to eat ice cream novelties with him and talk about those novelties while eating them.   Instagram: @robinsonerhardt   TikTok: @robinsonerhardt   Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Nick Huggett is a philosopher of physics and science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before that, he studied physics and philosophy at Oxford and received his PhD at Rutgers. Despite not having taken a physics class since the eighth grade, this podcast marks the beginning of Robinson’s ambition to learn a bit more about the philosophy of physics. Nick and Robinson talk about Zeno of Elea’s paradoxes of motion and composition, as well as how they might be related to quantum gravity and string theory. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Contrary to popular belief, Demitrios Haldes (@infinitemonkeybusiness) is neither the last scion of Herakles nor the superintendent of a crayon factory, but a comic illustrator and writer. He and Robinson eat ice cream and talk about it while they eat it. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Richard Kimberly Heck has been a professor of philosophy at Brown University since 2005, at which time they left their post at Harvard, where they had taught for over a decade. On the way to receiving their PhD in philosophy and linguistics at MIT, they studied at Duke and Oxford. While Professor Heck’s primary research focus has been logic and Frege, over the past few years they have shifted to the philosophy of sex and pornography. This is Robinson and Riki’s second conversation about pornography. The first, captured in episode five, was a general introduction to the topic. In this episode they discuss—among other topics—depictions of female sexuality in pornography, villains in the same, the ethics of sexual fantasies, and consent on college campuses. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt Twitch: @robinsonerhardt

Ezekiel Quittner-Strom is a physician doing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Iowa. In this episode Robinson and Ezekiel eat instant noodles and talk about them while they eat them. Said talking concerned, in addition to said noodles, ramen, instant versus restaurant ramen, and Robinson’s failure to follow directions, as well as significantly less important things like internal medicine and the healthcare industry. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt TikTok: @robinsonerhardt

Caroline Hudson is a facial plastic surgeon completing her fellowship in Palo Alto, California. She and Robinson discuss *almost* all things facial, ranging from wrinkles and filler to sewing teeny tiny nerves back together. They get into the distinction between ease and simplicity in gauging surgeries, the future of facelifts, daily skincare routines, and, in a surprising twist, Caroline convinces Robinson to give Botox a try. They also talk about snack cakes (think Twinkies or Ding-Dongs) and eat them while they talk about them. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Michael Harris is a mathematician at Columbia University, where he primarily works on number theory. He did his undergraduate studies at Princeton and received his PhD from Harvard. Professor Harris and I discuss the tragic figure of Alexander Grothendieck, the allure of number theory, mathematics as an intrinsically human endeavor, creativity in mathematics, and the relationship between mathematicians and computers, including whether the former will ever replace the latter.   Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Ethan Hoppe is a violinist and technical sergeant in the United States Air Force. He studied violin at Northwestern and Yale before the pandemic changed the trajectory of his career. Robinson and Ethan talk about the life of a military violinist and then delve into more conceptual matters, such as how a musician’s focuses change as they mature, viewing classical pieces as poems, training for blind auditions, and dealing with stage fright.   Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Philip studied neuroscience at the University of Michigan and is one of Robinson’s oldest friends. One time in high school he gave a presentation for French class in which he sat there without speaking for ten minutes while everyone stared in awe, and for that he is a hero. As part of Philip’s sacrifice for this episode, he and Robinson traveled throughout Chicago in search of tasty baked goods, which they subsequently ate and talked about while eating.  Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Haim Gaifman is a philosopher and mathematician. He teaches at Columbia University in New York City. Haim and Robinson talk about Alice in Wonderland, Bertrand Russell, and paradoxes. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Contrary to popular belief, Demitrios Haldes (@infinitemonkeybusiness) is neither a male supermodel nor a basketball player in the Moldovian professional circuit, but a comic illustrator and writer. He and Robinson eat cookies and talk about them while they eat them. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Patrick Davis (@theillestpd) is a stupidly yoked unit of a bodybuilder training and coaching out of Austin, Texas. Among other things, he and Robinson talk about Patrick’s journey from military school to bodybuilding, his experience with performance-enhancing drugs, and how to best make use of partial reps. Note One: This episode contains an extensive discussion of performance-enhancing drugs, some of which are illegal. This cannot be construed as an endorsement of PEDs. Any decision regarding the use of such substances should be made carefully and in consultation with a supervising physician. Note Two: Patrick recorded his end of the podcast over the phone. The audio is a bit glitchy at times, and unfortunately the video and audio somehow recorded at different speeds. I (Robinson) lack the technical experience to fix this, and I (Robinson) was also too lazy to figure it out. So if you happen to be watching the video, know that I (Robinson) feel your pain. @robinsonerhardt

Ezekiel Quittner-Strom is a physician doing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Iowa. He and Robinson talk about sushi and almost nothing else. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Justin Clarke-Doane is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University, where he works on the philosophy of mathematics, physics, and metaethics. He and Robinson discuss ice cream and Justin’s fantastic hair, along with less important topics, like philosophy and mathematics.  Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Uncle Perry is Robinson’s uncle. They eat ice cream and talk about it while they eat it. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Richard Kimberly Heck has been a professor of philosophy at Brown University since 2005, at which time they left their post at Harvard, where they had taught for over a decade. On the way to receiving their PhD in philosophy and linguistics at MIT, they studied at Duke and Oxford. While Professor Heck’s primary research focus has been logic and Frege, over the past few years they have shifted to the philosophy of sex and pornography. Among other topics, Robinson and Riki discuss this transition, along with the difficulties of studying pornography as an academic, the subject's aesthetic dimension, and the transformative power of queer pornography.   Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Abigail Biddle is a bodybuilder and law student at Duke University. She and Robinson talk about the trials and tribulations of dieting, weightlifting qua treatment modality for sexual assault survivors, how Abigail got boulder shoulders, the dangers of eating Taco Bell before a cross-country flight, and air fryer hacks. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Ronnie is Robinson’s father. They talk about ketchup and how collecting creates order in a chaotic life. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Ethan Hoppe is a violinist and technical sergeant in the United States Air Force. He studied violin at Northwestern and Yale before the pandemic changed the trajectory of his career. Robinson and Ethan talk about the surprising experience that was air force boot camp, and how different it was from the hardcore fitness retreat they had both naively expected it to be. Instagram: @robinsonerhardt

Haim Gaifman is a philosopher and mathematician. He teaches at Columbia University in New York City. Robinson and Haim talk about vagueness, a branch of philosophy that deals with borderline phenomena like heaps and baldness. (Note that this interview was conducted in May of 2022, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which is used as an example in the discussion.) Instagram: @robinsonerhardt