Building bridges between the ivory tower and the public square.
A philosopher with a Yale Ph.D, I work as a writer, institution builder, consultant, keynote speaker, and applied ethicist.
I am designing and implementing a new architecture of scientific knowledge that addresses core needs in the current system of science, to which end I partner with others to create new pathways of inclusive access, public communication, and original insight.
Beginning in 2018, I directed The Meanings of Science in the Modern World Project, a multi-phase project that began at Oxford University, convening a team of global science experts to formulate a new vision of the scientific enterprise, and has now led to over 30 high-impact publications on cutting edge science, reaching 300,000 people, and a new project on the revolution in biology currently underway, supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. The success of the project lead to the permanent establishment of Marginalia’s Institute for the Meanings of Science.
Currently, I am directing The Meanings of Life Project: The New Biology. The project’s Research Director is Philip Ball, author of How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology (University of Chicago Press), and it brings together a working group of leading scientists, scholars, and industry leaders to advance the new scientific vision of life revealed by modern biology, and synthesized in Ball’s book. The project convenes around this major synthesis, and aims to identify a new narrative for the field through a multi-disciplinary integrative approach that seeks to unite fundamental research, and it is supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
I create, curate, and actualize interdisciplinary knowledge and insight as a speaker and consultant. As a philosophical entrepreneur, my institutional, consulting, and speaking work embodies my vision of philosophy as a practical way to analyze and address problems of strategy, identity, values, and ethics.
I work with large and small corporations as well as invited individuals on short-and long-term projects, which have included full-time work with China’s largest audio company, Himalaya, and speaking for clients like the United Nations, Red Bull Arts, Oliver Wyman, Trinity Church Wall Street, and the Shabtai Society at Yale.
My work as a writer and philosopher has been read at Google, taught in classes and universities across the world, featured in the Browser and Arts & Ideas, and translated into Chinese, Portuguese, and Farsi. If I can serve as a keynote speaker or consultant for your event or company, I welcome your inquiry. Please note my current consulting and speaking work is focused on AI ethics, technology, and science and spirituality, though I still welcome other requests.
What would you do
with the power of the gods?
“What would you do with the power of the gods?” has never been a theoretical question: it remains the central concern of the ancient art of philosophy, the root of what we call religion and science.
Our species must evolve a wisdom equal to the powers we wield. A future where the biological life of the cosmos, Earth, and humans flourish together depends on how each of us uses our agency to respond to the most essential question of our time.
What you believe about humans, superpowers, consciousness, or eternity is far less important than how you choose to meaningfully engage with the reality that these categories shape our world.
Are you prepared to give an answer?
֍ Honoring immortality is essential in indigenous cultures.
֍ Achieving immortality is a quest found in our greatest myths.
֍ Preparing for immortality is the heart of modern spirituality.
֍ Creating a post-death society is the focus of longevity science.
Philosopher ֍ Scholar ֍ Consultant & Speaker
Samuel Loncar, Ph.D. is a Fellow at the Gulbenkian Institute for Advanced Study and a Yale-trained philosopher and scholar of science and religion healing the divide between mind and matter. He is a Platonic transhumanist who practices an ancient form of philosophy, which is the root of Western spirituality and science.
Dr. Loncar’s groundbreaking book, Philosophy as Religion and Science from Plato to Posthumanism, forthcoming with Columbia University Press, proves that the modern categories of science and religion are sibling traditions, both descended from a single origin: ancient philosophy.
His speaking and consulting help corporations and leaders navigate the social, political, and ethical questions of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), and life extension. An expert on the historical and cross-cultural meaning of consciousness, death, and immortality, his scholarship explores the rational foundation for the possibility of eternal life and superintelligence.
As a consultant and speaker, he has worked with global leaders and organizations like the United Nations, Trinity Church Wall Street, and Flagship Pioneering. His speaking and writing on spirituality and technology include being a part of artist Sarah Mayohas’ 2017 NYC show, Cloud of Petals, a large-scale exhibition and virtual reality experience.
Born in Athens, Greece Samuel’s ancestors’ diverse origins give him global roots: in Okinawa, Japan, among the Chippewa (or Ojibwe) people, and in Eastern Europe (Poland and Croatia), and they motivate his mission to unite the ancient and the modern.
Dr. Loncar’s integrated approach to building business and consulting draws from a decade of research at Yale, teaching in America and Europe, and institution building around knowledge technologies. His institutions include the Marginalia Review of Books, the evolution of the research university for the digital age, where he is Editor-in-Chief and the Director of the Institute for the Meanings of Science.
“Samuel Loncar is asking the most important questions our culture needs to answer, and he brings historical context and wisdom to the conversation that our questions require.”
— Jon Morgan Founder & Principal, Sound Fund Advisors
֍ PILLARS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL LIFE
Anthropic Strategy
֍ Anthropic Strategy™ creates the vision of humanity worthy of immortality.
Theomorphic Character
֍ Theomorphic Character ™ builds personal character worthy of divinity.
Aeonic Agency
֍ Aeonic Agency ™ provides the power to act meaningfully across space, time, and eternity.
Dr. Loncar’s philosophical work on the new existential questions posed to the human species through scientific breakthroughs and spiritual evolution is influenced by Immanuel Kant’s three questions that frame the human experience:
֍ What can I know?
֍ What should I do?
֍ What may I hope?
AI can not answer these questions for you. AI can not even answer these questions about itself.
Only the human can answer these questions in a meaningful way that increases individual agency in the world as a rational power oriented to pursing what is true over what is convenient.
As a philosopher and scholar of religion, Dr. Loncar has spent over 20 years studying how ancient, indingenous, and modern cultures relate to the idea of the god, an agentic being that is surpassingly beyond initial comprehension.
And the first agentic power that one is responsible for learning to truly understand is one’s own Self.
Becoming Human Project
On-Demand Courses
Becoming Human is born from a new story of the human that Dr. Loncar lives and seeks to share with others in his scholarship for the public good.
The project brings his original research, lectures, and conversations with scientists, artists, thinkers, and writers to the widest possible audience. You can access his public work through his YouTube, Substack, and podcast, Becoming Human: A Show for a Species in Transition.
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Becoming Human Podcast
A Show for A Species in Transition
From interviews with leading scholars, artists and scientists to long-form lecture series, Dr. Loncar’s podcast is designed to inform, inspire, and transform your relationship to your self and the world.
“The world of gods and spirits is…the collective unconscious inside me.”
Carl Jung