Dilip Jeste, MD and Howard C. Nusbaum, Ph.D.: Wiser

What exactly does it mean to be wise? And is it possible to grow and even accelerate its unfolding? For over two decades, geriatric psychiatrist Dilip V. Jeste, M.D. has led the search for the biological and cognitive roots of wisdom. What’s emerged from his work is that wisdom is a very real and deeply multi-layered set of traits. Across many cultures and centuries, he’s found that wise people are compassionate and empathetic, aware of their gifts and blind spots, open-minded, resolute and calm amid uncertainty, altruistic decision-makers who learn from their experiences, able to see from many perspectives and altitudes, and often blessed with a sense of adventure and humor.

In his new book Wiser: The Scientific Roots of Wisdom, Compassion, and What Makes Us Good, Dr. Jeste, a pioneer in the field of neurobiology and psychology of wisdom, reflects on the modern rise in suicides, opioid abuse, loneliness, and internet addiction that is damaging people’s health and destroying the social fabric. But he notes we can nurture and grow every facet of wisdom to face these challenges and others more effectively.

Dr. Jeste is the Senior Associate Dean for Healthy Aging and Senior Care, Estelle and Edgar Levi Memorial Chair in Aging, Director of the Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at UC San Diego, and Co-Director of the UCSD-IBM Center on Artificial Intelligence for Healthy Living.

Dr. Jeste will be interviewed by Howard C. Nusbaum, Ph.D., the founding director of the Center for Practical Wisdom, and Stella M. Rowley Professor of Psychology, The University of Chicago. He has published over 100 peer reviewed journal articles on perception and perceptual learning, sleep consolidation, absolute pitch, neural mechanisms of speech perception, environmental neuroscience, neuroeconomics, hallucination, and wisdom.