Teaching AI to love, the physics of unconditional love, and telepathy with non-speaking autistic people all come together in this lively Buddha at the Gas Pump conversation with neuroscientist and futurist Julia Mossbridge. In this wide-ranging dialogue, we explore unconditional love as a real, foundational force in the universe and what it means for consciousness, time, technology, trauma, and disclosure.

Julia describes her working model of universal love as “that which connects,” a fundamental force more basic than space, time, matter, and energy. She explains how unconditional love is the human emotional and motivational state that arises when we become directly aware of this ever-present universal love, and why that experience paradoxically makes us more motivated to improve the world even though “nothing needs to change.” Along the way, she and Rick unpack the difference between unconditional and conditional love, the pitfalls of spiritual bypassing, and the limits of “purification” models in spirituality and healing.

They then turn to the ethics and possibilities of “loving AI”: can we create AI systems and robots that genuinely support human well-being and help people access unconditional love, instead of amplifying our polarization and fear? Julia shares the origins of the Loving AI project, her work on Socratic GPT tools for critical thinking, and her leadership in efforts to bring more feminine and marginalized voices into AI, robotics, cognitive science, and consciousness research, including The Synapse women’s conference.

Another major theme is time and precognition. Drawing on her neuroscience background, Julia discusses empirical work on precognition and self-transcendence, including how difficult life circumstances can sometimes push people into profound, love-filled states in which they recognize themselves as “the flame, not the candle.”

The conversation also dives into “The Telepathy Tapes” and Julia’s research with non-speaking autistic people who communicate via letterboards and keyboards. She outlines why equating speech with intelligence is scientifically and ethically untenable, and how spontaneous telepathy, “the Hill,” and rich inner lives in non-speaking autistic individuals challenge mainstream assumptions about mind, communication, and consciousness.

In the later part of the interview, Julia talks about her book “Have a Nice Disclosure,” which reframes disclosure not just as governments revealing secrets about advanced programs or possible non-human intelligences, but as an inner process of truth-telling, healing, and reconciliation. She and Rick explore how collective and personal shadow material is surfacing globally, why genuine disclosure must happen in the heart as well as in institutions, and how unconditional love can hold even the darkest aspects of our history.

Julia Mossbridge focuses ruthlessly on developing a deep understanding of love, time, technology, and how these human experiences relate to corresponding physical forces. Her most recent relevant projects include: Creating a Socratic GPT to guide intelligence analysts through the critical thinking process, leading a diverse team of technologists and designers to create a scalable, self-guided digital tool that increases overall wellbeing and is now being developed further within Native American communities, and leading an international group of AI developers and roboticists toward creating an unconditionally loving robot that reduced anger and cognitive load in humans.

Tammy Lee Anderson shares how three profound near-death experiences opened her to unconditional love, spiritual awakening, and a life of service as a psychotherapist, healer, and spiritual medium. In this deep conversation, she describes what near-death really felt like, how it dissolved the fear of death, and how love and awakening can be embodied in daily life through grief, trauma, and ordinary relationships.

We explore Tammy’s early near-death experiences in infancy, her memories of being “in between” worlds, and how these experiences invited her into a lifelong journey of surrender into love. She explains why we are not victims of our reality but co‑creators of it, and how even our deepest challenges can expand compassion, forgiveness, and embodied love.

Tammy also talks about her unusual background as an Olympic‑level kayaker, 5th degree black belt Aikido teacher, former monastic, and long‑time psychotherapist. She shares powerful stories of working with grief, homelessness, abuse, and trauma, and how her mediumship and healing work now help people reconnect with loved ones in spirit, release fear, and rediscover meaning.

If you’re curious about near‑death experiences, life after death, spiritual mediumship, or how to live awake in a dense and sometimes painful world, this conversation offers both inspiration and very grounded wisdom.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a public intellectual; he is the creator, writer, host of Closer To Truth, the long-running PBS/public television series and leading digital resource on Cosmos (cosmology/physics, philosophy of science), Life (philosophy of biology), Mind (consciousness, brain/mind, philosophy of mind), and Meaning (theism/atheism/agnosticism, global philosophy of religion, critical thinking). Peter Getzels is Closer To Truth co-creator and producer/director. Kuhn is the author of the comprehensive review article on theories of consciousness – “A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications” – and editor-in-chief of the expanded, continuously updated Landscape of Consciousness website (with more than 400 theories of consciousness in ten categories), Kuhn has written or edited over 30 books, including The Mystery of Existence: Why is there Anything At All? (with John Leslie); Closer To Truth: Challenging Current Belief; Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future; The Library of Investment Banking; How China’s Leaders Think (featuring President Xi Jinping); The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin (China’s best-selling book in 2005 and in December 2022); and “The Origin and Significance of Zero: An Interdisciplinary Perspective” (with Peter Gobets). Dr. Kuhn is chairman of The Kuhn Foundation. He has a BA in Human Biology (Johns Hopkins), PhD in Anatomy/Brain Research (UCLA), and SM (MBA) in Management (MIT).