Many Minds

Taking care of some spring cleaning this week, but we're excited to resurface this conversation with Kristin Andrews and Susana Monsó. We'll be back with a fresh episode in two weeks.

In the meanwhile, enjoy!

- The Many Minds team

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Your friend is in a bit of distress. They’ve just been dunked in a pool, and they can’t pull themselves out. You’re looking on as they’re paddling furiously, trying to hold onto the pool’s ledge. Fortunately, there’s a way to save your friend, to give them an escape route. The thing is, there’s also something else vying for your attention at the moment: a chunk of chocolate. So what do you do? Do you first nab the chocolate and then free your friend?

Turns out that most rats in this position—that’s right, rats—will first free their friend and then go for the chocolate. This is one of many studies that have raised profound questions about whether animals are moral beings, about whether they are capable of things like care and empathy. Such studies are doing more than raising questions about animal morality, though; they’re also reshaping our understanding of what animal minds are capable of.

My guests today are not one but two philosophers: Dr. Kristin Andrews, Professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto and Dr. Susana Monsó, Assistant Professor in the Department of Logic, History, and Philosophy of Science at UNED in Spain. Both Susana and Kristin have emerged as central figures in the new conversations and debates that springing about animal minds and animal morality.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode. We talk about rats and empathy. We discuss the role of philosophy in the crossdisciplinary study of animal cognition. We talk about Kristin’s most recent book, which is a critical consideration of how scientists are trained to study animals, and Susana’s book, which is an extended investigation into animals’ understandings of death. We zoom in on the “animal morality debate”—about whether animals should be considered moral beings. We consider how touch might inform the debate and social norms and morality are deeply enmeshed than you may realize. As we navigate these lofty ideas, we also touch on the use of thermography to study emotions in marmosets, planning in orangutans, tongue-biting in orcas, and playing dead in possums.

This is basically a double episode. It features two amazing guests. It takes on two big topics—the study of animal minds in general and the animal morality debate in particular. It’s also a tad longer than our usual fare, but I promised its packed with useful frameworks, provocative findings, and a bunch of open questions. I think it also picks up steam as we go—so be sure to stick with it, through to the second half.

Alright folks, as always, thanks so much for listening. And be sure to send us your guest and topic ideas, your glowing reviews, and your crotchety comments. You can reach us on Twitter or by email at [email protected].

Now for my conversation with Dr. Susana Monsó and Dr. Kristin Andrews. Enjoy!

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

5:00 – An essay by Dr. Andrews & Dr. Monsó in Aeon magazine, about how rats deserve ethical protections.

7:30 – A popular article about findings that vervet monkeys socially learn food preferences. The original research paper is here.

Let’s face it, we're all a little bit self-involved. It’s not just that we spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves. There’s another layer to it: we spend a lot of time thinking about what other people think about us. We take pains to present ourselves in the best possible light; we fret over whether we made a good impression; and we do our best to shape and manage our reputations. It’s honestly hard to imagine not doing any of this—seeing ourselves from the outside can feel like pure reflex. But what are the deeper origins of this tendency? When does it arise in childhood? What are the underpinnings and consequences of reputational thinking?

My guests today are Dr. Mika Asaba, a postdoc in the Psychology Department at Yale University, and Dr. Hyo Gweon, Associate Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Together, Mika and Hyo recently published a paper about reputational thinking in young children.  

In this conversation, we talk about the broader context of this research and lay out some concepts central to it, like “self-presentational behavior" and "theory of mind." We walk through four experiments in which 3- and 4-year-old children showed a clear interest in their reputations. They strategically communicated to certain people—or about certain events—to make sure they came across well. We then consider the provocative possibility that humans are especially motivated to think about others’ minds when those other minds are thinking about us. We discuss whether similar reputation-related behaviors might be present in other species, and how reputational thinking might vary across cultures. Finally, we touch on a few ways Hyo and Mika are hoping to extend this work into new terrain.

 Honestly I got excited about this paper just by reading the first few sentences of the abstract. It takes on such an obviously big and rich and fascinating research question. That basic reflex—to see ourselves through the eyes of others—feels so elemental and so critical to understanding the human mind. Alright friends, without further ado, here’s my conversation with Dr. Mika Asaba & Dr. Hyo Gweon. Enjoy!

 A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

4:30 – Both Dr. Asaba and Dr. Gweon spent time in Rebecca Saxe’s lab at MIT. 

7:00 – The website for Dr. Gweon’s ‘Social Learning Lab’ at Stanford. A recent review article by Dr. Gweon describing her lab’s research program.

9:30 – A recent review chapter by Dr. Asaba and Dr. Gweon about how children learn about themselves through praise.

13:00 – In a recent follow-up study to the main paper discussed in this episode, Dr. Asaba, Dr. Gweon, and colleagues examined whether children would demonstrate their competence to a puppet.

15:00 – One of the most influential studies of “theory of mind” capacities in young children, which pioneered the “false belief” paradigm, is here. A meta-analysis of some of the early work on theory of mind; a more recent review article. We discussed “theory of mind” at some length in our recent episode on stories. 

19:00 – The paper by Dr. Asaba and Dr. Gweon reporting the four experiments we discuss appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). It is available here. 

36:00 ­– See our earlier episode with Michael Tomasello.

40:00 – A recent review on the personality dimension of “conscientiousness.”

Recommendations 

‘Achieving a good impression: Reputation management and performance goals,’ by Kayla Good and Alex Shaw 

‘Planning with theory of mind,’ by Mark Ho, Rebecca Saxe, and Fiery Cushman

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala.

You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. 

**You can now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here<

When you think of the dinosaurs, you probably think of supersized lizards. At least I do. They were gargantuan, certainly, and maybe quite agile, but also a bit dim-witted. Maybe not markedly dim-witted, but definitely not the brightest. When dinosaurs terrify us it’s because of their giant jaws and their sheer size, not because they were especially clever or crafty. (Except for those velociraptors in Jurassic park, of course—they were terrifyingly wily.) But, in any case, who really knows? It’s all just fantasy and guesswork, right? I mean, how could we ever know how clever the dinosaurs actually were?

My guest today is Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a comparative neuroanatomist at Vanderbilt University. She studies the diversity and composition of brains across the biological world. For more than a decade now, Suzana and her colleagues have made the case that one of the most revealing things about a brain is not how big it is or how big it is relative to the body, but simply how many neurons it has. This basic variable, she argues, can tell us a lot about the cognitive capabilities of different species. Which means that if we were able, in some way, to estimate the number of neurons in the brain of some extinct creature, we could start to make inferences about its mind and its behaviors. 

Here, Suzana and I discuss a recent study of hers in which she does exactly that. She was able to reconstruct the make-up of the brains of certain dinosaurs—such as the theropods, a group that included the venerable Tyrannosaurus Rex. But, before we get to the T-Rex, we first lay some important groundwork. We talk about how Suzana counts neurons, by making a kind of brain soup. We discuss how number of neurons proves to be a better predictor of complex cognition than does the much-discussed Encephalization Quotient (or EQ). We then describe how the brains of different groups of animals tend to obey predictable scaling laws. And with that groundwork laid, we dig into Suzana’s estimate that, in terms of number of neurons, a T-Rex's brain was comparable to a baboon's. Which would mean that it was significantly cleverer than we long thought, that it was probably quite behaviorally flexible and long-lived and may have even had culture. As you might imagine, this study caused quite a bit of a stir and so, finally, Suzana and I discuss some of the criticisms that have been leveled against it. 

Alright folks, this is a super thought-provoking episode, whether or not you are—or ever were—a dinosaur geek. And even if you’re not quite ready to accept Suzana’s conclusions about the T-Rex, I think you’ll find that her work opens up a host of new questions and new directions. So, without further ado, on to my chat with Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Enjoy!

A transcript of this episode will be available soon.

Notes and links

6:00 – The paper in which Dr. Herculano-Houzel and her collaborator introduced the “brain soup” (aka isotropic fractionator) method. 

10:00 – A paper by Dr. Herculano-Houzel about the glia/neuron ratio.

16:00 – The idea of the Encephalization Quotient (EQ) was first laid out by Harry Jerison in a 1973 book, Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence. A paper-length version of the theory is presented here.

23:00 – A recent review paper by Dr. Herculano-Houzel about number of neurons as a correlate of cognitive ability across species.

27:30 – Dr. Herculano-Houzel and colleagues have argued that the human brain is very much a “scaled up” version of the primate brain. See an empirical paper here and a review article here. See also Dr. Herculano-Houzel’s TED talk and book, The Human Advantage. 

28:00 – Dr. Herculano-Houzel has found, in a data set of 700 species, that the number of cortical neurons predicts a species’ longevity and age to maturity.

33:00 – A 2022 study in PNAS of neuron numbers across numerous species. The data from this paper formed the basis for some of Dr. Herculano-Houzel’s analyses.

41:30 – For more discussion of planning and future-thinking across species, see our recent episode Traversing the Fourth Dimension, with Dr. Adam Bulley.

46:00 – While Dr. Herculano-Houzel’s study on dinosaur brains has generated much excitement, it also been met with some skepticism in various popular treatments and on Twitter.  

48:00 – A popular article describing the idea that dinosaurs were neither warm- nor cold-blooded but “mesotherms.”

Dr. Herculano-Houzel recommends:

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, by Steve Brusatte

Dr. Herculano-Houzel’s The Neuroscience Office Hour: Crash Course

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Eri

Once upon a time there was a king and a bishop...

No, I'm not actually going to tell you a story right now. I just wanted you to notice something: As I started into that, your mind likely shifted into a different mode. You might have started mentally salivating as you anticipated a coming morsel of fiction. That’s because stories are special; they work a kind of magic on us. Humans everywhere—in every known society, starting from a very young age—seem to hunger for narratives. But why? What makes them so palatable and powerful? What do they do to us and for us?

This week I’m joined by two guests who research stories and the human mind. The first is Dr. Raymond Mar, Professor of Psychology at York University in Toronto. His work explores a bunch of different aspects of the psychology of stories, including the relationship between fiction reading and social cognition. My second guest is Dr. Jamie Tehrani, Professor of Anthropology at Durham University in the UK. His research examines the cultural evolution of stories, including questions about why certain stories spread and stick around (sometimes for millennia).

In this conversation, Raymond, Jamie, and I talk about why stories are so powerful. We discuss what makes something a story, and what makes something a good story. We talk about findings that reading fiction may boost our ability to understand other minds. We consider the origins and diversification of folktales by zooming in on one in particular—Little Red Riding Hood. We talk about why stories are easier to remember than essays, and we examine a few of the ingredients that make certain stories especially memorable. Finally, spoiler alert: we also do a bit of good old-fashioned story time.

This is an episode that has been on our wish list forever. Over the past few years there's been so much buzz about stories and storytelling—both in popular media and across different academic disciplines—we thought the topic deserved an extended treatment. And so here you have it: without further ado, my conversation with Jamie Tehrani and Raymond Mar. Enjoy!

 A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

5:00 – Many thinkers have alluded to the function of stories in expanding our experiences. As T.S. Eliot put it, “We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.”

11:30 – A brief popular discussion of the dramatic principle known as ‘Chekhov’s Gun.’

14:00 – See Lost in a Book, by Victor Nell. For the idea of “narrative transportation,” see the work of Richard Gerrig, especially the book  Experiencing Narrative Worlds.

26:00 – In a recent paper, Dr. Mar has outlined the two routes through which reading fiction may boost social abilities. See also his recent review of work in this area. 

29:00 – See Dr. Mar’s earlier review on the cognitive neuroscience of fiction reading. See also his lab’s recent review of published studies on the question of whether brief exposure to fiction can improve social ability. 

34:00 – For a review of work using the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task, see here. 

36:00 – On the relationship between the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task and oxytocin, see this influential study. See also this attempt to replicate those findings.

37:00 – The study by Robin Dunbar and colleagues on social experience and pain thresholds.

43:30 – See Dr. Tehrani’s study on the phylogeny of Little Red Riding Hood. For anyone unfamiliar, here is a version of the story. For anyone unfamiliar with the Wolf and the Kids, here is a version of the story. 

47:00 – On the East Asian story known as the Tiger Grandmother, see here.

52:00 – See Dr. Tehrani’s study of a broad swath of Indo-European folktales. For a general overview of Dr. Tehrani’s work in this area, see here. 

55:00 – For discussion of five documented “content biases” and an experimental test of these biases in the context of urban legends, see Dr. Tehrani’s recent study here. 

58:00 – The idea of “minimally counter-intuitive” ideas—and their allure—was originally formulated within the cognitive science of religion. For work on “minimally counter-intuitive” elements in the transmission of urban legends, see Dr. Tehrani’s study on “Bloody Mary.”

1:02:00 – See Dr. Mar’s recent meta-analysis comparing stories and essays.  

1:07:00 – For discussion of the “auditory cheesecake” idea and the evolutionary origins of music, see our previous episode, The Roots of Rhythm. For ideas about the evolutionary origins of fictions, see Gerrig’s Experiencing Nar

Not sure about you, but it seems like I spend most of my time in the future. We're told to live in the present, of course—and I try. But at any opportunity my mind just races ahead, like an eager puppy. I'm planning my next meal, dwelling on that looming deadline, imagining the possibilities that lie ahead. In one sense, all this time spent puttering around tomorrow-land is kind of regrettable. But in another sense it's really quite extraordinary. When we think ahead, when we cast our thoughts into the future, we're exercising an ability that some consider uniquely human. 

My guest today is Dr. Adam Bulley. Adam is a psychologist and Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with the University of Sydney and Harvard. Along with his co-authors Thomas Suddendorf & Jonathan Redshaw, Adam recently published a book titled, The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight.

In this conversation, Adam and I talk about two constructs central to the book—"mental time travel" and foresight. We discuss how these constructs relate to memory and to imagination. We dig into the question of whether our abilities to think ahead are really uniquely human. We review the archeological evidence for the emergence of foresight in our species’ evolution. And we also touch on—among other topics and tidbits— hoarding behavior in squirrels, tool use in chimpanzees, the Bischof-Köhler hypothesis, the control of fire, Incan quipus, hand axes, and longtermism.

Foresight is one of those especially tentacly topics. It connects to so many different other abilities and to so many questions about minds, culture, evolution. Both in the book and here in this conversation, Adam proves to be quite a skilled guide to all these connections. 

There's also something else notable about Adam: he's an alum of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI). In fact, he was a participant in the first iteration of the program, back in 2018. So if you too aspire to do cool research, write cool books, and be interviewed on the coolest podcasts around, you might consider applying. Just note that review of applications begins soon: Feb 13. More info at: disi.org 

Alright, friends, on to my chat with Adam Bulley. Enjoy!

 A transcript of this episode is available here!

Notes and links

3:30 – A paper comparing performance on the “forked tube task” in human children and great apes.

6:30 – A now-classic article by Dr. Suddendorf and Michael Corballis on “mental time travel” and the evolution of foresight.

13:00 – An article by Dr. Suddendorf directly comparing memory and foresight. Another take on the same question.

22:00 – A recent paper by Johannes Mahr on the functions of episodic memory. 

27:00 – A recent review article on the notion of “cognitive offloading.” The study by Adam and colleagues looking at the development of cognitive offloading in young children.  

32:00 – For an earlier discussion of animal caching behavior, see our episode with Dr. Nicky Clayton.

35:00 – An examination of the Bischof–Köhler hypothesis in rhesus monkeys.

40:00 – A recent chapter by Adam and Dr. Redshaw reviewing the evidence for future thinking in animals. 

41:00 – For a brief discussion of delayed gratification in cephalopods, see our episode with Dr. Alex Schnell. See also a recent research paper on the question in fish, and a recent paper by Adam and colleagues looking at the psychology of delayed rewards in humans. 

45:00 – For an extended foray into (allegedly) uniquely human traits—aka “human autapomorphies” or “human uniquals”—see our earlier essay on the topic. 

47:30 – The exchange in Trends in Cognitive Sciences between Dr. Suddendorf and Dr. Corballis on the question of foresight in animals. 

49:30 – A book by Richard Wrangham on the role of fire and cooking in human evolution. A more recent article by Dr. Wrangham on the same topic.

54:00 – An episode of the Tides of History podcast about Ötzi the Iceman.

59:00 – For our earlier discussion of bags with Dr. Michelle Langley, see here.  

1:03:00 – A book on the Incan quipus.

1:13:00 – The classic treatment of “displacement” in human language, by C

By now you’ve probably heard about the new chatbot called ChatGPT. There’s no question it’s something of a marvel. It distills complex information into clear prose; it offers instructions and suggestions; it reasons its way through problems. With the right prompting, it can even mimic famous writers. And it does all this with an air of cool competence, of intelligence. But, if you're like me, you’ve probably also been wondering: What’s really going on here? What are ChatGPT—and other large language models like it—actually doing? How much of their apparent competence is just smoke and mirrors? In what sense, if any, do they have human-like capacities?

My guest today is Dr. Murray Shanahan. Murray is Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London and Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind. He's the author of numerous articles and several books at the lively intersections of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and philosophy. Very recently, Murray put out a paper titled 'Talking about Large Language Models’, and it’s the focus of our conversation today. In the paper, Murray argues that—tempting as may be—it's not appropriate to talk about large language models in anthropomorphic terms. Not yet, anyway.

Here, we chat about the rapid rise of large language models and the basics of how they work. We discuss how a model that—at its base—simply does “next-word prediction" can be engineered into a savvy chatbot like ChatGPT. We talk about why ChatGPT lacks genuine “knowledge” and “understanding”—at least as we currently use those terms. And we discuss what it might take for these models to eventually possess richer, more human-like capacities. Along the way, we touch on: emergence, prompt engineering, embodiment and grounding, image generation models, Wittgenstein, the intentional stance, soft robots, and "exotic mind-like entities."

Before we get to it, just a friendly reminder: applications are now open for the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (or DISI). DISI will be held this June/July in St Andrews Scotland—the program consists of three weeks of intense interdisciplinary engagement with exactly the kinds of ideas and questions we like to wrestle with here on this show. If you're intrigued—and I hope you are!—check out disi.org for more info.

Alright friends, on to my decidedly human chat, with Dr. Murray Shanahan. Enjoy!

The paper we discuss is here. A transcript of this episode is here.

Notes and links

6:30 – The 2017 “breakthrough” article by Vaswani and colleagues.

8:00 – A popular article about GPT-3.

10:00 – A popular article about some of the impressive—and not so impressive—behaviors of ChatGPT. For more discussion of ChatGPT and other large language models, see another interview with Dr. Shanahan, as well as interviews with Emily Bender and Margaret Mitchell, with Gary Marcus, and with Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT).

14:00 – A widely discussed paper by Emily Bender and colleagues on the “dangers of stochastic parrots.”

19:00 – A blog post about “prompt engineering”. Another blog post about the concept of Reinforcement Learning through Human Feedback, in the context of ChatGPT.

30:00 – One of Dr. Shanahan’s books is titled, Embodiment and the Inner Life.

39:00 – An example of a robotic agent, SayCan, which is connected to a language model.

40:30 – On the notion of embodiment in the cognitive sciences, see the classic book by Francisco Varela and colleagues, The Embodied Mind.

44:00 – For a detailed primer on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, see here.

45:00 – See Dr. Shanahan’s general audience essay on “conscious exotica" and the space of possible minds.

49:00 – See Dennett’s book, The Intentional Stance.

Dr. Shanahan recommends:

Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, by Melanie Mitchell

(see also our earlier episode with Dr. Mitchell)

‘Abstraction for Deep Reinforcement Learning’, by M. Shanahan and M. Mitchell

You can read more about Murray’s work on his website and follow him on Twitter.

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/).

You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

**You can now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here!**

We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: [email protected].

For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

By now you’ve probably heard about the new chatbot called ChatGPT. There’s no question it’s something of a marvel. It distills complex information into clear prose; it offers instructions and suggestions; it reasons its way through problems. With the right prompting, it can even mimic famous writers. And it does all this with an air of cool competence, of intelligence. But, if you're like me, you’ve probably also been wondering: What’s really going on here? What are ChatGPT—and other large language models like it—actually doing? How much of their apparent competence is just smoke and mirrors? In what sense, if any, do they have human-like capacities?

My guest today is Dr. Murray Shanahan. Murray is Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London and Senior Research Scientist at DeepMind. He's the author of numerous articles and several books at the lively intersections of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and philosophy. Very recently, Murray put out a paper titled 'Talking about Large Language Models’, and it’s the focus of our conversation today. In the paper, Murray argues that—tempting as may be—it's not appropriate to talk about large language models in anthropomorphic terms. Not yet, anyway.

Here, we chat about the rapid rise of large language models and the basics of how they work. We discuss how a model that—at its base—simply does “next-word prediction" can be engineered into a savvy chatbot like ChatGPT. We talk about why ChatGPT lacks genuine “knowledge” and “understanding”—at least as we currently use those terms. And we discuss what it might take for these models to eventually possess richer, more human-like capacities. Along the way, we touch on: emergence, prompt engineering, embodiment and grounding, image generation models, Wittgenstein, the intentional stance, soft robots, and "exotic mind-like entities."

Before we get to it, just a friendly reminder: applications are now open for the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (or DISI). DISI will be held this June/July in St Andrews Scotland—the program consists of three weeks of intense interdisciplinary engagement with exactly the kinds of ideas and questions we like to wrestle with here on this show. If you're intrigued—and I hope you are!—check out disi.org for more info.

Alright friends, on to my decidedly human chat, with Dr. Murray Shanahan. Enjoy!

The paper we discuss is here. A transcript of this episode is here.

Notes and links

6:30 – The 2017 “breakthrough” article by Vaswani and colleagues.

8:00 – A popular article about GPT-3.

10:00 – A popular article about some of the impressive—and not so impressive—behaviors of ChatGPT. For more discussion of ChatGPT and other large language models, see another interview with Dr. Shanahan, as well as interviews with Emily Bender and Margaret Mitchell, with Gary Marcus, and with Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT).

14:00 – A widely discussed paper by Emily Bender and colleagues on the “dangers of stochastic parrots.”

19:00 – A blog post about “prompt engineering”. Another blog post about the concept of Reinforcement Learning through Human Feedback, in the context of ChatGPT.

30:00 – One of Dr. Shanahan’s books is titled, Embodiment and the Inner Life.

39:00 – An example of a robotic agent, SayCan, which is connected to a language model.

40:30 – On the notion of embodiment in the cognitive sciences, see the classic book by Francisco Varela and colleagues, The Embodied Mind.

44:00 – For a detailed primer on the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, see here.

45:00 – See Dr. Shanahan’s general audience essay on “conscious exotica" and the space of possible minds.

49:00 – See Dennett’s book, The Intentional Stance.

Dr. Shanahan recommends:

Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, by Melanie Mitchell

(see also our earlier episode with Dr. Mitchell)

‘Abstraction for Deep Reinforcement Learning’, by M. Shanahan and M. Mitchell

You can read more about Murray’s work on his website and follow him on Twitter.

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/).

You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

**You can now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here!**

We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: [email protected].

For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Welcome back, friends—and a very happy new year! For our first episode of 2023 we're going big. We're examining the minds of some of the most massive, majestic megafauna around. 

My guest today is Dr. Joshua Plotnik. Josh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Hunter College, and the director of the Comparative Cognition for Conservation Lab. His work focuses on elephants—Asian elephants in particular. Josh studies how these creatures perceive and think, how they solve problems and make decisions. As you’ll hear, Josh and his colleagues are doing this work, not just to better understand elephant cognition, but also to inform elephant conservation.

In this conversation, Josh and I do a healthy bit of Elephants 101. We consider a few of the most widely repeated ideas about elephants—ideas you’ve probably heard, like that they have exceptional memories and that they mourn their dead. We talk about the three different species of elephants and what we can say about the differences between them. We talk about how elephants use their tusks and their ridiculously dexterous trunks. We talk about how elephants communicate and what their social lives are like. We touch on Dumbo (the well-known Disney character) and Happy (an elephant at the Bronx Zoo who recently became the focus of debates about animal personhood). We of course discuss many of Josh’s fascinating findings on elephant cognition—including his findings about mirror self-recognition, consoling behavior, cooperative problem solving, and personality. We also touch on human-elephant conflict, convergent evolution, and the importance of taking the elephant’s perspective. 

One of our resolutions for the show this year is to grow, to find ways to reach a bigger audience. You can help us do that, if you like, by recommending us to a friend, leaving us a rating, or maybe even writing a review. (We're actually really hurting for reviews, folks—we haven’t had a new one in ages, so any help on that front would be most gratefully appreciated.) Another resolution we have is to connect more with you, our audience, and learn more about what you’re interested in. So we’d love to hear from you—you can find us on social media or reach out to as at: [email protected].

One last bit of housekeeping: applications are now open for the 2023 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, or DISI. The institute will be held this summer in St Andrews, Scotland. If you are interested in the kinds of stuff we talk about on the show—mind, cognition, intelligence broadly construed—you should definitely consider applying. More info at: disi.org.

Alright friends, on to my conversation with Josh Plotnik. I think you'll agree that Josh is quite the genial guide to the elephant mind. And he gives us a ton to think about here. Enjoy!

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

5:00 – The Mythbusters episode about whether elephants are afraid of mice.

6:45 – An academic article about the possibility that elephants populated certain land masses by swimming to them.

8:30 – A research article about elephants’ concepts of death; another on the same topic.

17:30 — The researcher Shermin de Silva works on elephants in Sri Lanka.

19:00 – A first study finding that African elephants can follow human pointing gestures. A later study by Dr. Plotnik and colleagues finding that Asian elephants do not follow human pointing gestures.

23:00 – A study quantifying different aspects of the elephant brain.

24:00 – For some of the latest findings about cephalopods, see our episode ‘The Savvy Cephalopod’ with Dr. Alex Schnell.

25:30 – Elephants in Africa may be becoming tuskless due to poaching. A research article on the topic.

26:30 – A research article on “handedness” (aka laterality) in elephants.

27:30 – The elephant trunk is extraordinarily dexterous, in part because of its “fingers.” A recent study of the basis for this dexterity. For example, elephants can peel bananas (video) and also use their trunks to suction up objects like chips (research article).

30:00 – A research article on the production and interpretation of “periscoping” behavior in elephants.

32:30 – A popular article about Joyce Poole’s research on the elephant “ethogram.” A fuller article on elephant communication.

33:45 – A study by Dr. Plotnik and Frans de Waal about elephant consolation behavior.

35:00 – Images on Twitter of young elephants sucking their trunks, presumably as self-consoling behavior.

37:00 – A research article on elephant’s “seismic communication.”

42:00 – The original study by Dr. Plotnik and colleagues about mirror self-recognition in elephants. See also our audio essay about mirror self-recognition, including some criticisms of the paradigm.

53:00 – A popular essay by Jill Lepore about Happy the elephant, and the legal case surrounding whether or not she should be considered a “person.”

55:30 – The original study by Dr. Plotnik and colleagues on cooperative problem solving in elephants.

57:30 – A later study by Li-Li Li, Dr. Plotnik and colleagues on how elephants are able to sustain cooperation.

1:00:00 – A review article about research on Theory of Mind in animals.

1:01:00 – A study by Sarah Jacobson, Dr. Plotnik, and colleagues using puzzle boxes to understand elephant innovation and problem solving. The same study examined personality factors that predict success on the task.

1:04:00 – See also our recent episode on animal personality.

1:07:00 – See a recent review paper by Dr. Plotnik and a colleague on elephant cognition in the context of human-elephant conflict.

1:09:00 – Other studies by Dr. Plotnik’s group that we did not cover include work on the elephant concepts of quantity and elephant bodily awareness.

1:10:00 – A paper by Dr. Plotnik and (former guest) Nicola Clayton on the idea of convergent evolution in diverse species and taxa.

1:16:30 – Along with colleagues, Dr. Plotnik founded the organization Think Elephants International.

Dr. Plotnik recommends:

Elephants, by Hannah Mumby

(see also earlier books by Iain Douglas-Hamilton and Joyce Poole)

A Primate’s Memoir, by Robert Sapolsky

We're off this week but are excited to share a thought-provoking conversation from our archives, about the long-standing puzzle of why we (and other creatures) dream. Happy holidays from the Many Minds team!

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You may not remember much about it, but chances are last night you went on a journey. As you slept, your brain concocted a story—maybe a sprawl of interconnected stories. It took you to some unreal places, gave you superpowers, unearthed old acquaintances, and twisted your perceptions. Meanwhile, billions of brains all around you, up and down the tree of life, were probably doing something very similar—dreaming, that is. But why do we do this? What could possibly be the function of these nightly ramblings?

My guest today is Dr. Erik Hoel. He is a writer and a neuroscientist at Tufts University. In a paper published earlier this year, Erik presented a new theory of why we (and other creatures) dream. It's called the “over-fitted brain hypothesis”; the basic idea is that dreaming helps us stay cognitively limber, adaptable—less tied to the particulars of our previous experiences.

Erik and I discuss how he came to this new theory. We talk about how his account develops an analogy between the "overfitting" problem in machine learning and the "overfitting" problem that biological brains face as well. We discuss how his hypothesis can account for the bizarre nature of dream experience. And we consider Erik's provocative suggestion that dreams are really just one type of fiction—biological fictions, if you like—and that other types of fiction may serve similar purposes.

Erik is a fascinating, wide-ranging thinker (there aren’t a lot of neuroscientists who also write novels). And this is a conversation I'll be chewing on for some time. It takes on one of those timeless questions about human experience—why we dream—from an angle that feels fresh and energizing.

Alright friends, on to my conversation with Dr. Erik Hoel. Hope you enjoy it!

The paper we discuss is available here. A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

4:00 – Dreams have been in the news recently, with reports of an uptick in strange dreams during the pandemic.

9:30 – An early study on “dream deprivation.”

11:00 – An article on the idea that dreams serve memory consolidation.

23:00 – A study showing that we don’t dream about reading or writing.

27:30 – An attempt to solve a Rubik’s cube with a robot hand.

32:00 – An influential paper articulating the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis.

38:30 – A recent paper on the question of whether animals like octopuses dream.

42:00 – We’ve discussed Pinker’s “music is like cheesecake” analogy in previous episodes, most recently in our discussion of the evolution of music.

46:00 – For more on these ideas, see Dr. Hoel’s essay ‘Enter the Supersensorium’—and be sure to check out his new novel The Revelations!

You can find Dr. Hoel on Twitter (@erikphoel) and subscribe his newsletter on Substack.

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from assistant producer Cecilia Padilla. Creative support is provided by DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/).

You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: [email protected].

For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.

Consider the peacock. Its plumage is legendary—those shimmering, iridescent colors, and those eerie, enchanting eyespots. But what often goes less appreciated (at least by us humans) is that this chromatic extravaganza is also a sonic extravaganza. The peacock's display operates in infrasound, an acoustic dimension that we simply can't hear without assistance. Which raises a question: If we're oblivious to the full vibrancy of the peacock's display, what other sounds might we be missing out on?

My guest today is Dr. Karen Bakker. Karen is Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia and author of the new book, The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is Bringing us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants. In the book, Karen dives into rich realms of sound that, for one reason or another, humans have tended to ignore.

In this conversation, Karen and I discuss the twin fields of "bioacoustics" and "ecoacoustics." We talk about "deep listening" and "digital listening", "infrasound" and "ultrasound." We discuss why sound is such a ubiquitous signaling medium across the tree of life. We consider the fact that scientific discoveries about sound have often been resisted. We touch on debates about whether animal communication systems constitute languages, and discuss new efforts to decode those systems using AI. We also talk about turtles, bats, plants, coral, bees, and—yes—peacocks.

If you enjoy our conversation, I strongly recommend Karen's book. It’s really bursting with insight, science, and stories—all presented with unusual clarity.

Another year of Many Minds is drawing to a close and we're about to go on a brief holiday hiatus. But first a little end-of-year ask: What topics or thinkers would you like to see us feature in 2023? If you have any ideas, we’d love to hear them. You can email us at: [email protected].

Alright friends, I hope you enjoy the holidays. And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr. Karen Bakker.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

3:30 – A range of bat sounds are available on the website of Dr. Mirjam Knörnschild (who was previously featured on the show!).

4:30 – The winner of the 2014 ‘Most Beautiful Sound in the World’ contest was a recording of a froggy swamp in Malaysia.

10:30 – A popular article profiling the relatively young field of “bioacoustics.” A recent academic article by Dr. Bakker and a colleague about “conservation acoustics” in particular.

11:30 – A popular article about the use of acoustic technologies to discover and monitor whale populations.

17:00 – A research article about the involvement of infrasound in peacock mating displays.

23:30 – A research study showing that coral larvae move toward reef sounds.

28:00 – A review paper by Camila Ferrara and colleagues about sound communication in Amazonian river turtles.

31:00 – A research article by Heidi Appel and a colleague about plants responding to the sounds of leaf-chewing.

35:00 – A recent historical study of Karl von Frisch and his work with honey bees. A recent study suggesting the possibility of play in bumble bees (not honey bees).

42:00 – A popular article profiling the field of “biosemiotics.”

48:00 – An essay by Dr. Bakker about honeybee communication and how technologies may be helping us understand it.

53:00 – Dr. Bakker recommends books by Indigenous scholars Robin Wall-Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass), Dylan Robinson (Hungry Listening), and John Borrows.

Dr. Bakker recommends:

A number of examples of the “sounds of life” are collected at Dr. Bakker’s website, here. The same site also includes recommendations for getting involved in citizen science. In addition to the books by Indigenous scholars listed above, Dr. Bakker recommends work by Monica Gagliano.

You can read more about Karen’s work on her website and follow her on Twitter.

Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) (https://disi.org), which is made possible by a generous grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to UCLA. It is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd (https://www.mayhilldesigns.co.uk/). Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala (https://sarahdopierala.wordpress.com/).

You can subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

**You can now also subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here!**

We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: [email protected]. For updates about the show, visit our website (https://disi.org/manyminds/), or follow us on Twitter: @ManyMindsPod.