Many Minds

• Of breeds and brains

  It's hard to say exactly when, but some tens of thousands of years ago, our best friends were born. I'm referring, of course, to dogs. This didn't happen overnight—it was a long process. And it not only changed how those canids behaved and what they looked like, it also changed their brains. As wolves gave way to proto-dogs, and proto-dogs gave way to dingoes and dalmatians and Dobermanns and all the rest, their brains have continued to change. What can we learn from this singular saga? What does it tell us about dogs, about domestication, and about brains?  My guest today is Dr. Erin Hecht. Erin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, where she directs the Canine Brains Project.   Here Erin and I talk about how dogs are the most anatomically diverse species on the planet—and how their brains are no exception. We sketch the different waves in the dog domestication saga and discuss scenarios for how that saga got underway. We talk about how brains change as they get bigger and about how they change during domestication. We discuss a recent study by Erin and colleagues comparing the brains of modern dogs with the brains of pre-modern dogs like village dogs and New Guinea singing dogs. We also talk about a new study from Erin's lab finding that domestic dogs share with humans a key language-related structure. Along the way we talk about the Russian Farm Fox experiment, the stereotype of the gentle giant, the left lateralization of language, the respiratory condition known as BOAS, the dog personality inventory known as C-BARQ, the limitations of the idea of a "domestication syndrome," and the puppy kidnapping hypothesis.   Longtime listeners will recall that we had Erin on the show to talk about her work on fermentation and brain evolution. Given how much fun we had with that one, it was only a matter of time before we had her back to talk about her main line of research on dog brains. So here you go friends—hope you enjoy it!    Notes 4:30 – For one recent study of the early domestication of dogs, see here. For a review of leading hypotheses about what drove the wolf-to-dog transition, see here.   13:00 – For Dr. Hecht's initial 2019 study of brain variation across domestic dog breeds, see here. 20:00 – For a classic paper on the neurodevelopmental scaling by Dr. Barbara Finlay and colleagues, see here. 23:00 – For more of Dr. Hecht's work on neurodevelopmental scaling laws as they apply to dogs, see here. For a study reporting correlations between body size and personality in dogs, see here.   29:00 – See Dr. Hecht and colleagues recent paper on the evolutionary neuroscience of domestication. 31:00 – See Dr. Hecht and colleagues recent paper on brain changes seen in the Russian farm-fox experiment. 37:00 – For more on the idea of "domestication syndrome," see our recent episode with Dr. Kevin Lala and this critical discussion. For a classic treatment of the idea that domestication involves reduction in brain size, see here. 41:00 – For the recent study by Dr. Hecht and colleagues comparing the brains of modern and pre-modern dog breeds, see here. 43:00 – For video of a New Guinea Singing Dog singing, see here. 47:00 – For more about the dog personality inventory known as the C-BARQ, see here.  51:00 – For Dr. Hecht and colleagues' recent study on an analog to the "arcuate fasciculus" in dogs, see here. 58:00 – For Dr. Hecht and colleagues' study on arcuate fasciculus in chimpanzees (and its relationship to communicative behavior), see here. For more discussion of the hemispheric lateralization of language, see our recent interview with Dr. Ev Federenko. 1:04:00 – The website of the Functional Dog Collaborative.   Recommendations Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution, Raymond & Lorna Coppinger Evolving Brains, John Allman

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• Monsters and their makers

  It seems we've always had monsters among us. We've long been enthralled by dragons and giants, by the likes of Frankenstein and Godzilla and Dracula, by witches and werewolves and countless others. They roam our maps and creation myths; they crop up in our dreams, in our children's books, in our political rhetoric. Where do these beings spring from? What do they do for us? How have they changed over time? And, ultimately, what do our monsters say about their makers? My guests today are Dr. Natalie Lawrence and Dr. Surekha Davies. Both are historians of science and authors of recent books on monsters: Natalie's book is Enchanted creatures: Our monsters and their meanings. Surekha's book is Humans: A monstrous history. Here, Surekha, Natalie, and I talk about monsters as category breakers and boundary walkers—and about how monstrosity is in the eye of the beholder. We walk through a menagerie of monsters—from the apocryphal blemmyes of old travelogues, to a hairy-faced girl in 16th century France, to the figure of Caliban in The Tempest. We discuss the psychological and cultural forces that generate monsters. And we talk about whether anyone would want to live in a world without them. Along the way, we touch on the "monstrification" of social groups; psychoanalysis; our primal fear of snakes; curiosity cabinets; therianthropes and the Cave of the Three Brothers; the relationship between monstrosity and geography; our long fascination with so-called monstrous births; the Muppet Show; dinosaurs and sea creatures; and the question of what monsters might do for children in particular. Alright friends, it's the monstrous season and this is a fun one to help you celebrate. Enjoy!   Notes 3:00 – Grendel's mother has often been a subject of critical discussion and adaptation. See, for instance, the 2018 novel, The Mere Wife. 12:30 – For a classic history-of-science treatment of "wonders" (including monsters) and our conceptions of nature, see here.  18:30 – For those unfamiliar with muppets, an episode of the Muppet Show, which premiered in 1976. 24:00 – The blemmyes were often the subjects of illustration—for examples, see here. 26:00 – For more on Sir Walter Raleigh and the blemmyes, see Dr. Davies' recent newsletter post. 29:00 – One example of monsters at the margins of maps can be seen in the Psalter World Map. 32:00 – For more on Cave of the Trois-Frères and the Sorcerer, see here.  34:00 – For more on shamanism, see our recent episode with Manvir Singh.  37:00 – Therianthropes are relatively rare in cave art, but have nonetheless been widely discussed. For an example, see here. 39:00 – For more on Antonietta Gonsalvus and her family, including examples of how she was represented in paintings of the era, see here.  45:00 – The trope of monsters in creation stories is often called "chaoskampf." 47:00 – The meanings of Medusa have been widely discussed and debated. See here for an example.  52:00 – For more about Caliban, and the racial and colonial dimensions of the Tempest, see here.  57:00 – The Steinbeck quote comes from his book, The Log from 'The Sea of Cortez.'   Recommendations The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, edited by Asa Simon Mittman & Peter J. Dendle Spectacle of Deformity, by Nadja Durbach The Modern Myths, by Philip Ball The Monsters and the Critics (and other essays), by J.R.R. Tolkien No Go the Bogeyman, by Marina Warner Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show 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. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also 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 or follow us on Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

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• The age of social AI

  AI therapists and caregivers. Digital tutors and advisors and friends. Artificial lovers. Griefbots trained to imitate dead loved ones. Welcome, to the bustling world of AI-powered chatbots. This was once the stuff of science fiction, but it's becoming just the stuff of everyday life. What will these systems do to our society, to our relationships, to our social skills and motivations? Are these bots destined to leave us hollowed out, socially stunted, screen-addicted, and wary of good-old-fashioned, in-the-flesh human interaction? Or could they actually be harnessed for good? My guest today is Dr. Henry Shevlin. Henry is a philosopher and AI ethicist at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) at Cambridge University. In a series of recent papers, Henry has been exploring this brave new world of "social AI" and its philosophical, ethical, and psychological dimensions. Here, Henry and I sketch the current landscape of social AI—from dedicated platforms like Replika and CharacterAI to the more subtly social uses of ChatGPT and Claude. We consider several tragic cases that have recently rocketed these kinds of services into public awareness. We talk about what's changed about AI systems—quite recently—that's now made them capable of sustained relationships. We linger on the possible risks of social AI and, perhaps less obviously, on the possible benefits. And we consider the prospects for regulation. Along the way, Henry and I also talk about his 81-year-old father, his teenage self, and, of course, the kids these days; we consider whether social AI, in its potential harms, is more like social media or more like violent video games; we talk about "deskilling" and it's opposite "upskilling"; and we of course take stock of a certain elephant in the room. Alright friends, this is a fun one. We've been wanting to explore this dawning age of social AI for some time. And we finally found, in Henry, the right person to do it with. Enjoy!   Notes 3:00 – The piece in The Guardian—'It's time to prepare for AI personhood'—by Jacy Reece Anthis. 5:00 – The Replika subreddit.  9:30 – News coverage of recent research on the bedside manner of AI systems. 10:30 – For a recent paper on AI by the philosopher Ophelia Deroy, see here. 11:30 – For some of Dr. Shevlin's recent writing about "social AI", see here and here. 13:30 – OpenAI's recent report, 'How People Use ChatGPT'. 16:30 – For examples of popular media coverage of recent (tragic) cases involving chatbots, see here, here, here, and here. 21:00 – The paper by Rose Guingrich and Michael Graziano on how users describe their relationships with chatbots. 24:00 – The precise quote by Mark Twain is: "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." 25:30 – The classic paper on Mary's room by Frank Jackson. 27:00 – Dr. Shevlin has also worked on questions about animal minds (e.g., here), as well as a number of issues in AI beyond "social AI" (e.g., here, here). 30:00 – The classic essay by Isaiah Berlin on hedgehogs and foxes. 32:00 – The classic paper on ELIZA, introduced by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. A version of ELIZA that you can interact with. For work by Sherry Turkle, see here. 34:00 – Dr. Shevlin's recent paper about the "anthropomimetic turn" in contemporary AI. 41:00 – For recent work on whether current chatbots pass a version of the Turing test, see here.  45:00 – Ted Chiang's story, 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects,' was re-published as part his collection of short fiction, Exhalation. 46:00 – For Dr. Shevlin's recent writing on machine consciousness, see here. 48:00 – For more on the possibility of consciousness in borderline cases (like AI systems), see our past episodes here and here. 52:00 – The study on whether people attribute consciousness to LLMs. 54:30 – A recent paper on griefbots by scholars at the University of Cambridge. A popular article about the phenomenon. 55:30 – A blogpost describing the so-called DigiDan experiment. 1:00:00 – Some of the potentially positive social qualities of AIs are discussed in this essay by Paul Bloom.  1:19:30 – For more on Iain Banks' culture series, see here. 1:20:30 – A popular article on the phenomenon of hikikomori.   Recommendations The Oxford Intersections: AI in Society collection The new podcast, Our Lives with Bots   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show 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. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also 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 or follow us on Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

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• Brains of a feather

  Birds do the darnedest things. They fly, of course. They sing. They hunt in pitch darkness. They hide their food and remember where they put it. They use tools and migrate over astonishingly vast distances—sometimes even sleeping while in flight. How do they do all this? What's going on in their brains that makes these and other remarkable behaviors possible? How did their evolutionary path mold them into the incredible creatures they are today? My guests today are Dr. Andrew Iwaniuk and Dr. Georg Striedter. Andrew is a comparative neuroscientist and Associate Professor at the University of Lethbridge in Canada. Georg is a Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Together they are the authors of the new book, Bird Brains and Behavior: A Synthesis (available open access here). Here, Georg, Andrew, and I consider the deep history of birds—how they skirted the mass extinction event that felled the dinosaurs, and then radiated out into the 11,000 plus species we know today. We talk about how bird brains differ from those of mammals and reptiles—in terms of their size, but also in terms of their major structures, and in terms of their wrinkliness. We tour some of the most peculiar and perplexing bird behaviors, and consider their neural and anatomical underpinnings. Finally, we consider what we can learn from bird brains, not just about birds but about brains in general—how they evolve, how they get wired up, how they do and do not vary. Along the way we touch on barn owls, hummingbirds, megapodes, mallards, pigeons, parrots, starlings, and underestimated waterfowl; we touch on how birds' brains change with the seasons; the enduring mystery of magnetoreception; the possibility of olfactory maps; the optocollic reflex; the social intelligence hypothesis and the extractive foraging hypothesis; precocial versus altricial bird species; split-body gynandromorphy; and the future of non-invasive work in bird neuroscience. Season 7 of Many Minds is now gathering steam. We've got some great episodes in the works for you. Just a little reminder that we'd be grateful—thrilled, even—if you could help us get the word out about our show. You might do this by leaving a rating or a review, or by telling a colleague about us. We really appreciate the support, friends! Without further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Georg Striedter and Dr. Andrew Iwaniuk. Enjoy!   Notes 8:00 – For more on the deep history of the brains of birds and other vertebrates, see: Dr. Striedter's book (co-authored with R. Glenn Northcutt), Brains Through Time; this paper authored by Dr. Striedter and colleagues; and this paper authored by Dr. Iwaniuk and colleagues. 9:30 – The paper on neuron density in birds, by Dr. Pavel Němec and colleagues. 20:00 – For more about Dr. Striedter and colleagues revising some of the terminology for bird brain structures, see here and here. 24:00 – A paper by Dr. Striedter and colleagues on cortical folding.  34:00 – A recent paper describing seasonal neurogenesis in European starlings. 38:00 – A paper on the phenomenon of unihemispheric sleep across species. 42:00 – A video demonstrating the optocollic reflex in a bird. 45:00 – A paper on the puzzles of magnetoreception in birds and other animals. 51:00 – A classic paper on sound localization in barn owls.  54:00 – A paper by Dr. Iwaniuk and colleagues showing that harriers have an auditory system much like the (better-studied) owl. 58:00 – For more on place cells, the hippocampus, and cognitive maps, see our previous episode with Dr. Hugo Spiers. For more on the evolution of the hippocampus in birds and reptiles, see Dr. Striedter's paper here. 1:02:00 – For images of gynandromorphy in birds, see here and here. 1:10:00 – For a recent paper on "parental provisioning," the precocial-altricial spectrum, and brain size in birds, see here. 1:13:00 – For examples of research on the social intelligence hypothesis in birds and other animals, see here and here. 1:18:00 – For work by Dr. Iwaniuk and colleagues on some of the most interesting features of parrot brains, see here. 1:27:00 – The Avonet database.   Recommendations Flight Paths, by Rebecca Heisman An Immense World, by Ed Yong [former guest!] Mind of the Raven, by Bernd Heinrich Bird Brain, by Nathan Emery Soul Made Flesh, by Carl Zimmer   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show 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. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also 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 or follow us on Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

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• How nature restores the mind

  One afternoon you decide to snub your responsibilities and go for a hike. You spend a few hours in the woods or the mountains. You study the bark of trees, you bathe in birdsong, you let your eyes roam along a distant ridgeline. And you come back feeling better, restored somehow—like you have more energy, more patience, more bandwidth. We've all, I'm guessing, had experiences like this. But what's behind these effects? Why would nature restore us? What's the evidence that it really does? And what is even being restored, actually? My guest today is Dr. Marc Berman. Marc is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago where he directs the Environmental Neuroscience Lab. Marc is also the author of a new book, Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being. Here, Marc and I talk about Attention Restoration Theory—the idea that nature experiences restore our limited capacity for directed attention. We discuss the broader field of "environmental neuroscience," which Marc helped kickstart and continues to lead. We range across studies from Marc's lab that show nature's beneficial effects—on attention, on mood, and on health. We talk about what the active ingredients in nature seem to be. And we discuss the field's prospects for understanding how nature impacts not just the mind, but the brain itself. Along the way, Marc and I touch on: soft versus harsh fascination; the elusive concept of "mental energy"; trees, wood, fire, and rain; the architect and theorist Christopher Alexander; the value of fake plants; fractalness in space and time; curvature and spirituality; and how nature tends to steer our thoughts in certain directions. Needless to say, we're stoked to be kicking off a new season of Many Minds. If you're new to the show, welcome! If you're already a fan, perhaps you'd consider leaving us a rating or a review on your platform of choice. It really does help us reach new listeners. Alright friends, on to my conversation w/ Dr. Marc Berman. Enjoy!   Notes and links 7:00 – For more on Attention Restoration Theory and the distinctions it makes between directed attention and involuntary attention, see this paper by Dr. Stephen Kaplan. For more on the construct of "directed attention" in general, see this paper by Dr. Kaplan and Dr. Berman. 12:00 – For an overview of the aims and scope of "environmental neuroscience," see this paper by Dr. Berman and colleagues.  17:00 – The 1989 book by Dr. Stephen Kaplan and Dr. Rachel Kaplan, The Experience of Nature  21:30 – For the "walk in the park" study that kickstarted Dr. Berman's research on environmental neuroscience, see here. 25:30 – For some of Dr. Berman and colleagues' work on nature sounds, see here and here. 27:00 – For a study on the possible benefits of nature for children with ADHD, see here.  30:00 – For more on the Garden of the Phoenix (aka the Osaka Garden) in Chicago, see here. For a news article about the benefits of "tiny forests," see here.  34:00 –  See here for the follow-up to the "walk in the park" study with people experiencing depression.  38:00 – For the study on the relationship between tree cover and cardiometabolic health in Toronto, see here.  44:00 – For the classic study by Dr. Roger Ulrich on how the view from one's hospital room may impact recovery, see here. 47:00 – For more on the link between crime and nature in apartment complexes in Chicago, see here.  49:00 – A preprint by Dr. Berman and colleagues on the "compressibility" and memorability of natural images is here. 55:00 – For some of Dr. Berman's earliest work on the "low-level" visual features of natural scenes, see here.  57:00 – For the work, led by Kathryn Schertz, on how natural (or non-natural) images with curved edges direct our thoughts, see here.  1:01:00 – The firelight talk paper is here.  1:02:30 – For the study by Dr. Schertz, Dr. Berman, and colleagues comparing thoughts in the conservatory and at the mall, see here. 1:05:00 – For the study on a historical increase in the use of the generic term "tree" in English, see here. 1:06:00 – Christopher Alexander, the architect and theorist, is perhaps best known for his (co-authored) book, A Pattern Language. For the study by Alex Coburn, Dr. Berman, and colleagues, see here. 1:09:30 – To get a visual flavor of La Sagrada Familia, see here. 1:18:00 – The study on whether people can reliably predict how much they will enjoy a walk in nature.  1:20:00 – For some of Dr. Berman and colleagues' initial work on temporal "fractalness" in the brain, see here.   Recommendations Greg Bratman et al., 'Nature and human well-being: The olfactory pathway' Kim Doell et al., 'Leveraging neuroscience for climate change research' Lucia Mason et al., 'Short-term exposure to nature and benefits for students' cognitive performance: A review'   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show 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. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also 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 or follow us on Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

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