This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.This is the second part of my conversation with Randy Gallistel. In the first part, we talk about his ideas around why the neuroscience of memory is completely inadequate to the task of understanding… memory. In this episode, we get into the backstory on those ideas, as well as Randy’s major influences. We talk about the influence of foundational experiments by Tony Deutsch, why neuroscientists “squirm” when you bring up the problem of representation, which of Randy’s research projects didn't work out the way he thought, how his academic mentor introduced him to his future wife, and what a good theory should not look like.Randy’s Three Books:* The Eighth Day of Creation, Horace Freeland Judson * The Logic of Life, Francois Jacob* Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code, Rieka et al* Honorary mention: Endless Forms Most Beautiful, Sean B CarrollBooks we talked about: * Randy’s Memory and the Computational Brain* The Structural Basis of Behavior, J. Anthony DeutschPapers we talked about: * Randy’s recent paper on the Physical Basis of MemoryLike this episode? Here’s another one to check out:I’d love to know what you thought of this episode! Just reply to this email or send a note directly to my inbox. Feel free to tweet me @CodyKommers. You can also leave a rating for the show on iTunes (or another platform). This is super helpful, as high ratings are one of the biggest factors platforms look at in their recommender system algorithms. The better the ratings, the more they present the show to new potential listeners.Also: If you’d like to unsubscribe from these weekly podcast emails, you can do so while still remaining on the email list that features my weekly writing. Thanks for following my work! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.Randy Gallistel has made a career (at least partly) out of making the neuroscientific community angry. He’s made broad, sweeping claims that cut to the core of the neuroscience of learning and memory. The problem with his claims is not that they’re broad and sweeping. The problem is that they might be right. In particular, he’s taking aim at neuroscience for not grappling with the symbolic nature of cognition. The neuroscience of memory, he argues, doesn’t even acknowledge the basis existence of “facts.” That is, there’s no neural theory of what a fact is, or how the brain might store it. In this episode, we talk about Randy’s claims in this space of topics. This was the second half of a much longer conversation. In a follow-up episode, I’ll publish the first half—which goes into the backstory of how Randy developed these ideas and the major figures who influenced him. Randy’s Three Books:* The Eighth Day of Creation, Horace Freeland Judson * The Logic of Life, Francois Jacob* Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code, Rieka et al* Honorary mention: Endless Forms Most Beautiful, Sean B CarrollBooks we talked about: * Randy’s Memory and the Computational Brain* The Structural Basis of Behavior, J. Anthony DeutschPapers we talked about: * Randy’s recent paper on the Physical Basis of MemoryLike this episode? Here’s another one to check out:I’d love to know what you thought of this episode! Just reply to this email or send a note directly to my inbox. Feel free to tweet me @CodyKommers. You can also leave a rating for the show on iTunes (or another platform). This is super helpful, as high ratings are one of the biggest factors platforms look at in their recommender system algorithms. The better the ratings, the more they present the show to new potential listeners.Also: If you’d like to unsubscribe from these weekly podcast emails, you can do so while still remaining on the email list that features my weekly writing. Thanks for following my work! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.Philip Johnson-Laird is professor emeritus at Princeton University. He is one of the most influential cognitive scientists of all time, best known for developing the idea of “mental models.” Though if you really want to get a sense of how eminent he is, you have to look no further than his email address. You can find him at Phil at Princeton. That’s right. He is the Phil at Princeton University. It was a huge honor to talk to him for this conversation, as he’s long been one of my favorite cognitive scientists. My favorite paper of his is a lesser known article from 2002 called How Jazz Musicians Improvise. It’s part of a long-standing interest of his in understanding how our minds create complex, meaningful sequences—in this case, strings of notes—on the go. Phil didn’t start off planning to become an academic (he left school at age 15), and before he got on the academic track he worked as a jazz pianist. In this conversation we go deep into Phil’s background as a musician, and how that influenced his ideas about the mind. We also talk about his background working miscellaneous jobs for 10 years before starting university, marching in protests led by Bertrand Russell, the mentorship of Peter Wason, Phil’s first encounters with cognitive science, his relationship with the great George A. Miller, the genesis of the idea of mental models, how Phil’s understand of mental models has changed over the past forty years, and what the question of how jazz musicians improvise can tell us about how the mind works. Phil’s Three Books:* Bertrand Russell’s Problems of Philosophy* Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures* Miller, Galanter, & Pribram’s Plans and the Structure of BehaviorBooks we talked about: * George Miller’s Psychology: The Science of Mental Life* Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy* Wason & Johnson-Laird’s Thinking and ReasoningPapers we talked about: * Phil’s paper on Musical dissonance* Phil’s 1980 paper on Mental Models in Cognitive Science, from the first meeting of the cognitive science society* Phil’s paper on How jazz musicians improviseLike this episode? Here’s another one to check out:I’d love to know what you thought of this episode! Just reply to this email or send a note directly to my inbox. Feel free to tweet me @CodyKommers. You can also leave a rating for the show on iTunes (or another platform). This is super helpful, as high ratings are one of the biggest factors platforms look at in their recommender system algorithms. The better the ratings, the more they present the show to new potential listeners.Also: If you’d like to unsubscribe from these weekly podcast emails, you can do so while still remaining on the email list that features my weekly writing. Thanks for following my work! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.I am excited to introduce my first return guest on the show, Brian Christian. I knew from the very first time we talked that I wanted to do a part two with him. This wasn’t through any great feat of perspicacity. It was primarily because we didn’t even get the opportunity to talk about his latest book, The Alignment Problem. In the first conversation, we talked about Brian’s background in poetry and computer science. We talked at length about how he became a writer and the process behind his first book, The Most Human Human. Now in this conversation we go deep on The Alignment Problem. The book’s been out for more than a year now, and it’s gotten some pretty good coverage. One of my favorite interviews Brian did was with Ezra Klein, which is definitely worth checking out as well. I tried to get aspects of Brian’s work that haven’t been covered as much in previous discussions. Overall, the book is about the development of artificial intelligence, and throughout each chapter we see AI become increasingly capable of accomplishing more nuanced tasks—and, importantly, tasks which become increasingly embedded into the fabric of our society. Whereas a lot of my interviews on Cognitive Revolution go deep on an author’s backstory, this one is very much focused on content.And make sure to check out Brian’s new audiobook—Algorithms to Work By, available via Audible—when it comes out in February!Brian’s Books:* The Alignment Problem* Algorithms to Live By* The Most Human HumanBooks we talked about: * Michael Tomasello’s Cultural Origins of Human Cognition* Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence (well, by implication… when we mentioned AI safety books that “hit you over the head” with their thesis)Like this episode? Here’s another one to check out:As well as my original conversation with Brian:I’d love to know what you thought of this episode! Just reply to this email or send a note directly to my inbox. Feel free to tweet the show @CogRevPod or me @CodyKommers. You can also leave a rating for the show on iTunes (or another platform). This is super helpful, as high ratings are one of the biggest factors platforms look at in their recommender system algorithms. The better the ratings, the more they present the show to new potential listeners.Also: If you’d like to unsubscribe from these weekly podcast emails, you can do so while still remaining on the email list that features my weekly writing. Thanks for following my work! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.I first learned of Charles' work when I saw a notice for his most recent book—Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century. I saw this, and I was like: a general audience book about the history of anthropology—sign me up! I preordered it straight away. As listeners of the show will know, even though I'm a psychologist by training I have a not so secret obsession with anthropologists. And as hoped, it turned out to be a great book. It tells a story about Franz Boaz, the father of American cultural anthropology—and his group of students that changed the face of anthropology in the first half of the twentieth century. This includes: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, Zora Neale Hurston, Gregory Bateson, and a whole host of others. Charles is not a trained anthropologist. He's a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown. But his wife is an anthropologist, and that's how he got turned on to this story. His initial interests were in former soviet states. In particular, one of his previous books was on the history of the Caucasus. And as some of you may also know, I spent the entire second year of my PhD taking Georgian language, and my partner and I often throw elaborate Georgian feasts serving Georgian wine and preparing a great deal of Georgian food. At any rate, it was clear to me that this was a guy I really wanted to meet and talk to. I really enjoyed our conversation, as I've certainly come to look up to Charles and his work in more ways than one.Like this episode? Here’s another one to check out:I’d love to know what you thought of this episode! Just reply to this email or send a note directly to my inbox. Feel free to tweet the show @CogRevPod or me @CodyKommers. You can also leave a rating for the show on iTunes (or another platform). This is super helpful, as high ratings are one of the biggest factors platforms look at in their recommender system algorithms. The better the ratings, the more they present the show to new potential listeners.Also: If you’d like to unsubscribe from these weekly podcast emails, you can do so while still remaining on the email list that features my weekly writing. Thanks for following my work! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

I've been a fan of Susanna for a long time following her on her social media. She's one of my favorite personalities in science communication, and it's been impressive and inspiring to watch her grow her platform over the last few years. She just recently graduated with her PhD in microbiology from University of North Carolina. During her time in grad school, she founded PhD Balance, which seeks to raise awareness about the prevalence of mental health issues in graduate school by sharing stories and building communities. She is currently manager of engagement and communications at Xontogeny, which is a bio-tech accelerator—taking seed-stage biotech startups and helping them to grow. In this conversation, we talk finishing up one's grad school work and making sense of how to take the next step. We start off talking about Susanna's recent move across the US, and her experience graduating during March 2020. It's at this point that I ask Susanna a rather subversive question, and from there we talk about growing as a person during grad school, Susanna's own story of mental health in grad school which motivated her to found PhD balance, and her strategies for productivity: from hanging out with her dogs, to organizing her to-do list. It was a conversation I really enjoyed!You can find Susanna at susannalharris.com and on Twitter/Instagram @susannalharris.You can find more about my work at codykommers.substack.com and on socials @codykommers.Thanks for listening! Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

I've been following Nicole's work for a long time, and I'm a big fan. She's developed a platform for her writing as well as a presence on social media. It's been cool to watch her do it. Nicole has a PhD from Oakland University in psychology with a specialization in evolution and human development. Most of her recent work focuses that expertise on the area of education. She's also a prolific reader. It's something she takes seriously as a part of her identity, and she wears it really well. I've been following her book reviews for a long time in other venues, but she just recently started a new forum for them at bookmarkedreads.substack.com/. In this conversation, we talked about Nicole's experiences excelling in academia then transcending it, her approach to picking new books (it always starts with the cover), as well as strategies for getting one's work and ideas out to a broader audience. She's a really cool individual, and I'm excited to see where her work takes her in the future! Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.Tara Thiagarajan is the Founder and Chief Scientist of Sapien Labs. Based in Washington, DC, Sapien Labs is a non-profit organization whose mission is to take brain diversity seriously. Most research in psychology and neuroscience treats the brain as a kind of monolithic entity, as if every brain were the same. But we know that's not true: there are important differences in the brain not only between individuals, but within the same individual from day-to-day. We also know that psychology and neuroscience have historically focused on a skewed sample of mostly white, mostly American, mostly undergraduate participants. Tara's goal with Sapien Labs is to truly account for what it means to look at differences in brains among all people on the planet. One of their in-progress projects is the Human Brain Diversity Project. Over the next five years, this project will "build an open database of 40,000 individuals across 4 countries and continents consisting of EEG recordings along with extensive information about demographics, lifestyle, technology use, diet and cognitive and mental health aspects." One of their papers, published this year in Nature Scientific Reports, showed the effect of "stimulus poverty" on brain physiology. They showed that the different stimuli people encounter on an average day—from phone use, to travel, to reading, and beyond—correlate with different physiological signatures in the brain, as measured by EEG. I found Tara's projects, as well as her overall story, very fascinating. I'm excited to see how those projects continue to develop in the coming years. Like this episode? Here’s another one to check out:I’d love to know what you thought of this episode! Just reply to this email or send a note directly to my inbox. Feel free to tweet me @CodyKommers. You can also leave a rating for the show on iTunes (or another platform). This is super helpful, as high ratings are one of the biggest factors platforms look at in their recommender system algorithms. The better the ratings, the more they present the show to new potential listeners.Also: If you’d like to unsubscribe from these weekly podcast emails, you can do so while still remaining on the email list that features my weekly writing. Thanks for following my work! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen to podcasts.Andy Luttrell is the kingpin of a content empire. His work spans from podcasts (Opinion Science) to YouTube (catchy summaries of key psych topics) to online courses (which have been taken tens of thousands of times on platforms such as Udemy) to all sorts of other stuff. He is also—and I suppose this is technically his day job—an Assistant Professor of Psychological Science at Ball State University. His academic work centers on how people form and change their opinions, and he's a lot of fun to talk to. In this episode I ask him how he's able to create such a large amount of really high quality content so consistently while ALSO being a professor while ALSO being a new father. We talk about magic, and how a love of performance still pervades Andy's work today. And also we go down several tangents discussing tricks of the trades in podcasting and other common areas of interest. I really enjoyed talking to Andy and found myself impressed by how well he carries himself in front of a microphone. I hope you'll feel the same!Like this episode? Here’s another one to check out:I’d love to know what you thought of this episode! Just reply to this email or send a note directly to my inbox. Feel free to tweet me @CodyKommers. You can also leave a rating for the show on iTunes (or another platform). This is super helpful, as high ratings are one of the biggest factors platforms look at in their recommender system algorithms. The better the ratings, the more they present the show to new potential listeners.Also: If you’d like to unsubscribe from these weekly podcast emails, you can do so while still remaining on the email list that features my weekly writing. Thanks for following my work! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com

David Edmonds did his degrees in philosophy. Then he did something unexpected. He made money. I don't know how much. But, as far as I can tell, enough to reasonably call what has had so far a "career." He was a long-time broadcaster doing features at the BBC World Service. He also hosts and produces a number of popular podcasts, including Philosophy Bites, Philosophy 24/7, and (my personal favorite) Social Science Bites. He's also written a number of books—most notably Wittgenstein's Poker, which builds on his expertise in philosophy. I admire Dave's work because he's been able to find ways to turn his interests and ideas into opportunities and content. It's the kind of thing I'd like to do, so I asked him about how he went about doing it. He's a fun guy, and I know you'll enjoy the conversation. Subscribe at codykommers.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com