The Monkey Dance
Two cognitive scientists talk about everything society from science and philosophy to politics and art.
Episodes
Does Democracy have intrinsic value or is it only as good as what it helps us achieve? We sit down with Kristina Vasic and chat about what Democracy is, whether it is for individual autonomy or collective autonomy, and the individual's place in systems of power. We chat about disenfranchisement, inequality, and what kids of political structures are best suited to challenge the status quo.
Show notes on the Monkey Dance website!
How can we build better tools to identify and predict large scale corruption? We sit with Irene Tello Arista and chat about everything from what corruption is to the systemic pressures that bring it about, and discuss how grand corruption and petty corruption are different not only in scale but in methods. We cover a bit of Irene's background in Mexico starting an NGO to uncover corruption networks, human behavior more generally, a...
Should we consider art beyond its utility? We sit down with Emily Kay Williamson to chat about what aesthetics can tell us about art's role in society and its impact on cognition. We talk about whether there is a difference between art and everyday objects, whether art has any boundaries, what there is to learn from art, and where things like journalism fall in discussions about art.
How we as a species define ourselves and what we do? We sit down with Aleksandra Knežević and chat about the work to integrate different fields in science and whether anybody is making a genuine attempt to do so. This takes us to questions of what science is and what it does, and how feminist thinkers have helped to improve science as an institution. We also talk about definitions of human nature, what evolutionary psychology can a...
How do cultures change over time? We look at the framework of cultural evolution, picking apart some of its aspects and trying to build a framework we can both agree on. We look at how you can take a systems level approach of looking at culture, which is looking at the mechanisms of culture itself, or a component level approach, which looks at individual belief dynamics.
Who is responsible for the actions of machines? Questions around who is responsible for the behavior of generative statistical algorithms, like large language models, have direct implications for our daily lives. Particularly as they become increasingly "intelligent". We chat with Pelin Kasar about the current state of philosophical debates around how to approach the ethical considerations of machines that seem to think.
What can evolutionary anthropology teach us about ourselves? We sit down with Nikhil Chaudhary and chat about everything from the formation of the self to societal pressures. We cover cooperation and collaboration, hunter-gatherer societies, how to think about thinking, managing uncertainty, cultural narratives, and everything in between.
What does it mean for a situation to be fair and how does this relate to notions of equality, equity, and justice? We sit down with Angarika Deb, a cognitive anthropologist, to chat about what fairness means and how to think about it. This takes us to conversations about political movements, the communication of information, social justice, and the fundamentally relative nature of fairness.
What makes us who we are? We discuss definitions of identity, how it helps us understand the phenomenon of selfhood, and what it means for us as we navigate our social environments.
Show notes at:
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-3
We talk about power. What it is, its different forms, and all of the related tangents: from beliefs, to social dynamics, to one's conception of themselves.
Full show notes at:
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-2
We set a loose goal as a topic: navigating the massive amount of information in today's media environment and, more broadly, what information is. That takes us from media ownership and politics, to philosophy, epistemology, and the purpose of science.
Full show notes at:
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-1
An introduction to Guilherme and Ohan. We cover a range of topics and positions and give a general overview of what we want to do with the podcast. We also wanted to give everyone a sense of our positions on broad topics to lay the groundwork for what is to come, from society and politics to philosophy and art.
Full show notes at:
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-0
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