In my 'Language' course (for undergrad Cog Sci majors), my first lecture lingers on two major trends in the history of human language. 1. The waxing-then-waning of linguistic diversity. (Numbers are of course ballparks based on various estimates; happy to be pointed to diff estimates.)

Last call, friends!! Our (short, anonymous) audience survey is still live for a brief while longer. We would be ever grateful if you could take a few minutes to let us know what you think! forms.gle/6uUacGZuvfxd...

In which we discuss... - reference and the symbol grounding problem - LargeLMs vs BabyLMs - jabberwocky and pattern matching - the Platonic representations hypothesis - Quine's topiary - poverty of the stimulus arguments - the data efficiency gap between LLMs and human children - etc.!

As LLMs acquire language, they also develop an understanding of space, math, causality, and more. What does this tell us about where our own abilities come from? Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, @mcxfrank.bsky.social & @glupyan.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/what-can-ai-...

Some interesting thoughts about our latest episode from @drbarner.bsky.social! disi.org/what-can-ai-...

What a fun conversation! @mcxfrank.bsky.social @kensycoop.bsky.social !

A real treat to have this conversation with two of my favorite cognitive scientists!

Keeping cats once made good practical sense: they helped manage rodent populations. But cats rarely serve this purpose today. Might they be providing other, less tangible benefits? Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, with Rob Dunn! Listen: disi.org/mutualisms-a...

Update: we've extended our timeline! Review of applications will now begin March 24. Still plenty of time to put together an app! disi.org/apply/

This rocks

Our podcast (@manymindspod.bsky.social) is conducting a (short) audience survey. Even if you are only an occasional listener, it would be great to have your input! Thanks in advance! forms.gle/6uUacGZuvfxd...

Really loved Rob's book, 'The Call of the Honeyguide.' Big ideas, quirky scientific findings, informed speculations. And a fair bit of food. This episode conveys the flavor well, I'd say.

Such cool work!

Just a nudge from your friendly neighborhood podcast: Could you perhaps take a few minutes to complete our audience survey? Thanks in advance! 🙏

Metaphors offer a colorful window into how we're thinking about AI. But metaphors aren't just idle rhetoric— they also shape how we respond to and regulate new technologies. Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, w/ @melaniemitchell.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/seven-metaph...

If you're a Many Minds listener—even just an occasional one—we would love to hear from you!

If you're a Many Minds listener—even just an occasional one—we would love to hear from you!

"Do Great Apes Use Iconic Gestures?" Insightful, detailed discussion by @mperlman.bsky.social. Great to see a bunch of threads of evidence—including comparison to human children—in one place. wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Same amazing community, new location this year!! Feel free to reach out with questions. And please share widely!

I enjoyed talking with @kensycoop.bsky.social on the Many Minds podcast about the metaphors we use to conceptualize AI. manyminds.libsyn.com/seven-metaph...

In our recent interview together, @erinhecht.bsky.social suggested the extreme morphological diversity of dogs was rivaled only by the brassicas—both single species, both products of intense artificial selection. Cool to find a good visual of this! From: worksinprogress.co/issue/sculpt...

Kissing may seem like a frivolous topic—and it is, of course, a fun one!—but there's a reason scholars across the social/behavioral sciences have now started to pay it serious attention. To really puzzle out the origins the kiss, we may need to think about...

Thoroughly enjoyed this podcast about metaphor as a linguistic and cognitive phenomenon, not just a literary device. I think I see metaphor as considerably more integral to (and hence frequent in) language than Kensy does, though: there are often many metaphors hidden in a single everyday sentence.

Surely one of the most timelessly alluring questions in all of metaphor research. Was excited to hear @sflusberg.bsky.social's take on this one! (which I won't spoil)

A wave of recent research has reported name-like phenomena in dolphins, elephants, and marmosets. But as the search for animal names intensifies, we would do well to ask ourselves: What even is a name? Our recent audio essay from @kensycoop.bsky.social! Listen: disi.org/in-search-of...

Delightful geek-out with @sflusberg.bsky.social! In which we discuss... - why we love metaphors - "beige flags" & "aura-farming" - good vs bad metaphors - theory-constitutive metaphors in science - Dennett's technique of "metaphorical triangulation" - the "brain as computer" metaphor (??) - etc.!!

What can shamanism teach us about religion -- and the human mind? What a pleasure to share this excellent conversation to the listeners of On Humans! The hard work was done by @manymindspod.bsky.social and @manvir.bsky.social 🙏 Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/4nhm3fG... Apple 👇

A new academic term is ramping up. Have you considered putting our episodes on your syllabi? Conversations offer an accessible and engaging format—your students will thank you! We have 100+ episodes to choose from, covering many forms of mind from all disciplinary angles. disi.org/manyminds/

An insightful and engaging conversation with @pbrakes.bsky.social on how and why to conserve animal cultures

A look back out our five most popular episodes of 2025!! 🎉🎉 (in order of release)

Had fun with this one! In which I discuss: dolphins, elephants, marmosets, teknonymy, necronymy, reciprocal names in New Guinea, nominative determinism, the Bob-Kirk effect, the face-name-matching effect, name signs, toponyms, dog names, name uniqueness, alexinomia, toponyms, name taboos, etc.

For the finale of season 7, we have a new audio essay out @manymindspod.bsky.social by @kensycoop.bsky.social! It's an exploration of names in the animal kingdom - what they are, who uses them, and why. In case you get hooked, we've put together a separate playlist of all our essays so far. Enjoy!

Come for the (more-puzzling-than-you-realize!) puzzle of episodic memory. Stay for our discussion of infantile amnesia, highly superior autobiographical memory, cryptomnesia, evidential systems in languages, cow stomachs...

Awesome collection of papers—and a great introduction by @schrisomalis.bsky.social & @helenamiton.bsky.social!

My main takeaway from this one: Dog domestication is a singular "natural experiment" in brain evolution, one that we're just starting to understand. It's a bit bonkers more neuroscientists aren't working on it.

Natalie Lawrence (ENCHANTED CREATURES) and I (HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY) were interviewed by @kensycoop.bsky.social on the @manymindspod.bsky.social #podcast! Some monster-making egs we explored: 1/ 💙📚 🧪🗃 #ancient #medieval #earlymodern #histsci #histmed #18thCentury #politics #psychology #HAMH 🧵

My reaction to social AI had always been one of dismay, disgust, fatalism, maybe even grief for our species. I won't say this conversation left me feeling optimistic, exactly, but it certainly broadened my imagination.

A fun one! In which we discuss... - the deep evolutionary history of birds - sci-fi-sounding structures in bird brains - the perennial puzzle of magnetoreception - seasonal changes in bird (and some mammal) brains - unihemispheric sleep - gynandromophry - the extractive foraging hypothesis etc.!

This was as good as I hoped—surprised I haven't been hearing more buzz about it!

Why do we smile? What makes pulling back the lip corners a fundamentally positive act? Why don’t we beam out good vibes by blinking our eyes or wrinkling our noses? From our archive, @kensycoop.bsky.social's essay about the (murky) origins of the smile: disi.org/dawn-of-the-...

Super fun having @manvir.bsky.social on the podcast (again)! I strongly recommend his new book—especially if you like your non-fiction laced with personal narrative, quirky characters, & history of ideas.

Thank you, @kensycoop.bsky.social, for having me on! We had a great conversation about shamanism—its cognitive foundations, place in Paleolithic societies, role in Abrahamic religions, manifestations in industrialized societies (including hedge wizards), and much more.

A fascinating podcast with Sheina Lew-Levy and Dorsa Amir about childhood across cultures, very insightful ideas about how contemporary Western parents could learn from forager childhoods, especially the importance of peer culture (read the Opies!). podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/v...

This was such a fun conversation about childhood, play, and agency across cultures. Thanks for having @sheinalew.bsky.social & I on the show!

This was such a fun conversation - grateful for Kensy's excellent questions and a space to share my ongoing project with @lmesseri.bsky.social!

In which we discuss... - the Big Five and other "Big Few" models - the Myer's Briggs - how personality reliably changes with age - how personality *doesn't* really change with life events - the (putative) biological basis of personality - how personality varies by gender, birth order (?), occupation

More colorful example of a coordination device: the Jivaro "banana clock." Every guest invited to a feast gets a green banana from the same stalk. When the bananas are just about ripe, the guests know the event is due. (hat tip to William Buckner; reported in Harner, 1973)

Lots in this one! We touch on: - ontological shock - mysticism - "comforting delusions" - "unselfing" - microdosing - placebo effects & adverse effects - physicalism and idealism - belief change - environmental virtues - meditation - psychedelics as "agents of moral enhancement"

“Handy Mnemonics: The Five-Fingered Memory Machine” — @kensycoop explores the history of storing knowledge on the surface of fingers and palms: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/handy-mnemonics

A few highlights from my "time tools" paper in 🧵 below. First, up "mountain calendars"...