Cognitive Revolution

Tanya Luhrmann is the Watkins University Professor in the Stanford Anthropology Department. Much of her work has taken an anthropological perspective on psychological topics. For example, her most recent book: How God Becomes Real. It takes an ethnographic approach to understanding how individuals and cultures maintain belief in divine powers. Another of her book that's of special interest to me is Of Two Minds, an award-winning ethnographical perspective on American psychiatry. And it's not just her work that's compelling, so is she. She's essentially my new platonic ideal of an anthropology professor. I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do too.

Anil Seth is a Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he is also Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. His TED talk has over 10 million views, and he's been featured on many big-name podcasts such as Making Sense with Sam Harris and BBC's Life Scientific. Anil comes to the study of consciousness with the perspective of physics and the natural sciences. In this episode, we talk about his personal experiences, the influence of one-of-a-kind thinkers like Oliver Sacks and Gerald Edelman, and how to bring together perspectives from many disciplines to solve large problems. Anil has a new book coming out at the end of this year called "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness." Keep an eye out for it!

Anil's website: https://www.anilseth.com/

Anil's twitter: https://twitter.com/anilkseth

Anil's newsletter: https://www.anilseth.com/mailing-list

Cody's website: https://codykommers.com

Cody's Twitter: https://twitter.com/codykommers

Something big is happening right now in Myanmar. As of today, the military has taken over, announcing measures taken in the name of emergency rule. In others words: a coup. It's absolutely devastating news. But not unprecedented: Myanmar has a long history with this sort of thing. A big headline is that Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained by military powers. The situation is unfolding, and at the moment the events look quite dire. I urge you to follow the news through people who are there on the ground, relaying events as they unfold. For example, @the_ayeminthant on Twitter.

Myanmar is a country that I love and have studied in some depth. In my podcast, Notes from the Field, I did a two part episode on Myanmar's largest city and former colonial capital, Yangon. Though the situation there is grave today, it is in general an incredible and beguiling place. I hope that my episode gives a bit of insight into that, as well as the history of military rule and Aung San Suu Kyi's place in it, which I talk about at some length. I hope it might give you some feeling of personal connection to the place, as well as some background on what's happening. That said, the piece is light in tone, and there's nothing light about what's happening there right now. Like I said, I encourage you to follow sources who are tracking it as it unfolds. In the meantime, maybe this episode (and the second part, which you can find at Notes from the Field) can give you a small glimpse into a wonderful but troubled country.

Denise Sekaquaptewa is the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. She did her PhD at the Ohio State University, and her research has focused on stereotype threat, implicit bias, and prejudice. In this conversation we talk about her family's heritage, her experience in community college, deciding between continuing in the service industry and becoming a psychologist, books she has loved, the changes she would like to make to help academic departments become places where lots of kinds of people can succeed, and why she believes becoming a good person comes before becoming a good scholar.

Richard Nisbett is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He is also the co-author of one of my favorite psychology papers of all time: "Telling More than We Can Know." In this conversation, Richard self-reports on what got him into psychology, the books that most impacted him, the influence of his mentor Stanley Schachter, and his best practices for collaboration and mentorship. Those self reports sure seem accurate, though I'm not sure either of us is in an especially good position to judge. We also digress a fair bit into psychological history, particularly about Freud, Gordon Allport, and Kurt Lewin. Another fun fact about Richard: he's Malcolm Gladwell's favorite psychologist.

Michael McCullough is a professor of psychology at University of California, San Diego, where he runs the Evolution and Human Behavior Lab. Mike and I had a chat about his new book, "The Kindness of Strangers." The title for that book as originally conceived was "Why We Give a Damn" -- and even prior to that "Why We Don't Give a Damn." I happen to like those titles, though I can understand why the publisher didn't, and so I thought I'd trot them out to have a modest life of their own. In this conversation, we talk about Mike's first inspiration to study psychology, the influence of Christianity on his personal development and later his study of religion, his approach to mentorship, where he thought the conversation surrounding the biological basis of altruism went wrong, and rethinking the parable of the Good Samaritan.

More info: codykommers.com/podcast

A couple of weeks ago, Mickey Inzlicht and Yoel Inbar, of the excellent podcast Two Psychologists Four Beers, released a discussion of theirs called 'Against Academia?' The motivation for the discussion was that Mickey had noticed several occasions on which people -- one of them being himself -- were called out for expressing positive takes on life in academia. The mainstream position to hold on academic life is a negative one: it's a biased system, a pyramid scheme, a travesty for mental health, etc. They break down a number of considerations on both sides, digging into where some of these claims are identifying something real and important and other areas where they are exaggerations. Both Mickey and Yoel are tenured professors at an excellent university, and they acknowledge that their view is one of the better ones you can get in an academic appointment. It's a really useful conversation that brings up a lot of worthwhile, well-considered points. I'd like to add to it by responding to it from my own perspective: as someone currently doing a PhD who does not plan to pursue an academic career.

Full transcript: https://www.codykommers.com/post/actually-against-academia

Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He's best known as the developer of the theory of multiple intelligences, the idea that being smart is more complex than just an IQ score. That theory was introduced in his 1983 book Frames of Mind. In this conversation we talk about his interdisciplinary education, his non-traditional path in academia, the principles of the "synthesizing mind," when to break the rules and when to follow them, and how to connect with one's deeper humanity. Howard's latest book, A Synthesizing Mind, is out now.

More info: codykommers.com/podcast

Yael Niv is a professor in Princeton department of psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. She is also a discernibly high-quality human being. I have been an admirer of her and her work for many years now. But she's been in the fore of my mind of late because of a couple papers she recently published: on "The Primacy of Behavioral Research in Understanding the Brain" and "The Case Against Economic Values in the Brain" (co-authored with Benjamin Hayden). In this interview, we mostly talk about her background as a psychologically-oriented computational neuroscientist, which has been impressively focused from relatively early on. It's clear how a lot of the ideas that are gaining wide-spread attention (even outside the usual circles of computational neuroscience) having been circling in the heads of Yael and her colleagues for a long time. We talk about the origins of her behavioral primacy paper, as well as the best advice on mentoring she learned from Peter Dayan. It's a fun conversation, and I hope you enjoy!

More info: codykommers.com/podcast

Barry Wellman was instrumental in developing the modern understanding of social networks. Barry co-founded the International Network for Social Network Analysis in 1977, with Bev Wellman. The original ideas surrounding social networks began with sociologists -- especially Harrison White, of Harvard, with whom Barry studied -- who were changing the understanding of how people related in society. Barry continued to develop these ideas throughout his long career at Toronto. In many ways, this strain of sociological research is crucial for understanding our modern conception of social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook. Barry is the author or editor of several books, including “Networked: The New Social Operating System” co-authored with Lee Rainie. Keep an eye out for his new book, on academic writing, which is due out in 2021.

More info: codykommers.com/podcast