The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Mysteries of the mind

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What do we know — and what don't we know — about how the human mind works? Sean Illing talks with Paul Bloom, professor of psychology and author of the new book Psych: The Story of the Human Mind. In this conversation, Sean and Paul talk about some of the most interesting and confounding questions in psychology. They discuss the problematic theories of some giants in the history of the field, the way that AI might change psychology, and whether or not the discipline is any closer to understanding the nature of mental illness.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Paul Bloom (@paulbloomatyale), Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto; Professor Emeritus, Yale University; author

References: 

  • Psych: The Story of the Human Mind by Paul Bloom (Ecco; 2023)
  • The Replication Crisis (Psychology Today)
  • Freud's "primal scene" is taken from his "From the History of an Infantile Neurosis" (a.k.a. the "Wolf Man" case) (1918)
  • The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature by Geoffrey Miller (Anchor; 2001)
  • Aspects of the Theory of Syntax by Noam Chomsky (MIT Press; 1965)
  • On Geoffrey Hinton: "'The Godfather of A.I.' Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead" by Cade Metz (New York Times; May 1)
  • "The looming threat of AI to Hollywood, and why it should matter to you" by Alissa Wilkinson (Vox; May 2)
  • "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" by David Chalmers (1995)
  • A.I. Artificial Intelligence, dir. by Steven Spielberg (2001)
  • "Development of the default-mode network during childhood and adolescence" by F. Fan et al. (Neuroimage; Feb. 2021)
  • The Infant Cognition Center at Yale
  • The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)


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    This episode was made by: 

    • Producer: Erikk Geannikis
    • Engineers: Patrick Boyd & Brandon McFarland
    • Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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