The Monkey Dance

Resource management is a difficult problem. Deciding who gets access to certain resources, and how much of it they have access to, can often be existential struggle. This is complicated with issues of historical access of particular groups, over exploited ecosystems nearing collapse, and geopolitical shifts that lead to changes in demand.

We sit down with Arev Papazian to chat about the difficulties of delegation and determining permissions. We cover some of the ground regarding the challenges of maintaining a healthy ecosystem, one that includes humans, when there are so many stakeholders involved (not all of them altruistic).

Guest: Arev Papazian

What makes someone a good source to learn from?

Melissa Koenig explains how we learn from others: from the strategies we use to the biases we lean on when making epistemic decisions. We chat about the emergence of racial and gender biases and how we often seek information from sources that we identify with, covering the dynamics of of social identities and justice. And we end with chatting about the role of science in society and the importance of not separating work and activism.

Melissa Koenig is a professor at the Institute of Child Development

This is the first time trying out recording on the road, sorry for the clumsiness of the audio and video but learned a few good things for next time!

Joining the podcast is Reto Schneider, veteran science journalist who has dealt with everything from the science of opinion formation to the origins of land ownership and seemingly everything in between.

We talk about a variety of things that have become mild obsessions for him over the years including things like his decades long monthly column on obscure science experiments, data scientists trying to predict the future, and the arbitrariness of prison sentences. 

For more, check out:

Reto's website

Reto's Wikipedia page

Making sense of a series of graphic representations is not simple, but our brains manage to do it with little effort.

Our conversation with Neil Cohn starts out with a rethinking of language, moving from an understanding built solely on spoken language to the ability to express meaning across a range of modalities. This moves us into Neil's work on how we develop the ability to understand visual narratives and what this means for our understanding of language as a whole.

We chat about emojis, comics, children's books, and a bunch of other fun stuff.

Guest: Neil Cohn (personal website)

Links to everything on the Monkey Dance website:

https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-26

And how can complexity science help us understand them?

We sit down with network scientist Gabriela Juncosa to discuss how political discourse unfolds in online spaces and whether toxic interactions shut conversations down or keep them going. We chat about the structure of online discussions, how social media algorithms influence engagement, and whether the way we talk online differs from in-person interactions.

This takes us to the role of network structures in polarization, the ways AI might intervene in online discourse, and whether we can design digital spaces that foster both engagement and constructive dialogue.

Joining us as a cohost is philosopher Phyllis Pearson (our guest from Episode 24).

Guest: Gabriela Juncosa

Show notes on the Monkey Dance website

We use the terms open mindedness and gaslighting a lot, but do we really understand what they mean?

We sit down with Phyllis Pearson to discuss what it means to engage honestly with information and with others. We chat about curiosity and agency, empathy and perspective taking, and the blurry line between being open to the beliefs of others versus maintaining skepticism and asking for justification.

This takes us to what honest dialogue looks like, whether gaslighting is always malicious, and what it means to have epistemic agency and to ascribe that agency to others.

Guest: Phyllis Pearson

Co-host: Juliette Vazard (our guest on Episode 20)

As always, show notes on the Monkey Dance website.

What is the function of emotional displays?

We sit down with Thomas Ganzetti and discuss the role emotions serve in social contexts and how we use the displays of others to gather information about our realities. We chat about the evolutionary trajectory of emotional displays, how they help us navigate our environments, and what we learn about ourselves and those around us as we observe each other (whether we intend to or not).

Guest: Thomas Ganzetti

Show notes on the monkey dance website!

Also, we've now been going for a full year! Thank you to everyone who has been listening and reaching out.

How does the brain process music and how has the perception of music changed over time? We sit down with cognitive neuroscientist Anja-Xiaoxing Cui to chat about how we relate to music, music's role in social interactions, and how music might be used as a tool for regulating emotions. We cover theories of the emergence of music in human history, the relationship between music and other art forms, and whether reading sheet music is at all similar to hearing it.

My co-host this episode is Arianna Curioni (who was also our guest on Episode 13).

Show notes on the monkey dance website!