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Many Minds

Many Minds

Di: Kensy Cooperrider – Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
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 Our world is brimming with beings—human, animal, and artificial. We explore how they think, sense, feel, and learn. Conversations and more, every two weeks.Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute 2020-2025 Scienza
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  • From the archive: The cuttlefish and its coat of many colors

    From the archive: The cuttlefish and its coat of many colors
    Apr 22 2026
    Hi friends! We're skipping a beat to take care of some spring housekeeping tasks. We will be back in May! In the meanwhile, enjoy this listener favorite from our archives! ----- [originally aired April 30, 2025] We humans have a hard time becoming invisible. For better or worse, we're basically stuck with the skin and body we have; we're pretty fixed in our color, our shape, our overall appearance. And so we're fascinated by creatures that aren't—creatures that morph to meet the moment, that can functionally disappear, that can shape-shift on a dime. And no creatures are more skilled, more astonishing, more bedazzling in their abilities to do this kind of thing than the cephalopods. But how do they do this exactly? What's going on in their skin? What's going on under their skin? And what's going on in their brains that makes this all possible? My guest today is Dr. Tessa Montague. Tessa is a neuroscientist in the Axel Lab at Columbia University; she studies the brain and behavior of the dwarf cuttlefish, with a special focus on the biology of their dynamic skin behaviors. Here, Tessa and I talk about how cuttlefish and other cephalopods exhibit the most impressive camouflaging abilities on the planet. We discuss how they change their skin's appearance with remarkable speed and fidelity—and not just when trying to blend in, but also when hunting, courting, fighting, and more. We talk about whether these behaviors are flexible and whether they're voluntary. We linger on the cruel irony that cuttlefish seem to be colorblind. We talk about the idea that a cephalopod's skin is kind of a window into their brain. We lay out the cells and organs in the cephalopod skin the make these behaviors possible—especially the tiny pigment-bearing structures called "chromatophores." And of course we also dive deep into the cephalopod brain and its sometimes bizarre and poorly understood structures. Excited to share it with you friends—I think you'll enjoy it. Without further ado, here's my chat with Dr. Tessa Montague. A transcript of this episode is available here. Notes and links 3:00 – For more on Dr. Montague's recent expeditions to the Philippines, including photos, see here. 7:30 – Dr. Montague has published two recent reviews of dynamic skin behaviors in cephalopods—see here and here. We previously discussed cephalopod intelligence in a 2021 episode with Dr. Alex Schnell and a 2023 episode with the novelist Ray Nayler. 18:30 – For discussion of a recent "renaissance" in new model organisms, see here. 20:30 – For more on how chameleons change color, see this video. 25:00 – A video primer on cuttlefish camouflage, featuring the researcher Dr. Robert Hanlon. 30:30 – A recent paper on the details of pattern matching in cuttlefish camouflage. 31:00 – For more on the mimicking plant Boquila trifoliolata, see this popular article. See also our earlier episode with Dr. Paco Calvo and Dr. Natalie Lawrence. 35:00 – A video about the so-called mimic octopus. 40:00 – For the hypothesis about color discrimination via chromatic aberration and pupil shape, see here. 44:00 – For more on the "split body" skin behaviors observed in some cuttlefish, see here. 51:00 – For the David Attenborough clip about a cuttlefish hypnotizing a crab, see here. For the recent New York Times article on cuttlefish hunting behavior, including videos, see here. For the academic article that inspired the New York Times piece, see here. 58:00 – A recent scientific study on the possibility of octopus skin activity during dreaming. A video that helped popularize the idea of cephalopod skin activity as evidence of dreaming. Our earlier episode on why we—and other creatures—dream. 1:06:00 – For a study on chromatophore development from the lab of Dr. Gilles Laurent, see here. 1:11:00 – For more on papillae, including videos, see here. 1:17:00 – To explore an animated model of the cuttlefish brain, see this page of Dr. Montague's website, Cuttlebase. Recommendations Monarchs of the Sea, Danna Staaf Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith Cephalopod Behavior, Roger Hanlon & John B. Messenger Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit ...
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    1 ora e 34 min
  • Illuminating cave art

    Illuminating cave art
    Apr 9 2026
    Deep in our past, in the dark depths of caves, our ancestors did something strange and beautiful. Working by firelight, some doodled little designs. Others made hand stencils. Some saw a bulge of rock, or a crack in the wall, and thought to turn it into a horse or a bison. Why did they did they make this art? What did it mean to them? Who were these artists? These questions are old—very old—but thanks to new methods and new interpretive frameworks, archaeologists are beginning to see them in a new light. My guest today is Dr. Izzy Wisher. Izzy is an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, specializing in Paleolithic art. Here, Izzy and talk about why we in the present are so drawn to cave art. We lay out the basic timeline, geography, and categories of Paleolithic art. We consider the difference between figurative and non-figurative art, and why it might be that non-figurative art came first. We discuss hand stencils. We talk about an ongoing shift in archaeology as the sensory turn. We dig into some of Izzy's work on the role of pareidolia, palimpsests, and children in cave art. And we touch on an ongoing project she is involved in trying to understand the earliest symbolic marks that our species made—and what they could have been used for. Along the way we touch on the site known as El Castillo, Werner Herzog, hunting magic, why hand stencils are so often missing fingers, graffiti, tectiforms and flutings, why depictions of humans are actually quite rare in cave art, stages in children's art production, the use of virtual reality as a research method, and the idea of archaeology as world-building. I think you'll enjoy this one friends. Who among us—after all—doesn't feel drawn to these caves, to these most enigmatic of human creations? Without further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Izzy Wisher. Notes 3:00 – For more on El Castillo cave, see here and here. 9:00 – Werner Herzog's film—Cave of Forgotten Dreams—is being briefly re-released in April 2026. 12:00 – For some of Dr. Wisher's popular writing on cave art, see here and here. 16:30 – One example of a recent rock art finding in Sulawesi. 20:30 – Our earlier episode with Dr. Eleanor Scerri and Dr. Manuel Will, in which we discuss the mostly-retired idea of a "cognitive revolution" in Europe in the Upper Paleolithic. 22:00 – For more on the recently discovered rock art panel in Colombia, see this news story and this recent academic study. 25:00 – The relative rarity of humans in Paleolithic art has provoked much discussion, both among scholars and the public. 27:00 – On the idea that Venus figurines might be self-representations—made from the perspective of the artist viewing her own body—see here. 29:00 – For a recent treatment of the "missing fingers" in hand stencils, with some overview of different hypotheses, see here. For more on the idea that such stencils could constitute a system of hand-signs, see here. 34:00 – A popular article by Dr. Wisher about one example of portable art—a deer-tooth necklace with engraved designs. 36:00 ­– For a discussion of the earliest non-figurative art, see here. For one account of the transition from non-figurative to figurative art, including discussion of hand stencils, see here. 42:00 – A paper in which Dr. Wisher and a colleague discuss the "sensory turn" in archaeology and how her work contributes to it. 51:00 – Dr. Wisher's studies on pareidolia are here and here. 59:00 – For Dr. Wisher's study of palimpsests in cave art, see here. 1:07:00 – For an influential early study on cave marking by children, see here. For Dr. Wisher's recent study of children's art in the caves, see here. A book by Dr. John Matthews on the development of drawing in children. 1:14:00 – The web site of the eSYMB project is here. An important early publication by this group is here. A recent overview of the project and its context by Dr. Wisher and colleagues. 1:18:00 – A recent paper arguing that certain systems of marks represented a "phenological calendar." Another recent paper providing evidence that certain Paleolithic marks constituted a system of conventional signs. 1:22:00 – The paper arguing that archaeology is "world-building." Recommendations Kindred, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes (former guest!) Homo sapiens rediscovered, by Paul Pettitt Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds ...
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    1 ora e 26 min
  • What can AI teach us about the mind?

    What can AI teach us about the mind?
    Mar 26 2026
    Everyone is talking about AI these days. Often these conversations are about how AI might upend education, or work, or social life, or maybe civilization itself. But among cognitive scientists and psychologists the conversation inevitably drifts toward other questions. What does this latest generation of AI tell us about the human mind? Is it putting old ideas and theories to rest? Is it ushering in new ones? Will AI—in other words—also upend cognitive science? My guests today are Dr. Mike Frank and Dr. Gary Lupyan. Mike is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, where his lab focuses on language learning and cognition in children. Gary is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where his lab studies language and its role in augmenting human cognition. Both Gary and Mike have more recently been thinking a lot about AI and how it is challenging and deepening our understanding of the human mind. In this conversation, we talk about being interested in AI as cognitive scientists—while also being concerned about the technology as people. We discuss the linguistic abilities of frontier LLMs compared to the linguistic abilities of adult humans. We talk about a glaring "data gap" here—the fact that, even though LLMs often rival human abilities, they require orders of magnitude more data to do so. We contrast the capabilities of large language models with so-called BabyLMs. We consider the fact that, as LLMs master language, they also master other abilities—capacities for mathematical reasoning, causal understanding, possibly theory of mind, and more. And we talk about why language might be an especially potent form of input for an AI. Along the way, we touch on reference and the symbol grounding problem, the Platonic Representation Hypothesis, stimulus computability, confabulated citations, pattern matching and jabberwocky, the poverty of the stimulus argument, congenital blindness, Quine's topiary, the limits of in principle demonstrations, the WEIRD problem, and what the astonishing sophistication of disembodied AIs might suggest about the role of bodily experience in human cognition. Before we get to it, one small request: we're currently running a short survey of our listeners. You can find the link in our show notes. If you have a few minutes, we'd really love your input! Alright friends, here's my conversation with Mike Frank and Gary Lupyan. I think you'll enjoy it! Notes 5:00 – For more discussion of "stochastic parrots" and other ways of framing AI systems, see our recent episode with Melanie Mitchell. For the "octopus test," see here. 8:00 – "BabyLMs" are—in contrast to large LMs (aka LLMs)—models that are trained on a more human-scale amount of linguistic input. For more on the BabyLM community, see here. 12:00 – For broad discussion of the use of AIs as "cognitive models," see this paper by Dr. Frank and a colleague. The same paper discusses the idea of "stimulus computability." 18:00 – For Dr. Frank's "baby steps" paper, see here. 20:00 – For more on how Claude understands line breaks, see Anthropic's analysis of the issue here. 23:00 – For work on human-like grammaticality judgments in LLMs, see this paper by a team including Dr. Lupyan. 24:00 – See here for an influential paper on, among other things, how LLMs refute the idea that syntax is unlearnable. The article titled 'How linguistics learned to stop worrying and love the language models' is here; Dr. Lupyan's commentary—'Large language models have learned to use language'—here. 29:00 – For some of Dr. Lupyan's work on the "abstractness" of even concrete concepts, see here. 35:00 – For a classic paper on the so-called symbol grounding problem, see here. 37:00 – For the preprint putting forth the "Platonic Representation Hypothesis," see here. 40:30 – For more on the data gap between children and LLMs—and what accounts for it—see Dr. Frank's paper here. 45:00 – For a sampling of Dr. Frank and colleagues' work comparing language models to children, see here, here, and here. For more on the LEVANTE project, a collaborative effort spearheaded by Dr. Frank, see here. 48:00 – For the preprint—"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Pattern Matching," by Dr. Lupyan and a colleague—see here. 55:00 – For more on Dr. Lupyan's perspective on the centrality of language in human cognition, see here. See also this more recent paper, considering the question in light of LLMs. 58:00 – For our earlier episode with Dr. Marina Bedny, see here. For the recent paper by Dr. Bedny and colleagues considering their research on congenital blindness in light of LLMs, see here. 1:01:00 – For classic work on language learning in blind children, see here. 1:02:00 – For a paper by Dr. Lupyan and colleagues on "hidden" individual differences, see here. 1:03:00 – For more on "multiple realizability," see here. For our earlier episode ...
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    1 ora e 21 min
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