Episodios
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This episode was recorded at 11:30 on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. Yesterday (March 10), students blocked access to the state-run Serbian public television headquarters, accusing it of biased coverage. As of this recording, hundreds of students continue to block access to the building. There is a major protest scheduled for Saturday, March 15. Since November of 2024, students in universities across Serbia have been organizing mass protests across the country against the corrupt, autocratic government of Aleksandar Vučić. While the media coverage has focused on the protests themselves, the engine of the student-led movement is a unified, multilateral experiment in absolute democracy that has managed to maintain a flat hierarchy and a single set of demands. Serbian philosopher and anthropologist Aleksandra Knežević joins us to talk about her ongoing work with the movement as both a participant and a researcher. She has been allowed by the students to research the movement, and has been conducting interviews and joining the student meetings as an observer. Guest: Aleksandra KneževićInstitute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade Check out Aleksandra's autoethnography of her experience with the movement: An Autoethnographic Account of the Anti-Corruption Student Protests in Serbia 2024/25 Aleksandra also recommends: 1. An academic article by Katarina Beširević on the protests: “Nisi nadležan”: How a Student Movement Dictates Political Change in Serbia (2024/2025) 2. From The Guardian by Adriana Zaharijević: Serbia’s students are showing the world how to restore democratic hope If the links don't work in your podcast player, you can find links to Aleksandra's paper and the other articles in the show notes: https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-27
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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)
Co-Host: Xueyi Yao
Links to everything on the Monkey Dance website:
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-26
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¿Faltan episodios?
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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 JuncosaCo-host: Phyllis Pearson
Show notes on the Monkey Dance website
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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.
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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
Co-Host: Xueyi Yao (to hear more from Xueyi, check out Episode 18!)
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.
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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!
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What makes systemic inequality such a hard problem to tackle?
We sit down with cognitive anthropologist Angarika Deb and cognitive psychologist Ákos Szegőfi and chat about their research on different aspects of the problem. We chat about the cognitive mechanisms involved in perpetuating systemic inequality both on the part of those benefiting from such systems and those who are marginalized by them. We also discuss the importance of narratives and access to information when it comes to both upholding and justifying inequality as well as challenging and dismantling it.
Show notes on the Monkey Dance website
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What are emotions and how do they impact cognition? We sit down with philosopher Juliette Vazard to talk about what we can learn from our emotions, the relationship between emotions and beliefs, and how emotions can shape our behavior. We cover everything from learning and curiosity, to the epistemic value of emotional states, to their impact on how we relate to the world.
Joining me as a co-host is philosopher Maria Fedorova, our guest on Episode 17.
As always, you can check out the show notes on the website
You an also watch the episode on youtube
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Does everybody experience memory in the same way? We sit down with Andreas Arslan to chat about what we spontaneously imagine when we read or actively remember, and how everything from inferring causal relationships to the salience of symbols can impact recall. We also talk about how the structure of experience impacts and possibly even determines what and how we remember.
Show notes on the website
Or watch on youtube
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How do we use symbols to construct and reconstruct our internal realities? We sit down with two new cohosts of The Monkey Dance, Mariem Diané and Xueyi Yao, to talk about the relationship between language and memory and the importance of symbols in abstract thought. We cover a lot of ground, going from temporal perception and learning to social dynamics and the mitigation of uncertainty from early childhood to adulthood.
Full show notes here:
https://www.monkeydancepod.com/episodes/episode-18
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Why do we have imagination? We sit down with philosopher Maria Fedorova to chat about what imagination is, ways to describe imagination as a process and a capacity, and whether it differs from perception and hallucination (if at all). We also discuss how imagination helps us navigate our realities, its relationship to our beliefs, and its role in empathy and understanding the perspectives of others.
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How can we balance knowledge transfer and democratic empowerment? We sit down with Kristina Vasić and Ákos Szegőfi in a wide ranging discussion about the importance of access to information in a democracy, the need for institutions for knowledge transfer, and how decentralization can help deconstruct entrenched power structures. The conversation spans types of dialogue, the usefulness of rhetoric, whether any argument can be free of bias, and a bunch of other related topics on power, information, and governance.
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What is the function of nostalgia? We sit down with Manu Sharma and talk about what makes a memory, what functions thinking about the past serves, and the impact of broader societal narratives on our senses of self. We discuss the construction of personal histories, their relationships to cultural histories, and also how historical narratives can be constructed by political movements to embolden and dehumanize groups of people.
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How does the engineering of concepts impact how we think about them? We sit down with Bojin Zhu to discuss what makes a concept, how concepts change over time, and what it means to build a methodology for understanding conceptual change. We chat about the intersection of the value and meaning of concepts with their pragmatic and societal implications. Our conversations spans concepts like liberty (whether it's a useful term), free will (what to make of it), truth (whether it exists), and pain (and how to understand our experience of it).
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How is it that human beings achieve collaboration? We sit down with Arianna Curioni and chat about the cognitive science of joint action in its many forms. We talk about human robot interactions, how moving a couch is not the same as boxing, and the difference between a hammer, a neural implant, and a teammate. We also chat a bit about collaboration in society at large and the implications for work on policy.
Show notes on the website
Or you can also watch on youtube
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What differentiates lying from other examples of communicative intent? We sit down with Akos Szegofi and talk about misinformation, institutional trust, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying information processing. We chat about skepticism, how the media has changed over time, and why the intent to deceive is as old as communication itself.
Show notes on the Monkey Dance website
You can also watch the podcast on Youtube
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Does Democracy have intrinsic value or is it only as good as what it helps us achieve? We sit down with Kristina Vasic and chat about what Democracy is, whether it is for individual autonomy or collective autonomy, and the individual's place in systems of power. We chat about disenfranchisement, inequality, and what kinds of political structures are best suited to challenge the status quo.
Show notes on the Monkey Dance website!
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How can we build better tools to identify and predict large scale corruption? We sit with Irene Tello Arista and chat about everything from what corruption is to the systemic pressures that bring it about, and discuss how grand corruption and petty corruption are different not only in scale but in methods. We cover a bit of Irene's background in Mexico starting an NGO to uncover corruption networks, human behavior more generally, and how corruption looks different in different places.
Full show notes on the website
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Should we consider art beyond its utility? We sit down with Emily Kay Williamson to chat about what aesthetics can tell us about art's role in society and its impact on cognition. We talk about whether there is a difference between art and everyday objects, whether art has any boundaries, what there is to learn from art, and where things like journalism fall in discussions about art.
Full show notes here
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How we as a species define ourselves and what we do? We sit down with Aleksandra Knežević and chat about the work to integrate different fields in science and whether anybody is making a genuine attempt to do so. This takes us to questions of what science is and what it does, and how feminist thinkers have helped to improve science as an institution. We also talk about definitions of human nature, what evolutionary psychology can and can't give us, and whether essentialism has anything to offer.
Full show notes
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