Apr 17, 2025
You've probably come across the "free energy principle." It's become one of the most influential ideas in the broader cognitive sciences. Since the neuroscientist Karl Friston first introduced it in 2005, the theory has been fleshed out, extended, generalized, criticized, and cited thousands and thousands of times. But...
Apr 2, 2025
Are human emotions universal? Or do they vary from one place to the next and from one time period to the next? It's a big question, an old question. And every discipline that's grappled with it brings its own take, its own framings and forms of evidence. Some researchers appeal to cross-cultural experiments; others turn...
Mar 19, 2025
Hi friends,
We're taking care of some spring cleaning this week. We'll be back in two weeks with a new episode. In the meantime, enjoy this favorite from our archives!
- The Many Minds team
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[originally aired February 22, 2024]
Brains are not cheap. It takes a lot of calories to run a brain,...
Mar 6, 2025
The tree of life is a noisy place. From one branch come hoots and howls, from another come clicks and buzzes and whines. And coming from all over you hear the swell of song. But what is all this ruckus about? Why do so many animals communicate with sound? What kinds of meaning do these sounds convey? And—beyond the...
Feb 20, 2025
Evolution is not what it used to be. A lot has changed since Darwin's day. In the first half of the 20th century, evolutionary theory was integrated with an emerging understanding of genetics. Late in the 20th century, biologists started taking seriously the idea that organisms don't just adapt to their environments,...