During the COVID panic one of the sane voices was congitive scientist Mark Changizi. He saw the resulting panic as an emergent social and cultural phenomenon, and went as far as to sue the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) for directing social media companies to censor what they deemed as misinformation.
In this conversation, Mark talks of his intellectual journey, from mathematician and physicist to congitive scientist. He describes the overarching view of human perception and coordination as evolved tools and how leads to social patterns that would be replicated in any civilised large scale cooperative creatures. Would aliens also be debating free markets and communism?
Here’s one example of evolved traits.
Why do humans perceive visual illusions rather than have an accurate visual receptor? Because our visual perception evolved to anticipate outcomes, not accurately represent the light hitting the eyeballs.
This was a fascinating discussion, and stay tuned for Mark’s comments on academia and his life since leaving academia 16 years ago.
His latest book is called Motorcycle Mind, and I would recommend his previous book Expressly Human.
Please find Mark at the following.
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@markchangizi
X: https://x.com/MarkChangizi
Website: https://www.changizi.com
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