Ludwik Zamenhof was born in 1859 in a small city in Poland. His family was Jewish, and the area he grew up in also had factions of Germans, Russians, and Poles, all of whom mutually distrusted one another. During his childhood, Zamenhof develop

#107: How a really good travel writer approaches her experiences abroad—and at home (feat. Erika Fatland)

Apr 25th, 2023 1h

The Person and the Situation is a book by social psychologists Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett, originally published in 1991. The argument made by Ross and Nisbett was that context matters. Human beings don’t behave in a vacuum, unaffected by the

#106: Rituals matter more than you think (feat. Dimitris Xygalatas)

Apr 18th, 2023 54m 24s

Denis Dutton was a philosopher of art and media. He was born in the US but moved to New Zealand when he was 40, where he became interested in Oceanic Art. This interest led him to spend time in the village of Yentchenmangua on Papua New Guinea.

#105: What can psychology tell us about meaning? (feat. Paul Bloom)

Mar 2nd, 2023 1h 26m

Recently, I’ve been workshopping an idea. Basically, I don’t believe there is such thing as an activity that is intrinsically meaningful.Sure, there are activities which people consistently endorse as meaningful pursuits: having kids, productiv

#104: Palentine's Day (feat. Robin Dunbar)

Feb 14th, 2023 1h 19m

We pay a lot of attention to our romantic relationships. Whether it’s selecting a mate or maintaining one’s relationship with them. Apps make millions of dollars promising to streamline this process. Hundreds of books are published every year t

#103: Tired, scared, and busy: why can't we all just get along? (feat. Mónica Guzmán)

Jan 31st, 2023 1h 21m

One of the central themes of this show is the importance of the stories we tell about ourselves. But in focusing on the egocentric stakes of storytelling, one of the things we overlook—I certainly do—is the importance of the stories we tell abo

#102: Awe is the emotional component of meaning (feat. Dacher Keltner)

Jan 24th, 2023 1h 3m

I collect concise definitions of the good life. There’s something I really like about the idea of having a one sentence mission statement. It’s a kind of mantra to check in with from time to time to make sure you’re making decisions based on wh

#101: Finding meaning in the maybe (feat. John Kaag)

Jan 17th, 2023 1h 18m

For many of us, life is a process of minimizing uncertainty. We spend our days trying to eliminate uncertainty from our lives. Find the right career path, the right partner, buy a house, or at least find a sense of long-term settledness. Raise

#100: I interviewed 90+ scientists about their career. These are the 12 biggest lessons I learned.

Jan 10th, 2023 1h 4m

The month before I began my PhD, in October 2019, I sat down with an idea. The concept was to reach out to people I admired—mostly academics and authors—and ask them about the decisions they made when they were in my position. What did they do

#99: There's a Reason You Can't Make Yourself Act like Everyone Else: You're Unique (feat. Chantel Prat)

Jan 3rd, 2023 1h 2m

For many of us, there are moments of realization we’ve had where we can’t look at our lives, or what we do in them, the same way ever again. I’ve had many. As a cognitive scientist, one of those moments came from the realization that cognitive

A Small Exercise in Gratitude

Dec 30th, 2022 5m 53s

And a minor resolution about friendship. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

#98: A Cognitive Scientist Tries to Convince Me the Mind is Flat; I Don't Think He Succeeds (feat. Nick Chater)

Dec 27th, 2022 1h 11m

My guest today is Nick Chater, a Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School. Nick is an influential cognitive scientist with a wide-range of interests, which these days often tend toward public policy. But in 2018, he published

My Favorite Book of the Year

Dec 23rd, 2022 8m 48s

I believe when someone writes a perfect book, it deserves to sell a gazillion copies. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

#97: Is the Biggest Fish in the Pond Happy? (feat. W. David Marx)

Dec 20th, 2022 1h 20m

One of my favorite psychology papers of all time is called “Telling More than We Can Know” by Richard Nisbett and Timothy Wilson. The argument of the paper is that humans don’t actually know why they do what they do. But they’re more than happy

Can Productivity Be Turned On Like a Faucet?

Dec 16th, 2022 16m 34s

Two competing theories of inspiration: the 9am-ers and the lions. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

#96: How Words Get Their Meaning (feat. Gary Lupyan)

Dec 13th, 2022 1h 23m

Language—who can use it, and how well—has been in the news recently. If you haven’t heard, a recent AI language model was released for public use. It’s a chatbot from the company OpenAI called ChatGPT. And its capabilities are, to use a technic

The Off-Policy Theory of Happiness

Dec 9th, 2022 13m 18s

Why the metrics we use to evaluate decisions are not the ones we should use to make them. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit codykommers.substack.com/subscribe

#95: The Value Landscape of Games—and How Companies Exploit It (feat. Adrian Hon)

Dec 6th, 2022 57m 10s

Right now, over the course of the next couple weeks, somewhere in the neighborhood of one billion people will tune in to the same event. This event is not a geopolitical one. Governmental regimes will not be decided based on its outcome. It is

Introducing: Meaning Lab

Dec 2nd, 2022 7m 18s

In a way, coming to the end of one’s PhD almost feels inappropriate. The pursuit of this degree gives a kind of structure to adult life—my life, anyway—as something on the horizon to aim for but never actually reach. I’ve always known that gett

#91: How Technology Shapes Our Tastes — in Music and More (feat. Nick Seaver)

Oct 18th, 2022 1h 3m

Earlier this week, my colleague Adam Mastroianni published an essay on what he called "cultural oligopoly." An increasingly smaller number of artists create an increasingly larger percentage of what we watch, read, and listen to. Mastroianni pr

#94: Anxiety and the Hard Work of Being Human (feat. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary)

Aug 2nd, 2022 1h 17m

Anxiety. It is the only emotion my body believes is truly necessary for me to experience at three o’clock in the morning. To be sure I’d rather be sleeping. Usually how I respond to this experience is by listening to audiobooks or podcasts unti

#93: Debate is a Battle of Beliefs — But Does It Have The Power To Change Them? (feat. Bo Seo)

Jul 26th, 2022 1h 11m

My episode last week featured a conversation with author David McCraney about what it takes to change someone’s mind on a big, important topic like religion, or abortion, or guns. And the overriding conclusion of McRaney’s research on the topic

#92: People Don't Often Change Their Minds on Big Topics. Why? (feat. David McRaney)

Jul 19th, 2022 1h 19m

I often say that the second best thing to happen to me was deciding to become a Christian. And the first best thing was deciding not to be a Christian. I didn’t exactly grow up Christian, but I became a believer around age 12. I went to Christi

#90: Stephen Kosslyn on How We Conceptualize the World

Apr 26th, 2022 1h 6m

This is Cognitive Revolution, my show about the personal side of the intellectual journey. Each week, I interview an eminent scientist, writer, or academic about the experiences that shaped their ideas. The show is available wherever you listen