In their second episode in a series on dreaming, Joe and Rolf are joined by Dr. Pilleriin Sikka, a Stanford neuroscientist who is currently studying the therapeutic value of dreams under anesthesia. 

Hack, L. M., Sikka, P., Zhou, K., Kawai, M., Chow, H. S., & Heifets, B. (2024). Reduction in Trauma-Related Symptoms After Anesthetic-Induced Intra-Operative Dreaming. American Journal of Psychiatry, 181(6), 563-564.

https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp.20230698

Dreams and Anaesthesia: Guest Pilleriin Sikka

Why do we dream, and what is the meaning of our dreams? Rolf and Joe talk about several ideas about dreaming, including a new theory by David Eagleman called the "defensive activation theory", which proposes that dreams are like a screen saver to keep the visual parts of the brain from being overtaken by other senses.

Eagleman, D. M., & Vaughn, D. A. (2020). The Defensive Activation theory: dreaming as a mechanism to prevent takeover of the visual cortex. bioRxiv, 2020-07.

Why do we dream?

Daniel Dennett, who passed away on April 19th at the age of 82, was one of the great philosophers of our time. Rolf and Joe discuss his ideas and his influence on the field of philosophy, including (especially) bringing consciousness back as a topic of serious study with his book "Consciousness Explained", as well as his work on free will, evolution, religion, and constructing a convincing argument.

Daniel Dennett: A Retrospective

What can neuroscience teach us about AI, and vice versa, what can AI teach us about our own intelligence?

Joe and Rolf talk to returning guest Daniel Sternberg about advances in AI over the past year. Topics include using the methods of cognitive psychology to understand AI; representation in artificial intelligence; what current large language models  (LLMs) are good at and not good at; sentience in AI; the future of humanity; and other important stuff.

Natural and Artificial Intelligence: A brief introduction to the interplay between AI and neuroscience research [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0893608021003683] (Macpherson, et al., 2021)

Can AI language models replace human participants? [https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e57f82eb306fc38c7637f33/t/6490afc6074d6e3982f6d049/1687203782514/can-AI-language-models-replace-human-participants.pdf] (Dillion, et al., 2023)

Language models show human-like content effects on reasoning [https://stanford.edu/~jlmcc/papers/DasguptaLampinenEtAl22LMsShowHumanLikeContentEffectsInReasoning.pdf] (Dasgupta et al., 2022)

AI and Cognition with Daniel Sternberg

This episode is dedicated to the memory of colleague and friend Grace Baron [https://wheatoncollege.edu/news/no-time-like-now/].

Joe and Rolf talk to Dr. Matthew Goodwin, a professor at Northeastern University whose research focus is on autism. His most recent paper [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2813185] used biosensing (heart rate, skin conductance, etc.) to predict aggressive behavior in profound autistic individuals up to three minutes before the event. 

Autism with guest Matthew Goodwin

Joe and Rolf discuss the ideas of perceptual psychologist Donald Hoffman, who has argued that our perceptual systems have no access to reality, since evolution is driven by fitness functions, not objective truth. He has also argued that our perception is a user interface (like a desktop on a computer, or a VR headset), and that objects such as the moon don't exist when we are not apprehending them.  

Hoffman, Donald. The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes. WW Norton & Company, 2019.

Bagwell, J. N. (2023). Debunking interface theory: why Hoffman’s skepticism (really) is self-defeating. Synthese, 201(1), 25.

Donald Hoffman's Case Against Reality

Neil Markey, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, used meditation for years to deal with depression and PTSD. He is currently CEO of Beckley Retreats, a group that runs retreats to Jamaica and the Netherlands for guided psychedelic experiences. He talks about his path from the military to consulting to his work with Beckley, how guided psychedelic retreats are run (including work to prepare in advance, as well as to integrate after), and how he envisions the future of psychedelics for both treatment of disorders and for enhancing quality of life for those without disorders.

Special Guest: Neil Markey.

Episode 53: Beckley Retreats CEO Neil Markey on guided psychedelic retreats

We discuss the recent controversy about Integrated Information Theory (IIT), a theory about the neural correlates of consciousness, with Felipe De Brigard, a philosophy and psychology professor at Duke University who signed a letter describing the theory as pseudoscience.

The letter: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/zsr78/
The adversarial collaboration: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0268577
Description of IIT: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011465

Episode 52: The IIT controversy with Felipe De Brigard

Joe and Rolf talk to psychedelic researcher Robin Carhart-Harris. Robin is at the cutting edge of research on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics such as psilocybin (magic mushrooms), LSD, and DMT. He discusses psychotherapy and the unconscious mind, models of what psychedelics are doing in the brain, and many other topics. A really fascinating and in-depth conversation.

You can find links to his published research as well as a series of videos on harm reduction at the following link:

https://www.carhartharrislab.com/

Special Guest: Robin Carhart-Harris.

Episode 51: Robin Carhart-Harris: The promise of psychedelics 

Joe and Rolf discuss new work in neural interfaces that is helping paralyzed individuals communicate.

Based on the recent Nature article:

Metzger, S. L., Littlejohn, K. T., Silva, A. B., Moses, D. A., Seaton, M. P., Wang, R., ... & Chang, E. F. (2023). A high-performance neuroprosthesis for speech decoding and avatar control. Nature, 1-10.

Episode 50: Neural Interfaces

CogNation is a podcast by Rolf Nelson and Joe Hardy, two cognitive psychologists interested in the future of brain science and technology. We explore relevant topics in the areas of cognitive science, technology, AI, and philosophy. Although we dabble with dystopian implications of new technologies (such as the impending robopocalypse), we are led by our curiosity and try to keep it light and fun. https://www.facebook.com/CognationPodcast/ email: cognationpodcast@gmail.com