Join me as I explore the limits of knowledge and technology in weekly interviews with academics, writers & entrepreneurs. In discussion with philosophers, poets, and physicists we’ll delve into foundational questions in arts and science.
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Coffee table conversations with people thinking about foundational issues. Multiverses explores the limits of knowledge and technology. Does quantum mechanics tell us that our world is one of many? Will AI make us intellectually lazy, or expand our cognitive range? Is time a thing in itself or a measure of change? Join James Robinson as he tries to find out.
Music may be magical. But it is also rooted in the material world. As such it can be the subject of empirical inquiry.
How does what we are told of a performer influence our appreciation of the performance? Does sunshine change our listening habits? How do rhythms and melodies change as they are passed along, as in a game of Chinese whispers?
Our guest is Manuel Anglada Tort, a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has investigated all those topics. We discuss the fields of Empirical Aesthetics and cultural evolution experiments as applied to music.
Chapters
(00:00) Intro
(03:35) Start of conversation: Music Psychology and Empirical Aesthetics
(07:54) Genomics and Musical Ability
(18:25) Weather’s Influence on Music Preferences
(31:57) The Repeated Recording Illusion
(43:24) Empirical Aesthetics: Does Analysis Boost or Deflate Wonder?
(49:59) Music Evolution and Cultural Systems
(52:18) Simulating Music Evolution in the Lab
(1:01:27) The Role of Memory and Cognitive Biases in Music
(1:05:33) Comparing Language and Music Evolution
(1:20:37) The Impact of Physical and Cognitive Constraints on Music
(1:31:37) Audio Appendix