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How Do Artifacts Inform Cultural Evolution? #016 with Vanessa Ferdinand episode artwork

Jul 9, 2021 49 min

How Do Artifacts Inform Cultural Evolution? #016 with Vanessa Ferdinand

from Alien Crash Site Hosted by Santa Fe Institute, Caitlin McShea, Vanessa Ferdinand

For more information on items mentioned in this interview, click through the links below. Vanessa’s Website InterPlanetary 2018 Festival panel "Intelligent Systems and Cognitive Assistance" featuring Vanessa, David Krakauer, Jonah Nolan, Graham Spencer & Kurt Squire. Dan Sperber Norman Rockwell's painting "The Gossips" Giant dragonfly - Meganeura Alien Crash Site interview with Tamara van der Does Dune witches Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan Jil Jilala Nass El Ghiwane

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This week, Computational Cognitive Scientist Vanessa Ferdinand provides us with her skeptical take on the very premise of Roadside Picnic. Given her research on cultural evolution, and how cultural artifacts are changed by the cognitive systems that perceive them, she had quite a few problems with the idea of finding and using an object created by an alien lifeform. She explains her reasoning, but she eventually suspends her disbelief, settles comfortably into the fiction, and describes an alien artifact that she believes will alter our understanding of ourselves, each other, these aliens, and the universe itself.

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How Do Artifacts Inform Cultural Evolution? #016 with Vanessa Ferdinand

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