Dr. Heather Berlin:
So why can't people be completely honest?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Complete honesty, which is common knowledge, you know what the other person knows what you're saying and they know that and you know that, that can threaten the nature of a relationship.
Elizabeth Koch:
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. What's a perception box? It's this invisible mental box that each one of us lives inside, built from the material of our beliefs, life experiences, and the meaning we've made out of those experiences. You could think of it as a kind of reality filter that's constantly shaping how we see ourselves, other people, and the world around us. This podcast explores how. Although the walls of this box are always present, they can expand in moments of curiosity, awe, and wonder or contract in response to fear, anxiety, and anger. In each episode, we invite experts to share how to create lasting shifts in our perception. I'd like to introduce our esteemed host, Heather Berlin, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Christof Koch, Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and former president of The Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Welcome to The Science of Perception Box. This week, our guest is Dr. Steven Pinker. We tend to think that communication is about saying what we mean, but much of it is guessing what others know, assume, expect, or intend. Stephen's work shows how much of our social world depends on this and how easily things break down when those interpretations don't align. This episode reminds us that even in ordinary moments, we're not just communicating, we're navigating each other's perception boxes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
So first, we want to open up with our own stories. So Christof, has there ever been an interaction that you've had where you've realized after the fact that you were in the dark about some common knowledge like everybody else knew, but you didn't know?
Dr. Christof Koch:
So as you probably know, I don't own a car and I bike everywhere. And of course, as a biker, you have to be incredibly attuned to the laws and the customs of interaction between cars and bikes. You have to look at the nods. Is the car giving me a nod so I can pass in front of where I can enter the lane? So far, this has all worked out. But recently, a couple of months ago, I had this incident where there was another biker who came into my lane and I though he had given me the signal to proceed by nodding, and I accepted that by nodding back, but he didn't get that. So I knew that he knew that I knew, but he didn't close that loop. And so we ran into each other as a consequence of not fully completing the acknowledgement of the acknowledgement.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That's a great example. Well, welcome to the podcast, Steven.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Thank you.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
How do you define common knowledge?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Common knowledge in the technical sense from philosophy and game theory refers to the case where I know something, you know something, I know that you know it, you know that I know it, I know that you know that I know that you know it ad infinitum. So common knowledge in the technical sense is interesting because it's necessary for coordination, for people to be on the same page, to do things that may be arbitrary, but are advantageous that everyone does it the same way. So driving on the right versus the left, stopping at a red light, these are all paradigm cases, excellent examples. It actually doesn't matter whether you drive on the right or the left. It does matter that everyone drives on the same side and that everyone knows that everyone else is driving on the same side. And so in general, traffic works. In England, everyone does it on the left and here everyone does it on the right, works out fine.
It's often in cases where there isn't common knowledge where you get failure to coordinate, as in Christof's example of a failure to establish common knowledge between a cyclist and a motorist. That often happens when there isn't some public signal that each one sees knowing that the other one sees it, such as a traffic light, such as a zebra crossing, such as a stop sign. The reason that they are there is to establish these conventions that work by common knowledge. If I see the stop sign, I know that everyone else sees the stop sign, and we all know that that's the place to stop.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But looking at-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... people can replace that-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... indeed.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... partially, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Partially, yes. The relevance to social relations is that I suggest that our relationships are situations of coordination, coordination games in the sense of game theory, that just as driving on the right works because everyone knows that everyone knows that you drive on the right, you and I are friends not because we signed a contract that stipulates our responsibilities, because I know that we're friends and you know that we're friends and I know that you know and you know that I know and so on.
Or alternatively, relations of deference. The person who is kind of higher on the status hierarchy stands his ground because he knows that the beta will give way, the beta gives way because he knows the alpha will stand his ground, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Or transactional relationships or romantic relationships. I suggest that each one of those is a coordination game and that they are ratified or upended by certain common knowledge generators, signals that each one perceives knowing that the other one is perceiving it, too. Language being the most efficient way of generating common knowledge.
So in the case of Christof mentioned that eye contact can often generate common knowledge, that is eye contact we know, even from the ethological literature in animal communication, is a very potent signal because you're looking at the part of the person that's looking at the part of you that's looking at the part of them that's looking at the part of you. And so eye contact can generate common knowledge. It often resolves these ambiguities in, say, a car stopping and a pedestrian crossing. Establishing eye contact would be a way of generating that common knowledge.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Or two people or two cars merging on a freeway, the other guy just sort of briefly nods-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... and lets you go ahead..
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And in fact, I was tickled to see a sign in San Francisco Airport parking lot, which I actually photographed and included in the book, and it has a cartoon of a pedestrian and a driver and a dashed line joining their eyes and it says, "Make eye contact before crossing." There it is. Yes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That's great. But in a way, I mean, this common knowledge is a way to have what you're saying, why it's important, it's for coordination among groups of people, but what happens when people get it wrong? I'm thinking about when you all pull up to a four-way stop and nobody knows where to go and you're both waving to go. But, I mean, that's a smaller example, but are there disagreements? I think you know something that you might think I know something different or we don't agree on what is common knowledge.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, you bet.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And so in the traffic case, it could lead to a collision, that's the ultimate miscoordination. In social interactions, it can lead to the situation that we call awkwardness, or if it is deliberate and protracted, outrage. For example, if two people have a platonic relationship and one would say to the other, "Hey, do you want to have sex?", that could be really awkward, which is why we have the phenomena of euphemism and innuendo and [inaudible 00:07:42]-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Do you want to come up and watch my-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... catching-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... my Netflix?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... or Netflix, yes. And I suggest that all of the rituals of genteel hypocrisy, politeness consist in avoiding common knowledge that might threaten a relationship while still slipping the information in. The idea is that there's private knowledge, there could even be reciprocal knowledge, but not necessarily the common knowledge that would threaten the relationship.
So just to be more concrete, if he says, "Do you want to come up for Netflix and show?", and she says no, I mean, she's grown up. She knows what come up for Netflix and show means. So she knows what he intended, and he's a grownup, he knows that she knows, but does he know that she knows that he knows and does she know that he knows that she knows?
Dr. Christof Koch:
Deniability, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, it's not even so much the deniability of the proposition because, again, she's no fool. She can't... It's not [inaudible 00:08:39].
Dr. Christof Koch:
But he could always say, "Oh, I just meant watching a movie. I didn't intend anything else."
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, I think it's the deniability of the common knowledge, that is she could plausibly think, "Well, maybe he thinks I'm naïve. Maybe he thinks that it went over my head." And he could think, "Well, maybe she thinks I'm dense and I don't realize that she knows that I know." And that higher order deniability allows them to preserve the relationship of platonic friends or colleagues, or come up with an even more fraught situation, supervisor and supervisee. Whereas, blurting out, "Do you want to have sex?"-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Violates that fundamentally.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... direct speech generates common knowledge. That common knowledge would contradict the tacit understanding of the platonic friendship or the collegial relationship.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Well, it couldn't go back to the-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So you can't go back, exactly.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... to the relation you had before.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly, and again, because common knowledge is what cements particular kinds of relationships and direct speech generates common knowledge, innuendo, euphemism, politeness leads to private knowledge, but not common knowledge. You can maintain the fiction of a platonic friendship.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
As a therapist, I'm advising people on relationships and I'm often telling them, "Be open, be honest, tell a person how you really feel." But that's not always-
Dr. Christof Koch:
But probably-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Some-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... not everyone.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
No.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... sometimes, yeah. And clearly, so therapy, especially couples therapy, marital counseling, family counseling consists of encouraging people to make something common knowledge that was previously private knowledge in the case that there was something dysfunctional about that equilibrium, about the relationship that they've been locked into. But in the other circumstances, if the equilibrium is working out, you're best off not saying everything that's on your mind. This is what we call, we have names for this, knowing when to keep things out of common knowledge. We call it tact, savoir faire, social skill. That's what social skill often consists of.
It's the ordinary civility that we try to implement in human relationships. I mean, a simple example is just ordinary politeness. "If you could pass the salt, that would be great." Now, literally, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's counterfactual, hypothetical, why are you musing about possible worlds at the dinner table? But what you're doing is you're avoiding treating the other person like a servant by saying, "Give me the salt." And that respect for the relationships that are enforced, how intimate are we? How formal are we? Is it hierarchical? Is it communal? Those are things that are cemented by common knowledge. And when we don't want to upset them, we avoid the common knowledge of threats to that, the basis of those relationships.
Dr. Christof Koch:
To what extent are those consciously represented and done, initiated consciously? So for instance, the example of pass me the salt, that's just something that's a habit. You've cultivated your entire life, you just blurt it out. That's not consciously intended to... So to what extent is common knowledge consciously-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, so in cases like that where it's pro forma, where it's become the indirect request has itself become a convention, very little of it is in consciousness. It's just what you do. In novel situations where you don't know where you stand with a person, you're thrust into a unique unprecedented situation, then I think it can be conscious like, "Oh, how do I put it? How do I state this? I have to criticize them, but I don't want to seem to be superior." In those cases, I think it can be conscious. "How will they react to this?" But in many cases, it's simply the conscious correlate of common knowledge is not I think that she thinks that I think that she thinks.
I think we can do that up to a certain number of levels of embedding. More commonly, it's a sense that some things are out there, they're public, they're self-evident, they're conspicuous, they're salient. You can't take it back because it's out there. And we refer to that feeling using idioms for a visible event or object like the elephant in the room or it was in your face or it's out there. So I think that's more commonly the subjective feeling.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So you point out a remarkable consequence of this that I was unaware of. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about Robert Aumann's Agreement Theorem and the-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... remarkable conclusion.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I just heard from him this morning in an email with a new version of his proof. So this is a famous theorem published 50 years ago, exactly, known as the Agree to Disagree Theorem. A short version is rational people cannot agree to disagree. More technically, rational agents with the same priors, that is understanding of the world, who make their posteriors common knowledge, that is each one knows the other's assessment of the strength of the evidence for some proposition, those posteriors must be the same. So just to back up a bit, priors from a base theorem refers to-
Dr. Christof Koch:
These are the rules.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... background understanding of the world. Posteriors means your degree of belief in some proposition having looked at the evidence. Was there a second shooter in the JFK assassination? Did the SARS-CoV-2 virus escape from a lab in Wuhan?
So if you assign a probability to that, I think 40% sure that it was a lab leak that led to COVID. So if you have two rational agents and they both start off with the same understanding of the world, each one examines the evidence. They don't share the evidence, they just share their-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Conclusions.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... their conclusions, if the conclusions are common knowledge, that is not only do they share them, but each one knows what the other one knows-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Yeah, because they may also have private knowledge, asymmetric. There may be asymmetric knowledge, like some agent knows something.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So the evidence is private, that each one looks at is private. Then, they come to a conclusion, which they state with a degree of probability, each tells the other. If publicly, then they must converge. They cannot be different. That's the theorem.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So incidentally, I only discovered recently Aumann's, the professor at Hebrew University, is actually cousin of Oliver Sacks.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes, that's right.
Dr. Christof Koch:
And two remarkable facts about Aumann's Theorem. One, maybe you can talk a little bit about how it applies to a game, the game that most of us play, which is financial market, stock market. We all have invested our money for our retirement, and that depends on this little theorem.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
It's a way in which, I mean, at first it seems preposterous, that is, well, for one thing, just agreeing to disagree seems like a virtue. It seems like the ultimate in civility, and here we're just-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Which is what we encourage students to do-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... we did say to you-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... right? Let's disagree-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... "You got to know how to agree to disagree." Yes, and he's saying this is irrational under the, of course, like all mathematical theorems, it's true to the extent that the idealizations of the theorem are true.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But on the financial market, it is true to a certain extent.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
On the financial market, it is true. And it corresponds to the advice from just about every honest financial expert. Don't try to time the market, don't try to outsmart the market, don't speculate, buy a boring basket of securities, an index fund like the S&P 500, and be content to partake of the increase in productivity of the economy as a whole. Don't think that you've got... Don't act on a stock tip. The relevance of the theorem is that unless you are engaged in insider trading, that is you have private knowledge, if you're reading the papers, if you're following the stock market, all of that is common knowledge. The prices are common knowledge. And so priced into the value of a security is all of the common knowledge among the people who have researched it, who do know about it. If it is likely to go up, if there's reason to believe that, well-
Dr. Christof Koch:
It's already factored into the prices.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... if you know it, probably everyone else knows it and knows that everyone else does it. The price has risen to already incorporate that anticipation. So you can't count on making a profit by buying at the current price if the price is common knowledge.
And if the prices, according to Aumann's Theorem, for rational agents, the posteriors have to be the same, which means that your evaluation of the present value of the stock should be the same as everyone else's. That is what the share is currently selling for. So it's irrational to buy it on the expectation that it will rise. If there's reason to believe it will rise, the price will already reflect that and you can't make a profit.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Okay, so let's switch now from financial market, and you'll see how this is relevant to Perception Box, to our conscious experience of reality. So I have a perception of reality. I think we're sitting inside a studio, you have something very similar. But, of course, as 200 years of research and everyday knowledge has revealed, common sense has revealed, people radically disagree. So the nicest, the simplest one that I know you also mentioned is hashtag #TheDress, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So actually half of humanity sees this dress white and yellow and the other half sees it as blue and black, and it's not something they infer. They just look at it and it's a spontaneous perception occurring within 150 milliseconds and they can't change it. So it's unlike the bistable old woman, young woman. It's stable. So that tells us, and in this case, we think we know it has to do with your prior assumption or background, about background-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
The light.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... darkness.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Whether it's blue light or indoor or outdoor light and their brain making an assumption.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So since Aumann's Theorem says we should all come to the same posterior, and obviously we don't, does it mean we are all profoundly irrational in this sense in our perception of reality, social or more physical?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
We're obsessed with the cases where there's divergent belief, but there's a massive amount of convergent belief that we never comment on because it works so well that it's below the level of consciousness. So the dress was a highly exotic stimulus display. And even though we've worked in perception for decades, I was taken aback by the dress because it's very rare that you get something where there's such a sharp divergence.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Bistable.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And it's not bistable. I can't get there. I've studied it, I've written an article about it. I can't get it to flip. That's very unusual.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
You can if you play with the background. I can make you flip it if I put a certain background that changes your-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, that changes the image.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... yeah.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
The vast majority of the time, if I ask Heather, "What color is that sweatshirt?"
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That horrific yellow.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
That horrific yellow, even if it's not horrific, but putting aside the horrific-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I know. I just-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... just the yellow, we agree. And that's how come you can order something on the internet and specify the color and you get the color that you want.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So clearly people have, where it matters a lot to people, they have a lot of differences in experiencing the world.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I mean, they do and they're fascinating, but there's also amazing commonalities. I mean, captured in the story of the Tower of Babel where people able to coordinate by the common knowledge of a single language built a tower that threatened God in the Heavens Himself. And if you look around, every aspect of our life is the result of massive coordination. So the TV cameras, the lights, a hundred thousand years ago none of that existed. It wasn't that some single genius invented them all.
Clearly, there was massive coordination, both of knowledge of physics and electronics and materials and people delivering things so the components get together at the same place, systems of laws and commerce and money, massive amounts of coordination, all of which depend on common knowledge, language being an important way of generating common knowledge that gives us the world that we're living in. Now, there are some differences, especially when it comes to normative questions of right and wrong and ought, but that level of disagreement is overlaid on a massive amount of common knowledge that has allowed us to transform the world by working together.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But that difference can lead to profound consequences in the way people experience the world.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
So you're saying some people are colorblind, some people see the world through, say, depression-colored glasses and they have that kind of schema that they see everything through that. So there's a valance to the way we perceive the world, but there's also these commonalities. The idea is what happens when we perceive. Is our personal schemas or a way that we perceive the world differently, can we separate that out from common knowledge or is there a schism within common knowledge?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
There can be lots of schisms, but what makes humans humans, what makes it possible for there to be technology and science and society and even the coordination that you have in ancient agricultural civilizations, unusual among species, among mammals, but made possible by the capability of our species to coordinate on a range of scales from couples to corporations, all of which is enabled by common knowledge.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I just want to say about decision-making in terms of common knowledge and the bystander effect, and how-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
[inaudible 00:22:35].
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... how does common knowledge affect decision-making and things like the bystander effect?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, so I did publish a paper on experiments on the bystander effect. This is a classic in social psychology phenomenon inspired by a famous event of the 1960s, which turned out-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Was it Kitty-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... to be bogus, Kitty Genovese.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Kitty Genovese, yes.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So the headline was, "32 People Witness Murder, No One Calls the Police." A woman named Kitty Genovese returned home from work one night and was brutally attacked outside the apartment.
Dr. Christof Koch:
This was in New York, I believe.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
In Queens, that's right. And that was a symbol of alienation and anemy and apathy. Turns out the report was bogus. Actually, some people did call the police. Some people didn't because they just though it was a fight between two drunks. A woman did come out and comfort the poor victim. Anyway, there is a phenomenon, though, that the more people who witness an event where something needs to be done, the less likely that anyone will do it. That's the bystander effect, and it has been shown in social psychology experiments.
Dr. Christof Koch:
You mean coming to aid of-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Coming to aid. So if there's-
Dr. Christof Koch:
A connection.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... a bunch of people filling out a questionnaire in a lab and there's a crash and a scream and a plaintive cry, "Help, the cabinet fell on my foot, I can't get out." If there are 10 people filling out the questionnaire, it's likely that no one will help than if there's one person or even two people. So that's the bystander effect.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
You assume other people are going to-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... take the responsibility.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Crucially, you do that only if you know that everyone knows, that is if there's common knowledge. What we showed, we didn't actually stage a real emergency, but we had people imagine themselves in a situation where someone had to do something. If you didn't know that other people knew, even if other people witnessed it, then you're more likely to spring into action. So as an example of what in game theory is called the volunteer's dilemma, where the optimal outcome is if someone else steps in, the worst outcome is if no one steps. In between is if you have to step in. And there's a medieval story that captures it called Who Will Bell the Cat, where the mice are, of course, in danger of getting eaten by the cat in the house. And one of them figures out, "Well, if only we hung a bell around the neck of the cat while it was asleep, then when the cat approached-
Dr. Christof Koch:
[inaudible 00:25:04].
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... "it would warn us and we'd be safe." And the question is, who will bell the cat?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Right.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
The mouse who volunteers the cat is incurring some risk of waking the cat and being eaten, even though it's in the interests of all the mice if at least one mouse does it. So it's equivalent to a situation of out-guessing the standoff that, say, in soccer, in a penalty kick, the kicker has to shoot left or right. The goalie has to defend left or right. Each one wants to do the opposite of what the first one does. The optimal solution is to act randomly because any tell or predictability will be exploited by the other.
And, indeed, in a volunteer's dilemma in who's going to refill the communal coffee pot, who's going to go out and investigate where the screams were coming from, in game theory, the optimal response is to kind of mentally roll the dice and act with a certain probability, which depends on how many other bystanders there are. The more bystanders, the lower the odds at which you should act. But it crucially depends on the degree of knowledge.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Do people actually do that? Do they follow that law that they-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And then, that's when we should-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... the probability with which they-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... they act-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... come to help?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... pretty close to optimal-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Optimal-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... rational agents. And the reason it depends on knowledge is if everyone knows, but let's say you don't know that they know, then you're less likely to shirk because if each person thinks he's the only one who knows, he'll have to step into it. If he knows that other people know, then he can afford to shirk.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
But then, at that point, the more people there are, the lower the probability that you as an individual-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
If there's common knowledge.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... if there's common knowledge.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Of anyone to know.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
But how does anybody ever decide who's going to respond? I mean, then you could get an actual real-life-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, you could-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... kind of Kitty Genovese situation.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... and we do. People walk by a homeless person who then the next morning has frozen to death, each one hoping that others will act first. So there are real, even though the original report ironically was bogus, I mean, it does refer to an actual social situation.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Right.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So to get back to your earlier point that we live in a world built on large-scale consensus and shared perception of reality, including social reality, it is true when we go back to the well-explored financial market that people rampantly, consistently, everyone speculates. Is everyone acting irrationally?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, so John Maynard Keynes wrote about this in the 1920s in which he analogized speculative investing to a beauty contest, but not a beauty contest where everyone tries to pick the prettiest face. A contest where the winner is the one who picks the face that the most other people pick, knowing that the other people are picking a face with the same goal. And so it's you buy a stock not in speculation, not because the company is going to churn out widgets and you'll share in the profit.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But because other people, you think other people will buy this.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly, and-
Dr. Christof Koch:
No, wait, but the price should have factored that in, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, with the-
Dr. Christof Koch:
If it's an optimal market.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... yes, but with speculation, there is the expectation that other people have an expectation, that other people have an expectation that it will rise, which makes it rise up to a point at which the market runs out of, as they call it, greater fools who are going to pay even more for it than you pay for it. That can't happen indefinitely, and that's when you get a crash. You can also get a converse loop of common expectation. It's not common knowledge because there's nothing objective to know, but it's a common belief in other people's belief. The opposite is a bank run where people withdraw money from the bank because either they think the bank is insolvent, but they don't even have to think that. They can just think that other people think the bank is insolvent or think that other people think that other people think.
Dr. Christof Koch:
That's why we ran out of toilet paper early on in COVID-19.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly, that there was-
Dr. Christof Koch:
And remember when there's suddenly no more toilet paper in... you heard it on The Perception Box Podcast. [inaudible 00:29:21].
Dr. Steven Pinker:
But the crucial thing is that as with bank runs, as with sometimes stock bubbles such as meme stocks where one influencer has a post saying, "This is an interesting stock for us all to buy," even if the fundamentals are crummy, like the GameStop video chain stores, brick-and-mortar video game stores that were kind of doomed in terms of the fundamentals, but one influencer said, "Hey, let's start buying it." And people bought it because they knew other people were buying it because they knew other people were buying it.
Conversely, if a rumor gets out that a bank is unsound, that common knowledge, or I should say that public conspicuous signal can generate common expectation. So that's why we care so much about what's public, what's private, why certain nationally televised events like a presidential debate, like the-
Dr. Christof Koch:
The Super Bowl.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... Super Bowl, like Johnny Carson can move the whole country.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So as a nerd, I can't help but asking, is there a particular threshold when you say everyone knew? Of course, not everyone knew because not 330 million American knew. So is there a threshold when 0.25%, oh, I mean, 25.5% has to know and then it's very unstable and then suddenly it flips?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Because there seem to be these tipping points where this is stable, this is stable, and you can flip between the two.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I don't think enough people have researched it with enough data to be able to establish the tipping point. There is not an answer, and the parameters would be the reach of the medium percentage of people viewing other things. It's a difficult problem, but I think a fascinating one.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I think so why it's so important to have freedom of speech also is because people are thinking things, but you want to know what people are thinking.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
You put your finger on it. That is exactly why freedom of speech is so crucial, namely can mark a transition from private knowledge to public knowledge, allowing people to act collectively in their own interests. I quote a line from the movie Gandhi in which the eponymous character tells a British colonial officer, "In the end you will leave because a hundred thousand Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians if the Indians refuse to cooperate." And what common knowledge does is it allows the 350 million Indians to refuse to cooperate, that is to coordinate their resistance.
Dr. Christof Koch:
I lived through one such experience when the wall came down in East Berlin and abruptly, abruptly, literally everyone abandoned the regime. They just walked over that night over from East Berlin to West Berlin. It was clear to everyone this means curtains for the communist government.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
You know, it's interesting, and I think historians have traced what was the first domino? And I think there was a public pronouncement by a local official that he was not going to shoot the people who scaled the wall, right?
Dr. Christof Koch:
Yes. And then, he said, "We've now granted exit visas." This is his press speaker, exit visa. And then, the press asked him, "When, for how long?" And then, he looked down and says, "Well, I'm not sure, but it's tonight." And that was the night, October 8th, when everyone walled over and it was all over.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
That's a great example. Likewise, the overthrow of Ceausescu in Romania.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh yeah, Romania.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
How has science revealed common knowledge that wasn't truly shared by everybody? So has there been scientific breakthroughs that have changed people's common knowledge about-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh, of these.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... yeah.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And tellingly, the common knowledge that challenges can often be common knowledge of norms, including moral norms. And I think it's precisely because a scientific discovery that threatens common knowledge is often repressed, punished. Why you get cancellations, deplatformings, social media shaming mobs, and outright repression like killing or imprisoning the radical scientist. My favorite example, I guess, is Darwin's theory of evolution, which was by challenging the commonly held belief in Divine creation with a moral purpose by saying we just evolved from lowly apes by natural physicalistic processes was though to threaten that moral order. There's a famous it turns out apocryphal quotation from one version, it's the wife of a vicar in Victorian England who when told about Darwin's theory exclaimed, "Descended from apes. My dear, let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us hope it not become widely known."
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Right.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So she could have said commonly known. And the connection to common knowledge is that moral norms are matters of common knowledge. You don't do something. Why? Because it just isn't done. Everyone knows that everyone knows you just don't do it. And that can be threatened if someone does it and gets away with it. Or if a commonly held belief such as we are moral because God created us and we have immortal souls and all of that, if it's threatened, if people stop believing it, then the fear is that they will no longer hold onto the commonly held moral norms that go along with it, hence the recurring phenomenon of repression of scientific discoveries.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
We end every show with a Perception Box question, so it opens up your own Perception Box. And either Christof or I ask the question this week, and I'm going to be asking the question to both of you. Are you ever concerned about how your work might be perceived or translated or used in the future by others?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I am concerned. Not to the point of saying things that are false or not saying things that I think properly explained would do more good than harm, especially since almost always it's better to know the truth than to be diluted by falsehood. I don't think men and women are indistinguishable in every respect. I'm also very clear to say that that doesn't mean that discrimination or harassment are okay. They're not okay for some pretty obvious reasons that we ought to reinforce. Likewise, I think there are innate differences in intelligence and personality. So, therefore, in a perfectly fair and equal society, there'll be unequal outcomes. Some people will accomplish more, earn more than others. Some people will get in trouble with the law and others don't.
That doesn't mean that we should screw over the poor or be unconcerned with the people who are less than. Again, a matter of fairness and compassion that we might want to have social protections, but we shouldn't confuse where those differences come from. Some of them might come from discrimination, racism, prejudice. Some of them might come from differences in ability. Nonetheless, even if they come from differences in ability, we ought not to be callous about the fate of anyone in society.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Both can exist at the same time. I kind of see it as a top-down, bottom-up sort of problem. It's like sometimes you have the truth, the fundamental truth, the data, what it's showing, and it scales up and people might not like what they think that might mean at the moral level or a societal level, but it doesn't have to translate to that. You can have a fundamental truth and still create certain societal norms. But sometimes people take what they want to be morally true and impose that on the data. Like-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
The next-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... "Then, therefore, this data has to say this in order for my moral value to be-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
[inaudible 00:37:24].
Dr. Christof Koch:
Or they deny that the data is objective. They say it's all about power play. There isn't any objective reality out there.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, and that's true. So something that's called the moralistic fallacy, that is that ought implies it is. This is the way it would be nice if the world were, therefore the world is that way. I mean, it's a fallacy, but yes, we're subject to it. I think in general, this is a topic I took up in a previous book, Rationality, of why, and this actually goes back to our earlier discussion that Christof raised of why there is so much disagreement over what would seem to be fundamental facts and a lack of common knowledge. What I suggest is that it's a feature of human psychology that when it comes to questions that are outside our immediate experience, what color is that shirt? Is there coffee on the table? There's a lot of agreement unless someone is schizophrenic.
But when it comes to questions like where did our species originate? Why are there economic booms and busts? Who's responsible for a war? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do people get sick? For most of our history, there was no way to answer them. Science is very recent. Data at large scales are recent. Objective journalism is recent. Objective history is recent. All basically products of the enlightenment and the scientific revolution and unevenly known across the species at that. When we evolved, the only thing you could really be sure of was your immediate experience. For these big cosmic questions, no one knew, you couldn't find out, and so you may as well believe the most uplifting myth, the one that unites your tribe, the one that gives a good moral message to children.
And the very notion that there is an objective truth about big questions like what's the cause of misfortune is quite alien to our minds. I mean, I think we ought to overcome it. We ought to teach it. We should advance the ideal that one should pursue objective truth about big questions, but it's an uphill battle. Most people are content thinking that the belief that we ought to hold is the one that's most morally uplifting. I think the gut feeling of most people is we should believe, I'm going to believe what-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Feels good.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... what feels best, what I think is most morally appropriate.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Including what's scary, and I discovered this personally during COVID, amongst scientists themselves, among academic scientists that sort of have truth written on their banner, where just asking that question when you showed you were massively biased.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, no, that's right. And something called the scientific method, not that there's any one thing called the scientific, but just the norms, the mores of science are designed to push back against that, to marginalize it. As Richard Feynman said, "The most important thing in science is not to fool yourself because you're the easiest to fool."
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Especially in this day and age, I'll just say of where there's a lot of anti-science and disbelief in science is that it's imperfect, but at least it's a method that we're trying to overcome our own subjective cognitive biases.
Dr. Christof Koch:
The best method humanity has-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... discovered to-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
And-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... understand the-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... right. And that's why it's always-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... the environment.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... changing. It wasn't like, "Oh, well, you said this one time and now you changed your mind." No, it was like the evidence showed that it was... I had to change my theory. I had to change my perception, my perspective because the data said otherwise.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Right. There's a famous quotation attributed to John Maynard King's when he was, according to the story, he was challenged for changing his position. And he said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I love that.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
He didn't say it, but I think Paul-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Oh.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... Paul Samuelson probably said it first, but it's a very good idea.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes, I like that. So given all of this knowledge that we have, even our understanding of common knowledge, I though we should test our own common knowledge with a little game. So I have a list of acronyms that are in both work-related and pop culture. You have 30 seconds on the clock. I'm going to say what they are. You can both guess at what they are. We'll see how many you can get. Ready?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Okay.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
OKR.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Optokinetic mistake mode. Reflex, optokinetic reflex.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Very good.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
ICYMI.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
In case you missed my-
Dr. Christof Koch:
My earlier-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
It.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... it. Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
In case you missed it.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
In case you missed. Very good.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Okay. KPI.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Key knowledge... key knowledge-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
KPI. Key performance indicator.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Indicators.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Indicators.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh yeah [inaudible 00:42:00].
Dr. Christof Koch:
So am I introducing who's speaking?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Are you like a head of an organization? Okay.
Dr. Christof Koch:
I used to be.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
TL;DR.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, right.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Too long, did not read.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Oh, that's good.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Yeah.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That obviously happens to you a lot or no? Okay. RFP. I know this one.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Request for proposals.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Request for proposals.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
We live in [inaudible 00:42:17]-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
[inaudible 00:42:17].
Dr. Heather Berlin:
We live in an academic world.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
SMH.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Single... It's in the dating market, right?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Shaking my head.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh. That's an abbreviation?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I guess in the text lingo.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes, very good.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
SOW.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Statement of work.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Very good. You're not looking, right? You're not cheating? Okay.
Dr. Christof Koch:
It's grants.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Okay.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, okay.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Statement of work. You need an SOW for an aid grant.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Aah. Okay, so this one I knew. G-O-A-T.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Greatest of all time.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. Very good.
Dr. Christof Koch:
GOAT. Yeah.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. P&L.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Physical review. PRL? Physical review-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
P&L.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, P&L.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Purchasing-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Profit and loss.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. Very good. NSFW.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Not safe for work.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Very good. I feel like I'm grading. I want to have a little... Who's going to win? EOD.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
End of day.
Dr. Christof Koch:
End of day.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
COB.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Close of business.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Close of business.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
LMK.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Let me know.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
QA.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Question and answer.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Q&A.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Quality assurance. Finally, POV.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Point of view.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Point of view.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. And we all have our own point of view.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
You guys... Good job. Never thought I'd be doing that one day. Asking Steve Pinker and Christof Koch, what does-
Dr. Christof Koch:
I've never done this.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... shaking my head mean? So I'd like to thank Steve Pinker for being our guest today. Thank you very much.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Christof.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Thank you for coming on. It was very enjoyable.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
If you'd like to learn more about your own Perception Box, spend some time this week answering the same Perception Box questions that we asked your guests and check out our other questions on the website, unlikelycollaborators.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science of Perception Box created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I'm Dr. Heather Berlin.
Dr. Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch. Thank you very much for watching.
The Hidden Rules Holding Society Together: Steven Pinker on Common Knowledge
Why do we speak in euphemisms instead of saying exactly what we mean? Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch sat down with cognitive scientist and bestselling author Steven Pinker to explore common knowledge — not what everyone knows, but what everyone knows that everyone knows. Get it?
Common knowledge is an awareness of something that is public or “out there” and it has an enormous impact on our social, political, and economic lives. From unspoken rules of flirtation to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Pinker reveals how the social force of common knowledge shapes everything from our most intimate relationships to global financial markets. His work illuminates central ideas of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world.
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University where he conducts research on language, cognition, and social relations. Pinker is the author of thirteen books, including his latest book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows… and seminal texts like The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, and How the Mind Works. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time and The Atlantic.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend!
Episode Chapters:
00:00 Why Honesty Fails
02:56 Defining Common Knowledge
06:38 Awkwardness and Innuendo
15:24 Markets and Shared Beliefs
28:44 Bubbles and Bank Runs
31:05 Freedom of Speech
31:49 Berlin Wall Tipping
32:46 Science Versus Assumptions
Dr. Heather Berlin:
So why can't people be completely honest?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Complete honesty, which is common knowledge, you know what the other person knows what you're saying and they know that and you know that, that can threaten the nature of a relationship.
Elizabeth Koch:
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Koch. What's a perception box? It's this invisible mental box that each one of us lives inside, built from the material of our beliefs, life experiences, and the meaning we've made out of those experiences. You could think of it as a kind of reality filter that's constantly shaping how we see ourselves, other people, and the world around us. This podcast explores how. Although the walls of this box are always present, they can expand in moments of curiosity, awe, and wonder or contract in response to fear, anxiety, and anger. In each episode, we invite experts to share how to create lasting shifts in our perception. I'd like to introduce our esteemed host, Heather Berlin, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Christof Koch, Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and former president of The Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Welcome to The Science of Perception Box. This week, our guest is Dr. Steven Pinker. We tend to think that communication is about saying what we mean, but much of it is guessing what others know, assume, expect, or intend. Stephen's work shows how much of our social world depends on this and how easily things break down when those interpretations don't align. This episode reminds us that even in ordinary moments, we're not just communicating, we're navigating each other's perception boxes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
So first, we want to open up with our own stories. So Christof, has there ever been an interaction that you've had where you've realized after the fact that you were in the dark about some common knowledge like everybody else knew, but you didn't know?
Dr. Christof Koch:
So as you probably know, I don't own a car and I bike everywhere. And of course, as a biker, you have to be incredibly attuned to the laws and the customs of interaction between cars and bikes. You have to look at the nods. Is the car giving me a nod so I can pass in front of where I can enter the lane? So far, this has all worked out. But recently, a couple of months ago, I had this incident where there was another biker who came into my lane and I though he had given me the signal to proceed by nodding, and I accepted that by nodding back, but he didn't get that. So I knew that he knew that I knew, but he didn't close that loop. And so we ran into each other as a consequence of not fully completing the acknowledgement of the acknowledgement.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That's a great example. Well, welcome to the podcast, Steven.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Thank you.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
How do you define common knowledge?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Common knowledge in the technical sense from philosophy and game theory refers to the case where I know something, you know something, I know that you know it, you know that I know it, I know that you know that I know that you know it ad infinitum. So common knowledge in the technical sense is interesting because it's necessary for coordination, for people to be on the same page, to do things that may be arbitrary, but are advantageous that everyone does it the same way. So driving on the right versus the left, stopping at a red light, these are all paradigm cases, excellent examples. It actually doesn't matter whether you drive on the right or the left. It does matter that everyone drives on the same side and that everyone knows that everyone else is driving on the same side. And so in general, traffic works. In England, everyone does it on the left and here everyone does it on the right, works out fine.
It's often in cases where there isn't common knowledge where you get failure to coordinate, as in Christof's example of a failure to establish common knowledge between a cyclist and a motorist. That often happens when there isn't some public signal that each one sees knowing that the other one sees it, such as a traffic light, such as a zebra crossing, such as a stop sign. The reason that they are there is to establish these conventions that work by common knowledge. If I see the stop sign, I know that everyone else sees the stop sign, and we all know that that's the place to stop.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But looking at-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... people can replace that-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... indeed.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... partially, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Partially, yes. The relevance to social relations is that I suggest that our relationships are situations of coordination, coordination games in the sense of game theory, that just as driving on the right works because everyone knows that everyone knows that you drive on the right, you and I are friends not because we signed a contract that stipulates our responsibilities, because I know that we're friends and you know that we're friends and I know that you know and you know that I know and so on.
Or alternatively, relations of deference. The person who is kind of higher on the status hierarchy stands his ground because he knows that the beta will give way, the beta gives way because he knows the alpha will stand his ground, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Or transactional relationships or romantic relationships. I suggest that each one of those is a coordination game and that they are ratified or upended by certain common knowledge generators, signals that each one perceives knowing that the other one is perceiving it, too. Language being the most efficient way of generating common knowledge.
So in the case of Christof mentioned that eye contact can often generate common knowledge, that is eye contact we know, even from the ethological literature in animal communication, is a very potent signal because you're looking at the part of the person that's looking at the part of you that's looking at the part of them that's looking at the part of you. And so eye contact can generate common knowledge. It often resolves these ambiguities in, say, a car stopping and a pedestrian crossing. Establishing eye contact would be a way of generating that common knowledge.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Or two people or two cars merging on a freeway, the other guy just sort of briefly nods-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... and lets you go ahead..
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And in fact, I was tickled to see a sign in San Francisco Airport parking lot, which I actually photographed and included in the book, and it has a cartoon of a pedestrian and a driver and a dashed line joining their eyes and it says, "Make eye contact before crossing." There it is. Yes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That's great. But in a way, I mean, this common knowledge is a way to have what you're saying, why it's important, it's for coordination among groups of people, but what happens when people get it wrong? I'm thinking about when you all pull up to a four-way stop and nobody knows where to go and you're both waving to go. But, I mean, that's a smaller example, but are there disagreements? I think you know something that you might think I know something different or we don't agree on what is common knowledge.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, you bet.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And so in the traffic case, it could lead to a collision, that's the ultimate miscoordination. In social interactions, it can lead to the situation that we call awkwardness, or if it is deliberate and protracted, outrage. For example, if two people have a platonic relationship and one would say to the other, "Hey, do you want to have sex?", that could be really awkward, which is why we have the phenomena of euphemism and innuendo and [inaudible 00:07:42]-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Do you want to come up and watch my-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... catching-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... my Netflix?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... or Netflix, yes. And I suggest that all of the rituals of genteel hypocrisy, politeness consist in avoiding common knowledge that might threaten a relationship while still slipping the information in. The idea is that there's private knowledge, there could even be reciprocal knowledge, but not necessarily the common knowledge that would threaten the relationship.
So just to be more concrete, if he says, "Do you want to come up for Netflix and show?", and she says no, I mean, she's grown up. She knows what come up for Netflix and show means. So she knows what he intended, and he's a grownup, he knows that she knows, but does he know that she knows that he knows and does she know that he knows that she knows?
Dr. Christof Koch:
Deniability, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, it's not even so much the deniability of the proposition because, again, she's no fool. She can't... It's not [inaudible 00:08:39].
Dr. Christof Koch:
But he could always say, "Oh, I just meant watching a movie. I didn't intend anything else."
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, I think it's the deniability of the common knowledge, that is she could plausibly think, "Well, maybe he thinks I'm naïve. Maybe he thinks that it went over my head." And he could think, "Well, maybe she thinks I'm dense and I don't realize that she knows that I know." And that higher order deniability allows them to preserve the relationship of platonic friends or colleagues, or come up with an even more fraught situation, supervisor and supervisee. Whereas, blurting out, "Do you want to have sex?"-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Violates that fundamentally.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... direct speech generates common knowledge. That common knowledge would contradict the tacit understanding of the platonic friendship or the collegial relationship.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Well, it couldn't go back to the-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So you can't go back, exactly.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... to the relation you had before.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly, and again, because common knowledge is what cements particular kinds of relationships and direct speech generates common knowledge, innuendo, euphemism, politeness leads to private knowledge, but not common knowledge. You can maintain the fiction of a platonic friendship.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
As a therapist, I'm advising people on relationships and I'm often telling them, "Be open, be honest, tell a person how you really feel." But that's not always-
Dr. Christof Koch:
But probably-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Some-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... not everyone.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
No.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... sometimes, yeah. And clearly, so therapy, especially couples therapy, marital counseling, family counseling consists of encouraging people to make something common knowledge that was previously private knowledge in the case that there was something dysfunctional about that equilibrium, about the relationship that they've been locked into. But in the other circumstances, if the equilibrium is working out, you're best off not saying everything that's on your mind. This is what we call, we have names for this, knowing when to keep things out of common knowledge. We call it tact, savoir faire, social skill. That's what social skill often consists of.
It's the ordinary civility that we try to implement in human relationships. I mean, a simple example is just ordinary politeness. "If you could pass the salt, that would be great." Now, literally, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's counterfactual, hypothetical, why are you musing about possible worlds at the dinner table? But what you're doing is you're avoiding treating the other person like a servant by saying, "Give me the salt." And that respect for the relationships that are enforced, how intimate are we? How formal are we? Is it hierarchical? Is it communal? Those are things that are cemented by common knowledge. And when we don't want to upset them, we avoid the common knowledge of threats to that, the basis of those relationships.
Dr. Christof Koch:
To what extent are those consciously represented and done, initiated consciously? So for instance, the example of pass me the salt, that's just something that's a habit. You've cultivated your entire life, you just blurt it out. That's not consciously intended to... So to what extent is common knowledge consciously-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, so in cases like that where it's pro forma, where it's become the indirect request has itself become a convention, very little of it is in consciousness. It's just what you do. In novel situations where you don't know where you stand with a person, you're thrust into a unique unprecedented situation, then I think it can be conscious like, "Oh, how do I put it? How do I state this? I have to criticize them, but I don't want to seem to be superior." In those cases, I think it can be conscious. "How will they react to this?" But in many cases, it's simply the conscious correlate of common knowledge is not I think that she thinks that I think that she thinks.
I think we can do that up to a certain number of levels of embedding. More commonly, it's a sense that some things are out there, they're public, they're self-evident, they're conspicuous, they're salient. You can't take it back because it's out there. And we refer to that feeling using idioms for a visible event or object like the elephant in the room or it was in your face or it's out there. So I think that's more commonly the subjective feeling.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So you point out a remarkable consequence of this that I was unaware of. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about Robert Aumann's Agreement Theorem and the-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... remarkable conclusion.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I just heard from him this morning in an email with a new version of his proof. So this is a famous theorem published 50 years ago, exactly, known as the Agree to Disagree Theorem. A short version is rational people cannot agree to disagree. More technically, rational agents with the same priors, that is understanding of the world, who make their posteriors common knowledge, that is each one knows the other's assessment of the strength of the evidence for some proposition, those posteriors must be the same. So just to back up a bit, priors from a base theorem refers to-
Dr. Christof Koch:
These are the rules.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... background understanding of the world. Posteriors means your degree of belief in some proposition having looked at the evidence. Was there a second shooter in the JFK assassination? Did the SARS-CoV-2 virus escape from a lab in Wuhan?
So if you assign a probability to that, I think 40% sure that it was a lab leak that led to COVID. So if you have two rational agents and they both start off with the same understanding of the world, each one examines the evidence. They don't share the evidence, they just share their-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Conclusions.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... their conclusions, if the conclusions are common knowledge, that is not only do they share them, but each one knows what the other one knows-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Yeah, because they may also have private knowledge, asymmetric. There may be asymmetric knowledge, like some agent knows something.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So the evidence is private, that each one looks at is private. Then, they come to a conclusion, which they state with a degree of probability, each tells the other. If publicly, then they must converge. They cannot be different. That's the theorem.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So incidentally, I only discovered recently Aumann's, the professor at Hebrew University, is actually cousin of Oliver Sacks.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes, that's right.
Dr. Christof Koch:
And two remarkable facts about Aumann's Theorem. One, maybe you can talk a little bit about how it applies to a game, the game that most of us play, which is financial market, stock market. We all have invested our money for our retirement, and that depends on this little theorem.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
It's a way in which, I mean, at first it seems preposterous, that is, well, for one thing, just agreeing to disagree seems like a virtue. It seems like the ultimate in civility, and here we're just-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Which is what we encourage students to do-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... we did say to you-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... right? Let's disagree-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... "You got to know how to agree to disagree." Yes, and he's saying this is irrational under the, of course, like all mathematical theorems, it's true to the extent that the idealizations of the theorem are true.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But on the financial market, it is true to a certain extent.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
On the financial market, it is true. And it corresponds to the advice from just about every honest financial expert. Don't try to time the market, don't try to outsmart the market, don't speculate, buy a boring basket of securities, an index fund like the S&P 500, and be content to partake of the increase in productivity of the economy as a whole. Don't think that you've got... Don't act on a stock tip. The relevance of the theorem is that unless you are engaged in insider trading, that is you have private knowledge, if you're reading the papers, if you're following the stock market, all of that is common knowledge. The prices are common knowledge. And so priced into the value of a security is all of the common knowledge among the people who have researched it, who do know about it. If it is likely to go up, if there's reason to believe that, well-
Dr. Christof Koch:
It's already factored into the prices.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... if you know it, probably everyone else knows it and knows that everyone else does it. The price has risen to already incorporate that anticipation. So you can't count on making a profit by buying at the current price if the price is common knowledge.
And if the prices, according to Aumann's Theorem, for rational agents, the posteriors have to be the same, which means that your evaluation of the present value of the stock should be the same as everyone else's. That is what the share is currently selling for. So it's irrational to buy it on the expectation that it will rise. If there's reason to believe it will rise, the price will already reflect that and you can't make a profit.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Okay, so let's switch now from financial market, and you'll see how this is relevant to Perception Box, to our conscious experience of reality. So I have a perception of reality. I think we're sitting inside a studio, you have something very similar. But, of course, as 200 years of research and everyday knowledge has revealed, common sense has revealed, people radically disagree. So the nicest, the simplest one that I know you also mentioned is hashtag #TheDress, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So actually half of humanity sees this dress white and yellow and the other half sees it as blue and black, and it's not something they infer. They just look at it and it's a spontaneous perception occurring within 150 milliseconds and they can't change it. So it's unlike the bistable old woman, young woman. It's stable. So that tells us, and in this case, we think we know it has to do with your prior assumption or background, about background-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
The light.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... darkness.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Whether it's blue light or indoor or outdoor light and their brain making an assumption.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So since Aumann's Theorem says we should all come to the same posterior, and obviously we don't, does it mean we are all profoundly irrational in this sense in our perception of reality, social or more physical?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
We're obsessed with the cases where there's divergent belief, but there's a massive amount of convergent belief that we never comment on because it works so well that it's below the level of consciousness. So the dress was a highly exotic stimulus display. And even though we've worked in perception for decades, I was taken aback by the dress because it's very rare that you get something where there's such a sharp divergence.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Bistable.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And it's not bistable. I can't get there. I've studied it, I've written an article about it. I can't get it to flip. That's very unusual.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
You can if you play with the background. I can make you flip it if I put a certain background that changes your-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, that changes the image.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... yeah.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
The vast majority of the time, if I ask Heather, "What color is that sweatshirt?"
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That horrific yellow.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
That horrific yellow, even if it's not horrific, but putting aside the horrific-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I know. I just-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... just the yellow, we agree. And that's how come you can order something on the internet and specify the color and you get the color that you want.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So clearly people have, where it matters a lot to people, they have a lot of differences in experiencing the world.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I mean, they do and they're fascinating, but there's also amazing commonalities. I mean, captured in the story of the Tower of Babel where people able to coordinate by the common knowledge of a single language built a tower that threatened God in the Heavens Himself. And if you look around, every aspect of our life is the result of massive coordination. So the TV cameras, the lights, a hundred thousand years ago none of that existed. It wasn't that some single genius invented them all.
Clearly, there was massive coordination, both of knowledge of physics and electronics and materials and people delivering things so the components get together at the same place, systems of laws and commerce and money, massive amounts of coordination, all of which depend on common knowledge, language being an important way of generating common knowledge that gives us the world that we're living in. Now, there are some differences, especially when it comes to normative questions of right and wrong and ought, but that level of disagreement is overlaid on a massive amount of common knowledge that has allowed us to transform the world by working together.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But that difference can lead to profound consequences in the way people experience the world.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
So you're saying some people are colorblind, some people see the world through, say, depression-colored glasses and they have that kind of schema that they see everything through that. So there's a valance to the way we perceive the world, but there's also these commonalities. The idea is what happens when we perceive. Is our personal schemas or a way that we perceive the world differently, can we separate that out from common knowledge or is there a schism within common knowledge?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
There can be lots of schisms, but what makes humans humans, what makes it possible for there to be technology and science and society and even the coordination that you have in ancient agricultural civilizations, unusual among species, among mammals, but made possible by the capability of our species to coordinate on a range of scales from couples to corporations, all of which is enabled by common knowledge.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I just want to say about decision-making in terms of common knowledge and the bystander effect, and how-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
[inaudible 00:22:35].
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... how does common knowledge affect decision-making and things like the bystander effect?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, so I did publish a paper on experiments on the bystander effect. This is a classic in social psychology phenomenon inspired by a famous event of the 1960s, which turned out-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Was it Kitty-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... to be bogus, Kitty Genovese.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Kitty Genovese, yes.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So the headline was, "32 People Witness Murder, No One Calls the Police." A woman named Kitty Genovese returned home from work one night and was brutally attacked outside the apartment.
Dr. Christof Koch:
This was in New York, I believe.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
In Queens, that's right. And that was a symbol of alienation and anemy and apathy. Turns out the report was bogus. Actually, some people did call the police. Some people didn't because they just though it was a fight between two drunks. A woman did come out and comfort the poor victim. Anyway, there is a phenomenon, though, that the more people who witness an event where something needs to be done, the less likely that anyone will do it. That's the bystander effect, and it has been shown in social psychology experiments.
Dr. Christof Koch:
You mean coming to aid of-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Coming to aid. So if there's-
Dr. Christof Koch:
A connection.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... a bunch of people filling out a questionnaire in a lab and there's a crash and a scream and a plaintive cry, "Help, the cabinet fell on my foot, I can't get out." If there are 10 people filling out the questionnaire, it's likely that no one will help than if there's one person or even two people. So that's the bystander effect.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
You assume other people are going to-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... take the responsibility.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Crucially, you do that only if you know that everyone knows, that is if there's common knowledge. What we showed, we didn't actually stage a real emergency, but we had people imagine themselves in a situation where someone had to do something. If you didn't know that other people knew, even if other people witnessed it, then you're more likely to spring into action. So as an example of what in game theory is called the volunteer's dilemma, where the optimal outcome is if someone else steps in, the worst outcome is if no one steps. In between is if you have to step in. And there's a medieval story that captures it called Who Will Bell the Cat, where the mice are, of course, in danger of getting eaten by the cat in the house. And one of them figures out, "Well, if only we hung a bell around the neck of the cat while it was asleep, then when the cat approached-
Dr. Christof Koch:
[inaudible 00:25:04].
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... "it would warn us and we'd be safe." And the question is, who will bell the cat?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Right.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
The mouse who volunteers the cat is incurring some risk of waking the cat and being eaten, even though it's in the interests of all the mice if at least one mouse does it. So it's equivalent to a situation of out-guessing the standoff that, say, in soccer, in a penalty kick, the kicker has to shoot left or right. The goalie has to defend left or right. Each one wants to do the opposite of what the first one does. The optimal solution is to act randomly because any tell or predictability will be exploited by the other.
And, indeed, in a volunteer's dilemma in who's going to refill the communal coffee pot, who's going to go out and investigate where the screams were coming from, in game theory, the optimal response is to kind of mentally roll the dice and act with a certain probability, which depends on how many other bystanders there are. The more bystanders, the lower the odds at which you should act. But it crucially depends on the degree of knowledge.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Do people actually do that? Do they follow that law that they-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And then, that's when we should-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... the probability with which they-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... they act-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... come to help?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... pretty close to optimal-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Optimal-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... rational agents. And the reason it depends on knowledge is if everyone knows, but let's say you don't know that they know, then you're less likely to shirk because if each person thinks he's the only one who knows, he'll have to step into it. If he knows that other people know, then he can afford to shirk.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
But then, at that point, the more people there are, the lower the probability that you as an individual-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
If there's common knowledge.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... if there's common knowledge.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Of anyone to know.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
But how does anybody ever decide who's going to respond? I mean, then you could get an actual real-life-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, you could-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... kind of Kitty Genovese situation.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... and we do. People walk by a homeless person who then the next morning has frozen to death, each one hoping that others will act first. So there are real, even though the original report ironically was bogus, I mean, it does refer to an actual social situation.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Right.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So to get back to your earlier point that we live in a world built on large-scale consensus and shared perception of reality, including social reality, it is true when we go back to the well-explored financial market that people rampantly, consistently, everyone speculates. Is everyone acting irrationally?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, so John Maynard Keynes wrote about this in the 1920s in which he analogized speculative investing to a beauty contest, but not a beauty contest where everyone tries to pick the prettiest face. A contest where the winner is the one who picks the face that the most other people pick, knowing that the other people are picking a face with the same goal. And so it's you buy a stock not in speculation, not because the company is going to churn out widgets and you'll share in the profit.
Dr. Christof Koch:
But because other people, you think other people will buy this.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly, and-
Dr. Christof Koch:
No, wait, but the price should have factored that in, right?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, with the-
Dr. Christof Koch:
If it's an optimal market.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... yes, but with speculation, there is the expectation that other people have an expectation, that other people have an expectation that it will rise, which makes it rise up to a point at which the market runs out of, as they call it, greater fools who are going to pay even more for it than you pay for it. That can't happen indefinitely, and that's when you get a crash. You can also get a converse loop of common expectation. It's not common knowledge because there's nothing objective to know, but it's a common belief in other people's belief. The opposite is a bank run where people withdraw money from the bank because either they think the bank is insolvent, but they don't even have to think that. They can just think that other people think the bank is insolvent or think that other people think that other people think.
Dr. Christof Koch:
That's why we ran out of toilet paper early on in COVID-19.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Exactly, that there was-
Dr. Christof Koch:
And remember when there's suddenly no more toilet paper in... you heard it on The Perception Box Podcast. [inaudible 00:29:21].
Dr. Steven Pinker:
But the crucial thing is that as with bank runs, as with sometimes stock bubbles such as meme stocks where one influencer has a post saying, "This is an interesting stock for us all to buy," even if the fundamentals are crummy, like the GameStop video chain stores, brick-and-mortar video game stores that were kind of doomed in terms of the fundamentals, but one influencer said, "Hey, let's start buying it." And people bought it because they knew other people were buying it because they knew other people were buying it.
Conversely, if a rumor gets out that a bank is unsound, that common knowledge, or I should say that public conspicuous signal can generate common expectation. So that's why we care so much about what's public, what's private, why certain nationally televised events like a presidential debate, like the-
Dr. Christof Koch:
The Super Bowl.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... Super Bowl, like Johnny Carson can move the whole country.
Dr. Christof Koch:
So as a nerd, I can't help but asking, is there a particular threshold when you say everyone knew? Of course, not everyone knew because not 330 million American knew. So is there a threshold when 0.25%, oh, I mean, 25.5% has to know and then it's very unstable and then suddenly it flips?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Because there seem to be these tipping points where this is stable, this is stable, and you can flip between the two.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I don't think enough people have researched it with enough data to be able to establish the tipping point. There is not an answer, and the parameters would be the reach of the medium percentage of people viewing other things. It's a difficult problem, but I think a fascinating one.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I think so why it's so important to have freedom of speech also is because people are thinking things, but you want to know what people are thinking.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
You put your finger on it. That is exactly why freedom of speech is so crucial, namely can mark a transition from private knowledge to public knowledge, allowing people to act collectively in their own interests. I quote a line from the movie Gandhi in which the eponymous character tells a British colonial officer, "In the end you will leave because a hundred thousand Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians if the Indians refuse to cooperate." And what common knowledge does is it allows the 350 million Indians to refuse to cooperate, that is to coordinate their resistance.
Dr. Christof Koch:
I lived through one such experience when the wall came down in East Berlin and abruptly, abruptly, literally everyone abandoned the regime. They just walked over that night over from East Berlin to West Berlin. It was clear to everyone this means curtains for the communist government.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
You know, it's interesting, and I think historians have traced what was the first domino? And I think there was a public pronouncement by a local official that he was not going to shoot the people who scaled the wall, right?
Dr. Christof Koch:
Yes. And then, he said, "We've now granted exit visas." This is his press speaker, exit visa. And then, the press asked him, "When, for how long?" And then, he looked down and says, "Well, I'm not sure, but it's tonight." And that was the night, October 8th, when everyone walled over and it was all over.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
That's a great example. Likewise, the overthrow of Ceausescu in Romania.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh yeah, Romania.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
How has science revealed common knowledge that wasn't truly shared by everybody? So has there been scientific breakthroughs that have changed people's common knowledge about-
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh, of these.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... yeah.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
And tellingly, the common knowledge that challenges can often be common knowledge of norms, including moral norms. And I think it's precisely because a scientific discovery that threatens common knowledge is often repressed, punished. Why you get cancellations, deplatformings, social media shaming mobs, and outright repression like killing or imprisoning the radical scientist. My favorite example, I guess, is Darwin's theory of evolution, which was by challenging the commonly held belief in Divine creation with a moral purpose by saying we just evolved from lowly apes by natural physicalistic processes was though to threaten that moral order. There's a famous it turns out apocryphal quotation from one version, it's the wife of a vicar in Victorian England who when told about Darwin's theory exclaimed, "Descended from apes. My dear, let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us hope it not become widely known."
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Right.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
So she could have said commonly known. And the connection to common knowledge is that moral norms are matters of common knowledge. You don't do something. Why? Because it just isn't done. Everyone knows that everyone knows you just don't do it. And that can be threatened if someone does it and gets away with it. Or if a commonly held belief such as we are moral because God created us and we have immortal souls and all of that, if it's threatened, if people stop believing it, then the fear is that they will no longer hold onto the commonly held moral norms that go along with it, hence the recurring phenomenon of repression of scientific discoveries.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
We end every show with a Perception Box question, so it opens up your own Perception Box. And either Christof or I ask the question this week, and I'm going to be asking the question to both of you. Are you ever concerned about how your work might be perceived or translated or used in the future by others?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
I am concerned. Not to the point of saying things that are false or not saying things that I think properly explained would do more good than harm, especially since almost always it's better to know the truth than to be diluted by falsehood. I don't think men and women are indistinguishable in every respect. I'm also very clear to say that that doesn't mean that discrimination or harassment are okay. They're not okay for some pretty obvious reasons that we ought to reinforce. Likewise, I think there are innate differences in intelligence and personality. So, therefore, in a perfectly fair and equal society, there'll be unequal outcomes. Some people will accomplish more, earn more than others. Some people will get in trouble with the law and others don't.
That doesn't mean that we should screw over the poor or be unconcerned with the people who are less than. Again, a matter of fairness and compassion that we might want to have social protections, but we shouldn't confuse where those differences come from. Some of them might come from discrimination, racism, prejudice. Some of them might come from differences in ability. Nonetheless, even if they come from differences in ability, we ought not to be callous about the fate of anyone in society.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Both can exist at the same time. I kind of see it as a top-down, bottom-up sort of problem. It's like sometimes you have the truth, the fundamental truth, the data, what it's showing, and it scales up and people might not like what they think that might mean at the moral level or a societal level, but it doesn't have to translate to that. You can have a fundamental truth and still create certain societal norms. But sometimes people take what they want to be morally true and impose that on the data. Like-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
The next-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... "Then, therefore, this data has to say this in order for my moral value to be-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
[inaudible 00:37:24].
Dr. Christof Koch:
Or they deny that the data is objective. They say it's all about power play. There isn't any objective reality out there.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yeah, and that's true. So something that's called the moralistic fallacy, that is that ought implies it is. This is the way it would be nice if the world were, therefore the world is that way. I mean, it's a fallacy, but yes, we're subject to it. I think in general, this is a topic I took up in a previous book, Rationality, of why, and this actually goes back to our earlier discussion that Christof raised of why there is so much disagreement over what would seem to be fundamental facts and a lack of common knowledge. What I suggest is that it's a feature of human psychology that when it comes to questions that are outside our immediate experience, what color is that shirt? Is there coffee on the table? There's a lot of agreement unless someone is schizophrenic.
But when it comes to questions like where did our species originate? Why are there economic booms and busts? Who's responsible for a war? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do people get sick? For most of our history, there was no way to answer them. Science is very recent. Data at large scales are recent. Objective journalism is recent. Objective history is recent. All basically products of the enlightenment and the scientific revolution and unevenly known across the species at that. When we evolved, the only thing you could really be sure of was your immediate experience. For these big cosmic questions, no one knew, you couldn't find out, and so you may as well believe the most uplifting myth, the one that unites your tribe, the one that gives a good moral message to children.
And the very notion that there is an objective truth about big questions like what's the cause of misfortune is quite alien to our minds. I mean, I think we ought to overcome it. We ought to teach it. We should advance the ideal that one should pursue objective truth about big questions, but it's an uphill battle. Most people are content thinking that the belief that we ought to hold is the one that's most morally uplifting. I think the gut feeling of most people is we should believe, I'm going to believe what-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Feels good.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... what feels best, what I think is most morally appropriate.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Including what's scary, and I discovered this personally during COVID, amongst scientists themselves, among academic scientists that sort of have truth written on their banner, where just asking that question when you showed you were massively biased.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Well, no, that's right. And something called the scientific method, not that there's any one thing called the scientific, but just the norms, the mores of science are designed to push back against that, to marginalize it. As Richard Feynman said, "The most important thing in science is not to fool yourself because you're the easiest to fool."
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Especially in this day and age, I'll just say of where there's a lot of anti-science and disbelief in science is that it's imperfect, but at least it's a method that we're trying to overcome our own subjective cognitive biases.
Dr. Christof Koch:
The best method humanity has-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
... discovered to-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
And-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... understand the-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... right. And that's why it's always-
Dr. Christof Koch:
... the environment.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... changing. It wasn't like, "Oh, well, you said this one time and now you changed your mind." No, it was like the evidence showed that it was... I had to change my theory. I had to change my perception, my perspective because the data said otherwise.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Right. There's a famous quotation attributed to John Maynard King's when he was, according to the story, he was challenged for changing his position. And he said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I love that.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
He didn't say it, but I think Paul-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Oh.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... Paul Samuelson probably said it first, but it's a very good idea.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes, I like that. So given all of this knowledge that we have, even our understanding of common knowledge, I though we should test our own common knowledge with a little game. So I have a list of acronyms that are in both work-related and pop culture. You have 30 seconds on the clock. I'm going to say what they are. You can both guess at what they are. We'll see how many you can get. Ready?
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Okay.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
OKR.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Optokinetic mistake mode. Reflex, optokinetic reflex.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Very good.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
ICYMI.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
In case you missed my-
Dr. Christof Koch:
My earlier-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
It.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
... it. Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
In case you missed it.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
In case you missed. Very good.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Okay. KPI.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Key knowledge... key knowledge-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
KPI. Key performance indicator.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Indicators.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Indicators.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh yeah [inaudible 00:42:00].
Dr. Christof Koch:
So am I introducing who's speaking?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Are you like a head of an organization? Okay.
Dr. Christof Koch:
I used to be.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
TL;DR.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, right.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Too long, did not read.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Oh, that's good.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Yeah.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
That obviously happens to you a lot or no? Okay. RFP. I know this one.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Request for proposals.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Request for proposals.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
We live in [inaudible 00:42:17]-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
[inaudible 00:42:17].
Dr. Heather Berlin:
We live in an academic world.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
SMH.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Single... It's in the dating market, right?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Shaking my head.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh. That's an abbreviation?
Dr. Heather Berlin:
I guess in the text lingo.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Yes, very good.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
SOW.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Statement of work.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Very good. You're not looking, right? You're not cheating? Okay.
Dr. Christof Koch:
It's grants.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Okay.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, okay.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Statement of work. You need an SOW for an aid grant.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Aah. Okay, so this one I knew. G-O-A-T.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Greatest of all time.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. Very good.
Dr. Christof Koch:
GOAT. Yeah.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. P&L.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Physical review. PRL? Physical review-
Dr. Heather Berlin:
P&L.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Oh, P&L.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Purchasing-
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Profit and loss.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. Very good. NSFW.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Not safe for work.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Very good. I feel like I'm grading. I want to have a little... Who's going to win? EOD.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
End of day.
Dr. Christof Koch:
End of day.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
COB.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Close of business.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Close of business.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
LMK.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Let me know.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
QA.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Question and answer.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Q&A.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Quality assurance. Finally, POV.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Point of view.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Point of view.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
Yes. And we all have our own point of view.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
You guys... Good job. Never thought I'd be doing that one day. Asking Steve Pinker and Christof Koch, what does-
Dr. Christof Koch:
I've never done this.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
... shaking my head mean? So I'd like to thank Steve Pinker for being our guest today. Thank you very much.
Dr. Steven Pinker:
Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Christof.
Dr. Christof Koch:
Thank you for coming on. It was very enjoyable.
Dr. Heather Berlin:
If you'd like to learn more about your own Perception Box, spend some time this week answering the same Perception Box questions that we asked your guests and check out our other questions on the website, unlikelycollaborators.com. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and watch the show or listen wherever you get your podcasts. This has been Science of Perception Box created by Unlikely Collaborators in partnership with Pod People. I'm Dr. Heather Berlin.
Dr. Christof Koch:
And I'm Dr. Christof Koch. Thank you very much for watching.
Why do we speak in euphemisms instead of saying exactly what we mean? Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch sat down with cognitive scientist and bestselling author Steven Pinker to explore common knowledge — not what everyone knows, but what everyone knows that everyone knows. Get it?
Common knowledge is an awareness of something that is public or “out there” and it has an enormous impact on our social, political, and economic lives. From unspoken rules of flirtation to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Pinker reveals how the social force of common knowledge shapes everything from our most intimate relationships to global financial markets. His work illuminates central ideas of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world.
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University where he conducts research on language, cognition, and social relations. Pinker is the author of thirteen books, including his latest book When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows… and seminal texts like The Language Instinct, The Blank Slate, and How the Mind Works. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Time and The Atlantic.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend!
Episode Chapters:
00:00 Why Honesty Fails
02:56 Defining Common Knowledge
06:38 Awkwardness and Innuendo
15:24 Markets and Shared Beliefs
28:44 Bubbles and Bank Runs
31:05 Freedom of Speech
31:49 Berlin Wall Tipping
32:46 Science Versus Assumptions
What if everything you see, hear, and feel isn't real? What if it's just your brain's best prediction of what's real? Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch sat down with neuroscientist and consciousness researcher Anil Seth to explore the profound question of: What is consciousness? Seth's answer might surprise (and even unsettle) you. Consciousness isn't a window onto reality. It's a controlled hallucination constructed by your brain to make sense of a world it can never directly access. These questions of consciousness illuminate central ideas of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world.
Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and Director of the Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness and more than 200 scientific papers.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend!
Visit unlikelycollaborators.com for more information.
Chapters:
00:00 Escaping the echo chamber
01:43 Defining consciousness
09:05 Perception as "controlled hallucination"
11:26 Why perception feels like reality (an adaptive illusion)
17:06 When perception shapes social and historical "truth"
19:03 Hallucination as uncontrolled perception
21:57 What is the self?
33:38 Intelligence vs. consciousness
35:42 Anthropomorphizing AI and "bio-chauvinism"
36:10 Biological naturalism: can AI be conscious?
39:44 Should AI be designed to seem conscious?
40:52 Perception Box question
Psychologist Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman explores the difference between victimhood and victim mindset, explaining why learned helplessness is actually our default state—and how developing agency is the key to breaking free. He discusses vulnerable narcissism, the dangers of excessive accommodation, and why growth requires embracing adversity rather than avoiding discomfort. Plus: why Darth Vader is actually an example of overcoming a victim mindset. Dr. Kaufman’s exploration of the victimhood mindset reveals a central idea of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world.
Scott Barry Kaufman is a psychologist focused on untapped potential and reframing intelligence. He is a professor of psychology at Columbia University and director of the Center for Human Potential. He has written and edited 11 books, with the most recent being Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset. He has written articles for widely respected publications, including The Atlantic, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review, and he’s also the host of The Psychology Podcast. In addition to teaching at Columbia, he also taught as a professor at NYU and the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
Episode Chapters:
00:00 Opening
02:53 Defining the Victim Mindset
03:30 Rumination and Entitlement
05:42 Rethinking Learned Helplessness
08:01 Victimhood vs Victim
09:04 Empowerment Traits
09:44 Genes and Resilience
12:22 Vulnerable Narcissism Link
15:59 Escaping Emotional Victimhood
17:00 Agency Over Accommodations
19:18 Letting Kids Fail
24:56 Villain Or Victim Game
Your body already holds the tools necessary for peak mental and physical performance – you just need to unlock them. Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch sit down with Stanford neuroscientist and “Huberman Lab” host Andrew Huberman to explore the science of how your brain and body talk to each other, and how you can use that conversation to your advantage. Huberman shares his evidence-based solutions for optimizing brain function, mood, energy, and physical performance in order to learn new skills and behaviors that can transform your life. Huberman’s exploration of the brain-body connection speaks to a central idea of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world.
Andrew Huberman is a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine and host of the “Huberman Lab” podcast. His newest book, Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body publishes in September 2026 and culminates years of research, lab work, and conversations with scientists.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend!
Chapters:
00:00 Opening
06:33 Yoga Nidra and Tactical Breathing
09:25 What Helps Addiction
14:18 Physiological Sigh
17:37 Naming Shapes Adoption
23:05 Alcohol Health Consensus
26:20 Gut Microbiome and Nutrition
27:42 Sex and Wellbeing
30:56 Sleep, Aging and Melatonin
32:42 Protocols Book Overview
35:18 Letting Go and Faith
37:56 Psychedelics
39:44 Perception Box Questions
In a world shaped by dating apps, endless choices, and constant digital interaction, many people feel more disconnected and uncertain about relationships than ever before. In this Spark Salon, Marisa T. Cohen explores the hidden emotional patterns shaping modern love, from attachment and vulnerability to rejection, perception, and communication. Blending relationship science with real-world insight, she examines how our past experiences, assumptions, and unconscious beliefs influence how we seek, interpret, and experience connection.
Drawing from psychology, clinical practice, and years of research on relationships, Dr. Cohen explores what it means to date more intentionally in an age of constant swiping and digital noise. From communication and emotional availability to the stories we carry about love and rejection, she offers a thoughtful framework for building relationships that feel more grounded, mutual, and meaningful.
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How much of your energy is focused on trying to change people who aren't ready to change? Best-selling author and podcast host Mel Robbins joins Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch to explore what happens when you stop trying to control others and start reclaiming your own life. Robbins calls it the “Let Them Theory”: a deceptively simple idea that has struck a nerve with millions worldwide who are using it to address frustration, anxiety, their need for control, and more.
Mel’s “Let Them Theory” touches on a central idea of the Perception Box, a framework developed by Elizabeth R. Koch for understanding the forces within us that shape how we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through the world.
Mel Robbins is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the award-winning “Mel Robbins Podcast”, with more than 40 million followers worldwide. Her book The Let Them Theory was the top-selling nonfiction title of 2025, selling seven million copies in nine months.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend!
Visit unlikelycollaborators.com for more information.
Chapters:
05:09 Introducing Mel Robbins
06:43 Parents And Instinct to Rescue
12:32 Helping Without Pushback
14:27 Annoying Spouse Habits
19:00 “Let Them, Let Me” Boundaries
21:03 Losing Control In Modern Life
26:01 The Cold Tea Test
27:12 Flow State Reset
28:51 Why Let Them Works
31:48 Let Them Let Me Boundaries
33:28 Radical Acceptance in Relationships
37:17 Perception Box Reflections
40:24 People Pleasing as Control
43:01 Let Them or Step In Game
Dr. Camilo Ortiz, clinical psychologist and creator of Independence Therapy, joins hosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch to unpack why the instinct in modern parenting is to protect kids from every risk may be backfiring. Dr. Ortiz explains how a child's Perception BoxTM starts forming almost as soon as they can speak, why parents today wildly overestimate danger despite living in the safest era on record, and how everyday tasks such as chopping vegetables, walking to the store alone can rebuild kids' confidence and resilience.
Dr. Camilo Ortiz is board-certified in behavioral and cognitive therapy. He holds an MS and PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and serves as a tenured associate psychology professor at Long Island University, bringing 20 years of clinical experience to his role.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Chapters:
06:39 Independence With Guardrails
13:03 Freedom Versus Neglect
16:26 Getting Lost Builds Confidence
18:55 “When Then” Parenting
23:52 Why Parents Overprotect
28:27 Independence Therapy Basics
31:01 When Freedom Backfires
42:07 Independence Or Interference
Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend!
Visit unlikelycollaborators.com for more information.
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Why do two people witness the same event and walk away with entirely different experiences of what happened? Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch return for Season 2 of Science of Perception Box, exploring the invisible framework, the Perception Box™, that shapes how your brain constructs reality, interprets experience, and defines your sense of self. Each week, they sit down with guests including Mel Robbins, Andrew Huberman and Sam Harris to unpack how perception is built, and how you can gain more agency over your own. New episodes weekly.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes of Science of Perception Box every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Love Science of Perception Box? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend. You can even do both!
Chris Gardner refused to let the circumstances of his childhood define the limits of his future.
In this episode of Corner Office, created in partnership with The Wall Street Journal Custom Content and Unlikely Collaborators, Gardner explores how questioning the beliefs shaped by poverty, violence, and rejection helped him transform hardship into possibility and inspired his lifelong mission to create opportunity for others.
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BJ Miller, MD, Katherine Shear, MD, and Paul Bloom, PhD reframe grief as a natural, necessary response to love and loss — instead of a disorder to fix on a deadline. Drawing from neuroscience, psychiatry, and philosophy, they explain why grief can resemble love in the brain, why mourning often takes months or years, and how modern culture makes loss harder by rushing people toward “normal” before they’ve had time to change.
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Science can explain how we think, connect, and perceive reality. But it also invites us into something deeper: awe, wonder, and a greater understanding of what it means to be human.
Neuroscientist and physician Andrew Newberg, psychiatrist and happiness researcher Robert Waldinger, and theoretical physicist Jim Al-Khalili explore the intersections of science, consciousness, meaning, and human flourishing—revealing how discovery itself can become a path to enlightenment and awe.
What do you do when you don’t feel loved?
In a world where we are more connected than ever, many people still feel unseen, misunderstood, or alone. The issue is not always about how much love we have in our lives, but how we experience it.
In this Spark Salon, renowned psychologist and best-selling author Sonja Lyubomirsky explores how our internal lens shapes the way we give, receive, and interpret love. Drawing from her book How to Feel Loved, she challenges the instinct to earn love by presenting our best selves, and instead points to the power of authenticity, including our imperfections and vulnerabilities.
This session explores how the way we show up in our relationships, what we express, what we hold back, and how we respond to others shapes whether love is actually felt on both sides. How do small shifts in how we communicate and engage change whether someone feels seen, valued, and understood? And how, in turn, does that transform our own experience of being loved?
Blending research from well-being and relationship science, Lyubomirsky introduces a set of core relational mindsets that can shift how we experience connection in everyday life, helping close the gap between being loved and actually feeling it.
What does it really mean when you feel lonely? The answer depends on your perception.
In this video, Robert Waldinger, MD, Kasley Killam, MPH, and Ethan Kross, PhD explore why loneliness has become so common and how it affects both the mind and the body. They explain why friendships are disappearing, how loneliness changes our health, and why being alone doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. Instead of treating loneliness as a personal failure, they suggest seeing it as a signal that helps us understand what we need and how to reconnect.
What if the voice in your head is less of a witness and more of an interpreter? Two neuroscientists discuss the brain’s drive to explain, narrate, and make everything add up.
Stories do not just entertain us; they may be one of the main ways our brains rehearse experience, assign meaning, and turn scattered moments into something that feels like a self. We are constantly sorting actions, memories and emotion into a version of events that feels coherent enough to live inside. Neuroscientists Michael Gazzaniga, PhD and Dean Buonomano, PhD draw on split-brain research to explain the left hemisphere’s “Interpreter”: the brain’s tendency to create explanations for behavior, even when it does not have the full picture. The instinct to create narratives likely shapes far more than self-understanding. It may underpin identity, belief, and the desire to belong in the world.
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The brain isn't separate from the body. It depends on it. Three scientists explain the biology behind one of science's most under-explored relationships.
Your brain didn't evolve in isolation. It evolved to run the economy of your body, and every heartbeat, breath, and moment of thirst or anxiety is evidence of that system at work.
Neuroscientist and author Aditi Nerurkar, neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki, and neurologist-philosopher Antonio Damasio break down the science of the mind-body connection: why it exists, how it works, and why understanding it can change the way you experience the world.
Every time you move your body, your brain gets what one neuroscientist calls a “bubble bath” of dopamine, serotonin, and growth factors. Here’s how to activate it.
Neuroscientists Wendy Suzuki, PhD, Samuel Wang, PhD, and Gary Small, MD explain how movement increases blood flow, boosts growth factors like BDNF, and floods the brain with mood-lifting neurochemicals. The brain and body are in constant conversation, and plasticity means your wiring is never fixed. According to Suzuki, even ten minutes of walking can shift your brain’s chemistry immediately, flooding it in a ‘bubble bath’ of positive neurochemicals.
In other words, the way you use your body today shapes how your brain works tomorrow.
Bad news: your sense of self is made up. The good news is, you’re able to change it. Neuroscience and psychology explain.
Perception feels stable. Your sense of self feels solid. Yet neuroscientist Heather Berlin, psychologist Ethan Kross and neuroscientist Nicole Vignola explain that both are created by the brain. Through prediction, memory and neural pruning, the mind builds a narrative that feels coherent and fixed, even though modern science suggests that it’s continually shaped by pre-existing beliefs and experience. Seeing the construction clearly is the first step toward altering it.
Have you ever woken up after a dream and thought to yourself, “That made absolutely no sense”? According to modern neuroscience, there’s a reason why dreams feel so abstract and bizarre. Two sleep experts discuss.
Every 90 minutes, our bodies go paralyzed while our brains become more active than during waking life. Sleep psychologist Dr. Shelby Harris and neuroscientist Dr. Patrick McNamara, Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston University, dig into one of the most fascinating mysteries in human biology: why we dream and what our brains are actually doing during REM sleep. They explore competing theories of what dreaming is for, McNamara makes a compelling case that REM sleep may have been a key driver of early human creativity, and both reflect on why reclaiming our reverence for the dream state could change the way we think and create.
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Happiness researchers Robert Waldinger MD, Tal Ben-Shahar PhD, and Peter Baumann explain why the happiest people aren’t happy all the time.
Psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, MD, psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, PhD, and author-entrepreneur Peter Baumann share what 85 years of research and lived experience reveal about happiness. They explain why chasing it directly often backfires—and how strong relationships, mindfulness, and embracing every emotion can build a baseline of positivity that actually lasts.
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Humans have always had religion. What does this say about our minds? Reza Aslan, PhD, Lisa Miller, PhD, and Rob Bell, MDiv, explain.
Why has religion been part of humanity since the beginning? Religious scholar Reza Aslan, PhD, clinical psychologist Lisa Miller, PhD, and former pastor Rob Bell, MDiv, explore innate spiritual instincts, the neuroscience of belief, and how faith and science both seek truth. They discuss substance dualism, religion’s role in resilience and mental health, and why our brains may be wired to find meaning, connection, and a sense of something greater.
About Reza Aslan, PhD:
Reza Aslan is a religious scholar, writer, and professor. Author of Zealot, he explores faith, identity, and culture, bringing religious history into contemporary conversations.
About Lisa Miller, PhD:
Lisa Miller is a clinical psychologist and Columbia University professor. She researches spirituality and mental health, authoring The Spiritual Child and The Awakened Brain on the science of faith.
About Rob Bell, MDiv:
Rob Bell is an author, teacher, and former pastor known for Love Wins. He explores spirituality, creativity, and the intersection of faith and modern life.
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People make decisions about your confidence before you ever speak. Authors Robert Greene and Daniel Shapiro explain how posture, presence, and even silence communicate more than words ever could.
Oftentimes, our most effective form of communication happens before we even open our mouths. Best-selling author Robert Greene and conflict negotiation expert Daniel Shapiro reveal how body language silently shapes our identity, influence, and power. From nonverbal dominance to mastering conflict, they break down why we lose arguments and explain how to win them without conflict. By mastering these subtle signals, anyone can master their own influence and create deeper trust, stronger presence, and lasting impact without ever saying a word.
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Your brain makes habits stick. The good news? The same science shows how to replace the bad ones.
Why are bad habits so hard to break?
Neuroscientist Carl Hart, PhD, journalist Charles Duhigg, and psychologist Adam Alter, PhD explain how your brain wires habits as cue-routine-reward loops that control nearly half of your daily life. They show why willpower alone rarely works, why technology fuels new forms of addiction, and why habits can only be replaced, not erased.
About Carl Hart, PhD:
Dr. Hart is an Associate Professor of Psychology in both the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at Columbia University, and Director of the Residential Studies and Methamphetamine Research Laboratories at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. A major focus of Dr. Hart’s research is to understand complex interactions between drugs of abuse and the neurobiology and environmental factors that mediate human behavior and physiology.
About Charles Duhigg:
Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of The Power of Habit, which spent over three years on bestseller lists and has been translated into 40 languages, and Smarter Faster Better, also a bestseller. Mr. Duhigg writes for The New Yorker magazine and is a graduate of Yale University and the Harvard Business School. He has been a frequent contributor to CNBC, This American Life, NPR, The Colbert Report, NewsHour, and Frontline.
About Adam Alter, PhD:
Adam Alter is an Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, with an affiliated appointment in the New York University Psychology Department.
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Failure is inevitable, but your response to it is a choice – and it makes all the difference.
Journalist Tim Harford, PhD, psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, and organizational behavior expert Robert Sutton, PhD, reveal how failure can become the foundation of success when it's examined and built upon. Reframing failure as information, rather than a personal setback, is what sets productive thinkers apart.
Our memories aren’t perfect records of the past — they’re reconstructions shaped by brain activity.
Neuroscientists Lisa Genova and André Fenton explain that a memory is created through neural patterns that can subtly shift each time we recall it. We may unknowingly add or lose details over time. Understanding this science helps us approach memory with more humility and empathy, and deepens our insight into how memories shape one’s identity and beliefs.
What happens when the boundaries of “you” disappear?
James Fadiman, PhD, Jamie Wheal, and Matthew Johnson, PhD explore how supported experiences with psychoactive drugs can dissolve identity and reveal a deeper reality.
What if one experience could make you lose your sense of self, forget time, and feel deeply connected to everything around you?
Experts Jamie Wheal, Matthew Johnson, PhD., and James Fadiman, PhD. give us a deeper look at psychedelic medicine, exploring how substances like psilocybin, LSD, and ayahuasca change the way we see ourselves and the world. Used carefully, they can bring insight and unity. However, without support, they can be overwhelming and reveal just how fragile our sense of reality can be. These researchers explain the difference.
About Matthew Johnson, PhD:
Matthew W. Johnson, PhD, is The Susan Hill Ward Endowed Professor of Psychedelics and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins. Working with psychedelics since 2004, he is one of the world’s most widely published experts on psychedelics. He has published research on psychedelics and mystical experience, personality change, tobacco smoking cessation, cancer distress treatment, and depression treatment.
About James Fadiman PhD:
Dr. James Fadiman is a leading scientific expert on the use of psychedelics for personal exploration, healing, and transformation. He has been researching, writing and lecturing on the topic for more than fifty years. His research focuses on exploring the potential of psychedelics to help individuals achieve a more meaningful, balanced and enlightened life.
About Jamie Wheal:
Jamie Wheal is the author of the global best-seller and Pulitzer Prize-nominated Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, Navy SEALs and Maverick Scientists are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work and the founder of the Flow Genome Project, an international organization dedicated to the research and training of ultimate human performance. Since founding the organization in 2011, it has gone on to become the leading voice of evidence-based peak performance in the world, counting award-winning academics, legendary professional athletes, special operations commanders, and Fortune 500 business leaders among the hundreds of thousands of people in its global community.
Around the world, small communities are preserving extraordinary skills and forms of knowledge that have endured for centuries, from rare crafts to rituals that require years of apprenticeship to master. These traditions are not simply artifacts of the past. They are living bodies of knowledge, sustained through discipline, memory, and care.In this Spark Salon, BBC journalist and author Eliot Stein shares stories from his search for the last keepers of remarkable traditions. Through immersive reporting and personal encounters, he explores what it takes to carry specialized knowledge across generations and what is lost when those skills disappear.As modern life accelerates and expertise becomes increasingly digital and disposable, Stein invites us to reflect on the value of embodied knowledge, apprenticeship, and continuity. What does it mean to inherit a skill? What responsibility comes with preserving it? And how do forms of knowledge shape the communities that sustain them?
A neuroscientist, a psychologist, and a psychotherapist discuss how emotions are stories built from old experiences.
By introducing new ones, you can shift the way your past shapes you.
Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, psychologist Paul Eckman, PhD, and psychotherapist Esther Perel, PhD, explain how the brain constantly rebuilds emotions from memory and prediction. According to their research, by choosing new experiences today, we can reshape how our past influences us, gain more control over our feelings, and create new possibilities for connection and growth.
About Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD:
Lisa Feldman Barrett is University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, with appointments at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She directs the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory, where she researches the nature of emotion and the brain’s predictive processes.
About Esther Perel, PhD:
Esther Perel is a psychotherapist and author recognized worldwide for her work on modern relationships. Perel is also a sought-after public speaker with TED Talks reaching millions, and consults globally with organizations on relational intelligence.
About Paul Ekman, PhD:
Paul Ekman is professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, and a leading authority on emotion and nonverbal communication. He pioneered research on microexpressions and developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), used widely in psychology, law enforcement, and security.
Krista Tippett has spent decades convening conversations at the intersection of spirituality, science, and the human condition. Through her work On Being, she has asked some of the most searching questions of our time: What does it mean to be human? How do we live wisely with one another across differences? What kind of inner life makes a different outer world possible?
In this Spark Salon, Krista reflects on the discipline of listening, not as politeness but as transformation. She explores how the stories we inherit, the assumptions we carry, and the meaning we make of our experiences quietly shape how we see ourselves and one another.
This conversation is not about quick fixes. It is an invitation to slow down, to widen our moral imagination, and to examine the interior patterns that shape how we show up in a fractured world. When we shift the way we listen to ourselves and to others . . . something larger becomes possible.
For most of human history, that question lived in myth and imagination. Today, it lives in scientific inquiry.
In this Spark Salon, astrophysicist and astrobiologist Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, Founding Director of the Carl Sagan Institute and author of Alien Earths, takes us into the search for worlds beyond our own. As scientists explore distant planets orbiting other stars, they are not just gathering data; they are interpreting it.
What counts as life?
What makes a world “habitable”?
How do we recognize something we’ve never seen before?
The search for life beyond Earth is ultimately a search for meaning. It forces us to examine the assumptions we carry about what is normal, possible, and real.
As our view of the cosmos expands, so does our perspective on ourselves. Looking outward into the vastness of space, we may discover something equally profound about how we construct our understanding of life here at home.
📣 Unlikely Collaborators GAME JAM Theme Announcement:
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Consciousness and Identity through Awe and Wonder
Build mechanics that create wonder.
Design systems that move identity.
Create moments where perception changes in real time.
🏆 $10,000 in prizes
📅 March 21 – April 7, 2026🔗 igdafoundation.org/gamejam
Sponsored by Unlikely Collaborators in collaboration with IGDA Foundation, Girls Make Games, and International Game Developers Association (IGDA®).
Sleep influences far more than how rested we feel. It shapes how we regulate emotion, connect with others, generate new ideas, and grow from our experiences. But even those who appreciate its importance and want to prioritize rest often find themselves struggling to reach their ideal sleep. Even gadgets, supplements, and sleep hygiene don’t seem to help in the face of life’s changes and challenges.
In this Spark Salon, board-certified sleep psychologist and author Dr. Jade Wu explores a new way to approach sleep that is intuitive and resilient—treating sleep as a relationship to nurture rather than an engineering problem to hack.
Drawing from neuroscience, clinical practice, and her work with high-performing professionals, she helps us understand how working with, instead of against, our unique sleep physiology is the foundation of steadier moods, clearer thinking, and recovery from challenge. This talk offers a grounded, humane perspective on sleep, one that moves beyond rigid rules or quick fixes and instead focuses on the malleable tools we can use to build a healthier, more sustainable relationship with rest.
We are surrounded by bold claims about the future—what’s coming next, what’s inevitable, what we should prepare for. But what if the most important work isn’t predicting what’s ahead but understanding how we relate to it in the first place?
In this Spark Salon, futures designer and author Nick Foster invites us to turn our attention inward. Drawing from his new book, Could Should Might Don’t, Nick helps us notice the stories we carry about the future—and the quiet assumptions, habits, and mental shortcuts that shape our sense of fear, urgency, agency, and possibility. Rather than offering forecasts or frameworks, he offers something more radical: a way to see the future as an extension of the present, shaped by human choices, values, and imagination.
Nick equips audiences to become more discerning thinkers about the future—less reactive, less dazzled by hype, and more grounded in choice and care. Through sharp provocation and real-world examples, the talk brings structure to imagination and expands perspective, helping people navigate uncertainty with greater confidence.
Yum! Brands co-founder David Novak reflects on a lifetime of movement, ambition, and leadership at the highest level. From a nomadic childhood to building some of the world’s most iconic restaurant brands, Novak shares how slowing down, listening more closely, and reexamining his assumptions ultimately reshaped his definition of success and meaning.
Good anxiety isn’t the enemy. Good anxiety is actually your built-in superpower for focus, creativity, and connection when you learn how to harness it. In this Spark Salon, renowned neuroscientist, author, and NYU Dean Dr. Wendy Suzuki invites us to rethink our entire relationship with stress by revealing the remarkable science behind this often misunderstood emotion. Rather than something to avoid, control, or suppress, anxiety becomes a source of energy and insight when we understand the deeper purpose of our brain’s stress responses.
Drawing from her book Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion, Dr. Suzuki shows us how to turn everyday stress into fuel for a stronger, more resilient, beautifully adaptive brain. By learning simple, science-backed strategies to support our brain’s natural responses, we can shift from feeling overwhelmed to feeling equipped. Ultimately, she demonstrates that anxiety isn’t something we simply have to endure. Rather, it’s something we can learn from, shape, and use to live a fuller, more grounded, and more empowered life.
In this provocative Spark Salon, neuroscientist and best-selling author Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, invites us to rethink everything we believe about perception, emotion, and reality itself. Drawing on groundbreaking neuroscience, she reveals that we don’t perceive reality in a more or less objective way., Reality exists only in relation to us. Every sound, color, and feeling is an act of construction by the brain, shaped by culture, context, and memory. Through vivid examples, from a falling tree to a racing heart, Dr. Barrett shows that signals from the world and body have no inherent meaning until the brain processes them. What we experience as reality is a story our brains are constantly writing. Ultimately, she challenges us to recognize that we are not spectators of reality but its architects, with the power to expand our agency, reshape meaning, and reimagine what it means to be fully human.
Grief transforms how we see the world, shaping identity, meaning, and connection in profound ways for all of us, especially for children and teens. In this Spark Salon, Brennan Wood, Executive Director of Dougy Center, and Dr. Donna Schuurman, Senior Director of Advocacy & Education and Executive Director Emeritus, invite us into the often-invisible narratives of kids who are grieving: how they make sense of loss, what they internalize, and the stories they carry forward. Together, they will explore the power of witnessing grief, in ourselves and others, without trying to fix it—how presence itself can be healing, and what it means to be truly “grief-informed.” Drawing from personal experience and decades of leadership in the field, Brennan and Donna will share practical reflections and hard-earned wisdom on how grief, when named and honored, can expand our understanding of resilience, empathy, and the human experience.
Neuroscientist and consciousness researcher Nicco Reggente, PhD, will explore the fascinating, science-backed connection between the heart and the brain in this mind-expanding Spark Salon. Drawing from the groundbreaking, soon-to-be-published study Heartbeat-Evoked Potentials as a Neural Marker of Meditative Depth, Nicco will unpack the ancient wisdom behind “listening to your heart” and what it actually means in modern neuroscience. You’ll discover how the body’s subtle signals, like your heartbeat, shape consciousness, mindfulness, and emotional regulation. Through the lens of interoception (our ability to sense internal bodily states), this session reveals how tuning in to the sensations of the body can help us respond more thoughtfully to life rather than react impulsively.
Nutrition therapist and author Kim Shapira, MS, RD, shares her transformative Six Simple Rules to Become Your Healthiest Self, based on her acclaimed book This Is What You're Really Hungry For. In this engaging session, Kim will introduce key principles from her Six Rules, guiding participants to reframe their relationship with food through science-backed strategies, self-awareness, and sustainable habits. Kim’s empowering and practical approach moves beyond restrictive diets, helping participants reconnect with their bodies, manage emotions in healthier ways, and build lasting behaviors that support physical and emotional well-being.
Join renowned psychologist and author Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman for a powerful Spark Salon exploring themes from his latest book, Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential. In this engaging session, Dr. Kaufman challenges the limiting beliefs and cultural narratives that keep us feeling stuck, offering fresh insight into how we can move beyond a victim mindset to reclaim our agency and become the heroes of our own lives. Drawing on cutting-edge psychology and grounded in empathy and humor, he reveals how to harness emotional intelligence, reframe past experiences, and unlock the resilience and potential within each of us.
In this session, digital workplace expert and author Alexandra Samuel, PhD, explores how AI sycophancy is changing the stories we tell about ourselves and how those stories shape our work, relationships, and well-being. Drawing from her podcast, Me+Viv, and forthcoming book, she shares insights on the intersection of AI and the new workplace, including the hidden tools that can help surface new perspectives, challenge assumptions, and navigate the risks and possibilities of emerging technology.
In a world increasingly marked by isolation and division, artist and urban designer Candy Chang offers a powerful counterpoint: We can still design spaces—physical, emotional, and communal—that foster connection, reflection, and belonging. Best known for her global Before I Die project, Chang has transformed walls, museums, neighborhoods, and even casinos into places of shared vulnerability, creativity, and hope. In this deeply moving and visually rich session, she explores how art can help us process grief, spark dialogue, and bridge the spaces between us. Drawing on a career of participatory installations across more than 70 countries, Candy shows us how to leverage the power of creativity and community to design lives, and environments, where people feel seen, supported, and at home.
Renowned mythologist and story expert John Bucher explores the extraordinary power of story as a force for transformation. Drawing from ancient myths and modern movements, John will reveal how stories have historically reshaped cultural norms, shifted collective behavior, and expanded what people believed was possible. Through compelling examples, John will illuminate how stories can be tools for liberation or limitation, depending on how they shape our internal narrative frameworks. This session will inspire participants to examine the stories they live by and consider how re-authoring those narratives can lead to personal growth, deeper empathy, and even social change.
In this energizing session, Ellen Bennett, founder of Hedley & Bennett and author of Dream First, Details Later, shares the unfiltered truth about fear, failure, and forging your own path. With no safety net and no investors, Ellen built her company from scratch by embracing action over perfection, reframing setbacks as fuel, and turning limited resources into powerful assets. A bold, personal take on pushing through fear, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome, this talk is a powerful reminder that self-belief, persistence, and momentum matter more than credentials or ideal circumstances, and, importantly, that we each have the power to drive our own story forward.
In this mind-expanding Spark Salon, storyteller, illusionist, and entrepreneur Harris III draws from his forthcoming book Start with Wow to explore a powerful shift: the transition from the Information Age to the Imagination Age. Blending magic, neuroscience, and storytelling, Harris makes the case that the future belongs not to those who begin with "how" or even "why" but to those bold enough to begin with "wow." As artificial intelligence and automation reshape the world, Harris offers a compelling framework for human relevance rooted in wonder, curiosity, and creativity. This session invites participants to reawaken their imaginations and see how awe—not algorithms—is the key to innovation, leadership, and purpose in the age ahead.
Sabrina's film is an animated conversation between her past, present, and future selves. The whole film was made using actual audio clips from her self when she was younger and the entire script was based around the limited dialog she could find on old home videos.
The film is meant to capture the vulnerable conversations that happen late at night and the thoughts that keep you up when you're anticipating something important the next day.
Entrepreneur and cultural icon Daymond John opens up about the experiences that shaped his hustle, worldview, and success. From the streets of Hollis, Queens to becoming one of Shark Tank’s most trusted investors, Daymond’s story is one of perseverance, reinvention, and purpose.
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Why are bad habits so easy to form and so hard to break? In this four-part Spark Salon series, renowned psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and mindfulness expert Dr. Jud Brewer will reveal how our brains get hooked on unhelpful behaviors like anxiety, overeating, doomscrolling, and more—and how we can disrupt these patterns by better understanding the science of habit formation. Drawing from cutting-edge research, Buddhist psychology, and clinical breakthroughs, Dr. Jud introduces a practical, compassionate approach to breaking habits, not through willpower but through awareness, curiosity, and kindness. The first session, held both in person and live-streamed from Unlikely Collaborators, will introduce Dr. Jud’s framework and set the stage for the series. The following three online-only sessions will each dive deep into one of the "three gears" of habit change, providing immersive, experiential opportunities for participants to apply these methods in real time. With interactive breakout discussions and practical tools, this series invites you to expand the walls of your Perception Box™ and build a new relationship with your mind.
Jud Brewer, MD, PhD (“Dr. Jud”) is a New York Times best-selling author and leading authority on habit change and the science of self-mastery. With over 25 years of mindfulness training combined with scientific research, he serves as the Director of Research and Innovation at the Mindfulness Center and as a professor at Brown University. An internationally recognized psychiatrist specializing in mindfulness for addiction, Dr. Jud has developed innovative mindfulness programs—both in-person and app-based—for smoking cessation, emotional eating, and anxiety. He has investigated the neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI and EEG neurofeedback. He has trained U.S. Olympic athletes, coaches, and foreign government ministers. His work has been featured on 60 Minutes and in TED (one of the most-viewed talks of 2016 with over 20 million views), The New York Times, Time, Forbes, BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg Businessweek, and more. Dr. Jud founded MindSciences—now part of Sharecare Inc.—to bring his discoveries directly to consumers. He also cofounded Mindshift Recovery, a nonprofit aiding those suffering from addiction. He is the author of The Craving Mind (Yale University Press, 2017), the New York Times Best Seller Unwinding Anxiety (Avery/Penguin Random House, 2021), and The Hunger Habit (Avery/Penguin Random House, 2024). For more information, visit www.drjud.com.
Learn more about Spark Salons at salons.unlikelycollaborators.com.
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For Vijay Gupta, music is not entertainment. It is a lifeline. He sees art as a way to process pain and grief, transforming them into something that heals and sustains. Described by The New Yorker as “a visionary violinist and a radical thinker in the classical music world,” Gupta creates spaces where people feel seen, connected, and whole. In his talks, he invites us to reconsider how we relate to struggle and shows how creative expression can shift the inner stories that shape our lives.
Described by The New Yorker as “a visionary violinist and a radical thinker in the classical music world,” Vijay Gupta is an internationally celebrated musician, speaker, and advocate who bridges the worlds of art, justice, and healing.
He is the founder and Artistic Director of Street Symphony, a Los Angeles–based nonprofit that has presented thousands of musical workshops and performances in shelters, county jails, state hospitals, and prisons—creating spaces of connection for people in reentry from homelessness, addiction, and incarceration. For Gupta, music is not entertainment—it’s a lifeline, a way to process pain, reclaim dignity, and transform grief into belonging.
A member of the first violin section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 12 years, Gupta has performed globally as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician and is a founding member of the Darshan Piano Trio and Tesserae Baroque. His recordings span repertoire from Bach to contemporary composers, and in 2024, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
A dynamic communicator, Gupta has given three TED talks that have garnered millions of views. He has delivered keynote addresses for the American Medical Association, The Richmond Forum, The Aspen Institute, Hallmark, Accenture, the Mayo Clinic, the U.S. Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress, and the League of American Orchestras. In 2026, Grand Central Publishing will release his memoir, Restrung, exploring loss, resilience, and the power of music to transform the human spirit.
Learn more about Spark Salons at salons.unlikelycollaborators.com.
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From pregame traditions to team-building exercises, rituals are intertwined in every facet of our lives. Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, author of The Ritual Effect, shows that rituals play a role in our everyday lives: from building connections to helping us leave work behind at the end of the day. We can transform our unconscious habits into conscious productivity—and rise to challenges and opportunities like never before. Named one of WIRED’s 50 People Who Will Change the World, Michael demonstrates the power of rituals in our teams, our workplaces, our families, and even our marriages.
Michael Norton is a Harvard Business School professor whose work dives into the psychological effects of ritual. His groundbreaking research has proved the importance and flexibility of rituals in our everyday lives—they affect our feelings, thoughts, and even behaviors. Michael shows that rituals can bind us together as a community, which makes for stronger teams who coordinate and find meaning in their work, and explores the role that rituals play in our families, our friendships, and our marriages. Michael shows us the power of ritual in our personal lives and our workplaces. His groundbreaking book, The Ritual Effect, has been called “endlessly fascinating” (Dan Pink, Drive) and “an eye-opening window into why we swear by certain routines—and how we can build more enriching ones” (Adam Grant, Think Again).
Michael has also researched personal finance and spending—specifically, how to use money to get happier. Along with fellow professor Elizabeth Dunn, he’s the co-author of the book Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending, which proved that we’re going about spending our money all wrong. With five practical principles on how to increase happiness by changing the philosophy behind spending, Happy Money is “a rare combination of informed science writing, rollicking good fun, and practical pointers for a more flourishing and compassionate life” (David G. Myers, The Pursuit of Happiness). His TEDx talk, which draws on this research, has been viewed over four million times.
Michael has appeared on National Public Radio, CBS, Fox, and MSNBC, cohosted Talking Green, a podcast on how people really interact with money, and written op-eds for The New York Times, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. His research has been featured in publications like Psychological Science, Journal of Consumer Research, and Journal of Marketing Research, has been covered by The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Washington Post, and has been parodied by The Onion.
Learn more about Spark Salons at salons.unlikelycollaborators.com.
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Curious minds. Brave questions. Unexpected connections.
From myth to mindfulness to the science of awe, the Spark Salon speaker series brings together voices that will challenge, inspire, and expand your perspective.
According to neuroscientists and psychiatrists, healing begins with awareness and compassionate connection.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dr. Wendy Suzuki, and Dr. James Doty explain how trauma and anxiety are processed through both the brain and body: trauma isn’t just what happens to us, but how our nervous system holds onto it, disrupting our ability to feel safe, connect with others, and think clearly.
Often a feeling people want to avoid, anxiety actually functions to motivate action and can be leveraged as a tool for focus and productivity. Through breathwork, mindfulness, and reshaping negative internal dialogue, we can begin to retrain the brain, regulate the body, and support a lifetime of growth.
Do Kids Think Rules Are Meant to Be Broken?
HiHo and Unlikely Collaborators teamed up to ask 100 kids just that—exploring how young minds view right, wrong, and everything in between.Inspired by the Perception Box framework.
What if the way you see the world is shaped by trauma you haven’t fully processed?
Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score, explains how trauma isn't just remembered, it is physically lived and relived through the body and brain.
He describes how traditional talk therapy often fails to reach the survival centers of the brain where trauma resides. Instead, healing comes through visceral experiences that help rewire perception, build a sense of safety, and reconnect the self. Through movement, touch, psychodrama, and even psychedelics, the brain can learn to see the present as safe again.
About Bessel van der Kolk:
Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., is a pioneering psychiatrist and trauma researcher, best known for his work on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He authored the bestselling book The Body Keeps the Score, which explores how trauma reshapes both body and brain. As founder of the Trauma Research Foundation, he has led innovative treatments combining neuroscience, psychotherapy, and body-based approaches to healing trauma. His work has transformed trauma care worldwide.
“I want people to know that their lives matter and that their deaths ultimately will too.” How a journey to Cuba made Alua Arthur confront her own mortality, and ultimately led her to her career as a death doula.
Alua Arthur, a death doula, never expected to find her calling in the space between life and death. Struggling with depression and a sense of not belonging, she was searching for meaning when a chance encounter in Cuba changed everything.
After encountering death in her personal life, she began to confront her own mortality—and realize she wasn’t truly living. This moment, combined with the loss of her brother-in-law, set her on a path to becoming a death doula, someone who supports people through their final days. Now, she is an author, a (public speaker), and has dedicated her career to helping others embrace life by acknowledging its inevitable end.
About Alua Arthur:
Alua Arthur is a death doula, end-of-life care expert, and founder of Going with Grace, a nonprofit dedicated to helping individuals navigate the final chapter of their lives. After struggling with depression and identity, Alua found purpose in guiding others through the dying process with compassion and dignity. She has dedicated her life to empowering people to face death with grace, offering support to both individuals and their families.
Gracie Gold’s battle with mental health nearly ended her career—and her life. This is how she found her way back to herself.
Gracie Gold, a two-time national champion and Olympic medalist, seemed to embody perfection. But behind the medals and the headlines, her obsession with being flawless led her to a breaking point. After the 2016 World Championships, she spiraled into depression, binge-eating, and a complete loss of identity.
Feeling trapped and out of place, Gold hit rock bottom before seeking help at a treatment facility. There, she finally “met herself,” learning to let go of perfection and accepting “okay” as enough. Now, she’s a mental health advocate and a New York Times bestselling author.
About Gracie Gold:
Gracie Gold is an American figure skater known for her technical skill, artistry, and resilience. Born in 1995, she rose to prominence by winning the U.S. national title in 2014 and earning a bronze medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in the team event. Gold also claimed silver at the 2016 World Championships, solidifying her status as one of the sport’s top competitors. After facing mental health challenges that led to a hiatus, she made a remarkable comeback, advocating for mental health awareness in athletics.
Can psychedelics under anesthesia heal trauma? What is the latest research around ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin? That’s part of what we explore this week on Science of Perception Box. Stanford anesthesiologist Dr. Boris Heifets joins Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch to discuss the latest research on the first double-blind study on Ketamine, the placebo effect, and the therapeutic value of anesthesia-induced dreams.
Dr. Boris Heifets, MD, PhD, is a board certified anesthesiologist who specializes in providing anesthesia for neurological surgery. He has practiced at Stanford since 2010. After completing residency training at Stanford, Dr. Heifets completed fellowship training in neuroanesthesiology, also at Stanford. In addition to treating patients, Dr. Heifets directs both clinical research and basic neuroscience. His research group studies how new rapid-acting psychiatric therapies like ketamine, MDMA, and psilocybin produce lasting changes in nervous system function, behavior, and therapeutic outcomes.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
Ever wonder why time seems to fly or crawl? From ancient philosophers to modern neuroscientists, the nature of time has captivated human curiosity. This week on Science of Perception Box, we investigate the relationships among time, memory, and perception. Dr. Davachi shares the mechanisms of how the brain encodes and retrieves memories, including why emotions and feelings play a role in our perception of time.
Lila Davachi is a prominent neuroscientist known for her research in the field of memory. She earned her PhD from Yale University in 1999 and currently holds a faculty position at Columbia University, where she leads the Davachi Memory Lab. Her work primarily focuses on understanding the processes of memory encoding, consolidation, and retrieval through behavioral and cognitive neuroscientific methods.
Dr. Davachi has made significant contributions to the understanding of how memories are formed and maintained in the brain. She has published extensively in academic journals, with her research being highly cited within the scientific community. In addition to her research, she is actively involved in teaching and mentoring students in psychology and neuroscience.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation as well as the current Meritorious Investigator and Former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app or tell a friend about the show.
When was the last time you felt absolutely mesmerized by something beautiful? Whether it’s seeing a breathtaking vista, losing yourself in a piece of music, or being in a crowd cheering for the same team, the feeling of awe can be all-encompassing and expansive. This week on Science of Perception Box, Dr. Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s foremost emotion scientists and a scientific advisor behind Pixar’s Inside Out, shares how we can cultivate more awe in our life and why we need this sometimes overlooked emotion.
Dr. Keltner is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center. He has over 200 scientific publications and six books, including Born to Be Good, The Compassionate Instinct, and The Power Paradox. Dr. Keltner is involved with the education of health care providers and judges and has consulted extensively for Google, Apple, and Pinterest on issues related to emotion and well-being.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School Of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for The Tiny Blue Dot Foundation as well as the current Meritorious investigator and Former President of the Allen Institute For Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Wednesday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app or tell a friend about the show.
How can parents embrace science in order to give their children the best possible environment to thrive in? Cognitive development expert Dr. Alison Gopnik joins us to discuss how navigating challenges fosters healthier adults, likening caregiving to being a gardener creating an environment where various ”plants” can thrive in different conditions. Exposing children to diverse environments helps them develop better coping mechanisms, akin to how the immune system strengthens against viruses.
Dr. Gopnik is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, where she has taught since 1988. She is a world leader in cognitive science, particularly the study of children’s learning and development. She is the author of over 100 journal articles and several books including the best-selling and critically acclaimed popular books The Scientist in the Crib, The Philosophical Baby, and The Gardener and the Carpenter. She is a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
We long for love. We die for love. We kill for love. But why do we love? Cohosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch ask this question to Helen Fisher, PhD. who dedicated her career to researching romantic love. In this episode of Science of Perception Box, we explore how the act of being in love or out of love changes how we view ourselves and the world around us.
Dr. Fisher was a biological anthropologist, Senior Research Fellow at The Kinsey Institute, and Chief Science Advisor to Match.com. She used brain scanning (fMRI) to study the neural systems associated with the sex drive, romantic love, attachment, rejection, love addiction, long-term partnership happiness, and the biological foundations of human personality. She conducted extensive research on the evolution, biology, and psychology of human sexuality, monogamy, adultery, and divorce.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
What happens when an irredeemable person receives love, gratitude, and respect? After decades of drug and alcohol abuse, chef and television personality Andrew Zimmern learned firsthand.
As a teenager, Andrew Zimmern experienced deep pain when his mother became permanently disabled, and his father enforced a rule to avoid discussing feelings. Without an outlet, that pain grew into resentment and substance abuse. By 14, Zimmern was drinking daily, and his addiction followed him into adulthood, ultimately costing him his career, relationships, and home.
In January 1992, after hitting rock bottom, Zimmern attempted to take his own life. When he woke up, something shifted. For the first time, he asked for help. His friends intervened, sending him to rehab, where he began confronting his emotions and embracing a mindset of learning and giving.
Zimmern rebuilt his life, becoming a celebrated chef, author, and TV personality. Today, he credits that one vulnerable moment with saving his life and inspiring him to live with purpose and gratitude.
About Andrew Zimmern:
Andrew Zimmern is a chef, food writer, and television personality best known for hosting Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel. A four-time James Beard Award winner, Zimmern has dedicated his career to exploring global cuisines and advocating for culinary diversity. Beyond television, he is a passionate philanthropist, focusing on hunger relief, food sustainability, and social justice. He founded the Andrew Zimmern Project to support food security initiatives and works with organizations like Second Harvest and Services for the Underserved. Through his work, Zimmern strives to create a more equitable food system and inspire cultural appreciation through cuisine.
The one phrase that changed Diana Nyad’s life, and set her on course to become the first person ever to conquer the 110 mile, 53 hour swim from Florida to Cuba.
At 64, Diana Nyad swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida, facing jellyfish, exhaustion, and tough ocean currents for over 53 hours. But this feat was more than just physical - it was the result of a lifetime of mental endurance.
As a young swimmer, she faced sexual abuse from her coach, which derailed her Olympic dreams and left deep emotional scars. Instead of letting those experiences hold her back, she found a way to channel that pain into something powerful. She talks about developing a "steel trap mind," using her struggles as motivation to pursue her goals.
Diana's journey goes beyond breaking records. It’s a powerful reminder of the human spirit's ability to persevere and heal, no matter the odds. Her swim from Cuba to Florida, completed on her fifth attempt, showcases her incredible willpower and serves as an inspiration to people everywhere.
About Diana Nyad: Diana Nyad is an endurance swimmer, author, and motivational speaker best known for her 2013 record-breaking swim from Cuba to Florida at age 64. Completing the 110-mile journey without a shark cage, she demonstrated unparalleled resilience and determination. Nyad is also a bestselling author, journalist, and co-founder of EverWalk, a fitness initiative promoting community through walking. Her story of perseverance, chronicled in her memoir Find a Way, continues to inspire audiences worldwide.
“I saw that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, and when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer.”
Author and public speaker Byron Katie shares how she transformed her life after discovering ‘The Work’, a method for identifying the thoughts that cause pain and suffering. By asking herself four simple yet profound questions, she found a way to recover from her agoraphobia, reunite with her family, and begin teaching others how to heal.
Katie’s strategy for ending suffering lies in asking yourself four questions about the thoughts you’re having: Is it true? Can you absolutely know it’s true? How do you react when you believe it? Who are you without the thought?
By asking yourself these questions, Katie explains how you can begin to escape the mentalities that hold you back. Her method shows us that peace doesn’t come from changing the world—it comes from changing how we see it.
About Byron Katie: Byron Katie is an author and teacher who helps people find peace by questioning their stressful thoughts. In 1986, after years of depression, she experienced a life-changing realization that led her to create The Work, a simple process of self-inquiry. Her books, like Loving What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy, have touched millions. Through workshops and talks, Katie shares a path to clarity and freedom, helping people live with more acceptance and ease.
Our cultural lenses can expand our Perception Box or contract it, keeping us closed off to new opportunities. So how do we become aware of the personal influences that shape our perceptions? In this episode of Science of Perception Box, cohosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch discuss the impact of cultural differences on identity and mindsets with guest Dr. Daphna Oyserman. Dr. Oyserman shares her insights on how small changes in context can significantly affect our mindset and choices, impacting our health and academic performance.
Dr. Daphna Oyserman is a Dean’s Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Southern California. Dr. Oyserman received a PhD in psychology and social work from the University of Michigan and served on the faculty of The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, before returning to the University of Michigan where she last held appointments as the Edwin J. Thomas Collegiate Professor of Social Work, Professor of Psychology, and Research Professor in the Institute for Social Research.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
What is the mind? Does the mind exist only in your own Perception Box, or is there a greater connection of consciousness? In this episode of Science of Perception Box, cohosts Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christoph Koch discuss the interconnectedness of the mind, the impact of implicit memories from infancy on childhood attachment, and the wheel of awareness with Dr. Dan Siegel. Dr. Siegel shares his research and practices on healing unresolved trauma, preventing burnout for caregivers and medical professionals, and channeling the Perception Box-expanding power of empathy.
Dr. Siegel is the Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute and Founding Co-Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, where he was also Co-Principal Investigator of the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and Clinical Professor at the School of Medicine. An award-winning educator, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and recipient of several honorary fellowships. He has authored numerous articles and books, including five New York Times bestsellers.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
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Visit unlikelycollaborators.com for more information.
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Humans have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Plants coevolved to suit our desires for nourishment, beauty, and altering consciousness. Journalist Michael Pollan has investigated the human connection to plants. This week on Science of Perception Box, Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch ask Pollan about modern trends like ultra-processed foods, industrialized agriculture, and consciousness-altering drugs from plants including caffeine, cannabis, and psychedelics.
For more than 30 years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers. In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In 2020, along with Dacher Keltner and others, he cofounded the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, overcame a challenging upbringing marked by social isolation and family tragedy, channeling those experiences into a life defined by action, innovation, and iconoclasm. Though he’s undeniably earned his reputation as a business trailblazer, McKelvey remains uncomfortable with any attempts to mythologize his journey.
As a child, Bob Stiller felt unmoored. His mother’s death was a loss that fueled anger, insecurity and, as a teenager, lots of partying. He founded rolling paper company E-Z Wider in 1971 and, a decade later, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.
Sophia Amoruso (aka Nasty Gal) started a tiny online vintage clothing store that quickly turned into a $350 million business. Fame soon followed, but so did all of her insecurities.
Anxiety can make us feel like we’re trapped in our brain. So how do we open the door and gain freedom? This week in the inaugural episode of Science of Perception Box podcast, Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch invite Dr. Judson Brewer to delve into the roots of anxiety, its impact on our perception, and how curiosity can be the key to lasting change.
Dr. Judson Brewer studies the neural mechanisms of mindfulness. He is the Director of Research and Innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center, where he’s also an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine. Dr. Brewer is a leading expert in the science of self-mastery and breaking habits. His books include Unwinding Anxiety, The Craving Mind, and The Hunger Habit.
Dr. Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist, clinical psychologist, and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
Dr. Christof Koch is Chief Scientist for the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation and the current Meritorious Investigator and former President of the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Join us for new episodes every Thursday. Follow the show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever podcasts are found.
Love the show? Write us a review on your podcast app, or tell a friend about the show.
Join renowned scientists Dr. Heather Berlin and Dr. Christof Koch on the Science of Perception Box, where they delve into the Perception Box—a groundbreaking concept developed by Elizabeth R. Koch, that reveals how our beliefs, biases, and neural wiring shape our reality and define how we experience the world.
Through captivating conversations with expert guests like psychiatrist Dr. Judson Brewer, anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, and journalist Michael Pollan, the show explores how the Perception Box expands in states of awe, curiosity, and love, and contracts during fear, anxiety, or anger.
From mindfulness and romantic relationships to psychedelics and human connection, each episode uncovers transformative insights into unlocking greater awareness, fostering curiosity, and reshaping how we perceive the world.
New episodes drop every Thursday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow the journey and redefine your reality.
Don’t call yourself “a writer,” just write. Ryan Holiday on how the labels you give yourself can hold you back.
Who would you be without all the labels and identities you’ve collected over the course of your life?
Ego, titles, and societal expectations often shape who we think we are—or who we think we should be. Author, and for simplicity's sake, bookstore owner, Ryan Holiday explains the simple question “What do you do?” can turn into a trap, making us cling to roles that don’t really define us. But what happens when you let go of these labels? What if, instead of focusing on the identity of being a writer, you focused on the act of writing itself?
As Holiday got older, he learned that being busy “doing the verb” is far more valuable than obsessing over the noun. It’s easy to get caught up in trying to fit into the “right” categories and titles, but that often means copying, comparing, and losing sight of what really matters.
About Ryan Holiday: Ryan Holiday is a bestselling author, marketer, and one of today’s leading voices in modern Stoicism. He’s known for taking ancient wisdom and making it relatable and practical for everyday life. Before becoming an author, he led marketing at American Apparel. Now, he writes about strategy, self-discipline, and leadership, weaving history into real-world advice.
When a group of first responders were asked to confront the Perception Box question, "What need inside of yourself have you been neglecting?", their raw and honest responses were deeply moving and sparked profound reflection.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
“I feel like I had to lose my sight to fully gain my vision.” John Furniss on how becoming blind led him to drug abuse, rehab, woodworking, and finally, to a fulfilling life.
John Furniss, also known as the Blind Woodsman, opens up about his journey from a difficult past to finding peace and purpose. After losing his sight as a teenager, John struggled for years to accept his new reality, battling inner turmoil and substance abuse along the way. It wasn't until he discovered woodworking through a vocational rehab program that he found a way to channel his creativity and start healing.
Woodworking became more than just a skill for John; it allowed him to bring the designs he imagined in his mind to life. This craft also led him to meet his wife, Annie, who has been a constant source of love and support. Through his work and his relationship, John found a sense of belonging and a new way of seeing the world. He reflects on how losing his sight actually helped him gain a clearer vision of who he is and what he’s meant to do, ultimately finding peace in embracing his true self.
About John Furniss:
John Furniss, known professionally as The Blind Woodsman, is a skilled woodworker, author, and disability advocate recognized for his meticulous hand-turned creations. After losing his sight at 16, John faced significant challenges adapting to life with total blindness. In his 20s, he found his passion for woodworking through a class designed for the blind, which led to the development of his unique craft.
Today, John’s work has been featured on platforms such as Good Morning America and The Kelly Clarkson Show. He and his wife, Anni, who is also an artist, use their social media platforms to share their work and raise awareness about disability and mental health. John’s expertise in woodworking and his contributions to the art community have established him as a respected figure in his field.
Kaelynn Partlow shares her story about life with autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, and how finding the right diagnosis helped her embrace her neurodivergent identity.
Kaelynn Partlow, an author, autism advocate, and registered behavior technician, shares her own experiences living with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and more. She talks about how these diagnoses shifted her self-perception from feeling "stupid" to understanding her unique challenges and strengths.
Kaelynn opens up about the misunderstandings neurodivergent people face and the difficulty of connecting in a world that often doesn't accommodate different ways of thinking. She also shares her fears—like wondering if her social difficulties will ever improve—and how she copes with loneliness, especially when not focused on work.
Through it all, Kaelynn emphasizes the value of recognizing your own strengths, even when it’s hard. By taking on challenges and thriving under pressure, she found new opportunities, from public speaking to creative writing. Her story shows that growth often comes from facing fears and redefining success on your own terms.
About Kaelynn Partlow:
In 2015, Kaelynn Partlow joined Project Hope Foundation as a Registered Behavior Technician. She is now a Lead Technician, providing services to middle and high-school-aged clients and contributing to staff training development.
In 2021, Kaelynn was featured on the Netflix series Love On The Spectrum. She has also been a guest on numerous national podcasts and has published several articles, offering insights from an autistic perspective.
With a large following on various social media platforms, Kaelynn uses her reach for autism advocacy, connecting with millions globally. In addition to her online work and role at Project Hope, she is an international public speaker, passionate about sharing tangible strategies for best practices when interacting with individuals on the autism spectrum
Your brain is wired to repeat the familiar. Change this wiring, and it will change your life.
Nicole Vignola, a neuroscientist and organizational psychologist, explains how deeply rooted beliefs can limit our potential and keep us trapped in patterns of thought. These perceptions, often shaped by our upbringing and environment, aren’t necessarily our own—but they can be changed.
Nicole shares how the brain’s natural biases, like negativity bias and confirmation bias, reinforce these limiting beliefs. However, with the right approach, it’s possible to reshape our mental patterns. By practicing metacognition—observing and naming our thoughts—we can start to rewire our perception and create new, empowering narratives.
Our brains are capable of change at any age. By focusing on small wins and challenging automatic thoughts, we can break free from old beliefs and begin using a mindset that better serves ourselves and our futures.
About Nicole Vignola:
Nicole Vignola is a neuroscientist, author and corporate consultant. With a BSc in Neuroscience and an MSc in Organizational Psychology, Nicole works with companies and individuals worldwide, educating them on the science of human optimisation, health and longevity, and how to enable employees to perform better in their daily lives and in turn, bring peak performance to the workplace. Recent clients include Lloyds Bank, Makers Mark and Smeg Ltd.
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Expanding your worldview starts with understanding your brain. Stanford neuroscientist David Eagleman explains.
David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford and host of the Inner Cosmos podcast, explores how our brains shape the reality we experience and why we often accept our perceptions as the only truth. From a young age, we develop our understanding of the world based on limited experiences and biases, which can lead us to form narrow views about what's true.
Eagleman explains that our genetics and life experiences wire our brains in unique ways, meaning that each of us sees the world a little differently. He introduces the idea of "perceptual genomics," which looks at how slight genetic differences influence our perception of reality. He also discusses how our brains naturally create in-groups and out-groups, a tendency rooted in evolution that affects how much empathy we feel for others.
To overcome these biases, Eagleman suggests that we start by recognizing our own prejudices, understanding the tactics of dehumanization, and connecting with others through shared interests. This approach helps us appreciate the diverse realities others experience, ultimately contributing to a more empathetic and understanding society.
About David Eagleman:
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University and an internationally bestselling author. He is co-founder of two venture-backed companies, Neosensory and BrainCheck, and he also directs the Center for Science and Law, a national non-profit institute. He is best known for his work on sensory substitution, time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw.
Challenging the loneliness stigma can change your life. Here’s how to start.
From a young age, many of us are taught that being alone means something is wrong, leading to negative thought patterns that reinforce feelings of isolation. Kasley Killam, author of The Art and Science of Connection and an expert in social health, explains how these perceptions of loneliness can shape our experiences and influence our lives.
According to Killam, this stigma around loneliness can trigger a stress response in the body, affecting both mental and physical well being. However, by challenging these narratives and reminding ourselves of how much control we really have, it’s possible to redirect our mindsets. It also helps, she says, to understand the difference between individualistic and collectivist cultures, and how each one can influence the way we interpret and discuss our feelings with others.
For those who have struggled with loneliness or felt trapped in a cycle of negative thinking, this perspective can help us break free. By shifting our thought patterns, we can transform our relationships, enhance our sense of connection, and improve our overall well-being.
About Kasley Killam:
Kasley Killam is a social health expert, author, and advocate focused on strengthening connections and enhancing community well-being. With a background in behavioral science and public health from Harvard University, she is a leading voice on the impact of social relationships on mental and physical health.
As the founder of Social Health Labs, Killam collaborates with organizations to develop innovative solutions for combating loneliness and social isolation. Her work has been featured in major publications, and she is a sought-after speaker on the importance of social well-being in creating healthier, more resilient communities.
Ever wonder why your partner goes Tasmanian Devil in traffic jams while you just shrug? Or why you have such a hard time setting boundaries with parents when your sibling has no problem saying "hell no!" Everyone has something that triggers panic or turns their blood cold…and it all starts with the story you made up about yourself when you were too young to know the difference…your Perception Box Seed Story.
A group of LGBTQ+ individuals courageously answered the Perception Box question, "Who or what have you left behind on your journey to become who you are today?" Their honest and insightful responses were deeply moving.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
How has Kel Mitchell navigated self-doubt, isolation, and the desire to “hit the off button”? He says it’s all faith, community, and personal forgiveness.
After his debut on Nickelodeon, Kel Mitchell began a life-long career as an actor and comedian. He got married, started a family, and basked in professional success. However, behind the scenes, he faced intense personal hardships that pushed him to the brink, testing his resilience and strength in ways he never imagined.
Kel guides us through the lowest points of his life, showing us how faith in himself and his religion helped him rebuild and achieve a fulfilling existence. He reminds us that blessings can often be hidden in hardships and that mistakes play a crucial role in shaping who we are.
By expressing his pain and opening up to others about the things he was struggling with, he was able to find unity, community, and support from those who had experienced similar drawbacks. Mitchell stresses the importance of understanding others, and how deep relationships can change – and even save – lives.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
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Kel Mitchell is a two-time Emmy Award-nominated actor, producer, comedian, and youth pastor hailing from Chicago, Illinois.
Mitchell executive produced and appeared in the new iteration of the beloved Nickelodeon series All That, bringing him full circle to the original award-winning show that was his big break. All That was Nickelodeon's longest-running live-action series, with 171 episodes across ten seasons from 1994 to 2005. The franchise paved the way for a number of successful spin-offs, including Kenan & Kel, The Amanda Show, The Nick Cannon Show, and the feature-length film Good Burger, all of which cemented Mitchell's impact on pop culture.
A two-part visualization to help you gain distance from any overpowering emotion so you can respond to the true need of the moment with something closer to calm.
Harvard physician Aditi Nerukar explains how to rewire your brain’s stress response to live a more resilient life.
If you’ve ever heard the phrase “pressure makes diamonds,” this video is for you.
Harvard physician Aditi Nerurkar was working 80 hours a week, and, despite what she was telling herself about resilience, the stress was taking a major toll. She explains how there are two different kinds of stress, aptly named “adaptive” and “maladaptive.” But how can you tell the difference between the two?
Dr. Nerukar explains that healthy, adaptive stress moves your life forward, while unhealthy, maladaptive stress wears you down and diminishes your productivity. When experiencing maladaptive stress, you may find yourself plummeting closer to burnout, or a complete shutdown. To combat these consequences, Dr. Neurkar offers two easily achievable methods for resetting your brain in high-stress situations.
Whether you're navigating a demanding job, balancing multiple life roles, or simply looking to improve your stress management, this information can help you thrive without compromising your well-being. Remember to slow down, take deep breaths, and regularly check in with yourself to ensure your stress remains healthy and manageable!
Neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor explains the 4 key ”characters” of the brain, and how understanding each can expand your perception of yourself, and the world, forever.
At age 37, neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a stroke that would take her eight years to fully recover from. This is how it changed her understanding of the brain.
In this interview, Dr. Jill draws a map of the human brain, explaining how it is comprised of four distinct modules, each serving a unique role in function and personality. This combination of cognitive and emotional components gives rise to the multidimensional characters within each of us.
Are you looking to be more rational, more creative, more forgiving, or perhaps less rigid in your thinking? Dr. Jill suggests that by becoming aware of the four modules of our brains, we can consciously choose to engage specific parts. This awareness allows us to harness the true power of our brains and shape who we want to become, ultimately fostering less anxiety, more inner peace, and a vastly more purposeful life.
Carrie Berk reveals how she transformed her struggle with anxiety and internet fame by changing her perception and finding her true voice as a writer.
Carrie Berk, author, journalist, and social media influencer with nearly 4 million TikTok followers, shares her journey through anxiety, internet fame, and personal growth.
Amid the pandemic and sudden online fame, Carrie faced intense anxiety, receiving harmful threats from strangers and grappling with the pressures of social media. Sharing her most vulnerable moments, including her first heartbreak at sixteen, Carrie emphasizes the importance of authenticity. Through therapy and self-discovery, she learned that while she couldn’t switch off her anxiety, she could change her response to it.
Carrie’s story is a perfect example of the resilience it takes to be a young person in today’s social climate, and proves how powerful self-confidence and inner strength can be.
This group of people who have experienced homelessness were asked the Perception Box question, "In moments of deep solitude, what major concerns and questions about YOU tend to dominate your thoughts?" Their honest answers were deeply moving and insightful.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
In this episode, a group of formerly incarcerated individuals was asked the Perception Box question, "What are you most afraid is true about you?" Their candid responses were incredibly moving and thought-provoking.
This series (a collaboration with Jubilee Media) is designed for communities with shared experiences to spark deeper self-understanding and connection by sharing their answers to specially selected Perception Box questions. This highlights the power of vulnerability and the importance of creating safe spaces for honest conversations.
Jewel says denying the truth cost her years of her life. This is how she shifted her perception to see truth more clearly and regain her strength.
“My number one job was to be a happy, whole human — not a human full of holes.” Jewel Kilcher, singer-songwriter, and visual artist, opens up about her childhood, the start of her career, and what makes Jewel, Jewel.
After being discovered during a coffee shop gig in the 1990’s, folk singer Jewel began the life-long endeavor of being a performer. Jewel went on to gain worldwide recognition for her talent and creativity. But who is she at her core? What are her greatest fears, her deepest aspirations?
In this interview, Jewel shares the personal struggles and triumphs that have shaped her, the importance of truth on her life and well-being, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Through this conversation, Jewel offers an up-close look into her journey, revealing the experiences and hard-won insights that have shaped her as both an artist and a person.
Experience Jewel’s latest exhibit at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, The Portal: An Art Experience by Jewel ► https://crystalbridges.org/calendar/the-portal-an-art-experience-by-jewel/
About Jewel:
Jewel Kilcher, known mononymously as Jewel, embodies the quintessential story of resilience and artistic integrity. From her humble beginnings in the rugged landscapes of Alaska to her rise as a multi-platinum recording artist, Jewel's journey is a testament to the transformative power of art. Homeless at 18, she honed her craft performing in coffee shops, blending folk, pop, and country influences with her ethereal voice and introspective songwriting.
Her debut album, "Pieces of You," captured hearts worldwide, achieving remarkable commercial success while delivering profound, soul-stirring messages. Beyond music, Jewel's talents extend to poetry and acting, with her literary works and performances reflecting her deep empathy and authenticity.
Jewel's commitment to social causes, including mental health advocacy and her foundation, the Inspiring Children Foundation, underscores her dedication to making a positive impact. In a world often dominated by transient fame, Jewel stands out as a beacon of enduring creativity and compassionate leadership.
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