Curiosity ⇔ Entangled

Where does the mind end, and how much of who we are is made through our relationships with the world around us?Cognitive archaeologist Lambros Malafouris joins philosopher Shaun Gallagher to explore a view of the mind that reaches beyond the brain. Drawing on Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory and Gallagher's work on embodied and enactive cognition, they examine how thinking emerges through the ongoing relationship between brain, body, other people, objects, technologies, and the environments we inhabit.Their conversation explores the four E's of cognition—embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive—why objects and materials may participate in human agency, the relationship between pottery and the potter who shapes it, how our brains and environments change together, and how technologies become part of the processes that make us who we are. From there, they turn to AI and ask what happens when technologies change faster than we can understand their effects on us: how digital systems reshape habits and institutions, what skills may disappear along the way, and whether changing our everyday practices may matter as much as changing the rules that govern technology.Three core questions:Does cognition happen inside the brain, or emerge through relationships between brain, body, other people, and the material world?If tools and technologies help shape our agency, habits, and sense of self, what happens when those technologies change?As AI becomes embedded in everyday life and institutions, how do we preserve the embodied practices and ways of thinking we still value?———GUESTSLambros Malafouris - Cognitive & Anthropological ArchaeologistProfessor of Cognitive & Anthropological Archaeology, University of OxfordTutorial Fellow in Archaeology and Anthropology, Hertford CollegeDeveloper of Material Engagement Theory and author of People Are STRANGE: Material Engagement and the Creation of Self-Consciousnesshttps://www.hertford.ox.ac.uk/staff/lambros-malafouris/https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262553902/people-are-strange/Shaun Gallagher - Philosopher & Cognitive ScientistLillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Philosophy, University of MemphisKnown for his work on embodied cognition, phenomenology, agency, intersubjectivity, and the Pattern Theory of Selfhttps://www.memphis.edu/philosophy/people/https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/facpubs/6153/———Chapters00:00 Meet Lambros Malafouris and Shaun Gallagher02:38 The four E's: embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive cognition09:05 Material Engagement Theory: how things shape the mind16:34 What scientific models leave out19:14 The situated person and the relational mind23:35 Where does agency actually live?28:44 Agency, body ownership, and the minimal self30:25 The potter, the clay, and agency in the relationship35:23 STRANGE, metaplasticity, and how humans become44:03 What London taxi drivers reveal about brains and technology46:05 Three kinds of technological transparency49:34 What are our technologies doing to us?50:55 AI, human becoming, and the technologies we choose56:00 The socially extended mind and how institutions shape us59:26 When digital technologies become the structure of institutions1:03:04 Habits, practices, and another way to think about change1:09:50 What embodied skills could we lose in the age of AI?1:12:19 From pottery to politics: where the conversation leads

What is life, and how much say do we have in shaping what comes next?Astrobiologist and theoretical physicist Sara Imari Walker joins artist and futurist Amy Karle to explore the questions they each reach from opposite directions: what life is, how it begins, and how we would recognize it somewhere else. Drawing on Walker's search for the physics and possible laws of life and Karle's art made with the tools of frontier science and biotechnology, they find where a scientist's attempt to see life differently meets an artist's attempt to help us feel possibilities we do not yet have language for.Their conversation explores time and how differently each of us lives it, possibility versus probability, creativity as a force that shapes the world, the traces we leave for the future, bioprinting and what we become when we remake the body, how a work changes as different cultures receive it, and the question of what part we play in the universe's ongoing creativity.Three core questions:1. What does it mean to be alive, and how would we recognize life radically unlike our own?2. Can genuinely new possibilities emerge, or is the future fundamentally constrained by the past and by probability?3. Is the universe itself creative, and what role do life, intelligence, and human agency play in that creative process?———GUESTSSara Imari Walker - Astrobiologist & Theoretical PhysicistProfessor and Deputy Director, Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science, Arizona State UniversityAuthor of Life as No One Knows It and co-developer of Assembly Theoryhttps://search.asu.edu/profile/1731899https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...Amy Karle - Artist, Bioartist & FuturistKnown for Regenerative Reliquary and The Heart of EvolutionExhibited at Ars Electronica, the Centre Pompidou, and the Mori Art Museumhttps://www.amykarle.com———Chapters00:00 Meet Sara Imari Walker and Amy Karle01:14 What does it mean to be alive?04:41 The futures cone, and how much we shape what comes07:33 Possibility, probability, and the outliers that surprise us10:40 Living out of the past, or starting from a blank slate16:28 Echoes from the Valley of Existence: leaving DNA on the Moon23:04 Our very different relationships to time42:07 Powers of Ten, and seeing clearly in the AI age47:48 What would alien life be, and how would we know it?58:06 Amy's beginning, and the fragility of life1:04:37 The Heart of Evolution, and who we become when we remake the body1:08:40 Scary and beautiful: how cultures complete the work1:18:15 Perception, and our role in the universe's creativity

What can Freud still teach us about the brain, consciousness, and mental health?Neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst Mark Solms joins theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston to explore the connections between Freud’s ideas and modern neuroscience. Using Solms’s book The Only Cure as a starting point, they discuss how our experiences shape the brain’s understanding of the world—and why changing that understanding may be central to mental healing.Their conversation explores talking therapy, psychedelics, consciousness, memory, childhood development, the unconscious mind, curiosity, and the idea that our actions are guided by attempts to meet our needs and reduce uncertainty.———GUESTSMark Solms - Neuropsychologist, Psychoanalyst & AuthorProfessor, Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape TownAuthor of The Only Cure and The Hidden Springhttps://neuroscience.uct.ac.za/contac...https://www.simonandschuster.com/auth...Karl Friston - Theoretical Neuroscientist & PsychiatristProfessor of Imaging Neuroscience, University College LondonKnown for the Free Energy Principle and Active Inferencehttps://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/2747-karl-...https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/———Chapters00:00 Meet Mark Solms and Karl Friston02:23 How a psychoanalyst and a neuroscientist joined forces06:12 Freud, Feynman, and a physics of the mind10:23 A 29-year quest to translate Freud, and a new book18:50 Does therapy treat causes while medication treats symptoms?30:49 Where our sense of self and our feelings come from43:27 The hidden design of the mind that Freud could only imagine49:10 Many kinds of memory, and the depth of the mind1:02:20 The unconscious: how much of us runs on autopilot1:15:08 Why our earliest years shape us, even when we cannot recall them1:25:59 "All thinking is wishful thinking"1:32:14 From Freud to Feynman to Friston

This episode bridges speculative design, anthropology, ecological art, education, environmental ethics, material culture, and futures thinking to ask: how can imagination become a practical tool for building more open, connected, and livable worlds?Anab Jain, co-founder and creative director of Superflux and professor of Design Investigations at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, joins Johns Hopkins anthropologist Anand Pandian, author of Something Between Us and A Possible Anthropology, for a Curiosity Entangled conversation about speculative futures, ecological imagination, design, anthropology, and the more-than-human world. Together, they discuss how immersive experiences can make alternative futures tangible, why boredom and open-mindedness matter, and how art and design can create space for people to form their own relationships with possible worlds.They also explore authoritarianism and the political danger of imagination, Superflux’s future-home installations, the Jones Falls 2076 project in Baltimore, buried urban rivers, the afterlives of discarded objects, and the idea of the “Craftocene”—using craft, repair, and material experimentation to reverse the logic of consumption. Their conversation moves through abandoned vape batteries, aluminum cans, speculative artifacts, future museums, ecological education, community-building, hope, and the challenge of remaining creatively engaged when the future feels overwhelming.⸻TIMESTAMPS00:00:31 - Introductions: speculative design, anthropology, and shared inspiration00:04:35 - Possibility as embodied experience, not just an idea00:08:12 - Boredom, Walter Benjamin, and minds allowed to wander00:12:51 - Open-mindedness, jugaad, and wisdom from rural fieldwork00:23:03 - A lived 2050 apartment and imagination as slow activism00:26:16 - Jones Falls 2076: dreaming a buried river back to life00:34:10 - Telling terrible stories beautifully: loss and the Craftocene00:38:44 - Foraged vapes, burned cans, and reversing supply chains00:44:20 - The Future of Here: a culture built from what we discard00:48:30 - Museums of the future and objects that catch stories01:01:10 - Community, collective organizing, and sustaining hope01:07:46 - Getting unstuck: cognitive precarity and hope as making⸻GUESTSAnab Jain - Designer, Futurist & EducatorCo-Founder and Director, Superflux (London)Professor of Design Investigations, University of Applied Arts Viennahttps://superflux.in/https://superflux.in/index.php/team/a...Anand Pandian - Anthropologist, Professor & AuthorProfessor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins UniversityAuthor of A Possible Anthropology and Reel Worldhttps://anand.studio/https://anthropology.jhu.edu/director...⸻RELATED TOPICSSpeculative design, anthropology, ecological design, ecological imagination, experiential futures, futures thinking, more-than-human world, environmental ethics, open-mindedness, authoritarianism, immersive installations, climate change, storytelling, boredom, material culture, repair, waste, consumerism, Craftocene, Jones Falls 2076, buried rivers, urban ecology, discarded objects, future museums, speculative anthropology, design education, radical pedagogy, community, hope, art and science, longform conversation⸻FOLLOW ACCELERATOR MEDIATwitter/X: https://x.com/xceleratormediaInstagram:   / xcelerator.medialinkedin:     / accelerator-media-orgwebsite:   https://acceleratormedia.org⸻ABOUT CURIOSITY ENTANGLEDCuriosity Entangled pairs distinguished thinkers from different disciplines for unscripted conversations about consciousness, science, technology, and humanity’s long-term future. Hosted by Accelerator Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to public engagement with science and long-term thinking.

Geology is usually taught through rocks, minerals, mountains, and deep time. But structural geologist Marcia Bjornerud and sound artist Olivia Block show how Earth science also connects to sound, music, memory, climate change, architecture, and the way humans understand the planet.Marcia Bjornerud, professor of geosciences at Lawrence University and author of Timefulness and Turning to Stone, joins composer and sound artist Olivia Block for a Curiosity Entangled conversation about geology, sound art, deep time, and the more-than-human world. Together, they explore how rocks record Earth’s history, how mountains and continents move over immense timescales, and why listening can become a powerful way to think about geological change.They also discuss the Great Unconformity, Snowball Earth, the Great Oxygenation Event, banded iron formations, slow earthquakes, seismology, quarry landscapes, architectural stone, and the challenge of communicating Earth history to a human audience. The conversation connects science and art through Olivia’s sound installations and Marcia’s writing, while also touching on climate change, AI, scientific humility, and the importance of seeing Earth as an active, dynamic system rather than a passive background to human life.This episode bridges geology, sound art, Earth history, climate science, music, architecture, and deep time to ask: how can science and art help us better understand the planet we live on?⸻TIMESTAMPS00:00:31 - Introductions: Sound art, structural geology, and sonic connections00:01:05 - Weaving Earth history with memoir00:03:04 - Geological time, sound, and human perception00:09:28 - Rocks as animate, responsive, and more-than-human00:14:37 - The Great Unconformity and missing time in the geologic record00:15:43 - Snowball Earth and ancient climate shifts00:19:19 - The Great Oxygenation Event and how life transformed the atmosphere00:27:18 - Climate urgency, grief, and moving beyond human-centered thinking00:28:29 - AI, vulnerability, capitalism, and empathy for the nonhuman world00:34:42 - Selecting rocks for a sound art installation00:40:30 - Indiana limestone, architecture, and sound00:46:27 - Slow earthquakes and finding signals in noise00:58:52 - Scientific humility, jazz, and the limits of disciplinary boundaries⸻GUESTSMarcia Bjornerud - Structural Geologist, Professor & AuthorProfessor of Geosciences, Lawrence UniversityAuthor of Timefulness and Turning to Stonehttps://lawrence.edu/people/marcia-bjornerud-walter-schober-professor-of-environmental-studies-and-professor-of-geosciencesOlivia Block - Composer & Sound ArtistMultichannel Installation ArtistComposer working across music, sound, electronics, and geological themeshttps://oliviablock.net/ https://instagram.com/oliviablocksound/https://oliviablock.bandcamp.com/⸻RELATED TOPICSGeology, Earth science, sound art, deep time, structural geology, rocks, Earth history, climate change, Snowball Earth, Great Unconformity, Great Oxygenation Event, banded iron formations, slow earthquakes, seismology, music, sound installation, architecture, limestone, quarries, science communication, art and science, AI, scientific humility, more-than-human world, longform conversation⸻ABOUT CURIOSITY ENTANGLEDCuriosity Entangled pairs distinguished thinkers from different disciplines for unscripted conversations about consciousness, science, technology, and humanity’s long-term future. Hosted by Accelerator Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to public engagement with science and long-term thinking.#Geology #EarthScience #MarciaBjornerud #OliviaBlock #SoundArt #DeepTime #ClimateChange #Seismology #Rocks #ScienceCommunication #ArtAndScience #LongformPodcast #CuriosityEntangled