Podcast appearances and mentions of michael arbib

How do birds build their nests? By instinct, of course—at least that's what the conventional wisdom tells us. A swallow builds a swallow's nest; a robin builds a robin's nest. Every bird just follows the rigid template set down its genes. But over the course of the last couple decades, scientists have begun to take a closer look at nests—they've weighed and measured them, they've filmed the building process. And the conventional wisdom just doesn't hold up. These structures vary in all kinds of ways, even within a species. They're shaped by experience, by learning, by cultural tradition. When we look at a bird's nest, we're looking at the product of a flexible mind.   My guest today is Dr. Susan Healy. Sue is a Professor in the School of Biology at the University of St Andrews and an expert in birds—their behavior, their cognition, and their evolution. For more than a decade now, Sue has been pioneering a new chapter in the study of birds' nests.    Here, Sue and I talk about some of the most impressive nests (as well as some of the least impressive). We do a bit of Birds' Nests 101—the different forms they take, the functions they serve, which sex does the building, how these structures evolved, and more. We dig into the mounting evidence that birds are in fact quite flexible in their building practices, that they learn from others and from their own experience. We discuss recent evidence from Sue's team that cultural traditions shape the weaver nests of the Kalahari. And we talk about what nests might have in common with songs and tools. Along the way, we touch on: pigeon nests and hummingbird nests, dinosaur nests and chimpanzee nests; Alfred Russel Wallace; commonalities in the techniques of human weavers and weaver birds; whether bird personality might be reflected in nest style; the brain basis of nest-building; and a whole lot else.    Hope you enjoy this one, friends. On to my conversation with Dr. Sue Healy.    A transcript of this episode will be available soon.   Notes and links 2:30 – An example of a post on the (seemingly inadequate) nests of pigeons.  7:30 – An article featuring a variety of weaverbird nests. 10:30 – Alfred Russel Wallace's essay on birds' nests is available here.  15:00 – A paper from another branch of Dr. Healy's work, on hummingbirds.  16:00 – The 1902 book by Charles Dixon on the science “caliology.” 17:00 – An example of research done by the Colliases on weavers.  19:00 – For an up-to-date primer on birds' nests—covering a number of the questions we discuss here—see Dr. Healy's recent primer. 22:30 – An article about hummingbird eggs.  28:30 – A paper by Dr. Healy and colleagues on the use of human materials in birds' nests. Our episode on animal medication is here.  31:30 – An article about bowerbirds and how they decorate their bowers. 35:00 – An article on the evolution of birds' nests, covering the question of what dinosaur nests were like.  43:00 – A paper by Dr. Healy and colleagues on the impact of temperature and earlier breeding success on nest size. 51:00 ­– For more discussion of personality in animals, including in clonal fish, see our episode with Kate Laskowski.  55:00 – A study by Dr. Healy and colleagues showing that zebra finches build nests that match the color of the walls.  58:00 – A study by Dr. Healy and colleagues looking at how zebra finches learn aspects of nest-building from familiar individuals. 59:00 – A study by Dr. Healy and colleagues, led by Maria Tello-Ramos, about architectural traditions in an African sociable weaver species.   1:07:00 – An article by Michael Arbib, Dr. Healy, and colleagues on connections between tool use, language, and nest-building.  1:11:00 – An initial study on the brain basis of nest-building in zebra finches. A further study on the same topic.  1:12:30 – A paper by Hopi E. Hoekstra and colleagues on the genetics of burrow-building in deer mice.   1:14:00 – An exploration of the idea that humans initially learned their weaving skills from weaver birds.    Recommendations Books by Mike Hansell (see here, here, and here) Birds' nests, Charles Dixon Avian architecture, Peter Goodfellow Animal architects, James Gould & Carol Gould   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala.  Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com.    For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbolic worlds by putting words together to tell stories, articulate plans, tell lies, seek truth, and much more. This talk offers hypotheses that address a key question for anthropogeny: How did biological evolution yield humans with the “construction-ready brains” and bodies that made us capable of the cultural evolution that created the diversity of our mental and physical constructs that we know today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40161]

Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbolic worlds by putting words together to tell stories, articulate plans, tell lies, seek truth, and much more. This talk offers hypotheses that address a key question for anthropogeny: How did biological evolution yield humans with the “construction-ready brains” and bodies that made us capable of the cultural evolution that created the diversity of our mental and physical constructs that we know today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40161]

Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbolic worlds by putting words together to tell stories, articulate plans, tell lies, seek truth, and much more. This talk offers hypotheses that address a key question for anthropogeny: How did biological evolution yield humans with the “construction-ready brains” and bodies that made us capable of the cultural evolution that created the diversity of our mental and physical constructs that we know today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40161]

Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbolic worlds by putting words together to tell stories, articulate plans, tell lies, seek truth, and much more. This talk offers hypotheses that address a key question for anthropogeny: How did biological evolution yield humans with the “construction-ready brains” and bodies that made us capable of the cultural evolution that created the diversity of our mental and physical constructs that we know today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40161]

Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbolic worlds by putting words together to tell stories, articulate plans, tell lies, seek truth, and much more. This talk offers hypotheses that address a key question for anthropogeny: How did biological evolution yield humans with the “construction-ready brains” and bodies that made us capable of the cultural evolution that created the diversity of our mental and physical constructs that we know today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40161]

Humans construct their physical worlds in part by designing and constructing new tools, habitations, and in due course diverse buildings and, in some cases, towns and cities and construct their symbolic worlds by putting words together to tell stories, articulate plans, tell lies, seek truth, and much more. This talk offers hypotheses that address a key question for anthropogeny: How did biological evolution yield humans with the “construction-ready brains” and bodies that made us capable of the cultural evolution that created the diversity of our mental and physical constructs that we know today? Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 40161]

In this episode, we have the special opportunity to meet with neuroscientist Michael Arbib who shares his scholarly insights in a conversation on neuroscience and architecture. Highlighting topics in his book on the brain landscape, mirror neurons in architecture, and wayfinding.

To start with, the talk will review and update the hypothesis (How the Brain Got Language, Oxford University Press, 2012) that early Homo sapiens were language-ready in the sense that they had brains that could have supported language had it already been developed – but they were not language-using. The approach sees protolanguage emerging from complex recognition and imitation of manual skills via biocultural evolution, while cultural evolution alone supported the emergence of language from protolanguage. The key innovation in this talk is the argument that this approach supports the view that the H. sapiens language-ready brain had the more general property of being construction-ready. This notion will be illustrated with data from monkey and human tool use and bird nest construction (introducing the word becculation, manipulation with a beak, into the English language) as well as data and speculations on symbols and symbolism in the protohistory of human architecture.

After the speaker's talk at the Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summerschool 2010 at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott go deeper into the subjects presented.

For nearly 30 years, Michael Arbib taught computer science, neuroscience, engineering, psychology, and mathematics at the University of Southern California, and is known for his prolific work on brains and computers: essentially, what the mechanisms of one can teach us about how the other works. Gathering together all aspects of his work, he’s sharpened his focus on the connection between architecture and neuroscience, and developed the concept of neuromorphic architecture. He is now associated with the NewSchool for Architecture and Design and UC San Diego, and has played a major role in the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, based in La Jolla, California. We spoke about the Academy’s upcoming conference, and what architecture practice can realistically take from neuroscientific research.

Mirror neurons were first discovered in the brain of macaque monkeys – neurons active both when the monkey executed certain actions and when he observed others performing similar actions. Perhaps such neurons in humans could provide the key to linking our own experience to that of others. Michael Arbib (Univ of Southern California) explores this idea, but stresses that mirror neurons function only as part of much larger brain systems. In other words, human social interaction is not just a matter of registering the current actions or expressions of the other. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 26080]

Mirror neurons were first discovered in the brain of macaque monkeys – neurons active both when the monkey executed certain actions and when he observed others performing similar actions. Perhaps such neurons in humans could provide the key to linking our own experience to that of others. Michael Arbib (Univ of Southern California) explores this idea, but stresses that mirror neurons function only as part of much larger brain systems. In other words, human social interaction is not just a matter of registering the current actions or expressions of the other. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 26080]

In this episode we talk to Michael Arbib who is the Fletcher Jones professor of computer science, as well as a professor of biological sciences, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, neuroscience and psychology at the University of Southern California where he is also the director of the USC Brain Project. He's been inspiring roboticists around the world with his research in neuroscience especially on mirror systems. He gives us insight as to why we cry at the movies and how imitation and language acquisition might have came about in humans or monkeys. From the neurons to the machines and from "faked" emotions to real ones, he gives us his view on robots today and tomorrow.