Is a hotdog a sandwich?
Well, that depends on your definition of a sandwich (and a hotdog), and according to the most recent research in cognitive science, the odds that your concept of a sandwich is the same as another person's concept are shockingly low.
In this episode we explore how understanding why that question became a world-spanning argument in the mid 2010s helps us understand some of the world-spanning arguments vexing us today.
Our guest is psychologist Celeste Kidd who studies how we acquire and conceptualize information, form beliefs around those concepts, and, in general, make sense of the torrent of information blasting our brains each and every second. Her most recent paper examines how conceptual misalignment can lead to semantic disagreements, which can lead us to talk past each other (and get into arguments about things like whether hotdogs are sandwiches).
Previous Episodes
Why can’t we settle the “is a hot dog a sandwich?” debate?
How Minds Change
David McRaney’s Twitter
YANSS Twitter
Newsletter
Celeste Kidd’s Website
Celeste Kidd’s Twitter
Latent Diversity in Human Concepts
108 - Pandora's Lab
107 - Debate
106 - The Climate Paradox (rebroadcast)
105 - Optimism Bias
104 - Labels (rebroadcast)
103 - Desirability Bias
102 - WEIRD Science (rebroadcast)
101 - Naive Realism (rebroadcast)
100 - The Replication Crisis
099 - The Half Life of Facts
098 - Active Information Avoidance
097 - Scams (rebroadcast)
096 - Progress
095 - The Backfire Effect - Part Three
094 - The Backfire Effect - Part Two
093 - The Backfire Effect - Part One
091 - Learned Helplessness (rebroadcast)
090 - Reality - Donald Hoffman
089 - Connections - James Burke
088 - Moral Arguments
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