#31.1 - Nonuniversal Explainers, with Ben Chugg

Christofer and podcaster Ben Chugg speak about evolutionary psychology in this episode of Do Explain. They discuss listening to podcasts at faster speed, information addiction, the role of neurobiology, impatience, the fun criterion, universal explainers, the salience of memory/speed in intelligence, and other related topics.

Ben Chugg is a research fellow at Stanford law school. He has a background in math and computer science and, along with Vaden Masrani, hosts the increments podcast. He also writes insightful philosophy articles at Medium.

Website: https://benchugg.com/
Medium: https://benchugg.medium.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BennyChugg
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/increments/id1514221797

Timestamps:

(6:43) - Ben’s Twitter bio

(9:28) - Listening to audio at above 1x speed

(14:58) - The urge for constant improvement

(21:28) - The pressure for productivity

(26:10) - The skill of enjoying non-productivity

(29:30) - The fun criterion and dopamine

(35:06) - Universal explainers vs. evolutionary psychology

(42:50) - The definition of evolutionary psychology

(49:58) - Cultures and institutions 

(56:12) - On not dismissing fields as scientism

(59:26) - Why is evolutionary psychology incompatible with Popperian epistemology?

(63:45) - Quantitative and qualitative differences in intelligence

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Find Christofer on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ReachChristofer