To tide things over for a while until I have more time to write more substantive posts, I thought I'd like to put together a post of some curated links to online content relevant to the sorts of topics I've been writing about recently. Think of it as a kind of clip-show approach to keep putting posts up while I'm a little short of time to write. First of all, needless to say, have a browse through the blogroll at the side of the page. It isn't an exhaustive list of the blogs that I read, but it reflects the kinds of subjects I write about here, as well as the interdisciplinary breadth I'm arguing in favour of. Next, in this post I'm including some podcasts and YouTube channels which regularly touch on issues of language, cognitive science, and in particular issues to do with time. I'll save some one-off links to longer lectures for the next post.
First up, there are two excellent language podcasts, Talk the Talk, featuring linguist Daniel Midgely and co-host Ben Ainslie, and Lexicon Valley from Slate magazine, with Mike Vuolo and Bob Garfield. For Talk the Talk I'm going to recommend episode #29 "Time in Amondawa", which looks at the topic of space-time mapping I've written about recently, and for Lexicon Valley I recommend episodes #8 "When Nouns Grew Genitals" and #9 "And May He Be a Masculine Bridge" which look at the question of linguistic relativity, and features the work of, among others, Lera Boroditsky, whom I've referred to on several occasions.
If you're interested in the cognitive stuff, have a listen to The Brain Science Podcast, in which Dr. Virginia Campbell, MD reviews books and interviews scientists on a variety of neuroscience topics, and All in the Mind, in which host Lynne Malcolm covers a variety of topics about psychology and the mind. In particular, for The Brain Science Podcast I'll recommend episode #94 "How the Brain Makes Meaning" in which Dr. Campbell interviews linguist Benjamin Bergen about his book Louder Than Words, and for All in the Mind I'll recommend the episode "How language shapes thought", which again touches on Boroditsky's work.
Now for some videos. Brady Haran has a number of educational YouTube channels, mostly on scientific topics, but also including Words of the World, which uses words, their meaning and history, as a jumping off point to examining culture and history through a series of interviews with academics from a variety of disciplines. However, I'm going to recommend three of his videos which deal with the subject of time. First from PsyFile, "Time Perception", which discusses how the brain perceives and keeps track of time:
Next, from PhilosophyFile, "The Philosophy of Time", which is a good introduction to some basic concepts such as McTaggart's ideas about time and the A series (past, present, future) and B series (earlier, later) of time:
And finally, from Sixty Symbols, "Arrow of Time", which looks at the question of whether or not physics requires directionality in time:
On the channel YouTube channel Vsauce, host Michael Stevens, who has a background in neuropsychology, frequently posts educational science videos, including this one titled "How Old Can We Get?", which discusses not only biological time, but also issues about time perception:
And finally for today, Tom Scott has recently been posting a number of short video introductions to linguistics topics, including this one, "All The Colours, Including Grue: How Languages See Colours Differently", which discusses the linguistic relativity question:
So have a browse through these links -- they should provide some depth and background to the posts I've been writing lately. And coming soon, some longer lectures that have been influencing me lately.