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Kensy Cooperrider

@kensycoop.bsky.social

770 followers 240 following 1.6K posts

Cognitive scientist, writer, podcaster. Interested in the diversity of communication & cognition. Language, gesture, concepts, time, space, metaphor. Host of Many Minds (@manymindspod.bsky.social) www.kensycooperrider.com

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 2

How are humans able to make sense of time? Not with special biology but with “time tools”—ideas, practices, and artifacts that render time more concrete.

My new paper explores this vast, varied toolkit—one that makes use of knots, nuts, hands, flowers, mountains, shadows, and much more.

(link 👇)

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · 6d

A fun one! In which we discuss...

- the deep evolutionary history of birds
- sci-fi-sounding structures in bird brains
- the perennial puzzle of magnetoreception
- seasonal changes in bird (and some mammal) brains
- unihemispheric sleep
- gynandromophry
- the extractive foraging hypothesis

etc.!

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 6d

Bird brains aren't the same as mammal brains. They took their own twisty evolutionary path. So what can they teach us about brains in general?

A lot, it turns out.

Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, w/ @evoneuro.bsky.social & Georg Striedter!

Listen: disi.org/brains-of-a-...

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · 7d

Other volumes of letters folks would recommend? I may be easing into that "mature" stage of reading life...

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · 7d

This was as good as I hoped—surprised I haven't been hearing more buzz about it!

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Reposted by Kensy Cooperrider

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · 16d

Why do we smile?

What makes pulling back the lip corners a fundamentally positive act? Why don’t we beam out good vibes by blinking our eyes or wrinkling our noses?

From our archive, @kensycoop.bsky.social's essay about the (murky) origins of the smile: disi.org/dawn-of-the-...

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · Aug 7

Super fun having @manvir.bsky.social on the podcast (again)!

I strongly recommend his new book—especially if you like your non-fiction laced with personal narrative, quirky characters, & history of ideas.

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · Aug 7

We often treat religion and shamanism as fundamentally different. But the two are deeply enmeshed, and a push and pull between them has played out repeatedly across history.

Just one of the topics discussed in latest episode, with @manvir.bsky.social!

Listen: disi.org/the-shaman-w...

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Reposted by Kensy Cooperrider

manvir singh @manvir.bsky.social · Aug 1

Thank you, @kensycoop.bsky.social, for having me on! We had a great conversation about shamanism—its cognitive foundations, place in Paleolithic societies, role in Abrahamic religions, manifestations in industrialized societies (including hedge wizards), and much more.

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · Aug 1

New episode!! 🎙️📣

A conversation with @manvir.bsky.social about the many faces of shamanism.

Shamanism is not a relic of the past or a curio from far-off lands—it's alive and well, all around the world. The roots of shamanism, after all, lie within us.

Listen: disi.org/the-shaman-w...

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Reposted by Kensy Cooperrider

Alison Gopnik @alisongopnik.bsky.social · Jul 20

A fascinating podcast with Sheina Lew-Levy and Dorsa Amir about childhood across cultures, very insightful ideas about how contemporary Western parents could learn from forager childhoods, especially the importance of peer culture (read the Opies!).
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/v...

Varieties of childhood

Podcast Episode · Many Minds · 07/10/2025 · 1h 29m

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Kensy Cooperrider

Dorsa Amir @dorsaamir.bsky.social · Jul 19

This was such a fun conversation about childhood, play, and agency across cultures. Thanks for having @sheinalew.bsky.social & I on the show!

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · Jul 17

New episode!! 🎙️📣

A chat w/ @sheinalew.bsky.social & @dorsaamir.bsky.social about childhood across cultures.

Humans everywhere go through childhood—a time of learning, growth, and play. But this universal stage of life can look very different in different places.

Listen: disi.org/varieties-of...

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Reposted by Kensy Cooperrider

M.J. Crockett @mjcrockett.bsky.social · Jul 10

This was such a fun conversation - grateful for Kensy's excellent questions and a space to share my ongoing project with @lmesseri.bsky.social!

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · Jul 4

New episode!! 🎙️🎙️

A conversation w/ @mjcrockett.bsky.social about AI and science!

We're in the midst of a major transformation, with AI reshaping the entire research pipeline. These changes may well boost scientific productivity. Will they also boost understanding?

Listen: disi.org/science-ai-a...

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · Jul 10

Thanks, Molly — it was great having you on the show!

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · Jun 3

In which we discuss...
- the Big Five and other "Big Few" models
- the Myer's Briggs
- how personality reliably changes with age
- how personality *doesn't* really change with life events
- the (putative) biological basis of personality
- how personality varies by gender, birth order (?), occupation

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · Jun 2

New episode!! 📣🎙️

A conversation w/ @renemottus.bsky.social about the science of human personality.

The "Big Five" model of human personality has been enormously generative and influential. But what does it miss? What does it mask? Where should the field go next?

Listen: disi.org/the-big-five...

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 22

On the straight-up history side of things, always fun to spend some time browsing the vast History of Cartography—6 volumes all available in PDF form: press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/in...

History of Cartography: Volumes One, Two, Three, Four, and Six

press.uchicago.edu

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 22

I've been meaning to check out this one: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

(Mentioned by @kevinlala.bsky.social in our recent podcast interview)

When Maps Become the World

Map making and, ultimately, map thinking is ubiquitous across literature, cosmology, mathematics, psychology, and genetics. We partition, summarize, organize, and clarify our world via spatialized rep...

press.uchicago.edu

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 21

More colorful example of a coordination device: the Jivaro "banana clock."

Every guest invited to a feast gets a green banana from the same stalk. When the bananas are just about ripe, the guests know the event is due.

(hat tip to William Buckner; reported in Harner, 1973)

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 8

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A related practice was to create coordination devices. You distributed copies of simple artifact with identical numbers of markers (knots, pegs, etc.) to people attending a future event. Everyone removes one marker each morning; the event is due to occur on the day the last marker is removed.

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 20

Lots in this one! We touch on:

- ontological shock
- mysticism
- "comforting delusions"
- "unselfing"
- microdosing
- placebo effects & adverse effects
- physicalism and idealism
- belief change
- environmental virtues
- meditation
- psychedelics as "agents of moral enhancement"

Many Minds podcast @manymindspod.bsky.social · May 19

New episode!! 🎙️

A conversation w/ Dr. Chris Letheby about the philosophy of psychedelics.

Psychedelics open up new questions—questions about the mind, belief, the self, moral enhancement, and the ethics of transformative experience. Philosophers have taken note.

Listen: disi.org/philosophers...

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 13

I did write the @publicdomainrev.bsky.social piece on hand mnemonics!

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Reposted by Kensy Cooperrider

The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · May 13

“Handy Mnemonics: The Five-Fingered Memory Machine” — @kensycoop explores the history of storing knowledge on the surface of fingers and palms: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/handy-mnemonics

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 9

Thanks, Jamie!

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 9

I'm on board!

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 9

Ha, love it!

Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 8

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Just a sampling from the paper. The key idea is that these tools all help humans "do time"—coordinate, predict, reason, measure, etc. My bigger claim, though, is that these tools ultimately changed our very concept of what time is.

For that, read on…

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Time Tools

Humans understand time in a way no other animal does. This is not because of our evolved biology, however—it is because we have developed a diverse and powerful toolkit of ideas, practices, and artif...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 8

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Naturally, I also discuss calendars that are a bit closer to contemporary ones. But even within this more familiar genre, there fun texture—e.g., the calendar sticks once common in parts of Scandinavia, or early versions of graphic calendars.

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 8

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Cultures often associated larger time chunks (years, eras) with animals or other vivid figures—presumably making the chunks more memorable. This is seen, of course, in the Chinese zodiac. Also found in the Aztec system—the four figures around the central face correspond to four major epochs.

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 8

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These elaborated day series seem to have been quite common in indigenous languages. I suspect that, with the adoption/universalization of weekday names & calendar dates, they fell into disuse in 'Standard Average European' languages. English used to have "overmorrow" after all.

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Kensy Cooperrider @kensycoop.bsky.social · May 8

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Time words are also a kind of “cognitive tool” that aids in memory and reasoning. English, e.g., has "yesterday," "today," & "tomorrow." Many indigenous languages have far more words in this days-from-today series. Here are tables showing the relevant series in Yucatec Maya and Yeli Dnye:

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