McGill’s Building 21

RadicalFutures | Meet Michael Lapsley, Founder of the Institute for Healing of Memories

Every story need a listener. Going from personal trauma healing to building a more peaceful and just society.

In March, we had the pleasure of a talk from Michael Lapsley, founder of the Institute for Healing of Memories in South Africa. Here we present the introduction of his talk; for the whole event, including questions from students, please visit our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxtHb7K3bPw

QuestionsAlive | What Does It Mean to Grow Up? Pt. 2 with Dr. Morgan Jackson

In part 1 of this series, we discussed what it means for a human to grow up. But we're not the only organisms who develop and grow older. And some of the others have much more extreme changes in their lives than even the most awkward of adolescences.

Dr. Morgan Jackson and Viola H. Ruzzier discuss insect development, memory, and what growing up means for this very different group of beings.

QuestionsAlive | What Does It Mean to Grow Up? Pt. 1 with Professor Paul Yachnin

"All children, except one, grow up."

Thus begins the book Peter Pan, the story of the only boy who never grows up. But for the rest of us, what does that term mean, exactly? At what point have you grown sufficiently "up" to be considered an adult? What does the process entail? Is it a good thing or a bad thing (or both)?

Thank you to Souren Vahdatfarimani and Professor Paul Yachnin for their insightful thoughts on the subject.

QuestionsAlive | Why Do We Need Others?

In many ways, our lives are entirely dependent on others, both human and non-human. We constantly interact with coworkers, friends, partners, family, and complete strangers. But how exactly do all these different relationships affect us?

Listen to what B21 community members Shuting Wang, Arkana Fuentes-Pilafidis, Nakiya Noorbhai, and Viola H. Ruzzier think about the importance of others in the first B21 podcast episode of the year.

QuestionsAlive | What Is the Soul? with Professor John MacMaster

The idea of a soul, of the intangible something that makes up a person, has existed for millennia. But souls aren't confined to people -- we talk about soulful food, soulful music, soulful art, and we can describe both people and inanimate things as soulless.

But are we referring to the same concept every time we say the word "soul"? Is one person's definition different from everyone else's? How do religion and spirituality play into this? Can souls outlive people?

Join operatic tenor and McGill professor John MacMaster, archaeology student Katrina Kosyk, and B21 program assistant Viola H. Ruzzier for a fascinating discussion on the soul.

QuestionsAlive | Le Sublime

La question du sublime se pose depuis des milliers d'années. Nous le cherchons dans les paysages, les arts, les mathématiques. Nous le trouvons entre la beauté et la peur, le connu et l'inconnu.

Mais qu'est-ce que le sublime, exactement? Quand peut-on le ressentir? Peut-on en faire l'expérience ou simplement l'entrevoir? Réside-t-il à l'intérieur ou à l'extérieur de nous?

Rejoignez une discussion sublime et animée avec Ève-Marie Marceau, Antoine Poulin, Sarah Ambroise, et Viola H. Ruzzier, pendant laquelle nous essayerons de décortiquer ce sentiment vertigineux.

MatterlessMatters | Mermaids and Zombies

Welcome to Part 1 of our new miniseries, Matterless Matters! In this series we'll be discussing matters that maybe don't matter too much, but are fun and surprisingly deep anyway.

This first episode will ask the following crucial questions: Are mermaids fish or mammals? Why do zombies need to eat, given that they're already dead?

You can find the written version at https://building21.ca/matterless-matters.

Narrated by Dr. Maria Morrison, German professor at McGill University.

QuestionsAlive | What is Language?

How do we define language? What is the difference between language and other types of communication? Is music a language? How does language shape our way of thinking? Join us for this follow-up to one of our latest I'm Not Sure discussions.

QuestionsAlive | What Is an Alien? with Professor Samule Collu

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word "alien"? Is it something threatening? Something unknown? Something different? Join us along with Prof. Samuele Collu and Vincent Laliberté to dive into this surprisingly ancient question.

QuestionsAlive | The Importance of Hypothetical Questions

What if there were no cars in cities? What if we used hypothetical questions to solve real problems? What if asking these questions made us happier, more empathetic people? Join us for a thoughtful celebration of two of the most freeing words in the English language: "what if?"

RadicalFutures | Awe in Learning: can we reinvent university education?

Join us for a in-depth discussion on what creates rich and beautiful learning environments. 

RadicalFutures | When Animals Dream: A conversation with Dr David Peña-Guzman

David Peña-Guzman is Associate Professor at San Francisco State University. In his latest book, When Animals Dream, Dr. Peña-Guzman wonders whether humans are the only dreamers on Earth. What goes on in the minds of animals when they sleep? When Animals Dream brings together behavioral and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. It shows that dreams provide an invaluable window into the cognitive and emotional lives of nonhuman animals, giving us access to a seemingly inaccessible realm of animal experience.

RadicalFutures | Foundations for a Better World Pt. 2

Radical Futures: Foundations for a Better World will not explore solutions, since solutions already exist. Instead, it will ask: what are the conditions we must create for humanity to change and adapt? What foundations, what values and beliefs, could be at the heart of a better society? In the second part of this podcast, we discuss one particular foundation which has been at the heart of recent Radical Futures talks: spirituality. We ask what spirituality is, whether it could serve as a foundation for a better world, and how spirituality could be manifested in a society.

 

With David Jhave Johnston, Viola Ruzzier, and Claudia Raihert

RadicalFutures | Foundations for a Better World Pt. 1

Radical Futures: Foundations for a Better World will not explore solutions, since solutions already exist. Instead, it will ask: what are the conditions we must create for humanity to change and adapt? What foundations, what values and beliefs, could be at the heart of a better society? In the first part of this podcast, we lean in closer on six foundations suggested by members and friends of the B21 community: communication, multiplicity, balance, flexibility, regeneration, and creativity. We discuss the differences between these foundational principles and their implications on a larger-scale, only to let the listener decide which foundations are compelling enough to pursue.

 

With Claudia Raihert and Viola Ruzzier

 

Episode Transcript:

Introduction: This is not a race against the machines. This is a race with the machines. From quantum physics to poetry, from neuroscience to geography, from philosophy to immersive realities, Building 21 is a space where one can explore, play with, manipulate, bend, break, and probe the multifaceted dimensions of ideas, knowledge, and thinking. 

This episode is called Radical Futures, The Foundations for a Better World (part 1), with Claudia Raihert and Viola Ruzzier. 

Claudia: Hello everyone and welcome to this new Building 21 podcast. This one is from the Radical Futures Talks, a series of discussions we host here at Building 21, which help us reappropriate our future and its mutability – that is, the fact that the future doesn't exist and that we can therefore shape it. And we recently thought that a good way to do that this winter could be to question and suggest foundational principles that could be at the heart of a better society. It is Viola and Claudia here in the studio today, and together for you, we're going to go over the latest thought developments on this topic that have happened over the last weeks here at B21. Viola, before we start, would you like to say a word or two about yourself? 

Viola: Yes, hello. I'm Viola. I recently graduated from a BA in anthropology and biology, and I'm now program assistant here at Building 21. 

Claudia: And I'm Claudia. I recently graduated with a Master's in linguistics, and I am also a program assistant currently at Building 21. So far this winter, we've had two talks in the Radical Future series. The first talk, which happened in mid-February, asked: what are the foundations for a better world? And then, more recently, the second talk was supposed to delve into how the foundations of a better world can be spread. But even the second talk continued kind of discussing these questions under the new title, Creating the Next Mind Shift, which was really just big words to paraphrase the relevance of foundations. Yes, when we speak of foundations, we're referring to the foundational principles and beliefs that make up our imagined order, so to speak, that is, the framework of reference everyone abides by, which accounts for the rules, norms, and behaviours that structure our societies, but also for more personal things like our desires and perhaps thought patterns. Imagined order is a term I'm borrowing from Harari, by the way, who wrote a book called Sapiens on the history of humanity. 

Viola: Yeah, it's a very interesting point, because the foundations behind our laws shape laws and societal norms and everything enormously. So laws from ancient Mesopotamia are very different from the US Constitution, for example. And a big part of that is what values and what ideas we hold dearest, and which ones were most important, and therefore worth shaping our society with. 

Claudia: Yeah, that's very true. So for instance, for Mesopotamians, social class was extremely important, and that was used to regulate the type of punishment that different peoples would get, whereas in the American Constitution, every human being is said to be equal. 

Viola: That was at least the idea, was that everyone was human, and then obviously the practice was very different. And the foundations that the American Constitution was based on were so present in society that there wasn't even a need to specify them in the Constitution. So the idea that, for example, men or white people were superior to everyone else was so foundational that there was no need to mention it specifically. 

Claudia: Yeah, that's very, very true, and it also points to the fact that we don't need to change our laws, but more our beliefs about the world, the things we value, and try to agree on maybe a set of things that is as beneficial as possible, both for our generation and future ones. So this podcast is going to be divided into two parts. In the first part we're going to introduce the different foundational principles that have been suggested, their revisions, and the strands of reflection that are related to that, and in the second part, we're going to lean in closer on one of these suggested foundations, namely spirituality, which has sparked a lot of interest among the people that were present at the talks. 

Viola: Yes, so for, or after the first talk, five main foundations kind of emerged from the discussion. One of those was communication, which I think is a particularly interesting one. 

Claudia: Would you like to recall, Viola, how this one came about? 

Viola: Yes, so one of our guest speakers at the talk was Jill, and she suggested that education should be one of the foundational principles. But this was a bit of a point of contention, because for some of the people, namely Ollivier, who is the co-founder of Building 21, communication isn't a foundation, so much as it is a result of the foundations. So once you have your society with all its foundations and with all its laws and everything, then education is the tool through which you transmit these ideas and these foundations. And so his argument, and I think I agree, is that education in and of itself can't really be one of the founding principles if it's kind of the end result. It's how you spread all of the ideas that come first. And so kind of to make up – or not to make up for that, but in order to maintain the ideas that I think Jill was trying to express through education being one of the principles, we kind of tossed around a few ideas. And finally, I think we landed on the term communication, which still implies, you know, access to information for everyone and making sure that the flow of ideas and information is uninterrupted. And a lot of people seem to resonate very strongly with the idea of communication being one of the pillars of future society. 

Claudia: Yes, because in a way what we were valuing in education was exactly what Viola mentioned: access to information and also the value of learning and changing. And learning happens not only in humans, but also in animals and other living beings, as Viola made clear for us during the talk. And it's also the soundest way of growing. So it is still contentious whether communication can capture all of these ideas. But there was also trust that was a suggested alternative, and knowledge transfer. We are still not sure what to call it, but we at least temporarily settled on communication because it implies maybe valuing the effort of trying to be on the same page with someone, but also the effort to try to convey useful information. 

Viola: And actually this, you know, what exactly communication means also shows that things like a lot of media today, or especially advertisements don't really fall under communication, and of itself the idea isn't so much the transfer of ideas back and forth, but more trying to impose certain ideas, certain concepts into people's minds with no expectation or even desire to get anything back from the people that you're quote-on-quote communicating with. 

Claudia: Yeah, exactly. But this leads us to a second foundation which we've suggested. Actually this one came from Ollivier Dyens, and it's multiplicity. 

Viola: Yeah, so multiplicity entails a lot of things, it's a pretty interesting one too. So for example, it can mean allowing for complexity to exist and emerge, celebrating differences, you know, appreciating a multitude of opinions and ideas. 

Claudia: Yeah, and it also entails allowing for a multitude of interests to exist in the world, and by consequence not trying to force our own interests onto others. If we accept and value multiplicity, we can't have dictators, for example. 

Viola: Right, and we can't have corporate interests or anything else where there's only one source of ideas that are considered correct or permissible. 

Claudia: It's also a bit paradoxical as a principle, multiplicity, because we want to be able to agree on some things at least. So we want to allow for a diversity of opinions, a diversity of interests. But we still want to be able to converge on certain principles and ideas. So one of our fellows here at Building 21, Émile, pointed out that this is why rituals make us humans feel good and why they're so important. And we certainly lost some of those ritualistic practices nowadays. So one problem which emerged from our discussions with respect to that is that we live collectively but everyone is looking for their own meaning without any sort of guidance. 

Viola: Yeah, I think as a kind of – not rebellion, but pushback to a lot of very organized ritual activity that happened until very recently, at least in the Western world. So a lot of religion. You're not expected as much to share these rituals anymore. It's everyone's personal journey through life, which has some very good aspects. You can kind of figure out where you're going by yourself. At the same time, we lose a lot of contact with other people. There's less of a sense of community in that sense. And so we need to have kind of a balance, I think, between having something that's fully a group activity and something that's completely personal and isn't related to anyone else. Which, you know, balance in general is a very important idea. 

Claudia: Yeah, and it was actually one of the suggested foundations as well, by Olivier, too. So we didn't get the chance to discuss balance so much. It seemed to be kind of unanimously accepted and it also came back when we discussed other topics during these talks. So really, balance is a foundation that is more basic, so to say, than many of the other concepts we discussed. For example, we discussed uncertainty during our most recent talk and whether that could be a foundation. And it was brought up that we can't be uncertain all the time, just like we can't be on psychedelics all the time, in order to be functional, right? And uncertainty is, again, a somewhat paradoxical principle because we want to value leaving room for reinterpretation, doubting oneself in order to reach a more objective and collective kind of truth. But at the same time, we are discussing principles that we would ideally like to be certain about. 

Viola: I think it's a good thing, or at least a good sign, that some of the foundations are paradoxical in large part because humans themselves are paradoxical. And, you know, if we have foundations that are incredibly rigid and only one way of interpreting them, and like, that's it, they're set in stone, then that in itself gets rid of any kind of balance or flexibility or uncertainty. So I think that having foundations that reflect what humans are like in general is probably a good sign that they're going to be at least applicable and that they actually might work. 

Claudia: Yeah, and you mentioned flexibility, which is another foundation that we discussed, so what does it mean to be flexible? When we use the term flexibility, we would like to point to valuing our capacity to change and adapt over our ability to strictly pursue one aim. And it also means that we are willing to detach from and question our usual thought patterns. 

Viola: And this is very important, I think, because if you're always stuck in the same kind of ideas, if you're always stuck in the same route, the same routine and everything, it's very hard to be creative, I think, it's very hard to imagine other ways that life could be. And all of those are really essential to – at the risk of sounding a bit cheesy, building a better tomorrow. 

Claudia: And once again, there seems to be a recurring theme in the foundations that we've mentioned so far, namely flexibility is a bit similar to uncertainty. In some ways, it's also compatible with multiplicity, so by being flexible, we're able to adjust to a complex reality with multiple voices and multiple truths. So, Viola, would you like to give us your thoughts on this recurring theme? What term do you think is best? Do you think that flexibility and uncertainty are almost synonymous in a sense that we should only keep one of the two? 

Viola: I don't think they’re synonymous. I don't think that uncertainty in and of itself can be a foundation, because it's not really something that you do. It's more a state of being, kind of. But I think flexibility gets at the problem pretty well, in the sense that if you're flexible, you're okay with things changing. You're okay with changes of plans, with – I'm saying the word change a lot, but basically flexibility means that you're okay with change. And uncertainty is not knowing what's going to happen, which means that something could very well change. And so, if you're flexible, I think by definition it means that you're okay with things being uncertain, which is really important. 

Claudia: Yeah, and we did get some suggestions for how we could reinterpret or rename this foundation of flexibility. So, someone suggested openness, which could be synonymous, but it does seem to capture a bit less, because you can be open, that doesn't mean that you will adjust flexibly to a certain situation. 

Viola: Exactly, because openness means that you're – at least the way I see it, you're open to hearing about new ideas, you're open to trying new things, but that doesn't mean that you're going to be convinced by any of them. Plus, flexibility kind of implies both that you're ready to receive any exterior motivations or exterior ideas, and that you can act on them. 

Claudia: And one last foundation that was added to this first list was Regeneration, which I suggested last minute, and which hints at something different, namely valuing the innate ability of life to regenerate itself, and pursuing that over, for example, destruction. This is also a foundation that presupposes some form of optimism, and that at the same time acknowledges something objective. We have the well-known Chernobyl example where nature has taken over the debris, and we've also all experienced how our wounds heal and how our hair grows back after we cut it. 

Viola: I think regeneration is very interesting and a pretty important idea. The term itself was – not everyone thought that that was the best term. We also had a few alternate suggestions for the same idea. So Paul J., a neuroscience professor, suggested creativity or energy as a broader, less restricted term. 

Claudia: I like energy, and it is true that creativity, like regeneration, also allows for growth for something new to come about. However, there seems to also be differences between creativity and regeneration. Creativity is not the same as life after death or new life. What I like about regeneration is that it attributes value directly to life itself, whereas creativity is something that is strongly connotated as only belonging to humans, and perhaps computers, as we've discussed in one of our previous podcasts. 

Viola: I would say that creativity isn't restricted only to the human sphere or human technology. I think that there are a lot of instances of various animals using pretty creative solutions to problems. But it's true that, at least the way that we generally think of creativity, it seems more human than applicable to the rest of the natural world. 

Claudia: This means we could also look at mutations as a creative process of nature, where nature randomly and creatively, one might say, outputs these genetic mutations which represent solutions, sometimes, to a natural problem. 

Viola: Yeah! But in any case it’s true that energy is more, at least obviously, applicable to basically any living organism, and energy is something that's really necessary for everyone, everything on the planet to survive. It really is a very universal trait, quite literally. 

Claudia: Energy, I thought, was maybe a bit too broad to constitute a foundation because you need energy to do bad deeds, and you also need energy to do good deeds, therefore it doesn't seem to provide some kind of guidance for a better society. So we've established creativity is different from regeneration, and we might still want to keep regeneration as some sort of hopeful foundation and also a scientific foundation. What I mean by that is we choose to put more value on the regenerative ability of nature rather than on money. I don't know. But creativity could still be considered as a possible foundation. Do we want to make creativity another foundation, or what would that mean for it to be a foundation? 

Viola: I think it should definitely be a foundation. Creativity is essentially finding interesting and new solutions to problems. I think it's roughly what it means. And that can take any kind of problem, so a math problem, a scientific problem. And I think that without a society that believes in the importance of new and different and creative solutions, we're not going to advance, and we're not going to get to any of the really, really cool places that humans have managed to get to over the millennia. 

Claudia: That's a very compelling point, but I'm just going to play the devil's advocate for a second and say that people with bad intentions can also use creativity in order to reach their goals. 

Viola: I think that any of these foundations can, if you try hard enough, be used for bad rather than good. I think anything in the world can be used for bad or good. But that doesn't mean that they're not worth pursuing. That doesn't mean that they're not worth having. Like any tool, a hammer can be used to kill someone. It can also be used to build a house. It's not because it can be used for something bad that we should reject it. To use an expression I like very much, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. 

Claudia: Why do you like this expression? I always thought it's fascinating how it stayed, even though we don't wash in the same ways anymore. But good. So this leads us towards the conclusion of the first part of our podcast. 

Viola: So really, the main takeaway from the first talk was that there were four foundations that more or less everyone agreed on, not unanimously, as is typical for B21. And so just to recap, those are flexibility, multiplicity, communication, and regeneration. 

Claudia: Oh, and we also touched on balance. 

Viola: Yes, balance, which is a very important one as well. 

Claudia: And creativity might be joining the crew, so this leads to six foundations. Of course, none of those are set in stone. And during the part two of our podcast, we're going to talk about spirituality as a foundation, and we'll have a more thorough conclusion at the end of part two.

RadicalFutures | Meet Angus Fletcher: The Brain and Narratives: The Limits of AI

Angus Fletcher has dual degrees in neuroscience and literature. He is a professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative. His research employs a mix of laboratory experiment, literary history and rhetorical theory to explore the psychological effects—cognitive, behavioral, therapeutic—of different narrative technologies.

QuestionsAlive | Are mermaids fish or mammals? with Professor Chris Buddle

Are mermaids fish or mammals? Join Dr Chris Buddle and Dr Ollivier Dyens of McGill University, along with Dr. Sylvia Gilbertson from Hacksford University, department of cryptozoology, and our very special guest, Mermaid Claudia, to discuss this important and controversial topic.

A playful conversation to discuss serious issues such as environmental degradation, taxonomy, our need for authority over nature, etc.

With Claudia Raihert, Viola Ruzzier, Chris Buddle and Ollivier Dyens

 

Episode Transcript:

Introduction: This is not a race against the machines. This is a race with the machines. From quantum physics to poetry, from neuroscience to geography, from philosophy to immersive realities, Building 21 is a space where one can explore, play with, manipulate, bend, break, and probe the multi-faceted dimensions of ideas, knowledge, and thinking.

Are mermaids fish or mammals? Join Dr. Chris Buddle and Dr. Ollivier Dyens of McGill University, along with Dr. Sylvia Gilbertson from Hacksford University, Department of Cryptozoology, and our very special guest, Mermaid Claudia, to discuss this important and controversial topic.

Ollivier: Alright everyone, welcome to another amazing Building 21 talk. This one will be really, really interesting, unusual, fascinating. It's about mermaids, and whether mermaids are mammals or fish, and I'm sure this question has been in your head for a very long time. It's pretty new to me, but I find it pretty interesting, and I have an amazing, amazing series of guests here. I'm joined by Associate Provost Chris Buddle. Chris, do you want to introduce yourself?

Chris: It's so great to be here and talk about this critically important topic. And in my past life as a biologist and ecologist, I've been interested in taxonomy for a long time, and I'm deeply interested in questions related to the evolutionary origin of various critters around the planet. So to me the question of...

Ollivier: Is a mermaid a critter?

Chris: Critter. Well, okay, large critter. I am interested in small critters and large critters in the ocean or elsewhere, so yeah, let's have a good chat about it.

Ollivier: Alright, and we're very, very lucky today, Chris, to be joined by Sylvia Gilbertson. Why don't you introduce yourself, Dr. Gilbertson?

Sylvia: Yes, so I'm a cryptozoologist at Hacksford University. Cryptozoology, in case anyone doesn't know, it's not a very well known field. Usually my colleagues study critters, to use your word, Chris, that are considered legendary or fictional, so often Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, those kinds of beings that we know so very little about. But I've decided to study something a bit more general, so mermaids as a general species, I guess you would say, a group of creatures that are yet to be fully defined.

Ollivier: Alright, and we're also extraordinarily lucky to actually have a mermaid with us. Her name -- I think her human name is Claudia, Dr. Gilbertson?

Sylvia: Yes, at least that's how she's been introduced to me.

Ollivier: Okay, and I think it would be a bit too complicated for us to explain the setup that we have here, so that Claudia is able to speak to us in a safe and productive way. But Dr. Gilbertson, we do have some sort of a translator that your students have built.

Sylvia: Yes, exactly. There are some very ambitious engineering students at Hacksford that have created this contraption to basically translate what normally would be very difficult to understand.

Ollivier: And for those who are not familiar with Hacksford University, it's located where again?

Sylvia: In Vermont.

Ollivier: In Vermont! In Vermont. Okay, so our Mermaid Claudia, welcome. Welcome to Building 21.

Claudia: Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here.

Ollivier:  No, well, the translator works pretty well. It's actually better than Stephen Hawking's. So why don't we start? Because to me it's really an interesting question, are mermaids mammals or fish? Chris, in your previous research, these kind of questions pop up all the time, I'm sure.

Chris: They do. And you know, often one question we say to ourselves is what is this? Humans have such an interest in classifying and collecting and putting names on things. And when we're thinking about mythical creatures, that's an obvious question. What is Bigfoot? What is a mermaid? But I actually think it's the wrong question. I think the right question is what was Bigfoot or what was mermaid? And I think that's an area to me that's almost more interesting than what is. 

Ollivier: So Dr. Gilbertson, why don't you tell us a bit about your research? And I think you also had an interesting discussion about whether mermaids were mammals or fish. So why don't you give us a bit of a summary of all this? 

Sylvia: Yes, so first of all, as he said, I was very honoured, very happy to be able to have a conversation here at Building 21. A couple of weeks ago, I believe. And yeah, it was a very fruitful, very interesting discussion. It was the first conference of Matterless Matters. 

Ollivier: One of our students actually created it. Her name is... 

Sylvia: Yes, Viola Ruzzier. Yeah no, great student. And yes, it was a really interesting discussion. We came up with a number of theories, or rather the students did. Of course, I have my own personal theory, I’ve been working on this for a very long time. But it was interesting to hear everyone's point of view. 

Ollivier: And anything you can tell us about the actual lives of mermaids? Then we can maybe ask Claudia to tell us a bit about her day-to-day interaction with the world. But Dr. Gilbertson, why don't you tell us a bit about what do mermaids actually do? How do they live? All of these things? 

Sylvia: So because of their nature, they're very hard to study, but from what we've understood so far, we know roughly what they look like. They are at least humanoid, human looking in the top half, and look kind of like either a fish or marine mammal, which was a very important point in the conversation, which one of those two it was. They spend a lot of time in the water, obviously. They seem to be able to hold their breaths or to breathe underwater, definitely, at least based on the media portrayals that we've seen. And one of the main characteristics we know is that, at least in the past, when sailors were more isolated from the world, the mermaids would come up to the surface and sing of their ambitions and their dreams, and would often lure them to their presumably deaths, or dooms in any case.Which, you know, it's a question of culture and things that's hard to judge really how it works. And yeah, so then otherwise, the main physical characteristics of a mermaid: they have hair, or at least something that resembles hair on their top half. Then what's really interesting is their tails, actually, and this is one of the main sticking points of the argument, is that they've got tails that are covered in scales. And this would make them seem like a fish. However, the plane of their tail is that of a mammal. So, whales and dolphins have tails that kind of flop up and down, whereas fish have them that flop from side to side. And the reason that mammals, that aquatic mammals have them that go up and down is because it's the same structures that land animals have for galloping that allows them to move them this way. And that's part of the reason why we kind of know that whales and bears, for example, are related. Yeah, so a lot of characteristics, a lot of behavioral traits made it really hard to classify for a while. 

Ollivier: So, Dr. Buddle, is that common in the critters’ world that some species seems to have characteristics of two different, is it genus? 

Chris: I mean, we think of how animals or plants, for that matter, are kind of built, and there's structural elements that are easy to identify, but we're very biased as humans. So, we look at things in terms of external characteristics and similarities and differences. But there's all kinds of examples in nature of mimicry, for example, where one species looks like another, but is completely unrelated. Or situations where there's been convergent evolution, where there's a particular trait that's useful, and fins are a great example of that. A fin of a whale, or a shark, or a tuna fish, serve a similar purpose in movement through water, even though if you think of a whale's evolutionary history compared to a tuna fish, it's completely different. So, it's very, very common to have traits that we, as human observers, with our own faulty view of things, will make generalizations based on what we see in characteristics, but you have to go deep into the study, whatever it is you're looking at, to understand the evolutionary relationship, which can explain the ancestor, and then also whether the trait that we're looking at is convergent evolution, whether it's just a byproduct of something else, in terms of, you know, it's not necessarily for X, Y, or Z, but that's what it looks like to us. So all these kinds of questions, I think, are really central to this conversation, and I appreciate the explanation about the fins of a mermaid, because that, to me, is very strong evidence of the relationship from mermaids to other animals. 

Ollivier: So, let's do a side conversation here, because we have an exceptional guest with us, and we need to let her speak for herself a bit. But Claudia, as a mermaid, you've often been represented in human representation as, you know, a bit of man's fantasy. Dr. Gilbertson told us, of course, that mermaids seemed to have historically actually attracted men to kill them and eat them. More recently, you've been represented in commercial movies as a cute, fuzzy, but still very cute, female-like character. So, what do you think of your actual representation, and which one seems to be closer to reality? Are you actually man-eaters, or are you actually just a representation of man's fantasies? 

Claudia: Well, to start, it is true that we are human-eaters. We do not discriminate between male and female humans, but sailors used to be male mostly. So, we mostly ate sailors. I think that it is rather sad that sailors really believe we are attractive when, in fact, we try to lure them. Therefore, there is some sort of epistemological sadness that arises when I consider my relationship to my prey. 

Ollivier: So, let me turn to you, Dr. Buddle. This sort of inability to understand that relationship we have with predators, is that common in the sense that we give them attributes that are very different from the predator's original intent?

Chris: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we think of the kind of romantic view and Disney-esque view of the natural world, where, in fact, you know, the way that we place our emotions on others is really what we're, I think, what we're seeing here. Humans have developed stories about mermaids based on our own perception and our own interactions, but what Claudia just said is just so insightful. It's actually not about whether like or dislike it's about food. And if we really break it down to the very most simple as part of Maslow's hierarchy and what do we need as a species, as a human species, we think of shelter, food, etc. Well, from an evolutionary perspective, from a mermaid, what do they need? Well, food. How are you going to get it? The most efficient way possible. That's what the product of natural selection is, efficiency. And if it happens to be in the form of flowing hair with whatever the prey is on the boats, then that's what natural selection will select for. As long as there's enough variation in the gene in mutation rates that you get that, great. So it's not about emotion. So that's what I thought was interesting about Claudia's answer. I wonder if I could ask a question of Claudia. May I? So let me ask this. So when you – there's so many questions that we don't know about the biology of mermaids, I appreciate that. But one question I have is about whether or not, well, do you live bear your young? That's actually my question. The reason I ask that is because we need to get clues around the biology to help us understand the fundamental question. So when we look to mammals or fish or – what are the water characteristics of mammals, for example? There's also some live-bearing fish, I should say. So maybe I'm running into a bad example there. But can you give us any more insights into what your life is like? You know, I guess that's my question. The biology or your biology. 

Claudia: Thank you for your question, Chris. This question is a little worrisome for us merfolk. We are very comfortable with our ambiguous identity. And this ambiguity is currently threatened by scientific studies and efforts to concoct a classification. We merfolk haven't asked to be classified. This is also why I must keep any potential information that might guide your answer to the mermaid question strictly confidential today. 

Ollivier: Okay! So… 

Chris: I struggle with that, but I respect it. 

Ollivier: Yeah, I know, it's like, it's sort of, it's always a problem with scientific research, right? There's the ethical dimension of the scientific research. And for once we also have a, you know, sort of in between animal and humans. So whether they fit within the ethical research paradigm is also the question. So let me turn to you, Dr. Gilbertson. That question that Claudia, for the reasons we understand, wasn't willing to answer. What is your take on whether merfolks, I believe that's the right term, are fish or mammals? 

Sylvia: Yes. So, well, after a long and interesting conference a few weeks ago, the most accepted theory – so far we only have theories because well, as Claudia pointed out, there's a lot of ethical concerns and we want to make sure to respect any boundaries from the stakeholder community. But the theory that got most accepted was that mermaids are actually fish and that essentially what we consider the human half is little more than a lure, something akin to an angler fish. So angler fish, just to explain for those who don't know, are those fish that have the little antenna with the light, essentially, at the end to attract their prey. And what most people seem to agree with, although I must say, it was far from being unanimous, was that the top half is a kind of human-esque shaped lure that behaves differently according to the pressure. So when mermaids are far down, there's a different pressure that acts on them. So it doesn't look like very much and then as they rise to the surface, it kind of inflates. And what we think is that this lure is actually some modified swim bladder that also, impressively, has a vocal apparatus inside that allows them to make these sounds that we consider singing. And of course, then the main question is what about the tail that we were talking about earlier because if they're fish, it wouldn't make sense for them to have the same structure as mammals. But actually, that's explained if we consider that they're fish and that they only need to act more mammal-like in the presence of humans, when they're on the surface. So actually, what we currently believe is that when they're in their natural habitat, when they're further down, they swim with their tail side to side. And it's only when they get to the surface that they twist 90 degrees so that it looks like their tail is flopping up and down, because the lure is constructed also kind of 90 degrees – well, you can't see any of my hand gestures, we're on a podcast. But essentially, the lure is constructed so that it's off by 90 degrees from the rest of the body so that when they want to look more human, more like the mermaids that we generally consider in popular media and literature, then the planes match up. 

Chris: Respectfully, I... 

Ollivier: It's not Occam's razor.

Chris: I feel It's acrobatic evolutionary thinking here. I mean, it's not Occam's razor, it's not the most parsimonious explanation. Which to me is why my own belief is that they're mammals because of some of the very, very obvious signals that we get with respect to how we understand that merfolk behave. So I find it an interesting explanation and interesting hypothesis. I think what it requires is deeper study and including proper, sort of evolutionary treatment of merfolk. But we may not get there, based on Claudius' answer earlier, which I fully respect. But it's an interesting explanation, but I do find it not as plausible as the more simple explanation, which is one of the foundational pieces around thinking of taxonomy as what is the most simple explanation for complex patterns. 

Ollivier: So, a question to you both. What would be a common ancestor if they’re mammals or even if they're fish? What would be a common ancestor? Would they share an ancestor, Dr. Buddle, with whales and other sea mammals? 

Chris: I think that's the most logical explanation, but we'd have to study. I don't know. That sounds like a typical scientific answer, but I would say that there's a lot under the ocean we haven't studied yet. So, I think there's a broader question about what we actually need to study and how we can really broadly look at the relationship among marine mammals to other kinds of aquatic animals and really do a deep dive into that. I don't think we know enough. 

Sylvia: Yes, absolutely. As Dr. Buddle said, further research is always needed in any kind of scientific question. And especially in one such as this, we hope to eventually gain enough the trust of merfolk that they’ll let us study them a bit more. But in the meantime, obviously, we respect that. And, yeah, I would say, well, for my theory, I would imagine that we have a common ancestor but a very, very, very long time ago before the, really the distinction of mammals and fish. 

Ollivier: What worries me with your conclusion, Dr. Gilbertson, as opposed to Dr. Buddle's conclusion – and I don't want to put too much pressure on you, Claudia, I think it's already a pressure-packed situation for you being here – but of course, we don't offer the same level of ethical protection to fish, than we do to mammals, right? So, we fish fish indiscriminately. We're much more careful with mammals, even though we're far from perfect in the way we treat them. So, let me ask you this, Mermaid Claudia. What do you think of your relationship with humans? You think you've been fairly treated? Do you think that the way we treated the oceans, the way we treated the environment is something that is disturbing to you and to your species? 

Claudia: Of course, it is highly disturbing, what is happening to the oceans. But we, merfolk, have had the privilege of eating humans instead of being eaten by them. 

Ollivier: Well, I'm still pondering about this myth of this very attractive and charming voice, but this aside, Dr. Gilbertson, do we hunt mermaids? 

Sylvia: Not anymore, definitely. I can't say for certain. They’re definitely an endangered species, not that many of them, as far as we know, so we're being careful of that now. We did hunt them at one point. There's even some museums that show, unfortunately, I'm sorry to say anything disturbing, but the corpses of some of these merfolk, and whether these are real or fake is up for consideration, but there has been some amount of, kind of, trophy hunting in some way. But I think, unfortunately for human sailors, usually the situation has been the other way around, where it really is the mermaids who managed to eat the humans rather than the other way around. 

Ollivier: Do we know why we hunted them? For resources, just for food? 

Sylvia: No, I think it was, you know, it's this mythical, beautiful creature that we don't know much about. Or mythical, I say in quotation marks, of course. And I think that was just enough of a reason, unfortunately, for some people to kill and hunt animals.

Ollivier: And again, I don't want to put Mermaid Claudia on the spot too much, but I've heard rumors that mermaids actually migrate, and they actually swim great distances from the Southern tip of Chile all the way to the Arctic. Migration’s always been a strange, interesting question. Why do different species migrate and why do they go so far? So, any historical reasons why Merfolks migrate that you can divulge? We do migrate every year, but now it's been more often. We typically choose waters where there are humans, but where the pollution is manageable for us. Yet this has become more and more difficult, which is why we now attack small villages and islands with vulnerable people. 

Ollivier: Wow, okay. Have you heard about this, Dr. Buddle?

Chris: I've certainly heard rumors of migration. Claudia, thank you. You've not wanted to share too much about your life habits and life history, but I think you've said something quite profound in that there's a severe and concerning impact that humans are having on the planet. And this is making things more difficult for you, even if I don't approve of your diet. It's certainly concerning. So this is quite a profound statement, that we've confirmed something directly from a mermaid around life history, but again there's migrating fish and migrating mammals, so it doesn't help us on that question. 

Ollivier: No, it doesn't. Dr. Gilbertson, in your 20 years of researching merfolk, you've written quite a number of books. Merfolks and Humans was actually a New York Times bestseller. I remember the documentary, actually, on PBS is very interesting. 

Sylvia: Yeah, they did a good job on it. I was pleasantly surprised. 

Ollivier: Yeah, and that's actually the first time I actually heard about you, and we invited you to Building 21. What is your conclusion or your thoughts, summary thoughts of this 20 years of research, the relationship, the way we treat merfolks, whether they're fish or mammals? As Dr. Buddle said, it says something about our relationship to this planet and the environment. 

Sylvia: That's a very good question. The general, at least personal conclusion, I’ve drawn from a long time studying the subject, is that there's just so little about the world that we really understand. You know, merfolk have been recorded by human historians for what, three thousand years, probably more? And we've known about them for such a long time, and yet there's still so very little that we know, and partly that’s due to, you know, kind of human blindness for a long time to anything that wasn't human. It's only relatively recently, at least in the Western world, that non-human animals, especially fish, plants or anything, have been considered as having the potential to feel pain, having the potential to have culture, having the potential to have any of these things. And so that's part of the reason we know so little about them. Part of the reason is, of course, that they're a rather closed community for very understandable reasons. And also part of it is just that there's so much to know about everything, you know, you can spend 20 years studying a subject and still only scratch the surface. And that's really been my takeaway, is that, as Chris said earlier, further research is needed, and that's always going to be the case. But I think the main thing is just that humans tend to… we tend to get very focused on a small part, and then we kind of lose track of the whole picture. And that's maybe something that, especially scientists, should learn to work on a bit. 

Ollivier: Thank you, thank you so much. So we rarely have the voice of one of our fellow species on this planet with us. So why don't we give Mermaid Claudia the final words here about what she wishes in her species relationship with our own species? 

Claudia: Thank you, Ollivier. I was hoping I would get this opportunity to speak my mind to fellow humans while not hunting them. I believe humans attempt to classify the world in an extensive manner because they are insecure. That is, they lack grounding. Lack of knowledge or understanding makes them feel vulnerable to their environment. Perhaps that's because humans, as they build larger and ever more complex societies, have lost sight of some of their instinctive database of knowledge. For example, I don't need to be able to predict that a threat is coming to be able to react quickly to it. However, for a large group of mermaids to react cohesively to a threat, a different kind of knowledge is needed about the state of affairs, a more precise kind. Precision and order require classification. Us merfolk prefer to live in smaller societies because our culture praises the value of instincts over the value of knowledge. I hope us merfolk can inspire people to see the world in a more fluid way. Order is good, but if we don't evade it from time to time, we miss out on all the fun. 

Ollivier: Thank you, Mermaid Claudia, that was very touching. Thank you for being here today. Thank you, Dr. Gilbertson. Thank you, Dr. Buddle. That was very illuminating, very Building 21-like. We will have another podcast soon. We will also be inviting some guests, some researchers who have done extensive research on zombies, and the whole specificity of zombies and how important they are to the ecosystem and the food chain. A bit like sharks, we tend to hunt them, but they are actually very useful for the ecosystem. But anyway, that will be soon. Thank you again Dr. Gilbertson, Mermaid Claudia, Dr. Buddle. This was a Building 21 podcast. Hope to see you soon. Thank you.

QuestionsAlive | Can a computer write beautiful poetry? with Professor Ollivier Dyens

Can a machine write beautiful poetry? Is an AI program capable of creating an artwork that is sublime? Is art just a series of recognizable patterns? And if so, what does it mean? 

Join us in exploring these questions. 

With Viola Ruzzier, Claudia Raihert, Ollivier Dyens and the Building 21 community

RadicalFutures | Leah Price, Book Historian

Leah Price is an American literary critic who specializes in the British novel and in the history of the book. She is Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor in the Department of English at Rutgers University and founding director of the Rutgers Initiative for the Book. She has written essays on old and new media for The New York Times Book Review, London Review of Books, The Paris Review, and The Boston Globe.

Her most recent book 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Books
The History and Future of ReadingM' won the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award in 2020

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Antonio Zadra is Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at Université de Montréal where he is director of the Dream Laboratory.  Antonio Zadra is also a researcher at the Center for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine and co-author of the recently published: ‘When Brains Dream’.

For much of his adult life, Antonio Zadra has been interested in all kinds of questions about dreams, from why our memories for dreams are so fragile, to how dreams relate to waking life, to do dreams have a function. He is also interested by specific kinds of dreams and has conducted numerous studies on lucid dreams, nightmares and recurrent dreams. 

Interview conducted by Ollivier Dyens, Anita Parmar, Viola Ruzzier and Ezelbahar Metin

RadicalFutures | Frédéric Gilbert: The Ethics of Implantable Brain-Computer Interface

Frédéric Gilbert is Senior Lecturer in Ethics, Philosophy and Gender Studies at the University of Tasmania.

As a researcher, he explores the ethics of novel implantable brain-computer interfaces operated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the effects of such interfaces on an person's sense of control, autonomy, agency and self, most specifically, when these technologies are used to treat dementia, epilepsy, severe depression, Parkinson’s, etc.