The Mind’s New Science Guys

Y’ever think about how you think about things?

Y’ever just sit there and go, whoa, there’s a three-pound lump of electrochemical pudding in the middle of my skull and its processes generate a variety of side effects of which my consciousness is, according to that same consciousness, the foremost?

You can be sure that UT professors Bob Duke and Art Markman have thought about it. They’ve also considered more subtle and more obvious components of brain and mind, because it’s all part of their fields of study. Hell, it’s their day job, right?

Lucky for the rest of us thinking individuals, Duke and Markman are also excellent communicators of their thoughts and their research-driven discoveries. Lucky for the rest of us curious humans, the two affable PhD-wielders met up with media producer Rebecca McInroy, and one of the results of that meeting is their popular podcast, Two Guys on Your Head.

Listen: They’re like the Click and Clack of mind science, these guys.

“That’s how the show got started,” says Markman. “We did a Views and Brews show, and then Rebecca invited us to come back and do a second one the next year. And we got to the Cactus Cafe, and Rebecca said, ‘Look, I talked to the people at the station – do you guys want a show?’ And we stared at each other. And the next words out of her mouth were: ‘Think Car Talk – but for the brain.’ So that was actually by design – or by recognition.”

“I think it’s really important to always have these spaces where you can talk about intellectual things,” says McInroy. “Where you can talk about art and esoteric subjects – and you don’t have to pay for it. Keeping it free and open to the public is a huge part of this, so it brings in a wide range of people from the community, who bring great questions.”

Which is why you’ll want to see Markman and Duke, live in action at UT’s Cactus Cafe this Tuesday night: Because they’ll be there to answer your questions about how we think and why we think and what’s up with this pinkish-gray stuff between our ears.

“The Cactus is a great venue,” says Duke, “because it’s small. It’s not like one of those spaces where you feel like you’re very distant from the people who are talking.”

“The shows always fill up pretty quickly,” notes McInroy, “so we’re having two shows on Tuesday, one at 6pm and one at 8pm, and you’re guaranteed admission if you buy a book in advance – and, preferably, from BookPeople. But we’ll also have books at the Cactus.”

“Yes,” says Duke, “we’re free and open to the public – but that night, we’d also like people to buy a book!”

That’s right, these Two Guys on Your Head have a new book out: A book built from their podcast series, a book that dials back a bit of the show’s banter but retains all of the fascination. It’s called Brain Briefs – subtitled Answers to the Most (and Least) Pressing Questions about Your Mind – and it, ah, it deserves a better cover than it’s been saddled with, because the content is fascinating and provides an excellent array of not-too-shallow, not-overwhelmingly-deep looks into human cognition and its ramifications.

You can find that book at BookPeople, as McInroy says, or you can get a copy from the authors at the Cactus Cafe event tomorrow night. So go ahead and make that choice, citizen – or let the part of your brain that thinks it makes choices make that choice – and, perception being what it is, we’ll surely see you at one of those places.