Is There a Culture of Sharing Stories?

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I think the current academic preference for hunter-ing is reflective of a particular academic culture but also a larger sort of especially Western culture. There are other academic enclaves in other parts of the world that do function differently and value, for example, a more storytelling-based approach to research. I will just own my embarrassment. It was Max Weber who had the donkey quote, not William James.

It’s easy enough to proclaim that we are curious creatures, but what does that really mean? What kinds of curiosity are there? And how does curiosity arise in our brains? Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett are a philosopher and neuroscientist, respectively (as well as twins), whose new book Curious Minds: The Power of Connection explores these questions through an interdisciplinary lens. We break down the different ways that curiosity can manifest — collecting and creating loose knowledge networks, digging deeply to create a tight knowledge network, and creatively leaping to make unexpected connections.

Support Mindscape on Patreon.

Perry Zurn received a Ph.D. in philosophy from DePaul University. He is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at American University. He is the co-founder of the Trans Philosophy Project and the associated Thinking Trans // Trans Thinking Conference. Among his previous works is Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry.

Dani Bassett received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge. They are currently the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in the Departments of Bioengineering, Electrical & Systems Engineering, Physics & Astronomy, Neurology, and Psychiatry, as well as an external professor of the Santa Fe Institute. Among their awards are the Macarthur Fellowship, the Lagrange Prize in Complex Systems Science (2017), and the Erdos-Renyi Prize in Network Science.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.