Choose to be Curious

After Dinner Conversation publishes monthly collections of short stories that explore ethical dilemmas and philosophical questions. Each issue includes curated discussion prompts designed to inspire debate and introspection. It's what you might call food for the morally curious. Kolby Granville is founder and editor-in-chief of After Dinner Conversation: https://www.afterdinnerconversation.com Theme music by Sean Balick; “Reflectors" by Ray Catcher, via  Blue Dot Sessions.

Dialogic interpretation is a visitor-centered participatory approach that invites those visitors to engage in two-way conversation where they and the interpreter ask questions. Using dialogic interpretation, staff at President Lincoln's Cottage help people see questions that unfolded in this modest house more than 150 years ago carry forward into our lives today. President Lincoln's Cottage: https://www.lincolncottage.org Theme music by Sean Balick; “Over the Fence” by Delray, via  Blue Dot Sessions. Cottage photo by Brian Rimm, used with permission.

Diego Carneiro is a Brazilian-born cellist. He’s had a wide and wonderful musical career, including performance, conducting and composition. But what makes him special is his role as an ambassador of peace and the arts – opening both ears and hearts through the bigness of his own. Diego Carneiro/Friends of Music in the Americas: https://www.fomita.org Cello performed by Diego Carneiro; Amazonian Elegy

Photograph and author Stephen Collector’s career has been an exercise in curiosity and sustained attention. A lifetime of being outside, looking closely at landscapes, animals, and people, noticing what others walk past. Stephen Collector: https://www.stephencollector.com Theme music by Sean Balick. “Idle Way" by Duck Lake, via Blue Dot Sessions.

Biomimicry is “the conscious emulation of nature’s genius.” What might we learn by attending to nature's solutions? Sara Aly El Sayed, Director of the Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University, has thoughts! Biomimicry Center: https://globalfutures.asu.edu/biomimicry-center/ Theme music by Sean Balick; “A Palace of Cedar” by The Pine Barrens, via Blue Dot Sessions.

When I wanted to think about curiosity in communications and PR – in the professional work of finding effective ways to tell our stories to one another, under all sorts of circumstances – I knew Greg Abel was the guy to talk to. Greg Abel: https://www.abelcommunications.com Theme music by Sean Balick. “Town Market” by Onesuch Village, via via Blue Dot Sessions.

Davyne Dial, general manager of Asheville community station WPVM 103.7, recounts Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic flooding and the communications crisis that followed. They explore how curiosity can turn fear into preparedness, why radio and analog backups matter when digital systems fail, and how neighbors, shelters, food networks, and resilient local broadcasting helped a community recover.

Maggie Jackson, award-winning author and journalist, explores what uncertainty can teach us about curiosity, human judgment, and AI. They discuss designing AI to acknowledge doubt, why overconfidence can threaten safety, and how uncertainty may prevent people from surrendering their thinking. A lively look at arguing with AI, embracing friction, and preserving human agency in an unpredictable future.

Stephanie Almeida Nevin, a political scientist and executive director of Yale’s Center for Civic Thought, explores curiosity as a civic practice. They discuss disagreement without performance pressure, intellectual risk-taking, and the costs of narrow assumptions. The conversation also covers shared inquiry, decentering expertise, internal dialogue, solitude, and playful ways to build communities of discovery.

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, research director at INRIA studying lifelong learning and curiosity, explains autotelic curiosity and how we self-generate and pick our own learning goals. He discusses the learning progress idea, how language helps invent and select useful objectives, and robot experiments that reveal staged discovery and tool use. Practical tips on carving free time for curiosity are also covered.