Origins are conversations with thought-leaders across an eclectic mix of disciplines (science, engineering, art, and design), crafted specifically for the categ...
Paul Smaldino - Social identities, collective intelligence, and an ambling open life
Paul Smaldino is an explorer. That might seem like an odd way to describe a professor of cognitive science, but anyone who has glanced at his biography will recognize that he lives his life in exploration. His scholarship as his life are inspiration for keeping the lines of inquiry wide open and the things we can discover in doing so.Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:The Dancing Wu Li Masters (08:00)The Quantum and the Lotus (12:30)Sagehood (15:00)J. Krishnamurti and David Bohm (17:00)Simone de Beauvoir (18:00)Science as an ongoing process of flourishing (18:15)Jeffrey Shank (26:00)Richard McElreath (27:40)"Cultural group selection plays an essential role in explaining human cooperation" Richardson et al. (28:00)"Social conformity despite individual preferences for distinctiveness" (35:00)"Maintaining transient diversity is a general principle for improving collective problem solving" Smaldino et al. (38:00)Philip Kitcher (46:00)explore-exploit tradeoff (46:10)replication crisis (49:00)The Knowledge Machine Strevens (50:30)"Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles" by C Thi Nguyen (53:00)"Interdisciplinarity can aid the spread of better methods between scientific communities" Smaldino and O'Connor (56:00)Wicked problems (56:30)C Thi Nguyen on Origins (57:00)Flourishing (58:00)Lightning round (01:05:00):Book: Dune by Frank Herbert or Culture and the Evolutionary Process by Boyd and RichersonPassion: film and musicHeart sing: two kidsFind Paul online: WebsiteLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media
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John Paul Lederach - Peacebuilding, critical yeast, and the language of imagination
I've been following John Paul Lederach's work for years, finding the words he uses inordinately relevant to all of the details and spaces of my life. John Paul is Professor of International Peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame. He has been a teacher to me across time and space and I believe the ideas he brings into the world are teachers we all need for the world we are walking into. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Vocation (12:00)The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peaceby John Paul (12:30)Rumi poetry and the reed flute (19:00)Ongoingness (21:00)Peacebuilding (21:20)Pádraig Ó Tuama (31:00)wonder, wander, and wait (36:00)'bearing witness to more of the complexity of the other' (37:30)collective empathy (40:00)Paulo Freire (44:00)critical yeast (46:00)Francisco Varela and "The Logic of Paradise" (54:00)Mind and Life Dialogues (54:00)Poetry (55:00)Eduardo Galeano (56:00)Donald Hall (01:03:00)Ai-jen Poo (01:11:00)Lightning Round (01:05:00)Book: Tomorrow's Child by Rubem Alves Passion: poetry and physicsHeart sing: podcastingScrewed up: the significance and challenge of patienceFind John Paul online:https://www.johnpaullederach.com/Logo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media
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Creating encounters with flourishing: A 'salon' at the National Academy of Sciences
Flourishing is not a fixed state; it is an unfolding. In this time of rupture we need encounters with flourishing, to know it in our lived experiences individually and collectively. In this transformative event on December 12, 2024, Ryan McGranaghan, host of the Origins Podcast and founder of the Flourishing Salons, engaged in a moving conversation with four profound provocateurs and a wider community of artists, designers, engineers, scientists, educators, and contemplatives. The event was co-hosted by Flourishing Salons and the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS) DC Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER).Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Video of the event (link) and event page (link)Opening remarks - JD Talasek, Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (03:30)DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous (03:30)Ryan McGranaghan framing (05:50)Flourishing Salons (06:00)Rainer Maria Rilke "Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower" (07:30)Elizabeth Alexander (09:00)James Suzman (09:40)Danielle Allen (09:40)John Paul Lederach and critical yeast (12:00)Audrey Tang (12:50)David Whyte (13:10)"Knowledge Commons and the Future of Democracy" (14:00)Simone Weil (18:00)American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (19:00)'Flourishing Summits' (19:45)Susan Magsamen provocation (20:15)Julie Demuth provocation (34:00)Jennifer Wiseman provocation (45:00)Dan Jay provocation (56:15)Salon discussion (01:11:00)Find the guests online:Susan MagsamenJulie DemuthJennifer WisemanDan JayLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media
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Talia Stroud - Digital communities, civic signals, and connective democracy
Natalie (Talia, as she goes by) Stroud has for years been studying the ways that our lives online show up in and shape our lives together. Her scholarship as her life are unexampled guides to the tumult, the challenges, and the opportunity presented by the advent and evolution of digital media. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Federal Communications Committee "Information Needs of Communities" (08:10)Kathleen Hall Jamieson (08:50)Center for Media Engagement (11:00)Niche News (12:00)Governing the Commonsby Elinor Ostrom (17:00)Understanding Knowledge As a Commonsby Hess and Ostrom (17:30)Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari (17:40)'crisis discipline' (e.g., Michael Soulé) (18:00)Danielle Allen on relationality (20:00)New_ Public (22:20)Civic Signals (23:50 & 32:00)Talia's research with Meta around 2020 presidential election (26:00)Eli Pariser (34:00)Great Asking episode of Origins (35:00)the four building blocks of a healthy or flourishing digital community (37:30)what does it mean to flourish? (39:00)Umberto Eco and lists (42:20)trust (43:00)Martha Nussbaum (46:20)public imagination (51:00)Healing the Heart of Democracyby Parker Palmer (55:20)Lightning Round (55:40)Book: The Nature and Origins of Public Opinions by John Zaller Passion: business and marketing 'beach read' booksHeart Sing: election integrityScrewed up: reducing polarization in ways practical and scalableFind Talia online:UT Austin'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series Talia’s playlistLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media
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Simon DeDeo - Studying society, the science of science, and collisions with the strange
Simon DeDeo's inquiry takes on the most immense topics: astrophysics, history, epistemology, culture. He brings the precision of a physicist, the capability of a data scientist, and the sensibility of a philosopher to thinking about how we live our lives; and his polymathic life might be the example we need to make sense of the world we are walking into, one requiring an evolution to our way of studying and understanding.Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:David Spergel (08:40)The Santa Fe Institute (14:10)The Village Vanguard in New York City (16:30)The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem by Mark Steiner (24:30)Murray Gell-Mann (25:00)"The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" by Eugene Wigner (26:00)"The civilizing process in London’s Old Bailey" Klingenstein et al (27:30)Michael Tomasello (31:50)Michael Palmer "Lies of the Poem" (34:50)Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel (37:20)Gregory Bateson "Where is the mind?" (40:20)The CANDOR corpus (42:50)Judith Donath on Origins (48:10)Marshall McLuhan (49:00)Science of Science (49:10)"New and atypical combinations: An assessment of novelty and interdisciplinarity" (49:10)Helen Vendler (51:20)The Anxiety of Influenceby Harold Bloom (53:00)C Thi Nguyen on Origins (57:00)The Scientific Landscape of Human Flourishing (58:00)eudaimonia (58:30)thumos (59:00)Lightning Round (01:04:50)Book: American Pastoral by Philip Roth Passion: exerciseHeart sing: narrativeScrewed up: teaching and mentoringFind Simon online:WebsiteLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media
Origins are conversations with thought-leaders across an eclectic mix of disciplines (science, engineering, art, and design), crafted specifically for the category-defying society that we live in. We explore the thoughts, passions, and stories that defined these pioneers’ fascinating trajectories, arriving at the origins of the pivotal moments across their lives. Draw inspiration for your own trajectory from the intellectual and spiritual electricity of these eclectic conversations.
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