98 - Dani S. Bassett & Perry Zurn: Curiosity, Philosophy, and Network Theory

Dani S. Bassett is the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Perry Zurn is Provost Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University. Dani and Perry both do a great deal of interdisciplinary work within their fields, but Dani is best known for her work in systems neuroscience, while Perry’s research is primarily in political philosophy. The subject of this episode, however—though systems neuroscience and political philosophy both make their appearances—is Dani and Perry’s book, Curious Minds: The Power of Connection (MIT, 2022). While it wouldn’t be immediately apparent from their different fields of study, Dani and Perry are in fact identical twins, and they write that their book “represents the thought of one mind and two bodies” as they explore the nature of curiosity from both philosophical and neuroscientific perspectives, developing an account of curiosity that stresses the relationship between ideas and people. Robinson, Dani, and Perry discuss complex systems, how curiosity has been studied from a variety of different academic perspectives, the three curiosity-embodying archetypes they have identified, knowledge networks, large language models, and more. Curious Minds: https://a.co/d/3MeVY7m Dani’s Website: http://www.danisbassett.com Perry’s Website: https://www.perryzurn.com Dani’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaniSBassett Perry’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/perryzurn OUTLINE 00:00 In This Episode… 00:52 Introduction 03:42 Human Curiosity? 06:07 Complex Systems 07:22 Curiosity from a Psychological Perspective 13:09 A Network Account of Curiosity 18:40 Foucault and Great Lakes Philosophy 29:39 Building Knowledge Networks 43:08 Walks through Knowledge Networks 57:25 Curiosity, Large Language Models, and Education Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.