Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan
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.
Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan
Ed Finn - Thoughtful optimism, intellectual voyaging, and a Center for Science and the Imagination
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Season 5
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Episode 6
Ed Finn might be best described as an imaginer. The rest of the many things that he is and does kind of fall into place with that foundation. He started and for the past decade has been Director of the unexampled Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University.
Origins Podcast Website
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Show Notes:
- Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter (06:20)
- Specialization vs generalization (07:00)
- N Katherine Hayles (12:00)
- We have never been modernby Bruno Latour (19:00)
- Franco Moretti (24:15)
- Center for Science and the Imagination (26:15)
- "Innovation Starvation" by Neal Stephenson (28:00)
- Meeting Neal Stephenson (31:40)
- Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future co-edited by Ed Finn (33:30)
- Thoughtful optimism and hope (36:30)
- Adjacent possible (38:00)
- David Foster Wallace "This is water" (41:00)
- Collaborative Imagination: A methodological approach (42:30)
- What Algorithms Want: Imagination in the Age of Computing by Ed Finn (48:20)
- Effective computability (50:00)
- Halting Problem (50:30)
- Turing Machine (50:30)
- Curriculum of the future (57:30)
- "Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid" by Jonathan Haidt (58:20)
- Flourishing Salons with the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (01:03:00)
- Lightning Round (01:04:00):
- Book: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
- Passion: travel and the fine art of hospitality
- Heart sing: veteran's imagination project and K-12 futures literacy
- Screwed up: conference calls
- Find Ed online:
- 'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series