{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Crazy Wisdom","title":"Episode #477: Why Curiosity Isn’t Just a Virtue—It’s Our Oldest Technology","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3293,"description":"In this episode, Stewart Alsop speaks with Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science, about the deep cultural roots of question-asking and curiosity. From ancient Sumerian tablets to the philosophical legacies of Socrates and Descartes, the conversation spans how different civilizations have valued inquiry, the cross-cultural psychology of AI, and what makes humans unique in our drive to ask “why.” For more, explore Edouard’s work at www.edouardmachery.com.\nCheck out this GPT we trained on the conversation\nTimestamps\n00:00 – 05:00 Origins of question-asking, Sumerian writing, norms in early civilizations, authority and written text\n05:00 – 10:00 Values in AI across cultures, RLHF, tech culture in the Bay Area vs. broader American values\n10:00 – 15:00 Cross-cultural AI study: Taiwan vs. USA, privacy and collectivism, urban vs. rural mindset divergence\n15:00 – 20:00 History of curiosity in the West, from vice to virtue post-15th century, link to awe and skepticism\n20:00 – 25:00 Magic, alchemy, and experimentation in early science, merging maker and scholarly traditions\n25:00 – 30:00 Rise of public dissections, philosophy as meta-curiosity, Socratic questioning as foundational\n30:00 – 35:00 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle—transmission of philosophical curiosity, human uniqueness in questioning\n35:00 – 40:00 Language, assertion, imagination, play in animals vs. humans, symbolic worlds\n40:00 – 45:00 Early moderns: Montaigne, Descartes, rejection of Aristotle, rise of foundational science\n45:00 – 50:00 Confucianism and curiosity, tradition and authority, contrast with India and Buddhist thought\n50:00 – 55:00 Epistemic virtues project, training curiosity, philosophical education across cultures, spiritual curiosity\nKey Insights\nCuriosity hasn’t always been a virtue. In Western history, especially through Christian thought until the 15th century, curiosity was viewed as a vice—something...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UZbrDrlO5VTfDNcq188THwbv0T09vcmLyzx3BcPI9bs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS81Y2Rj/OGFiMTYyMGFkNTM5/N2NjOWI2MWM5YzQ1/YTc2Ny5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}