Book Talk Conversation

Agustin Fuentes is an anthropologist at Princeton University. He specializes in creativity, imagination, belief, human evolution and evolutionary theory.

Sunetra Gupta is an epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. Other than being a distinguished epidemiologist, she is also a well-known novelist who has published several novels.

Alan Lightman was one of the first people at MIT to have a joint faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities. He is known for exploring the intersection of the sciences and the humanities, especially the dialogue between science, philosophy, religion, and spirituality. He is also an author of the international bestseller book "Einstein's Dreams" that has been translated into more than 30 languages and adapted into dozens of independent theatrical and musical productions worldwide.

Alison Gopnik is known for her work in the areas of cognitive and language development, specializing in the effect of language on thought, the development of a theory of mind, and causal learning. She has an incredible childhood reading environment. By the time she was 16 years old, she had read a bunch of Jane Austen, Charles Dickinson, Thomas Hardy, Shakespeare and other great authors in literature.

Melanie Mitchell is a professor of complexity at Santa Fe Institute. Her research focuses on conceptual abstraction, analogy-making and visual recognition in artificial systems. In this episode, she will be discussing books that influenced her career path and talking about what could be a unique kind of intelligence that humans have that make us different from AI, and what can AI today do and what they are lacking.

Karl Friston is a professor of Neuroscience at University College of London. He discusses the creation of models of the world and reading as part of creating that world to develop a sense of self. Friston shares his early interests in physics and psychology and interprets them through his childhood reading list.

Forrest Landry is a philosopher, writer, researcher, scientist, engineer, craftsman, and teacher who has been studying and practicing the varied High Arts since the mid 70's. He is someone from the height of metaphysics to working with his hands to create thing. His journey is a connection between diverse domains, psychology, philosophy, computer science, mathematics, and language.

Shadi Bartsch, a world renowned scholar and translator of Greek and Roman literature. Professor Bartsch is someone who has an incredible worldview from the perspective of multiple languages and cultures. She has embarked on a lifetime mission to prevent us from ignoring our past. Shadi believes that the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans are as vibrant and important to us today as they were then.

George Church is known for his professional contributions in the sequencing of genomes and interpreting such data in synthetic biology and genome engineering. He is also a pioneer of the specialized fields of personal genomics and synthetic biology. He is fascinated by a character who is an outsider and has his inner voice and inner compulsion to not accept obstacles, but to have faith in themselves. Moreover, he loves trying to understand a world of ambiguity, puzzles of contradictions and always being curious about that world.

John Paulos is a respected international communicator of mathematics. His books and essays display a broad fluency in language and mathematical talent and skills. He's been intrigued by the idea of skepticism since he was very young. He wrote a letter to Bertrand Russell asking about Hegel's argument and got a reply back. The following year, to his surprise, he found the biography book of Russell with his response to John's question. He resonates very much with the authors whose ideas are about skepticism like Milchel de Montaigne and Bertrand Russell.

Original thinkers discuss their childhood books. Stories that influenced their career choices. Join us for a creative journey alongside scientists, mathematicians, artists, philosophers, inventors, & writers who will transport you into the world of childhood imagination and curiosity.