Curious Minds & Edge-work with Perry Zurn

A discussion of networks, Curious Minds and Edge-working with Perry Zurn, a philosopher at American University. Perry is building the new field of Curiosity Studies. We discuss his newest book Curious Minds: The Power of Connection, written with his twin Dani Bassett, as well as themes from Curiosity Studies: A new Ecology of Knowledge. "Maybe love and curiosity are not two different contexts."

A discussion of network science, Curious Minds and Edge-working with Perry Zurn, a philosopher at American University. Perry is building the new field of Curiosity Studies. We discuss his newest book Curious Minds: The Power of Connection, written with his twin Dani Bassett, as well as Curiosity and Power and themes from Curiosity Studies: A new Ecology of Knowledge. "Maybe love and curiosity are not two different contexts."

Explore more of Perry's work and papers here.

You can also find Perry Zurn on LinkedIn or Twitter.

List to Perry and his twin Dani on the Mindscape podcast.

Their Google Talk is here.

And here are Perry's Google Scholar publications.

The artist we discuss is Poonam Mistry and can be found here.

Listen to a wonderful conversation with Perry and his twin Dani on Sean Carroll’s Mindscape below.

Curious Minds & Edgeworking with Perry Zurn

[00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome to Love and Philosophy. This is Andrea and this is an episode from The Archive.

We are starting the new season on March 17th with Janet Levin and she is in California, a philosophy professor, author of Metaphysics of Mind, and she's written a lot of really great papers. She was part of the beginnings of analytic philosophy in a way. At MIT and Harvard, around those years when Jerry Foder was developing his language of thought and Quine was teaching, I think she was even Ned Block's first PhD student.

So it's a really great conversation. I can't wait to share it with you.

Today we're replaying a conversation with Perry Zern, provost, associate professor of Philosophy at American University, and the author with Danny Bassett of Curious Minds, which is the book we discuss here. Perry and Danny are twins.

This one is from two years ago. One of the first ones we've been playing some of the first.

Episodes that we had, [00:01:00] and this one is about curiosity. we talk about paths a lot here and how they don't exist till someone walks them they come into being through, walking through the body, sensing what's there, reaching towards what isn't there yet, making way.

and this is what Curiosity does or is. So it's really interesting to listen back to this episode and hear how many themes resonate, already in this early episode. The multiple paths, the way making the, walking, the, of course, beyond either or multiplicity, even the third entity in dancing edges, ecological landscapes, the planetary more than human.

all these themes are already here in a lot of wonderful ways. one interesting idea here is that curiosity isn't something you have, but it's something you do. It's a movement, it's a kind of practice, kind of edge work as we talk about here, towards what you may sense but don't know yet. And we do it at many different scales, individuals, groups. Who knows where else this is happening, but philosopher Perry Zern has spent a lot of years [00:02:00] thinking about this.

I've been revisiting Perry's work a bit regarding ambiguity lately. For another text, I'm writing for something else. So this was really fun to listen back to and to think about curiosity and how knowledge comes to be. This idea of walking through landscapes and the different topographies that we talk about, the many ways that curiosity can be your companion, Perry says, you do your best work when you have others with you doing this.

And the cracks that often come, the edges that break and reform, but also this notion of the, the mountain always having many paths that comes up in a lot of other episodes as well, how we're exploring this multidimensional landscape and there's always many paths to explore it. the way love or care could be considered differently in terms of how it's actually constitutive of a lot of that movement, and especially when we think about love of knowledge and if we think of knowledge as bodily.

So there's all kinds of wonderful resonances here and I just, I'm really happy to share this with you again, curiosity edge work. [00:03:00] Curiosity is the capacity to connect, not about capturing, but about. Living this dance together, trying to find different perspectives, learn from one another, learn from ourselves.

Curious Minds is really wonderful yeah, so here we go from the archive, curiosity. Cracking edge work paths, walking. I'm really glad you're here and we'll be back soon with a new episode.

 If you would like to support this podcast, please just go to the giving page and give whatever amount feels good for you and only if you can, only if you want to. We really appreciate it. It also helps if you sign up for the newsletter somewhere or other, or really anything to help support us as just wonderful and uh, very, very, very much appreciated.

Alright, be well hey Perry, thanks for joining us Thanks so much for having me. So this is a podcast about exploring the love in how love informs [00:04:00] the ways that we know and the ways that we move. And I wonder, in all your work on curiosity studies and developing it, and in your recent book, Curious Minds with your twin, Dani if you've thought much about this word, there is a point where you say that when you were getting ready to write the book, you were thinking about what do we love as humans?

Andrea Hiott: And, um, so I wonder, have you thought much about these two words in connection?

Perry Zurn: You know, I haven't thought a whole lot about it, um, as you ask it, I am reminded that in early Latin work on, on curiosity, curiosity was connected to desire and lust and love, and, um, it was, it was particularly located in that kind of nexus of effects.

and I think today we talk a little bit about curiosity. Uh, you know, what things we're super curious about as also things we really love to know , and think about. So it seems like there [00:05:00] is an implicit connection with them. I haven't really spent a whole lot of time sussing it out, but one of the things I might say is, in my earlier book, Curiosity and Power, I said that curiosity really needs companions, to be its best self.

And I think love might be a companion for curiosity that would help it be its best self. So I think we can get into trouble with our curiosity. I think we can exercise curiosity that is more appropriative or objectifying, but love, like real love, real relational, um, affection and connection would help guide curiosity again to, to develop forms of knowledge and inquiry and experimentation that, respect the relationship in which it sits.

Andrea Hiott: What about the idea of the love of wisdom or the, the love of the love that motivates you to be curious or to pursue a subject?, have you thought much about that? And also I'm wondering about your own path and what sort of led you to, the work that you're doing, because

I [00:06:00] think it was seven or eight years of research that went into the book that you did, and you've written many, many papers and you're more or less developing a new field of curiosity study. So I wonder what motivated that and if there's any relation to this love of wisdom or desire for knowledge.

Perry Zurn: Yeah. I mean, there must be in some way, right? Um, I love that you're pulling on the level of wisdom, right? Which is the, a translation of the word philosophy itself. And I do think that I. That I, I did fall in love with philosophy in my first, uh, really in high school and then in, in one of my first college classes.

And one of the things, I think the primary thing I loved about philosophy was how, uh, kind of rascally curious it was and willing, it's willing to. Willingness to ask questions in areas that can tend to be kind of put off by other fields or other value commitments. And philosophy says, why not? Let's ask about it.

Let's really look into [00:07:00] it. And that, that insistent inquiry was, was in fact one of the things that made me love the love of wisdom or philosophy. Um, and yeah, you know, so I, I went into philosophy for those reasons. Uh, it opened up my world in all kinds of ways. I think I had grown up in a really restricted, uh, intellectual environment where I wa I wasn't encouraged to ask a whole lot of questions about certain things, and I needed more room and philosophy, gave me more room.

Um, and then my twin Dani, they were. Uh, similarly sort of reaching out for new spaces to be and to explore. And, and they went into physics, uh, and we went, you know, we did our undergraduate degrees and then we did our graduate degrees, and then we, um, We are twins. And so this was an important moment in which we distinguished our ourselves and our identities and our loves and our passions as distinct.

Well, I'm into philosophy and you're into physics, and so that makes us different. Uh, but then it turned out, you know, that, that we were actually trying to understand the [00:08:00] same. Some of the same things. So Danny was studying learning and neural flexibility, and I was, uh, writing a dissertation on curiosity and a book on curiosity, um, before our work together.

And we thought, you know, there's really a resonance here and what would it mean to bring our very different fields to together, um, around the same and similar question. Um, so that's really what gave rise to Curious Minds.

Andrea Hiott: In this book, you redefine curiosity in a way, don't you, from the traditional, historical, uh, notion of it.

 Maybe you wanna tell us a little bit about, about that, this idea of curiosity as connection or, not as acquisitional, but as more like a capacity or a practice. I think you, you use that word a lot. Practice. I.

Perry Zurn: Yeah. Yeah. So curiosity is, I am really interested in thinking about curiosity as a practice.

Um, it has been conceptualized primarily as a desire or [00:09:00] a motivation or an interest to know, uh, new information or to fill information gaps. So motivation to fill information gaps is really the way in which it's described in psychology, and then a desire to know is more of the older, more ancient philosophical perspective.

 But these desires and these motivations tend to be really located in an individual human. And I wanted to think about curiosity socially. So I'm a political philosopher by training. I think that most things can't be understood just from the individual level. Uh, and so I really wanted to think about curiosity at the, at the social level. And to do that, I needed to think about it as a practice, something that we do, um, to and with and next to one another. Uh, so curiosity as a practice, but then a practice of what exactly. And again, historically, curiosity has been thought of as this, um, Need to sort of grasp new information to go out, get the new piece of information and, and kind of own it and use it in how, whatever way we wanna do.

[00:10:00] Um, but I thought, , that misses something about what curiosity's actually up to, because curiosity really, I. Just independent pieces of information don't help you do a whole lot, right, and aren't particularly meaningful. The reason that we're curious about something is because it's connected to what we already know or what we're already invested in or to people we care about or to communities we care about or to the earth we care about.

And so in that sense, I thought. And, you know, working with Dani I, I was thinking about curiosity as relational and then I was working with Danny and we were thinking about curiosity as, as networked or as a network, a drive for network knowledge building. And it's between those two positionalities, you know, curiosity is relational and curiosity as network that we came to this, this conceptualization of curiosity as a capacity to connect.

So then you can get that social and relational resonance, but you can also get that network science resonance.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. I really love that and I love how you did this grasping or getting or acquiring, motion, [00:11:00] uh, in terms of the way we often think about curiosity or the way we need to get information, have information, and, and that's very different from the book and the way that you both in your different chapters write about, it as an exploration, as a movement.

It's, , it's always like a walk, which we'll get to, but it's a very different kind of bodily, uh, presence with others and with the world in a way. And just to kind of unpack that a little bit, you also think about curiosity as edge work. I'd like to hear you. Talk about if it's the same thing for you or, or what this word really means.

And I also wonder, um, just kind of as a side note in my own work, uh, or, or history, this idea of edge work has come as a, um, connected to risk from the writer, hunter SS Thompson. You probably know about that. Him talking about the Edge is the place that you only know if you go over it.

And he actually uses this word edge work and then I think Steven Lane kind of picks it up, [00:12:00] uh, in the eighties or nineties in psychology and talks about it as people who, who take great, great risks that are almost, um, not rational towards pursuing the edge. So I just wonder if you've thought about that side of it at all, or Yeah.

How this connects to the curiosity for you.

Perry Zurn: Yeah, so we do explore curiosity as edge work in the book, and that's a way to try to put feet to this concept of curiosity as connectional. So if curiosity is this capacity to build and to make connections, and those connections might be old, but those connections might be new.

But if curiosity is this capacity to make connections, one way to talk about that is as. Building edges between nodes, uh, or as edge work. Um, and so that, that term really helps bring out some resonance resonances in network science, but it also helps bring out resonances in kind of aesthetic theory and a ecology, which is where I ran across the term.

[00:13:00] Um, In kind of aesthetic or ecological perspectives. Edge work is this, try this trying to build and live and create in liminal spaces or to exist and survive in liminal spaces. And there's all kinds of liminal, ecologies and liminal aesthetic kind of spaces. And so that's where this word edge work was sitting for me anyway.

Um, and is there a risk involved? Sure, sure. I think, I think there must be insofar as the edge. An edge would be, at least in networks, network science, right? The edge would be something that's, connecting or relating to different pieces. So the edge itself, at least from a network perspective, doesn't have to be the edge of the world or the edge of a thought or the, you know, the furthest point, um, that one could reach.

And yet curiosity does seem to be in its edge work or it's, or it's edge-laying capacity to be trying to reach these places that are on our periphery, right? Because it's, it's part of [00:14:00] this attempt to build knowledge out from where it is or in from where it is. Um, That, that does create certain, certainly certain risks, especially for the knowledge network as it stands already.

So if we're building edges out and in, um, the existing knowledge network, the network itself and the shape and the, and the hubs and the emphasis of it and the flows of it will necessarily (hopefully) change and, and have some kind of flexibility. So I, I like that resonance. I don't know this particular work that you're, that you're citing by Thompson and Ling, but I'm excited to go down that, that rabbit hole.

Yeah. So

a

Andrea Hiott: different idea of it, but it's the same word. So that's interesting. And for me it was very strange to see that edge work as the way you used it be and to kind of realize, oh, I'd never thought of that before, being so interested in complexity science and nodes and edges and. Somehow it was definitely a beautiful moment to think of edge work in that way, but I'm still trying to figure out too, um, how there seem, [00:15:00] it seems so rich, right?

Because it depends on what position from which you're moving. What would the edges would be in both of these takes of edge work, um, and also that position would or would not be taking more risk, depending on how you might look at it from another position if we think of it socially or, or whatnot.

Um, which makes me think of sort of pioneers or, or people who really set out to explore places or even force other people to recognize places that they've been or have been living in, uh, that haven't been seen before. Um, do you think curiosity plays a role in that, in this, in this sense of pioneering politically, socially, also in terms of, uh, just the science that we, that we're doing?

Perry Zurn: I think it does, and I think it can. Um, I would say that, Um, so, so, you know, pioneering and discovery and, um, innovation. These things for me, these things are double-edged swords. [00:16:00] Um, even the

Andrea Hiott: very word pioneer is kind of

Perry Zurn: right. There's, you know, there's, there's several layers there. And so I think that it's, um, it's helpful to think about curiosity and relationship to those terms because I think it draws out the, um, Complexity of the word curiosity itself.

So curiosity, yeah, can push us into new intellectual spaces. And those intellectual spaces can be more liberatory in some cases and can provide knowledge that really improves our ability to be decent humans to one another and decent humans to the planet. That curiosity can also do the opposite, right?

 it can give us tools to be more extractive of the earth to uh, let's say building more hierarchies and, and kind of, uh, inequities between humans. Um, so I think. Curiosity does push us in these ways toward pioneering discoveries and and innovations. But again, it needs companions to do its best work.

It needs to be kind [00:17:00] of in community with other things like love or I talk about, um, ambiguity and opacity and, and kind of ways in which we don't always have to know everything or use the knowledge in all the ways that we can. Sometimes we need to respect, uh, the things that we're trying to come to know and let them exist in the way that they already exist, rather than changing and using them.

Andrea Hiott: I love that. I love the idea of the companion instead of, it's too simple to just say curiosity is good, always or bad always. Um, yeah. So that really offers something to, to help us understand where the values matter and when curiosity can be harmful or helpful. Um, I do wanna ask you about complexity, and when this idea of complexity science came into your world, or, , I guess.

With Danny and their work. It's definitely more, um, I mean it's very much a part of, of that neuroscience. And I wonder if it was already part of your work before they brought it into,, [00:18:00] your world writing this book or, yeah. What, when did you first sort of encounter complexity science in this, in the way that you're using it with edges and nodes and so on?

Yeah,

Perry Zurn: so there's some, um, Network theory that really predates network science and was more commonly, um, developed in sociology and in some social philosophies in the seventies and eighties and nineties. And so I was already familiar with some of that work. Um, and then of course, working closely with Dani I became more aware of network science, uh, and the way in which complexity is used specifically in that context.

What's really helpful for this book for Curious Minds. Um, Was to think about the brain and the ways in which, , if you look at really early, like phrenology illustrations, people were locating curiosity or wonder or attention in one specific area of the brain and saying, that's the thing that, that's the place [00:19:00] that lights up.

And in fact, we continue to get this question, what's the part of the brain that's responsible for curiosity? Hmm. The, um, the development of com, you know, complex systems and network neuroscience has really shown us that the brain works in concert with it, you know, all of the parts in some way. And really the question is what are the pathways and what are the conversations?

Within it that allow something like curiosity to manifest itself in the world. And that has opened up, I mean, on the one hand that becomes frustrating then, well, what is curiosity and what is the neural basis of curiosity and how do we, if it's not one part, then how can we really say, oh, this is the neural basis.

You know? Right now we know that there are multiple systems involved. Um, But, uh, at the same time, it opens up, it helps us to start to see emphases, right? The attentional emphases, um, for example, or, uh, the hippocampal enthorhinal system and its capacity to allow us to navigate social spaces and geographical spaces, but also conceptual [00:20:00] spaces so we can start to pull out, um, as we at attend, attend and attune to those um,

various systems in the brain that are activated in curiosity, we can start to see elements of curiosity we may not have attended to. They might have all been lumped together in a not very precise definition of curiosity, but we can start pulling those pieces apart and analyzing them separately.

The more we can appreciate that there are multiple systems in place. Not only neurological systems, um, but also social systems. So complexity science, of course can help us understand social systems as well. Um, if the more we can understand the multiple systems involved in. Uh, inquiry in the practice of inquiry in our individual minds and in our shared, shared worlds, the more curiosity can come alive and we can see it as a really, a practice of many gradations, right?

So that, so that it's not just like you're curious or you're not curious, um, but [00:21:00] rather how are you curious? And maybe you manifest it in this way, or you direct it this way or you practice it this way. Um, and this can change. This can change how we use curiosity in our just everyday kind of attempts to discover or to, or to improve workplaces.

Um, but it can also change how we structure educational spaces.

Andrea Hiott: That's wonderful. I think. Yeah, opening the space and it's not either or you're curious or you're not. It's more of how are you curious in the world? In the book you discuss different styles of curiosity and also different ways of walking, and I'd like to sort of talk about both of those and maybe how they are or might be connected.

But first maybe just the, the styles of, of being curious. The busy body and the hunter and the dancer, maybe you could just give us a little brief, recap of those different ways you did.

Perry Zurn: Yeah, sure. So I think typically curiosity, Um, and you know, [00:22:00] I, I work in, in higher education and so I see this kind of every day, but most people think about curiosity in very similar ways as being evident, um, in another human being.

If that human being asks a lot of questions, um, is pretty verbal, pretty interactive, uh, maintains close eye contact, um, is often raising their hand or trying to like, Uh, unmake something or remake something. There just, there's just a lot of active engagement that's very evident to an onlooker. That's typically how curiosity has been. Perceived, but that loses all kinds of depth, I think, to, to curiosity and diversity, to curious, uh, practices. So the, the styles, the busy body and the hunter and the dancer help us zoom in and say, okay, actually there's different ways of being curious and that are really quantifiably different. And, and so the busy body is somebody who's interested in, uh, sort of all kinds of things and, and tends not to [00:23:00] settle down, but, um, creates these really loose knowledge networks, right? They're, they're, they welcome many different pieces, of information to kind of sit in their brain and hang out together. Whereas the hunter is someone who's much more focused and tends to want to know everything about a small subset of things. So they're far more likely to create really tight knowledge networks and really try to fill in all the holes and then all the holes between those, et cetera, et cetera. And then the dancer is someone who's really creative when they're curious. So they don't just wanna know pass down information, but as they're.

Investigating and as they're experimenting, they wanna be creating. So they tend to put, um, information together that didn't belong together from disparate areas of, of intellectual space and say, what happens if we put these in the same room? What happens if we make them talk to each other? You know, what happens if I create, um, Through my curiosity and these styles are styles I developed by looking at, um, thousands of years of history of, of Western [00:24:00] intellectual thought.

Um, when folks have described curious behavior. 'cause again, I'm really interested in curious behavior and curious practice. What does it look like when we're doing it? And these seem to be three styles or types that were really common historically. And it turns out, you know, working with Dani, I was able to, or we were able to establish that these are also, you know, Alive and well

Andrea Hiott: today.

It really resonates and it's, it's helpful as you say, no one is only one of these at all times in their life or even in the same day necessarily. And you also point out there are many other ways of being curious and you even offer a sort of bestiary, which is really great, and the appendix of various other ways of, of thinking about this.

So there are many ways to think about it and you definitely make that clear. But I do think it's also helpful to give a little bit of structure and. To show how these ways are different, so that we can become more aware of them so it opens the space of what's curious and how that might be manifesting in the people around us. It speaks to the, what you were talking about with complexity science of how now, you don't have to look at it as either or one or the other, but there's [00:25:00] many different ways of thinking about this nested and multidimensional, um, system of nodes and edges and the different places from which they connect.

 I wonder in your work if you found sort of shapes or topographies that fit to these, um, different ways of, of being curious and if they overlap. Are there places also where, where they overlap a lot in terms of their shape,

Perry Zurn: And you're asking specifically about the busy body, the hunter and the dancer, or more general?

Andrea Hiott: Generally? Yeah. Or just in different, in different, I, I, I guess I'm trying to understand what would be sort of the farthest ones from one another, because these are kind of as you, as you show in the book.

It's really about the ways that we're thinking and the ways that we're moving through the world in a sense. when we start to think about like your work of how do things change or, how might we find better ways of, of being curious or also recognizing different forms of curiosity? Um, I just wonder, are there places in that, in that space that are farther apart, [00:26:00] uh, that are less likely to acknowledge one another?

are they all sort of overlapping in similar ways in terms of their topographies?

Perry Zurn: Yeah. This is so interesting. I mean, my, I get the question fairly often about, um, how to say this. Uh, folks, folks on the left, um, Politically, uh, really tend to think of themselves as curious, um, as, as interested and willing to take risks and to, um, engage with diversity and adjust their beliefs and patterns and values.

Um, and they perceive typically the, um, those on the right as being more, um, Entrenched and less willing to, uh, again, engage with diversity or change values and systems of belief. but I think. I think it's honestly having sort of, we both Danny and I have a, you know, a, a a family that's pretty split down the middle of this particular divide.

Um, I think [00:27:00] it's important to ask again where, how curiosity is showing up in these different communities. So I think I'm gonna answer this at a community level. The busy body and the hunter and the dancer aren't simply locatable on, um, one political spectrum or the other, but rather in each of these sort of worlds political worlds, they're gonna manifest themselves differently, but they'll be there.

and, but they won't necessarily be recognized from outside of that world as being busy body like curiosity or hunter, like curiosity or dancer like curiosity. Um, That seems important. And maybe another way I would tackle this is to talk about, I, you know, I, I do some work on, uh, social movements and, and specifically social justice movements.

And I think the perception of people who don't want that particular, group to flourish or to, or to win whatever is being won. Um, Tend to see, tend to see social movement activists, social justice activists, as [00:28:00] simply hammering down the like, um, we know what's right and we're not changing our minds and we wanna fix it.

We're gonna fix it this way to see that the social justice activist as a domineering knowledge holder. Whereas I think if we analyze from within the movement itself, we tend to see a lot of. Curious behavior. So like what really is the problem we're trying to figure out and who should be leading this movement and how is it that we're going to fix the thing that we wanna fix?

So the perceptions again, of who is curious and how are really different based on social position or which kind of hubs you're sitting in within the network. The social network of ideas, that's important. And I think it's important to. Broadly stretch out knowledge and to, and to resist the temptation to think that knowledge is some kind of universal system that we're all just adding pieces to and that we all build are building the same structure.

No knowledge is like, knowledge is this complex, uh, system with lots of different [00:29:00] hubs and nodes and levels, et cetera, and registers and, um, some of those don't talk to each other, right. They're so stretched out and far apart. Um, and others of them are really resonating or fighting in some way. Um, but there are links and threads that you can trace between them and I think it would be maybe curiosity as edge work that would help us kind of break down the current polarizations in the network of knowledge structures and allow us to, to hear and work with one another better.

Andrea Hiott: Excellent. Yes. Thank you for, you sort of switched the camera angle there because I think I was thinking of curiosity itself as the patterns and the habits, but actually yeah, it's much wider, right? The, the, it's almost developmental how we come at knowledge and build patterns and what we think of as knowledge.

 And it is in many different dimensions and We may all be curious in similar ways. that might even make us think that we have had similar experiences or share similar, experiences [00:30:00] now or, yeah. And actually that's not the case really. It's, um, so there's something else where we have to really step back even further and see the larger landscape in a, in a different way and maybe that.

It gets us to this idea of walking that you talk about, there's different kinds of walks. Wonder if that relates to, if you've thought about that in terms of, um, development and, how what one encounters in one's life leads one to walk in a certain way, for example, at certain times. To walk these kind of landscapes, be they, uh, mental or physical, um, experiences.

Perry Zurn: Yeah. Yes, I am. Yeah. I'm obsessed with walking, so I, if I could write, if I could write another book on walking, I would. Um, so I do think about this a lot, about the, how we develop our walks, um, when I'm actually talking. Talking about physical walks. So I do think that [00:31:00] each of us develops how it is that we physically walk in a world.

Mm-hmm. Not just where we walk and when we walk and how long we walk, et cetera, et cetera. Um, but also just the, how the walk sits in our body. Mm-hmm. Um, the, we develop the, of the gate. I think you talk about that. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly. And that's, um, That's important for all kinds of reasons, because I think there are, there are ways of signaling belonging through our walks or signaling otherness or foreignness or difference in our walks that can like create community and or create rifts, um, or acts of violence, right?

So I do work in L G B T studies and this is one of the, um, one, one topic that comes up fairly regularly there. Um, but then how we walk in, in conceptual spaces is also very socially inherited in a lot of different ways. So the, the path that I will take, um, To answer a question that you ask me today will have a lot to do with how I've been trained, [00:32:00] um, and what kind of patterns of thinking I've been most familiar with.

Um, and that, so, so yeah, we're walking, we're walking all the time, and we're talking to each other as much as when we're striding, you know, across the field. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. I love that you connect. That means, yeah. Mm-hmm. Just, yeah, that it, I. As you know, I think and, and are aware and, and care about this has to have, uh, multiple disciplines involved in kind of thinking it through.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, absolutely. I always think of walking literally as cognitive and in this way of how we learn how to do it, and also how we hold ourselves and how we assume that others think it is or is not proper and so on and so on. There's so much there. But I guess what I would, I'm trying to get at is, so we're talking about physical space, physical walking, and how this is also a way to understand how we walk through, um, [00:33:00] languages and ideas and our kind of collection of knowledge, what we think we know. And we're also talking about how those are, can be very, very different from those around us. So I guess I'm wondering in your work, how you've noticed that people recognize, um, that there are other ways of walking and other ways of thinking and, and, um, If you've noticed any patterns or habits that are helpful for, for just becoming more aware that there are many different ways to walk in, in the spaces that we, that we share.

Perry Zurn: This makes me think of the word method, which, um, which, refers to begin on the path of something and, and I think that oftentimes, With methods in various fields of inquiry. There's a, this is how you do it. There's just one [00:34:00] way to do it. And so we don't really think about it as kinds of walks, but rather, this is how you get from there, here to there.

Mm-hmm. You ask the question, you answer it this way, the end. Um, so it doesn't even feel, it doesn't even feel like a walk. Um, But in fact it is. It is a method. It is a path. Mm-hmm. And there are, there's, it's important, consistently, I think, for us to return to the fact that methods are always under, um, Up for debate, right?

And under critique. And there's a constant tug push and tug, um, to try to say, well, the, the method or the path should move. We should be asking questions in this way, or We should be asking questions in that way, or pursuing our knowledge this way or that way. Um, the, how we ask our questions and where we gather our information and what we, how we organize that information, and then how we, uh, share and disperse it.

There's. There's many ways, and each, each, each way has a, something [00:35:00] not only, uh, disciplinarily at stake, but also certainly socially at stake. Um, and so I think one of the things I think about from your question is not just, uh, kind of everyday way in which people may not appreciate how many different walks there are in our everyday lives, but also, uh, academically.

I think that that. Disciplines continue to be really, um, put out by the multiplicity of walks. There actually are, and there's a constant trying to like, come on, come on, come on. You know, let's reign these in and let's do it the right way. Mm-hmm. And let's do it in a way that's traditionally sort of more traditionally expected or more recently established, whatever the thing is.

Um, and I think it limits how we get to ask our questions and then what we get to see when we're taking those walks.

Andrea Hiott: Exactly. And you bring up a lot of great examples of people who, um, [00:36:00] wanted to take walks that were interdisciplinary in this way or just seemed like kind of crazy by asking certain questions of the research that they wanted to do or, or whatever that other people thought that you can't possibly do that or you have to reign yourself in and choose one subject or, there's many examples you give in the book, but, those ways do, if one persists, I mean this pioneer idea or persistence, those ways of walking do, can become their own, uh, paths and sets for, for other people to follow and, and to come on.

 I mean, not that you can have exactly the answer to this, but why so many of us do feel kind of threatened by, new forms of walking and new paths, when at the same time we also seem to Hold those up too at some point. As, as knowing that they're the, change makers, the things that have changed the world in a positive way.

I imagine you've had to deal with this tension a lot and with trying to, to sort of figure out where, where is the, the [00:37:00] point where one can just be aware and attentive and kind of. open the space to new paths without being reactionary or if the reactionary part is necessary.

I don't know. any thoughts on that?

Perry Zurn: That's a tough one. You know, I, um, I think about, I often tell this story of the, the, the first time I, I floated the idea of writing a dissertation on, on curiosity and one of my advisors saying, no one's written a book on curiosity, so you can't, um, and that still sticks with me.

The, there is no book on curiosity yet in philosophy, so therefore you can't write one because there isn't one yet, because there's nothing to like do. It seems the opposite should be true. It's very, and it seems the opposite should be true. Like, great, there isn't one yet. Go do it. You know? but I think that in microcosm this is, this is some, you know, related to what, what you're talking about here.

Um, I wonder, and this is not my field, right, a more, uh, psychotherapeutic social, social psychotherapy question, but, [00:38:00] um, maybe it, it could also be a neuroscience question. Um, you know, we. We need to save energy, intellectual energy where we can, there's just too much to process and too much to work through and, um, to actually take every single question and every new pathway just as seriously as the next, right?

We would never move. Um, and so I think that in some way, that instinct to kind of pare down all the possibilities into some manageable frame of a few is one of the reasons that people do restrict, I think, dis new disciplinary paths. You know, there's just a, that's too, that's gonna be too energy intensive and who knows if it's gonna pay off and it's just distracting from the thing we know works.

So let's just keep doing this. So I do, I do think there's some probably basic neural, uh, Basis for this, for this instinct, and yet it's obviously a perennial challenge. I mean, if we think about any, the history of philosophy, if we think about the history of science, you know, [00:39:00] it's just people have to constantly say, no, I really think this is, this is the new question, this is the new path, and we're gonna do it.

And sometimes it gets taken up and completely changes the field and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it. Pitters out, and that's the end. And that person's not super remembered. Mm-hmm. And that's just a part of the story of, of fields and, and social life

Andrea Hiott: though all those paths are usually parts of bigger paths, even when they're sort of dead ends.

I think they opened new, new ways, perhaps even in, in subjects or questions or fields they didn't mean to. Um,

Perry Zurn: but I love that. I love that. I would love to hear more about dead ends, like. Well, I, speaking of like walking paths of thought and dead ends, that's,

Andrea Hiott: yeah, because I just, I was talking to someone about, for, for about motoring, how we're changing to electric.

And uh, the scholar said, yeah, well some people will spend their whole lives trying something new and it's a dead end and. [00:40:00] I mean, maybe it's the idealistic part of me that thinks, no, there's no dead end, but I just, in terms of even complexity or science or something, you can't really explore without opening new paths for other people.

It's just that it might not be what you had in mind for yourself that you wanted to achieve or something. So I've been thinking about that in terms of like branching and. And how, how, where, depending on where you move the the measuring point, the vantage point, how those kind of paths realign. It's interesting.

Perry Zurn: Yeah. That's fascinating. I love it.

Andrea Hiott: It reminds me of your idea of this connect being connective rather than acquisitional, which I think is just a wonderful way to think about curiosity too, because there's something about. S the idea of a dead end even, or not getting what you want, or, I don't know.

It's, it also feels binary to me and, um, like stuck in one either or mindset. Mm. Uh, rather like we have to get all the information and we have to somehow [00:41:00] do what we said we were gonna do. I don't know. There's something about it that feels very, the power of it is different. It's uh, it's turned in a different direction than I think this kind of curiosity that.

You explain in the book or demonstrate this practice, um, which is more about getting out of that, uh, space in a way and I don't know, opening, opening it. Does that make any sense?

Perry Zurn: Yeah. So a connectional theory of curiosity would not really allow for moments of failure or, or dead ends, but would always grant that, um, The new connections have been laid and whether those connections are useful now or useful 300 years from now or never.

Useful isn't really the point. It's more, it's more of the making of the connections and and being part of this process of growth really.

Andrea Hiott: Exactly. And also for me, it calls into question this notion of I and [00:42:00] the way we define ourselves and, um, In that larger space and being able to dance and maybe understand that self is not what you thought it was.

That, that opens up if you, if you can sit with that a little

Perry Zurn: bit. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's so funny. You know, I do write about dancing in the Mind and I'm mm-hmm. But I'm not, but I'm not a dancer in my body. But I do think, I do think there's something really wonderful about thinking about the dance of ideas and being a part of it.

Mm-hmm.

Andrea Hiott: Or even just, I guess I meant this movement too, where you're not necessarily linear, um, but still there's a flow or a rhythm, something like this, which in that case you're definitely a dancer in the writing, right. I wonder how you think about like, how this is connected to other form, like how we, it might be too big of a question or, but if I don't think so, but with your other work, [00:43:00] um, to bring it in a little bit, like how this, uh, notion of curiosity helps us think about other.

Political issues, social issues, but also ecological issues, other forms of life and our connection to them and their curiosity. Um, be they other humans or plants or, you know, animals in a way. Is there a way to think about curiosity as not just human, I guess is what I mean, or not just, um,

Perry Zurn: one human individual?

Yeah. Yeah. I love this question because, yeah. My critique in general of the traditional theory of curiosity has been that it's acquisitional in nature and that it's individual really instead of social. Um, but there should be a third level of that critique. That it's anthropocentric, um, curiosity, it, it presumes that curiosity is a human capacity and a, and a merely human capacity or an only human capacity.

And this is repeatedly stated, and most curios people who study [00:44:00] curiosity would claim that still today, thou, thousands of years ago, end today, that the curiosity is a human, um, distinctly human marker or characteristic. But, um, And I, and I honestly think that divide has been incredibly, uh, um, has been really heavily involved in the human animal, human world, relationships that have developed such that we use how many thousands, millions of, of animals for our research without thinking about, oh my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah. Without thinking about their lives and their, their, um, communities and their ecologies. Um, and their trajectories and Yeah. Yeah. And then also our ways of walking. And their ways of walking. Yeah. And then also our, our use of, of the earth's natural resources. Right. Our curiosity to do what it ever it is that we want to do with the stuff that is around us instead of thinking about its [00:45:00] role, the resources, the earth's resources role in many other, um, Again, livelihoods of, of multiple beings and futures.

So if we had thought from the beginning of curiosity as a more than human capacity, um, a cap, a capacity that we share with other animals like ourselves and unlike ourselves as well as plants and perhaps even solar systems, right? I don't, or I mean, Universes, one could think of the creativity of, of a universe as, as being curious in some way as expanding and creating and then, um, coming back in.

And that, that might be a model for, for curiosity itself. So I don't know if we thought about it in this, in this much, much greater perspective, would we have behaved differently and would we be in a different place with respect to the other beings we share? Um, This space with? Yes, I think absolutely. Yes.

So I'm very interested, you know, in the book we talk about, we have a beast area of curiosity in [00:46:00] which we are looking at other creatures as models of curiosity. But I think we could, there, there's so much more to be done here, to think curiosity at, at a more ecological level. I.

Andrea Hiott: I think it's wonderful in the book how connected you are. The work is to other forms of life. It's, it's very, very connected to plants and animals and and so on. It's a part of, you know, every chapter in some way. And it almost made me think in a way that we could be the curiosity of those creatures, if you think of it in terms of evolution and, you know, all these many, many different forms of life, trying many different paths and, and so on.

Our curiosity about the plant and the animal is it's, is in a way its own curiosity.

Perry Zurn: I love that. Such that our curiosity. I like that. Because then human curiosity is not the origin of curiosity, but you're suggesting actually human curiosity is the result of, um, What is it other animal and fumble it's

Andrea Hiott: participating in? I think there's a kind of, yeah, movement, right? If you really think of it as a practice and a movement [00:47:00] in the way that you lay out in the book and even all the different little animals and Yeah.

Um, what we've learned about from them and the way you lay it out in the beast area. There's something already, there's some, there's a thread there that was never disconnected. I don't know how to articulate it perfectly yet, but there's a way in which if we could get our stuff together as humans, our curiosity could be, uh, a beneficial curiosity for those other creatures too, you know?

Yeah. I

Perry Zurn: love that. That's really great.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, well your book made me think of it, so, uh, I really love that at the end of the book you talk about, uh, the future through this idea of cracks that's like very, it's like broken and crack and destruction future, but it's also very hopeful and optimistic and. Uh, also just, uh, neutral in, in a way.

But this is wonderful, this idea of cracks and I just wanna think about it a little bit. And I also wanna bring up the [00:48:00] name of someone who I've never been able to say very well. Maybe you can help me, Gloria. I. Alua. Say it again. Could you help me?

Perry Zurn: Anzaldua

Andrea Hiott: Anzaldua. Okay. So this idea that cracks are where the light gets in, uh, I love that you think about the future in that way and the way you present it in the book and it kind of opens up, you know, you just fill the book sort of branching and letting you, letting you sort of fly.

Um, how did that come into being and, you know, Just tell me what you think about Gloria too, if you can.

Perry Zurn: Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is, there were, there were, there were moments of the book that were more, um, absolutely delightful discoveries or experiments, um, than others. One was the walking I. The notion of walking and bringing it to, bringing the philosophy of walking together with the, with the network science of walking.

That was, that was one of the highlights of writing this book with Dani. I, and then another was, was cracks when we stumbled upon cracks. Okay. Um, so , it came about because, [00:49:00] um, we'd written the whole book as this, as curiosity as this capacity to build connections. And that building connections was the primary theme. But the more we were talking about it and obviously experiencing it and noticing our own curiosities, um, We were, we realized, you know, and even in, you know, network science, there's, there's a degeneration of edges.

It's not just the edges get built, but they also degenerate and they become lost or become broken, and then new ones form. Um, and. So we wanted to capture that deconstruction as much as the, you know, construction that is emphasized throughout the whole book. What is it? What is it When things break or when things Yeah.

Crack. Um, and that was just, It was just too fun because we can talk about cracks in a network sense. We can talk about it in a geographical, uh, or geological sense. Yeah. Arche, geological,

Andrea Hiott: it's all, there's, yeah, yeah, yeah. cracking eggs, insect wings. I mean, like, it's [00:50:00] amazing.

Perry Zurn: Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously the psychology of cracks or the, as you're, you're pointing out this, the sociology, right?

When, the cracks in our perceptual worlds and our social worlds happen. And how does that open something for our futures or for hope? And I am really interested, consistently, I keep trying to write things about curiosity and hope, because I do think there's a connection. Maybe I've thought about that more than curiosity and risk, although hope and risk are connected there.

Mm-hmm. Um, but um, But yeah, we, we wanted, we wanted to think about the destructiveness of curiosity and the breaking of edges, not just the building.

Andrea Hiott: And also even further than that, how the destruction itself is creative. I think you, you show that in that chapter where again, to get away from this binary either or, and to, into this complexity, right.

Where. Yes, we need these words in terms to discuss things, but these are just our tools and so we need to talk about destruction as being creative and creative as being destructive. Like you sort of open that up in a way that you can't quite [00:51:00] articulate, but that's why that chapter also gets a little poetic and you, you're able to express it.

Perry Zurn: Yeah, it's definitely the most experimental. Mm-hmm. Of the chapters as far as how we structured it and wrote it and I don't know, it's got weird interludes about dictionaries and you know, it's just super cool.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah. It really works. I mean, it did for me at least,

Perry Zurn: and I think it, I'm so glad we had one reviewer say, scratch that.

That's, it's make any sense. It's

Andrea Hiott: confusing the work. It just needs time. It's one of those things people, yeah. More and more people will understand. I think once you think about these issues a little bit mm-hmm And you come back to that, then it makes a lot more

Perry Zurn: sense. Good. Good. I'm glad you,

Andrea Hiott: Before we we go, 'cause I know you have to go soon.

Um, I do wanna come back to the beginning in a T.S. Elliot kind of way of the book and, um, and this, this thing that you actually say of T.S. Elliot, I don't know if you wrote it or Dani wrote it, but, it's that I'll just borrowing poet ts Elliot's words of love. To frame our pursuit of curiosity, we lift and drop each question on your plate.

We take the time for a hundred indecisions and for a hundred [00:52:00] visions and revisions, we take the time to wonder, do I dare? And as we do, we find one simple answer. Curiosity does dare it. Dares disturb the universe. I love that. And I think it also kind of cracks something open. but why did you say words of love from tss?

Hard question. I know, but it it struck me as, uh, quite a

Perry Zurn: phrase. Yeah. I think we wanted to acknowledge that the um, Poem itself is about a, a love relationship. Um, and that we're, in a sense, we're taking it out of context. But now that I am speaking with you on this podcast, maybe, maybe it's not, maybe love, love is not, love and curiosity are not too different contexts.

Maybe if we

Andrea Hiott: open to this ecological view,

Perry Zurn: it's, it's a little different. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. So that's what I guess we were trying to flag that we were, we were borrowing, uh, from a different space, from a different, uh, nest. Um, this, this piece of daring to disturb the universe. But, but again, from a different vantage point, perhaps it's [00:53:00] actually the same, the same space.

Andrea Hiott: It did make me think about this cracking open that we, on a, if we come back to the individual, Level and think about love or experiences. A lot of us do know what that feeling is like. Right. Um, and I think maybe that's also an entryway into understanding some of these themes of curiosity. Um, that sort of cracking open too, where you then you have to kind of look at different paths and different ways forward.

And it's a disturbance that can be creative, even though it's of course also destructive

Perry Zurn: that is so helpful. I mean, yeah. Now I'm gonna go reprocess all my breakups and my family through the lens of cracks. Uh, and I think that, I honestly think that's a great way forward.

Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it is. It, it helped me. So I thank you. Um, and last thing, the artwork is super cool in the book and I want everyone to go look at it.

Could you just tell me about the artist just for a second?

Perry Zurn: We have a piece, a, a full page piece in front of every chapter, and those pieces [00:54:00] are by Poonam Mistry who's a, um, in the uk. And she specialize, she does primarily children's books, honestly. And her work is really centered on patterns and nature.

And because of the role of patterns in nature in the book, we thought this person would be perfect and thank God she said yes. We ended up, Sending her something like a 300 page dossier where we just collected Google images of all the things we were thinking about throughout the book.

And we said, you know, this page, this, this page, this, this page, this. So she could just kind of flip through it and see the images that were in our mind when we were writing. And she used that as inspiration to, to develop the, the pieces for the front of the chapters, which we absolutely

Andrea Hiott: adore.

And just since you said they're mostly for children and then your, your dedication is to all the children who question whether it needs to be this way.

This is really great too. And I just, I wonder if like, where that came from or if that was just, I don't know, maybe where did that dedication come from? Last question. [00:55:00] Yeah.

Perry Zurn: Um, we, We, I don't know. We felt that we were these children who, um, asked if it had to be this way. You know, there were a lot of, um, there were a lot of mundane but also painful ways in which, uh, We were expected to live and to think, and we, uh, found that our curiosity couldn't be contained by that.

And in a, in a real way, I think our parents were also rebels and, but in a, in a sense, and I think they modeled for us that capacity, uh, even though they didn't want us to be the rebels in the way that they were, but I think we are. Um, and, and we just thought, you know what? There's, it's, it's important as all of us adults are talking about, whatever we're talking about to remember.

Children and to remember the ways in which their curiosity is kind of lifted up as the model. You know, they're the ones who are the most curious, and that's where curiosity is the most alive. And yet,, the, the position of of a child is one [00:56:00] that's not very empowered and they often don't get to pursue the things they're very interested in.

And they often don't get taken seriously in their questions or in their perspectives, or in their interests. And I just think, you know, Paying attention to that difference. And to that location of childhood and, and, and their ability to see through stuff that we've become really acculturated to and habitual about is so important.

So we wanted to highlight that in the dedication.

Andrea Hiott: Well, I'm glad you did. It really resonates also with all these trajectories that we're born into and that we have, that we follow until we recognize maybe we can make our own. And I think that speaks a lot to this cracking 'cause that definitely happens when you're a child too, right?

And also the creation and destruction of it. So it's a beautiful way to begin the book and thank you for writing the book and thank you for the work you do. And uh, I wish you all

Perry Zurn: the best with it. Yeah. Thank you for reading it. Thanks for chatting with me. Um, this has been absolutely delightful. It has

Andrea Hiott: been.

So thank you so [00:57:00] much, Perry have a great day

Perry Zurn: there. Yeah, you too.