Origins Podcast with Ryan McGranaghan Ryan McGranaghan

Albert-László Barabási thinks in networks and his scholarship, as his life, is embodiment of the explorative, imaginative, and generative nature of networks. It would be difficult to imagine a person better suited to steward us through the innate and seemingly universal tendency of things to connect to each other and all of its implications.

Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter


Show Notes:
Preferential attachment (10:00)What he tells his students (13:30)Breakthroughs (14:00)'Shelf Time' (14:30)The Science of Science (19:00)Bridging (network science) (19:00)His first and second papers in network science (22:00)Danielle Allen (28:30)David Lazer (https://lazerlab.net/home) 'network based decision making' (31:00)Hélène Landemore epistemic democracy (32:00)Northeastern University Network Science Institute (35:30)Center for Complex Network Research (36:00)Alessandro Vespignani (37:00)János Kertész (38:00)Jane Hirshfield "Let Them Not Say" (42:00)Joan Didion "I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means." (44:30)His writing practice (44:30)His routines (45:00)Commonplace book (53:00)Robert K Merton "Singletons and Multiples in Scientific Discovery" (56:30)What does it mean to flourish? (59:00)Lightning Round (01:03:30):Book: Isaac Asimov The Foundation TrilogyPassion: art (Hidden Patterns exhibition; 150 years of Nature)Heart sing: Network medicineScrewed up: Failing to invest in GoogleFind László online:https://barabasi.com/'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  László’s playlist

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Hello friends, a new season of Origins is coming NEXT WEEK. Last season of this show was a season of flourishing. The episodes ahead we not be a season of something in particular but a movement toward process, toward open-endedness, toward unsettledness; of discipline, of intellect, of being. Great scientific breakthroughs are discoveries of process, and the great discoveries of society and our own lives will be the same. 

Thank you for listening and I'm excited to explore together each of the coming guests, and the exhilarating glimpses they provide into ourselves and our society along the way.

Episode transcript, with links

Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter and the post introducing Great Asking
Show Notes:
Sara Hendren's Origins Conversationstart of a living conversation (05:20)Ignorance by Stuart Firestein (06:00)questions are the oxygen of imagination (08:00)curiosity is a moral muscle (10:10)The Division of Cognitive Laborby Philip Kitcher (09:20)Sara's substack (10:40)Howard Gardner (11:20)Participatory readiness Danielle Allen (16:40)Living the Questions with Krista (23:30)questions and a state of receptivity (30:20)Sara's blog on voice memos (37:00)vagus nerve (37:00)neuroplasticity (37:30)Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke (45:00)The Virtues of Limits by David McPherson (53:30)the healing is in the return - Sharon Salzberg (55:00)Proust QuestionnaireLightning Round (57:30):Overrated virtue: (Krista) independence; (Sara) fortitude as opposed to true courageWords or phrases to retire: (Krista) losing generative to AI; (Sara) communityValuing in friends: (Krista) laughter; (Sara) longevityLowest depth of misery: (Krista) when imagination shuts down; (Sara) tyranny of inwardness and the lie of aloneness (St. Augustine) Find Sara and Krista online:SaraKristaLogo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by Agasthya Pradhan Shenoy (Swelo)

James Evans' life is one resplendent with ideas. His trajectory into research and learning in areas as wide as network science, collective intelligence, computational social science, and even how knowledge is created, is as irreducible as it is exhilarating, and is a beacon in disorienting times marked by seemingly accelerating paces of change. 

Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:
cultural and knowledge observatories (05:30)Mark Granovetter (09:15)Steve Barley (10:30)Woody Powell (10:30)Chris Summerfield (11:00)Some papers mentioned:Metaknowledge (17:10)Weaving the fabric of science: Dynamic network models of science's unfolding structure (18:30)Abduction (21:30)epistemic space (22:40)Claude Lévi-Strauss (24:20)Clifford Geertz (24:30)"Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations" Obermeyer et al. (30:00)Scarcity Sendhil Mullainathan (35:00)The Knowledge Lab (36:00)"Quantifying the dynamics of failure across science, startups and security" Yin et al. (45:00)Charles Sanders Peirce (51:00)Pirkei Avot (56:00)Alison Gopnik on explore-exploit (01:02:30)Elise Boulding "the 200-year present" (01:03:00)Jo Guldi (01:06:00)Lightning Round (01:06:30):Book: The Enigma of ReasonPassion: physical exploration and spiritual callingHeart sing: 'social science fiction' and Hod LipsonScrewed up: management style at timesJames online:@profjamesevansThe Knowledge Lab'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  James’ playlist
Logo artwork Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo

Ingrid Daubechies is endlessly, irrepressibly, beautifully curious. She is a Belgian physicist and mathematician whose scientific achievements have rippled across society in all directions for the past 35 years. But, more than that, she's a fierce champion of diversity and equality, in math and science, in women's rights, in opportunity. To sit with Ingrid, her math and her life, is to illuminate our world and inspire us to imagine other worlds. 

Origins Podcast Website


Flourishing Commons Newsletter


Show Notes:
Depression (05:30)Krista Tippett On Being Podcast (07:15)Arthur Zajonc (10:10)Exponential thinking (14:20)Applied mathematics (19:00)Daubechies wavelet (20:00)The life of a researcher (25:00)Collaboration (27:00)Bell Labs (29:00)What is changing in the field of mathematics (32:00)Creating a community (34:00)Teaching: helping a person grow into the fullness of their imagination (36:00)Mathemalchemy (39:00)The Bridges Organization (40:00)Time to Break Free by Dominique Ehrmann (41:00)Mathemalchemy comic book (45:30)Bridging ties (47:00)Experiences at Burning Man (47:20)Pico Iyer (50:30)Museum of Mathematics (51:00)Flatiron Institute (51:30)Lighting Round (54:00)Book: The Broken Earth series by NK Jemisin; Digger by Ursula VernonPassion: Social justiceHeart sing: TemariScrewed up: Aspects of parentingFind Ingrid online:https://ece.duke.edu/faculty/ingrid-daubechiesThe Godmother of the Digital Image New York Times'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  Ingrid’s playlist

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Mark Granovetter has made and remade our understanding of social networks, social theory, collective action, and economic sociology, making and remaking our world in the process. It would not be hyperbole to say that few living scholars have had the influence of Mark Granovetter. 

Origins Podcast Website
Flourishing Commons Newsletter
Show Notes:
Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell (9:00)Interest in world history (10:00)A History of the Modern World (11:00)Why are there revolutions? (12:00)Philosophy of science (13:00)Carl Hempel (13:00)What does it mean to explain in science? Talcott Parsons (15:00)BF Skinner (16:00)A philosophy of asking questions (17:00)"The function of general laws in history" (18:00)Universal peeking out from the particular (20:00)Max Weber (23:00)Norbert Weiner (30:00)The Strength of Weak Ties (30:00)The Great Fear of 1789  by Georges Lefebvre (31:00)Harrison White (33:00)Anatol Rapoport (37:00)Stanley Milgram (40:30)Danielle Allen (43:00)Threshold analysis (45:00)Lightning round (54:00)Book: Economy and Society by Max WeberPassion: anywhere asking questions that expand youHeart Sing: working on new book and teachingScrewed up: life balanceFind Mark online:https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/mark-granovetter'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series  Mark’s playlist

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez
Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media