{"id":1571,"date":"2012-02-17T12:32:33","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/?p=1571"},"modified":"2012-02-17T12:32:33","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:32:33","slug":"humanists-at-the-santa-fe-institute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/2012\/02\/17\/humanists-at-the-santa-fe-institute\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanists at the Santa Fe Institute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Where_Do_We_Come_From%3F_What_Are_We%3F_Where_Are_We_Going%3F\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1572  aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/files\/2012\/02\/Woher_kommen_wir_Wer_sind_wir_Wohin_gehen_wir-300x112.jpg\" alt=\"Woher_kommen_wir_Wer_sind_wir_Wohin_gehen_wir\" width=\"494\" height=\"184\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/files\/2012\/02\/Woher_kommen_wir_Wer_sind_wir_Wohin_gehen_wir-300x112.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/files\/2012\/02\/Woher_kommen_wir_Wer_sind_wir_Wohin_gehen_wir.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 494px) 100vw, 494px\" \/><\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/core\/about\/faculty\/daniel-hudon\/\">Professor Daniel Hudon<\/a> (Core Natural Sciences) writes&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s the best kind of conversation to have, with those who share your views or those who don\u2019t? If you want to have anything beyond a mutually agreeing chat, then you\u2019re going to want to seek out interlocutors who don\u2019t share your views because they\u2019re the ones who are going to challenge you to articulate what you really think and push you in new directions intellectually. In fact, you know you\u2019re in a good conversation when you start finding out what it is that you think about something.<\/p>\n<p>The<a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafe.edu\/\"> Santa Fe Institute<\/a>, a sort of think-tank for scientists\u2019 seems to take this idea to heart. Not only are scientists in on the conversation, so are playwrights, philosophers and novelists. These days, the novelist at Santa Fe is Cormac McCarthy and before him was Rebecca Goldstein, who spent most of her time \u201cfalling into conversations about physics, evolution, the existence of free will.\u201d Sound familiar? Now, rather than touting the novel, Cormac McCarthy simply tries to be curious and ask good questions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/newsweek\/2012\/02\/12\/cormac-mccarthy-on-the-sante-fe-institute-s-brainy-halls.html\">This article in <em>The Daily Beast<\/em><\/a> about the Institute makes that point that \u201cscience is fundamentally human in that it involves not understanding things. We spend a lot of time in pursuit of the questions.\u201d It&#8217;s THIS pursuit which really must be our goal. To get beyond the questions about the mechanics of the subject and get to the fundamental questions of nature, like Paul Gauguin\u2019s <em>Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Where are the borders between the sciences and the humanities? Where <em>are<\/em> the edges of our subjects? Do we understand the question?<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>NB: Did you know that the Gauguin painting Prof. Hudon references (and which is pictured at the top of this post) is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mfa.org\/collections\/object\/where-do-we-come-from-what-are-we-where-are-we-going-32558\">part of the permanent collection<\/a> at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston? Avail yourself of your free admission with a BU student ID, and go take a look!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Daniel Hudon (Core Natural Sciences) writes&#8230; What\u2019s the best kind of conversation to have, with those who share your views or those who don\u2019t? If you want to have anything beyond a mutually agreeing chat, then you\u2019re going to want to seek out interlocutors who don\u2019t share your views because they\u2019re the ones who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4261,3715],"tags":[4349,4165,48737,437,426],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}