Seeking Understanding : : The Lifelong Pursuit to Build the Scientific Mind / / Jan Visser, Muriel Visser.

• TeilnehmendeR: Jan Visser,; Muriel Visser,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden; , Boston : : Brill | Sense, , 2020.
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (405 pages)
• Other title: Front Matter --; Copyright page --; Advance Praise for Seeking Understanding --; Dedication --; Foreword /; Acknowledgements --; Figures and Tables --; Notes on Contributors --; Introduction: The Making of This Book and Its Roots in Creative Collaboration /; Intermezzi: Thoughts Inspired by the Thoughts of Others /; The Quest to Know /; The Missing Piece /; Context Is Everything and Everything Has Meaning /; Life Starts Long before Its Beginning /; From Preconception to Preschool /; Touching the Encountered World /; Saga of a Small Science Center /; The Worthwhile Struggle to Overcome Inertia /; Expanding the Dialogue /; When the Sky Is Not the Limit, It Could Be the Beginning /; The Inspiring Universe /; Never Ever without Passion /; Playing the Role of Facilitator /; On Dialogue /; How You Talk Is How You Think; How You Think Is How You Understand /; Facing Life’s Biggest Questions /; Seeking to Know and Understand the Self /; A Sense of Beauty /; Beauty in Science, Science in Beauty /; Making the Unfamiliar Familiar /; Science Popularizer Is the Most Important Job That Does Not Yet Exist /; It’s Not Just a Right; It’s an Obligation to the Future /; Fostering Inquiry, Reasoning and Critical Thinking /; How Long Can We Still Wait and Who Takes Responsibility? /; The Shifting Mind of Economics /; Looking Back with a View to Looking Forward /; Invent the Future /; Culture of Differences vs. Difference of Cultures /; Seeking to Find out Why Things Happen /; Reverence for Life, Whatever Its Manifestations /; Nontraditional Pathways to the Development of a Scientific Mind /; Homo Ludens /; Education in a Complex World /; Where Science Ends /; HIV, Medical Science and the Call to Greater Humanness /; Back Matter --; Index.
• ISBN: 9004416803
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Jan Visser, Muriel Visser.

The quest to understand defines our humanness. Since time immemorial it has given rise to art and literature, philosophical reflection, religious practice, myths, metaphor, and allegory, as well as, in more recent history, disciplined scientific inquiry. Seeking understanding is a lifelong journey towards a goal the parameters of which change as our pursuit progresses, until, at life’s end, the goal vanishes beyond the horizon. Such is humanness. Along the way, we build, in an enduring self-transformative fashion, our mind—the scientific mind. But what is that mind? A transdisciplinary team of 21 prominent authors, from areas such as music history, psychiatry, physics, cosmology, education, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, gaming, artificial intelligence, science communication, early child development, science education, and economics, shed light on what it takes humans to build and cultivate the scientific mind along the lifespan. A decade of intercultural dialogue preceded the book. It comprised six major international Building the Scientific Mind colloquia in culturally diverse settings that spanned the entire planet. Several hundred people from different disciplines and interests—among them distinguished scientists, policy and decision makers, practitioners and thinkers—contributed to the dialogue. Building the scientific mind transforms our ‘way of being in the world.’ It is driven by the desire to understand deeply—cognitively and affectively—who we are in a world of which we are an integral part. It has great relevance for sustained human existence in the Anthropocene and profound implications for how we organize the conditions for informal and formal learning.