Waves of Identity – Dan Molter

In this first podcast for the Creating Life project, Marjolein goes into conversation with Dan Molter. Dan is a naturalist, expert mushroom photographer, and lecturer of philosophy University of Tennessee Knoxville. His research is in scientific metaphysics, with a focus on questions of biological individuality. Questions such as “What is an organism?”, are answered in context of scientific theories and models, and these latter tend to carve nature in incongruent ways. In this podcast, Marjolein talks to Dan about the life cycle and multiplicity of mushrooms, and ventures into the analogy of mushroom's multitude to human beings: Where does the individual end and the other begin? And what is a species anyway? Is it a group of organisms? Must they be similar in some way?