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The Forum: The Element of Surprise

Discussion & Talk

A 15-month-old chimpanzee in an Australian zoo opens one of his Christmas presents: Credit: GETTY IMAGES

05/03/2016 GMT

The Element of Surprise

BBC World Service - The Forum, The Element of Surprise

Are you willing to embrace surprise? With award-winning author Yann Martel, social scientist Professor Helga Nowotny and psychologist-turned-surprisologist Tania Luna.

Think about your life and you might realise how much you try to control what happens each day and how little you leave to chance. That might be a defence against the kind of bad surprises no one wants, but is it also depriving you of the spirit of life itself?

Bridget Kendall is joined by three guests who are open to the idea of surprise in art, science and everyday life: author Yann Martel who delighted people with his surprising story of a boy and a tiger together on a lifeboat in Life of Pi, and says all real art is about surprise; social scientist and former president of the European Research Council, Professor Helga Nowotny, who says a sense of surprise is at the heart of scientific discovery; and psychologist-turned-surprisologist Tania Luna who says she has learned to relish the magic of surprise in life and now advises companies on how to deal with uncertainty and change.

And if you are wanting to know what the sound was at the end of the programme: it was excited chimpanzees, much like the one in the photo above. An animal that features strongly in Yann Martel’s latest book, The High Mountains of Portugal.

Photo: A 15 month old chimpanzee opens a present (Getty Images)

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