Explore every episode of the podcast Philosophy, Ideas, Critical Thinking, Ethics & Morality: The Creative Process: Philosophers, Writers, Educators, Creative Thinkers, Spiritual Leaders, Environmentalists & Bioethicists
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How can journalism make people care about crises & create solutions? - Highlights - NICHOLAS KRISTOF | 26 août 2024 | 00:16:26 | |
“"I'm trying to get people to care about a crisis in ways that may bring solutions to it. And that's also how I deal with the terror and the fear to find a sense of purpose in what I do. It's incredibly heartbreaking to see some of the things and hear some of the stories, but at the end of the day, it feels like–inconsistently here and there–you can shine a light on problems, and by shining that light, you actually make a difference. If you look over the last 500 years or so, the best metric to predict where society will be in 30 or 50 years, the best metric is simply education today. One reason I think the U.S. is the world's largest and most successful economy today is that, beginning in the 19th century and through about 1970, the U.S. led the world in mass education. And what matters is not so much elite education. Britain had Eton, Oxford, and Cambridge, and it had better elite education, but it wasn't great at mass education. And the U.S. really was. We were the first country to have almost universal literacy, male and female. We were the first country to have widespread high school attendance and the first country to have significant college attendance. And then, beginning in about the 1970s, we lost that lead. And now, there are many countries that are way ahead of us. I think back to my old classmates who are now dead, and I think: What were adults thinking in the 1970s that they let them drop out? And yet, I think today: What are adults thinking in 2024 when they let one in seven American kids today drop out of high school and let so many emerge from the school system not literate, not numerate, completely unprepared for the 21st century?” Nicholas D. Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer-winning journalist and Op-ed columnist for The New York Times, where he was previously bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. Kristof is a regular CNN contributor and has covered, among many other events and crises, the Tiananmen Square protests, the Darfur genocide, the Yemeni civil war, and the U.S. opioid crisis. He is the author of the memoir Chasing Hope, A Reporter's Life, and coauthor, with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, of five previous books: Tightrope, A Path Appears, Half the Sky, Thunder from the East, and China Wakes. Family vineyard & apple orchard in Yamhill, Oregon: www.kristoffarms.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life w/ Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist NICHOLAS KRISTOF | 26 août 2024 | 00:43:47 | |
How can journalism make people care and bring about solutions? What role does storytelling play in shining a light on injustice and crises and creating a catalyst for change? Nicholas D. Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer-winning journalist and Op-ed columnist for The New York Times, where he was previously bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. Kristof is a regular CNN contributor and has covered, among many other events and crises, the Tiananmen Square protests, the Darfur genocide, the Yemeni civil war, and the U.S. opioid crisis. He is the author of the memoir Chasing Hope, A Reporter's Life, and coauthor, with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, of five previous books: Tightrope, A Path Appears, Half the Sky, Thunder from the East, and China Wakes. “If you look over the last 500 years or so, the best metric to predict where society will be in 30 or 50 years, the best metric is simply education today. One reason I think the U.S. is the world's largest and most successful economy today is that, beginning in the 19th century and through about 1970, the U.S. led the world in mass education. And what matters is not so much elite education. Britain had Eton, Oxford, and Cambridge, and it had better elite education, but it wasn't great at mass education. And the U.S. really was. We were the first country to have almost universal literacy, male and female. We were the first country to have widespread high school attendance and the first country to have significant college attendance. And then, beginning in about the 1970s, we lost that lead. And now, there are many countries that are way ahead of us. I think back to my old classmates who are now dead, and I think: What were adults thinking in the 1970s that they let them drop out? And yet, I think today: What are adults thinking in 2024 when they let one in seven American kids today drop out of high school and let so many emerge from the school system not literate, not numerate, completely unprepared for the 21st century?” Family vineyard & apple orchard in Yamhill, Oregon: www.kristoffarms.com www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: David Hume Kennerly | |||
| Wetlands, Methane & Restoring Earth’s Garden of Eden with EUAN NISBET | 20 août 2024 | 00:45:47 | |
Have we entered what Earth scientists call a “termination event,” and what can we do to avoid the worst outcomes? How can a spiritual connection to nature guide us toward better environmental stewardship? What can ancient wisdom teach us about living harmoniously with the Earth? How have wetlands become both crucial carbon sinks and colossal methane emitters in a warming world? Euan Nisbet is an Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at the Royal Holloway University of London. Specializing in methane and its impact on climate change, his research spans Arctic and Tropical Atmospheric Methane budgets. Nisbet led the MOYA project, focusing on global methane emissions using aircraft and ground-based field campaigns in Africa and South America. Born in Germany and raised in Africa, his field work has taken him around the world. He is the author of The Young Earth and Leaving Eden: To Protect and Manage the Earth. “I am a Christian and I have strong Muslim and Jewish friends as well as great respect for Hindu beliefs. I grew up in Southern Africa and I am well aware of the depth of some Indigenous beliefs. I think that having belief systems does give you a very different perspective sometimes. Now, in Christianity, the concept of the shepherd, human beings are here and this is our garden, our garden of Eden, but we have a responsibility. And if we choose to kick ourselves out of the garden, there are consequences. And that's precisely what we are doing. The garden is there, it's lovely, and we can manage it, and it's our job to manage it. We can manage it properly. We can respect it. It's for all creation, and it's very explicit that it involves all Creation. And that's a very fundamental biblical law that you have to respect all Creation. And if you don't do that, then the consequences—you’re basically throwing yourself out of the Garden of Eden." https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/euan-nisbet www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science with RENÉE BERGLAND | 20 août 2024 | 01:00:31 | |
How do the works of Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin continue to influence our understanding of nature, ecological interdependence, and the human experience? How does understanding history help us address current social and environmental issues. How can dialogues between the arts and sciences foster holistic, sustainable solutions to global crises? Renée Bergland is a literary critic, historian of science, and educator. As a storyteller, Bergland connects the lives of historical figures to the problems of the present day. As an educator, she emphasizes the interdisciplinary connections between the sciences and humanities. A longtime professor at Simmons University, where she is the Program director of Literature and writing, Bergland has also researched and taught at institutions such as Dartmouth College, Harvard University, and MIT. Bergland’s past published titles include Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer Among the American Romantics and The National Uncanny: Indian Ghosts and American Subjects. Her most recent book, Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science, was published in April of 2024. It explores Dickinson and Darwin’s shared enchanted view of the natural world in a time when poetry and natural philosophy, once freely intertwined, began to grow apart. “There is a stronger connection between Dickinson and Darwin than the proximity of history. Or the universality of literature. They both understood natural science and the natural world in ways that seem strange and somewhat surprising in the 21st century. Their 19th century attitudes to nature and the study of it are so different from ours that when we trace their stories, a vanished world begins to emerge. The more I consider these figures together, the more I feel their world and my world. come alive. Darwin and Dickinson illuminate each other. By reading them together, we can start to understand the interconnected relationships that animated 19th century poetry and science.” – Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science, Preface, pp. xiv–xvi. www.reneebergland.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Germany's Postwar Legacy: Lessons for Today's Crises - Highlights - FRANK TRENTMANN | 15 août 2024 | 00:12:34 | |
“I think history is tremendously important. The environmental crisis, Gaza, the war in Ukraine—all of those don't make sense if you don't have a sense of history. History and the humanities have come under huge pressure. We've seen falling student numbers, and that's a real shame because history continues to be a source of intellectual inspiration and curiosity that not only makes us wiser and more reflective but also creates the dynamism and creativity we need to confront our present and future challenges. I hope that among the young generations, there will be people inspired by history, people that have the ambition to research and write about the past.” What can we learn from Germany's postwar transformation to help us address today's environmental and humanitarian crises? With the rise of populism, authoritarianism, and digital propaganda, how can history provide insights into the challenges of modern democracy? Frank Trentmann is a Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and at the University of Helsinki. He is a prize-winning historian, having received awards such as the Whitfield Prize, Austrian Wissenschaftsbuch/Science Book Prize, Humboldt Prize for Research, and the 2023 Bochum Historians' Award. He has also been named a Moore Scholar at Caltech. He is the author of Empire of Things and Free Trade Nation. His latest book is Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022, which explores Germany's transformation after the Second World War. www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8009279/frank-trentmann www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022 with FRANK TRENTMANN | 15 août 2024 | 00:55:27 | |
What can we learn from Germany's postwar transformation to help us address today's environmental and humanitarian crises? With the rise of populism, authoritarianism, and digital propaganda, how can history provide insights into the challenges of modern democracy? Frank Trentmann is a Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London, and at the University of Helsinki. He is a prize-winning historian, having received awards such as the Whitfield Prize, Austrian Wissenschaftsbuch/Science Book Prize, Humboldt Prize for Research, and the 2023 Bochum Historians' Award. He has also been named a Moore Scholar at Caltech. He is the author of Empire of Things and Free Trade Nation. His latest book is Out of the Darkness: The Germans 1942 to 2022, which explores Germany's transformation after the Second World War. “I think history is tremendously important. The environmental crisis, Gaza, the war in Ukraine—all of those don't make sense if you don't have a sense of history. History and the humanities have come under huge pressure. We've seen falling student numbers, and that's a real shame because history continues to be a source of intellectual inspiration and curiosity that not only makes us wiser and more reflective but also creates the dynamism and creativity we need to confront our present and future challenges. I hope that among the young generations, there will be people inspired by history, people that have the ambition to research and write about the past.” www.bbk.ac.uk/our-staff/profile/8009279/frank-trentmann www.creativeprocess.info Photo credit: Jon Wilson | |||
| The SDGs & UN Summit of the Future - Highlights - GUILLAUME LAFORTUNE | 31 juil. 2024 | 00:15:09 | |
“The SDSN has been set up to mobilize research and science for the Sustainable Development Goals. Each year, we aim to provide a fair and accurate assessment of countries' progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The development goals were adopted back in 2015 by all UN member states, marking the first time in human history that we have a common goal for the entire world. Our goal each year with the SDG index is to have sound methodologies and translate these into actionable insights that can generate impactful results at the end of the day. Out of all the targets that we track, only 16 percent are estimated to be on track. This agenda not only combines environmental development but also social development, economic development, and good governance. Currently, none of the SDGs are on track to be achieved at the global level.” In today's podcast, we talk with Guillaume Lafortune, Vice President and Head of the Paris Office of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the largest global network of scientists and practitioners dedicated to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We discuss the intersections of sustainability, global progress, the UN Summit of the Future, and the daunting challenges we face. From the impact of war on climate initiatives to transforming data into narratives that drive change, we explore how global cooperation, education, and technology pave the way for a sustainable future and look at the lessons of history and the power of diplomacy in shaping our path forward. Guillaume Lafortune joined SDSN in 2017 to lead work on SDG data, policies, and financing including the preparation of the annual Sustainable Development Report (which includes the SDG Index and Dashboards). Between 2020 and 2022 Guillaume was a member of The Lancet Commission on COVID-19, where he coordinated the taskforces on “Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets” and “Green Recovery”, and co-authored the final report of the Commission. Guillaume is also a member of the Grenoble Center for Economic Research (CREG) at the Grenoble Alpes University. Previously, he served as an economist at the OECD in Paris and at the Ministry of Economic Development in the Government of Quebec (Canada). Guillaume is the author of 50+ scientific publications, book chapters, policy briefs and international reports on sustainable development, economic policy and good governance. SDSN's Summit of the Future Recommendations www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How Can We Unite 193 Countries for a Sustainable Future? - GUILLAUME LAFORTUNE - VP, UN SDSN, Paris | 31 juil. 2024 | 01:12:09 | |
How can we get 193 countries to move in the same direction for a better tomorrow? In today's podcast, we talk with Guillaume Lafortune, Vice President and Head of the Paris Office of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the largest global network of scientists and practitioners dedicated to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We discuss the intersections of sustainability, global progress, the UN Summit of the Future, and the daunting challenges we face. From the impact of war on climate initiatives to transforming data into narratives that drive change, we explore how global cooperation, education, and technology pave the way for a sustainable future and look at the lessons of history and the power of diplomacy in shaping our path forward. Guillaume Lafortune joined SDSN in 2017 to lead work on SDG data, policies, and financing including the preparation of the annual Sustainable Development Report (which includes the SDG Index and Dashboards). Between 2020 and 2022 Guillaume was a member of The Lancet Commission on COVID-19, where he coordinated the taskforces on “Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets” and “Green Recovery”, and co-authored the final report of the Commission. Guillaume is also a member of the Grenoble Center for Economic Research (CREG) at the Grenoble Alpes University. Previously, he served as an economist at the OECD in Paris and at the Ministry of Economic Development in the Government of Quebec (Canada). Guillaume is the author of 50+ scientific publications, book chapters, policy briefs and international reports on sustainable development, economic policy and good governance. “The SDSN has been set up to mobilize research and science for the Sustainable Development Goals. Each year, we aim to provide a fair and accurate assessment of countries' progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The development goals were adopted back in 2015 by all UN member states, marking the first time in human history that we have a common goal for the entire world. Our goal each year with the SDG index is to have sound methodologies and translate these into actionable insights that can generate impactful results at the end of the day. Out of all the targets that we track, only 16 percent are estimated to be on track. This agenda not only combines environmental development but also social development, economic development, and good governance. Currently, none of the SDGs are on track to be achieved at the global level.” SDSN's Summit of the Future Recommendations www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How can music disrupt oppression & bring about social change? - Highlights - JAKE FERGUSON, ANTHONY JOSEPH & JERMAIN JACKMAN | 29 juil. 2024 | 00:14:58 | |
“I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think The Architecture of Oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really - 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together. I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. Jermain is somebody I've worked with for probably about six, seven years now. He's also in the trenches of the black civil rights struggle. We worked together on a number of projects, but it was very interesting to then work with Jemain in a purely artistic capacity. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.” Jake Ferguson is an award-winning musician known for his work with The Heliocentrics and as a solo artist under the name The Brkn Record. Alongside legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has composed two film scores and over 10 albums, collaborating with icons like Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, and Melvin Van Peebles. His latest album is The Architecture of Oppression Part 2. The album also features singer and political activist Jermain Jackman, a former winner of The Voice (2014) and the T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and musician, Anthony Joseph. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Architecture of Oppression with JAKE FERGUSON, ANTHONY JOSEPH & JERMAIN JACKMAN | 29 juil. 2024 | 01:01:23 | |
How can music challenge systemic oppression and bring about social change? How can we envision alternative paths while avoiding the pitfalls of past paradigms? Jake Fergusonis an award-winning musician known for his work with The Heliocentrics and as a solo artist under the name The Brkn Record. Alongside legendary drummer Malcolm Catto, Ferguson has composed two film scores and over 10 albums, collaborating with icons like Archie Shepp, Mulatu Astatke, and Melvin Van Peebles. His latest album is The Architecture of Oppression Part 2. The album also features singer and political activist Jermain Jackman, a former winner of The Voice (2014) and the T.S. Eliot Prize winning poet and musician, Anthony Joseph. “I think as humans, we forget. We are often limited by our own stereotypes, and we don't see that in everyone there's the potential for beauty and love and all these things. And I think The Architecture of Oppression, both parts one and two, are really a reflection of all the community and civil rights work that I've been doing for the same amount of time, really - 25 years. And I wanted to try and mix my day job and my music side, so bringing those two sides of my life together. I wanted to create a platform for black artists, black singers, and poets who I really admire. Jermain is somebody I've worked with for probably about six, seven years now. He's also in the trenches of the black civil rights struggle. We worked together on a number of projects, but it was very interesting to then work with Jemain in a purely artistic capacity. And it was a no-brainer to give Anthony a call for this second album because I know of his pedigree, and he's much more able to put ideas and thoughts on paper than I would be able to.” www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| PRIYAMVADA GOPAL & FRANÇOISE VERGÈS on the Recent Elections in Britain & France | 26 juil. 2024 | 01:06:53 | |
"I would say what we can celebrate is the incredible mobilization of the young people. They went everywhere, they knocked on the door, they mobilized. This was an incredible, incredible mobilization. So that was extraordinary because it showed real mobilization and an understanding that the National Rally was a real threat. We knew that if they came to power, the first people who would be targeted would be people of color, and that was absolutely clear." For our snap episode on the snap elections in the UK and France, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk with eminent decolonial scholar activists, Françoise Vergès in France and Priyamvala Gopal in the UK. Following the defeat of right wing parties in both countries in the polls, we discuss what's changed with the elections, what hasn't changed, and what should movements, activists, and organizers be focusing on. Priyamvada Gopal is Professor of Postcolonial Studies at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge and Professorial Fellow, Churchill College. Her present interests are in the literatures, politics, and cultures of empire, colonialism and decolonisation. She has related interests in the novel, South Asian literature, and postcolonial cultures. Her published work includes Literary Radicalism in India: Gender, Nation and the Transition to Independence (Routledge, 2005), After Iraq: Reframing Postcolonial Studies (Special issue of New Formations co-edited with Neil Lazarus), The IndianEnglish Novel: Nation, History and Narration (Oxford University Press, 2009) and, most recently, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (Verso, 2019) which was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and the Bread and Roses Prize. Her writing has also appeared in The Hindu, Outlook India, India Today, The Independent, Prospect Magazine, The New Statesman, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera English (AJE) and The Nation (USA). She is working on a new project called Decolonization: the Life and Times of an Idea which examines a range of thinkers, contexts and struggles across the Global South. Françoise Vergès is a writer and decolonial antiracist feminist activist. A Reunionnese, she received an education that ran counter to the French hegemonic school from her anticolonial communist and feminist parents and the members of their organisations. She received her Ph.D in Political Theory from Berkeley University in 1995. She remained an activist during these years, collaborated on Isaac Julien’s film "Black Skin, White Masks » and published in feminist and theory journals. She has taught at Sussex University and Goldsmiths College and has been a visiting professor at different universities. She has never held a teaching position in France but created the Chair Global South(s) at Collège d’études mondiales where she held workshops on different topics (2014-2018). She was president of the National Committee for the History and Remembrance of Slavery (2009-2012), was a co-founder of Decolonize the Arts (2015-2020), the director of the scientific and cultural programme for a museum project in Reunion Island (2004-2010, a project killed by the State and the local conservatives). She is the convener and curator of L’Atelier a collective and collaborative seminar/public performance with activist and artists of color. Recent publications include: Programme de désordre absolu. Décoloniser le musée (2023), A Feminist Theory of Violence (2021), De la violence coloniale dans l’espace public (2021), The Wombs of Women. Capital, Race, Feminism (2021), A Decolonial Feminism (2020). www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| How Do Utopian Visions Shape Our Reality & Future? - Highlights - S. D. CHROSTOWSKA | 25 juil. 2024 | 00:20:46 | |
“I'd like young people not to limit their world to content they can find on the internet. I think that's a real danger. Many of my students say, “well, I haven't thought about this,” “I haven't read this because I didn't find it online for free.” I want them to remember that not all knowledge is digitized, that much remains elusive to the nets of the internet even in its effort to make knowledge accessible on one platform, to create this kind of enormous encyclopedia. And in this quest, we also reduce the past to the present. The past is more virtually present in our lives than for any other generation, because it's available online in the form of textual and audiovisual archives. This proximity actually affects the past's pastness. The appearance of distance is lost in the digital reproduction, whether it's paintings, or archival documents, or photographs. I think it's erroneous to think that everything that is extant from the past is at our fingertips and that we don't have to go out and look for it. So what I would like to pass on is curiosity; curiosity about the past shouldn't stop at the digital. It's tempting to think that all the answers are already there online because it's so vast, this web we are spinning, but that’s not the case.” S. D. Chrostowska is professor of humanities at York University, Canada. She is the author of several books, among them Permission, The Eyelid, A Cage for Every Child, and, most recently, Utopia in the Age of Survival: Between Myth and Politics. Her essays have appeared in such venues as Public Culture, Telos, Boundary 2, and The Hedgehog Review. She also coedits the French surrealist review Alcheringa and is curator of the 19th International Exhibition of Surrealism, Marvellous Utopia, which runs from July to September 2024 in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, France. https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/sylwiac/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Utopia in the Age of Survival with S. D. CHROSTOWSKA | 25 juil. 2024 | 00:44:50 | |
As Surrealism turns 100, what can it teach us about the importance of dreaming and creating a better society? Will we wake up from the consumerist dream sold to us by capitalism and how would that change our ideas of utopia? S. D. Chrostowska is professor of humanities at York University, Canada. She is the author of several books, among them Permission, The Eyelid, A Cage for Every Child, and, most recently, Utopia in the Age of Survival: Between Myth and Politics. Her essays have appeared in such venues as Public Culture, Telos, Boundary 2, and The Hedgehog Review. She also coedits the French surrealist review Alcheringa and is curator of the 19th International Exhibition of Surrealism, Marvellous Utopia, which runs from July to September 2024 in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, France. “I'd like young people not to limit their world to content they can find on the internet. I think that's a real danger. Many of my students say, “well, I haven't thought about this,” “I haven't read this because I didn't find it online for free.” I want them to remember that not all knowledge is digitized, that much remains elusive to the nets of the internet even in its effort to make knowledge accessible on one platform, to create this kind of enormous encyclopedia. And in this quest, we also reduce the past to the present. The past is more virtually present in our lives than for any other generation, because it's available online in the form of textual and audiovisual archives. This proximity actually affects the past's pastness. The appearance of distance is lost in the digital reproduction, whether it's paintings, or archival documents, or photographs. I think it's erroneous to think that everything that is extant from the past is at our fingertips and that we don't have to go out and look for it. So what I would like to pass on is curiosity; curiosity about the past shouldn't stop at the digital. It's tempting to think that all the answers are already there online because it's so vast, this web we are spinning, but that’s not the case.” https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/sylwiac/ www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Climate Change, Mental Health & Fighting for a Better Future - Highlights - CHARLIE HERTZOG YOUNG | 19 juil. 2024 | 00:17:28 | |
“There's a whole section in my book about tips and advice. One of the ways that I try to maintain a feeling of safety while also not collapsing into a state of passivity, and it's taken a very long time for me to learn this, but it’s being forgiving with myself. One of the people who I write about a lot in the book is Jennifer Uchandu, a Nigerian climate activist and mental health activist who sets up an organization called The Eco-Anxiety in Africa Project. She talks about needing to remind herself constantly. Her test is not whether she's doing enough, it's whether she's doing her best. And doing her best doesn't mean doing as much as she possibly can, it means having the right balance of self care and action. Recently I've been really struggling with insomnia because I've still got quite bad nerve pain from my surgeries. And it sounds so simple and I used to get annoyed at these things, but just breathing. You know, deep breathing and kind of breathing into my back. Spending time in nature is also helpful. It can be quite hard for me because my mobility isn't always great on my prosthetics or if I'm in a wheelchair, but I swim a lot. And I draw a lot. One of the things that's been really amazing is that over the last few years, me and my friends have gotten into the habit of calling one another as first points of contact, not just in crisis, but if we've had a tricky day.” Charlie Hertzog Young is a researcher, writer and award-winning activist. He identifies as a “proudly mad bipolar double amputee” and has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum. He studied at Harvard, SOAS and Schumacher College and has written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian. He is the author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future. https://charliehertzogyoung.me www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Mind, Climate Change & Community Resilience with CHARLIE HERTZOG YOUNG | 19 juil. 2024 | 00:58:38 | |
The planet’s well-being unites us all, from ecosystems to societies, global systems to individual health. How is planetary health linked to mental health? Charlie Hertzog Young is a researcher, writer and award-winning activist. He identifies as a “proudly mad bipolar double amputee” and has worked for the New Economics Foundation, the Royal Society of Arts, the Good Law Project, the Four Day Week Campaign and the Centre for Progressive Change, as well as the UK Labour Party under three consecutive leaders. Charlie has spoken at the LSE, the UN and the World Economic Forum. He studied at Harvard, SOAS and Schumacher College and has written for The Ecologist, The Independent, Novara Media, Open Democracy and The Guardian. He is the author of Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future. “There's a whole section in my book about tips and advice. One of the ways that I try to maintain a feeling of safety while also not collapsing into a state of passivity, and it's taken a very long time for me to learn this, but it’s being forgiving with myself. One of the people who I write about a lot in the book is Jennifer Uchandu, a Nigerian climate activist and mental health activist who sets up an organization called The Eco-Anxiety in Africa Project. She talks about needing to remind herself constantly. Her test is not whether she's doing enough, it's whether she's doing her best. And doing her best doesn't mean doing as much as she possibly can, it means having the right balance of self care and action. Recently I've been really struggling with insomnia because I've still got quite bad nerve pain from my surgeries. And it sounds so simple and I used to get annoyed at these things, but just breathing. You know, deep breathing and kind of breathing into my back. Spending time in nature is also helpful. It can be quite hard for me because my mobility isn't always great on my prosthetics or if I'm in a wheelchair, but I swim a lot. And I draw a lot. One of the things that's been really amazing is that over the last few years, me and my friends have gotten into the habit of calling one another as first points of contact, not just in crisis, but if we've had a tricky day.” https://charliehertzogyoung.me www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How and when will we transition to a clean energy future? - Highlights - RICHARD BLACK | 16 juil. 2024 | 00:13:02 | |
Richard Black spent 15 years as a science and environment correspondent for the BBC World Service and BBC News, before setting up the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. He now lives in Berlin and is the Director of Policy and Strategy at the global clean energy think tank Ember, which aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy. He is the author of The Future of Energy; Denied:The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London. https://mhpbooks.com/books/the-future-of-energy www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Future of Energy - RICHARD BLACK - Director, Policy & Strategy, Ember - Fmr. BBC Environment Correspondent | 15 juil. 2024 | 00:56:02 | |
How and when will we transition to a clean energy future? How will the transition empower individuals and transform global power dynamics? How did China become the world’s first electrostate, leading the drive for renewable energy, and what can we learn from this? Richard Black spent 15 years as a science and environment correspondent for the BBC World Service and BBC News, before setting up the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit. He now lives in Berlin and is the Director of Policy and Strategy at the global clean energy think tank Ember, which aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy. He is the author of The Future of Energy; Denied:The Rise and Fall of Climate Contrarianism, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at Imperial College London. “So I rest on the contention that in a world that had already gone through the clean energy transition, Vladimir Putin could not have nurtured Europe’s dependence on Russia; could not have filled his war chests; could not have attempted to blackmail the EU into submission; and would not have been able, therefore, to attempt the invasion of Ukraine. –The Future of Energy, p.76 “Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk is a report that I was fortunate enough to take part in writing a couple of years ago, courtesy of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The report is out there, available for download. It's a landmark report linking environmental destruction to conflict risk through all kinds of mechanisms and linking peace building and environmental restoration. The links, some of them are quite obvious, and others are a little bit more subtle. There are short-term things, and there are long-term things, and there's a role for international institutions, as well as national governments. So, in the short term, let's put a sticking plaster on the issue. The main recommendations that come out of the report, for example, environmental peace building, where you try and tackle an environmental issue alongside conflict resolution and so on, is something that could be used a lot more and United Nations agencies and other organizations can really take this on board and build this into all of their operations. But the longer-term stuff, the number one thing is to just get off fossil fuels. Because all the while we're using fossil fuels, we're going to be emitting carbon dioxide into the air and causing climate change to progress further.” https://mhpbooks.com/books/the-future-of-energy www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Resisting Fascism & Ecological Collapse with Writer-Organizer-Activist CHRIS CARLSSON | 10 juil. 2024 | 01:06:34 | |
In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with acclaimed author and activist, and San Francisco legend, Chris Carlsson about his new novel, When Shells Crumble. It begins in December 2024, when the US Supreme Court nullifies the popular vote in the Presidential election and awards the presidency to an authoritarian Republican, who proceeds to demolish democracy and install a fascistic state that hastens ecological havoc. The novel is much more than your usual dystopian tale—it focuses on how to resist political cynicism and defeatism, and rebuild on planetary wreckage. It is a world-building project filled with wisdom, sadness, and joy. We specifically put this fictional text in conservation with his brilliant non-fiction work, Nowtopia, which offers a radical redefinition of “work” that restores dignity and value to their proper places. Chris Carlsson, co-director of the “history from below” project Shaping San Francisco, is a writer, publisher, editor, photographer, public speaker, and occasional professor. He was one of the founders in 1981 of the seminal and infamous underground San Francisco magazine Processed World. In 1992 Carlsson co-founded Critical Mass in San Francisco, which both led to a local bicycling boom and helped to incubate transformative urban movements in hundreds of cities, large and small, worldwide. In 1995 work began on “Shaping San Francisco;” since then the project has morphed into an incomparable archive of San Francisco history at Foundsf.org, award-winning bicycle and walking tours, and almost two decades of Public Talks covering history, politics, ecology, art, and more (see shapingsf.org). Beginning in Spring 2020, Carlsson has hosted Bay Cruises along the San Francisco shoreline. His latest novel, When Shells Crumble was published by Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn, NY at the end of 2023. At the dawn of the pandemic, he published a detailed historical guidebook of the city, Hidden San Francisco: A Guide to Lost Landscapes, Unsung Heroes, and Radical Histories (Pluto Press: 2020). His full-length nonfiction work Nowtopia(AK Press: 2008), offers a groundbreaking look at class and work while uniquely examining how hard and pleasantly we work when we’re not at our official jobs. He published his first novel, After The Deluge, in 2004, a story of post-economic utopian San Francisco in the year 2157. He has edited six books, including three “Reclaiming San Francisco” collections with the venerable City Lights Books. He redesigned and co-authored an expanded Vanished Waters: A History of San Francisco’s Mission Bay after which he joined the board of the Mission Creek Conservancy. He has given hundreds of public presentations based on Shaping San Francisco, Critical Mass, Nowtopia, Vanished Waters, and his “Reclaiming San Francisco” history anthologies since the late 1990s, and has appeared dozens of times in radio, television and on the internet. www.palumbo-liu.com | |||
| Making Impactful Films with Oscar & Emmy-winning Director SHARMEEN OBAID-CHINOY - Highlights | 05 juil. 2024 | 00:10:29 | |
“I realized very young and very early on in my career that film does more than just inform and inspire and entertain. It can move people into action, whether it's personal or collective action. As a filmmaker, I've always made films about extraordinary women whose lives are faced with extenuating circumstances who've had adversity thrown at them and who've risen to the occasion. And when I began to look at Diane's story, for me, Diane is a fashion designer, but she's so much more. Her central ethos is woman before fashion, and we felt it was very important to take that ethos and weave it into the spine of our film, and make it about the woman. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker whose work highlights extraordinary women and their stories. She earned her first Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary Saving Face, about the Pakistani women targeted by brutal acid attacks. Today, Obaid-Chinoy is the first female film director to have won two Oscars by the age of 37. In 2023, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct the next Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley. Her most recent project, co-directed alongside Trish Dalton, is the new documentary Diane von Fürstenberg: Woman in Charge, about the trailblazing Belgian fashion designer who invented the wrap dress 50 years ago. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 5th and premiered on June 25th on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. A product of Obaid-Chinoy's incredibly talented female filmmaking team, Woman in Charge provides an intimate look into Diane von Fürstenberg’s life and accomplishments and chronicles the trajectory of her signature dress from an innovative fashion statement to a powerful symbol of feminism. www.hulu.com/movie/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge-95fb421e-b7b1-4bfc-9bbf-ea666dba0b02 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| DIANE VON FURSTENBERG: Woman in Charge w/ Oscar-winning Director SHARMEEN OBAID-CHINOY | 04 juil. 2024 | 00:37:47 | |
How can we free ourselves from fear and social barriers to live more fulfilling and meaningful lives? What does it take to overcome trauma and turn it into triumph, and failure into reinvention? How can we shine a light on the marginalized and misunderstood to create social change that transforms the lives of women? Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning Canadian-Pakistani filmmaker whose work highlights extraordinary women and their stories. She earned her first Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary Saving Face, about the Pakistani women targeted by brutal acid attacks. Today, Obaid-Chinoy is the first female film director to have won two Oscars by the age of 37. In 2023, it was announced that Obaid-Chinoy will direct the next Star Wars film starring Daisy Ridley. Her most recent project, co-directed alongside Trish Dalton, is the new documentary Diane von Fürstenberg: Woman in Charge, about the trailblazing Belgian fashion designer who invented the wrap dress 50 years ago. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the 2024 Tribeca Festival on June 5th and premiered on June 25th on Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ internationally. A product of Obaid-Chinoy's incredibly talented female filmmaking team, Woman in Charge provides an intimate look into Diane von Fürstenberg’s life and accomplishments and chronicles the trajectory of her signature dress from an innovative fashion statement to a powerful symbol of feminism. www.hulu.com/movie/diane-von-furstenberg-woman-in-charge-95fb421e-b7b1-4bfc-9bbf-ea666dba0b02 www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Does AI-generated Perfection Detach Us from Reality, Life & Human Connection? - Highlights - HENRY AJDER | 29 juin 2024 | 00:12:09 | |
“When I was producing that documentary with my producer at the BBC, I don't think I was expecting us to have accelerated so quickly into that future. The world has been quite synthetic for some time. I just don't think we've necessarily been aware of it, but whether it's computational photography in every single smartphone, even when you think you're taking a photo, no filter, there's still quite a lot of shaping of the reality that you're presented with at the end by these phones. Movie magic and entertainment, recommendation algorithms for your Facebook feed or Grammarly are all AI-powered. But we're now interfacing with AI in a much more intimate and personal way. When you were taking a photo or scrolling through your Twitter feed, AI was working behind the scenes, but you weren't necessarily aware of that. Whereas in the age of generative AI, we are becoming almost kind of synthetic conductors of the reality that we're creating. That could be via a large language model or through one of these companion based apps. We're starting to see some really powerful tools like Suno coming out which can generate AI-generated music. We are starting to see AI-generated content seep into areas of our lives, particularly around what we traditionally see as human-to-human communication or human creativity, that I think does fundamentally change the way that we kind of almost evaluate the value of human creative endeavors, but also the way that we think about interacting with each other in the digital world. How is that going to shape expectations of what normal messy human relationships look like? There's a huge swathe of gray. There's a big question of are we feeling uncomfortable about these use cases because they're new, they're unfamiliar? Or are we feeling uncomfortable because a deeper ethical intuition is being disturbed?” Henry Ajder is an advisor, speaker, and broadcaster working at the frontier of the generative AI and the synthetic media revolution. He advises organizations on the opportunities and challenges these technologies present, including Adobe, Meta, The European Commission, BBC, The Partnership on AI, and The House of Lords. Previously, Henry led Synthetic Futures, the first initiative dedicated to ethical generative AI and metaverse technologies, bringing together over 50 industry-leading organizations. Henry presented the BBC documentary series, The Future Will be Synthesised. www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How is AI Changing Our Perception of Reality, Creativity & Human Connection? w/ HENRY AJDER - AI Advisor | 29 juin 2024 | 00:53:09 | |
How is artificial intelligence redefining our perception of reality and truth? Can AI be creative? And how is it changing art and innovation? Does AI-generated perfection detach us from reality and genuine human connection? Henry Ajder is an advisor, speaker, and broadcaster working at the frontier of the generative AI and the synthetic media revolution. He advises organizations on the opportunities and challenges these technologies present, including Adobe, Meta, The European Commission, BBC, The Partnership on AI, and The House of Lords. Previously, Henry led Synthetic Futures, the first initiative dedicated to ethical generative AI and metaverse technologies, bringing together over 50 industry-leading organizations. Henry presented the BBC documentary series, The Future Will be Synthesised. “When I was producing that documentary with my producer at the BBC, I don't think I was expecting us to have accelerated so quickly into that future. The world has been quite synthetic for some time. I just don't think we've necessarily been aware of it, but whether it's computational photography in every single smartphone, even when you think you're taking a photo, no filter, there's still quite a lot of shaping of the reality that you're presented with at the end by these phones. Movie magic and entertainment, recommendation algorithms for your Facebook feed or Grammarly are all AI-powered. But we're now interfacing with AI in a much more intimate and personal way. When you were taking a photo or scrolling through your Twitter feed, AI was working behind the scenes, but you weren't necessarily aware of that. Whereas in the age of generative AI, we are becoming almost kind of synthetic conductors of the reality that we're creating. That could be via a large language model or through one of these companion based apps. We're starting to see some really powerful tools like Suno coming out which can generate AI-generated music. We are starting to see AI-generated content seep into areas of our lives, particularly around what we traditionally see as human-to-human communication or human creativity, that I think does fundamentally change the way that we kind of almost evaluate the value of human creative endeavors, but also the way that we think about interacting with each other in the digital world. How is that going to shape expectations of what normal messy human relationships look like? There's a huge swathe of gray. There's a big question of are we feeling uncomfortable about these use cases because they're new, they're unfamiliar? Or are we feeling uncomfortable because a deeper ethical intuition is being disturbed?” www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| PETA Founder INGRID NEWKIRK turns 75: A Lifetime of Animal Advocacy | 21 juin 2024 | 00:41:44 | |
How can we show more kindness, respect, and love to the animals we share this planet with? What lessons can we learn from non-human animals about living in greater harmony with nature? Ingrid Newkirk is the Founder and President of PETA, actively leading the organization and advocating for animal rights. PETA is the largest animal rights organization in the world with more than 9 million members and supporters globally. Under her leadership, PETA has achieved significant victories, such as ending car-crash tests on animals, pushing major fashion brands to go fur-free, influencing Ringling Bros. to become an animal-free circus, and helping pass a law that allows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve new medications without conducting cruel tests on animals. Ingrid has written 14 books and has been featured in major publications like The New Yorker and The Guardian, and was the subject of HBO's documentary I Am an Animal and was named one of Forbes’ “100 Most Powerful Women.” She joined One Planet Podcast to reflect on her 75 years as animal rights advocate. “They’re not human traits. They’re all shared traits because, of course, we all love. We all love our families, or not. We all grieve if somebody we love disappears or dies. A family dog, perhaps. A grandfather. We all feel loneliness, we all feel joy. We all really value our freedom. And so I think, if anything, looking into the eyes of the animal, even online, you see a person in there. There’s a someone in whatever the shape or the physical properties of that individual are. And that lesson is that I am you. You are me, only different. We are all the same in all the ways that count…Any living being teaches you– Look into my eyes. And there you are, the reflection of yourself. So we need to learn from the animals how to live more gently and consume less and be more thoughtful and look out for each other in this great circle of life. I think things do change because of agitation. So agitation is vital. I mean, nobody who is in a cause should be there to win a popularity contest, whether you're working for children or the elderly or working for peace animals, it's all against nonviolence, aggression, domination, and needless cruelty and suffering. It's all for respect. So you have to be vigorous. You have to use your voice. You can use it politely, but if people don't listen, at PETA, we escalate. So we always start off with a polite letter, a polite entreaty. We always try to, as I say, do the homework. So we have the options that we put out on the table to say, look, instead of doing this, you could do that, and we will help you transition to that.” www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How to Fight for Truth & Protect Democracy in A Post-Truth World? - Highlights - LEE McINTYRE | 18 juin 2024 | 00:12:11 | |
“My dad fought in World War II in France, and my mom was an electrician building warships in the United States. They were both war workers very proud to be Americans and instilled in me from an early age that the wonderful thing about America is that anybody could be an American, that you didn't have to be born here, that you didn't have to be a particular ethnicity or speak a certain language or be a certain religion. The wonderful thing about America was that you just had to believe, and that meant it was open for everyone. I find great hope in that because despite all the horrible rhetoric about people seeking asylum and immigrants, I'm cheered by just the casual conversations I have with people who have just come to this country. Despite all of our flaws in the United States, I really believe we have great diversity, and that sustains me. I think deep down, some Americans have been poisoned into thinking immigrants are a threat, and I think that's wrong. And so in my work, I'm trying to fight that by fighting for the idea of truth. As a philosopher, I don't ever get burned out. I mean, what do philosophers believe in more strongly than the concept of truth?” Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and a Senior Advisor for Public Trust in Science at the Aspen Institute. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan. He has taught philosophy at Colgate University, Boston University, Tufts Experimental College, Simmons College, and Harvard Extension School (where he received the Dean’s Letter of Commendation for Distinguished Teaching). Formerly Executive Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, he has also served as a policy advisor to the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard and as Associate Editor in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. His books include On Disinformation and How to Talk to a Science Denier and the novels The Art of Good and Evil and The Sin Eater. https://leemcintyrebooks.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth & Protect Democracy with LEE McINTYRE | 18 juin 2024 | 00:54:54 | |
How do we fight for truth and protect democracy in a post-truth world? How does bias affect our understanding of facts? Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and a Senior Advisor for Public Trust in Science at the Aspen Institute. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Michigan. He has taught philosophy at Colgate University, Boston University, Tufts Experimental College, Simmons College, and Harvard Extension School (where he received the Dean’s Letter of Commendation for Distinguished Teaching). Formerly Executive Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, he has also served as a policy advisor to the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard and as Associate Editor in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. His books include On Disinformation and How to Talk to a Science Denier and the novels The Art of Good and Evil and The Sin Eater. “My dad fought in World War II in France, and my mom was an electrician building warships in the United States. They were both war workers very proud to be Americans and instilled in me from an early age that the wonderful thing about America is that anybody could be an American, that you didn't have to be born here, that you didn't have to be a particular ethnicity or speak a certain language or be a certain religion. The wonderful thing about America was that you just had to believe, and that meant it was open for everyone. I find great hope in that because despite all the horrible rhetoric about people seeking asylum and immigrants, I'm cheered by just the casual conversations I have with people who have just come to this country. Despite all of our flaws in the United States, I really believe we have great diversity, and that sustains me. I think deep down, some Americans have been poisoned into thinking immigrants are a threat, and I think that's wrong. And so in my work, I'm trying to fight that by fighting for the idea of truth. As a philosopher, I don't ever get burned out. I mean, what do philosophers believe in more strongly than the concept of truth?” https://leemcintyrebooks.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How will AI Affect Education, the Arts & Society? - Highlights - STEPHEN WOLFRAM | 14 juin 2024 | ||
“I think as there is more automation, there is more kind of emphasis on this question of our choice. The story of the development of things tends to be what do humans decide that they care about? In what direction do they want to go? What kind of art do they want to make? What kinds of things do they want to think about? There is in the computational universe of all possibilities, there is sort of infinite creativity. There's an infinite collection of possibilities, but it's something that's a matter of human choice, which of these infinite things do we actually choose to pursue? There's all these different possibilities out there. But our kind of challenge is to decide in which direction we want to go and then to let our automated systems pursue those particular directions.” Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Language. He received his PhD in theoretical physics at Caltech by the age of 20 and in 1981, became the youngest recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Wolfram authored A New Kind of Science and launched the Wolfram Physics Project. He has pioneered computational thinking and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business. www.stephenwolfram.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| What Role Do AI & Computational Language Play in Solving Real-World Problems? | 14 juin 2024 | 00:57:15 | |
How can computational language help decode the mysteries of nature and the universe? What is ChatGPT doing and why does it work? How will AI affect education, the arts and society? Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha, and the Wolfram Language. He received his PhD in theoretical physics at Caltech by the age of 20 and in 1981, became the youngest recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. Wolfram authored A New Kind of Science and launched the Wolfram Physics Project. He has pioneered computational thinking and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business. “I think as there is more automation, there is more kind of emphasis on this question of our choice. The story of the development of things tends to be what do humans decide that they care about? In what direction do they want to go? What kind of art do they want to make? What kinds of things do they want to think about? There is in the computational universe of all possibilities, there is sort of infinite creativity. There's an infinite collection of possibilities, but it's something that's a matter of human choice, which of these infinite things do we actually choose to pursue? There's all these different possibilities out there. But our kind of challenge is to decide in which direction we want to go and then to let our automated systems pursue those particular directions.” www.stephenwolfram.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Can we have real conversations with AI? How do illusions help us make sense of the world? - Highlights - KEITH FRANKISH | 10 juin 2024 | 00:11:11 | |
“There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced. I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, materialist one, because I'm resistant to all forms of dualism about the mind. I think that's a very unhelpful way of thinking. Some people think that I do that because I have a sort of crass materialist attitude to the world, that there's only things you can measure and weigh and bump into and everything else is just nonsense and fancy and different. What I like about the sort of view I have is that it represents us as fully part of the world, fully part of the same world. We're not sealed off into little private mental bubbles, Cartesian theaters, where all the real action is happening in here, not out there. No, I think we're much more engaged with the world… Another one of my heroes is Daniel Dennett's great friend, Nicholas Humphrey, who has a wonderfully rich range of experience. He's been described as a scientific humanist. What he does is he knows his science, including cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but he's also steeped in literature, art, music, and painting, and he brings all this together in his wonderful book on consciousness Soul Dust, published in 2011, suggests the idea that the soul is actually made of dust, which is a fantastic concept.” Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science. www.keithfrankish.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Is Consciousness an Illusion? with Philosopher KEITH FRANKISH | 10 juin 2024 | 00:57:24 | |
Is consciousness an illusion? Is it just a complex set of cognitive processes without a central, subjective experience? How can we better integrate philosophy with everyday life and the arts? Keith Frankish is an Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, a Visiting Research Fellow with The Open University, and an Adjunct Professor with the Brain and Mind Programme in Neurosciences at the University of Crete. Frankish mainly works in the philosophy of mind and has published widely about topics such as human consciousness and cognition. Profoundly inspired by Daniel Dennett, Frankish is best known for defending an “illusionist” view of consciousness. He is also editor of Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness and co-edits, in addition to others, The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Science. “There is magic everywhere. There's wonder everywhere. There's wondrous complexity that is so complex, so difficult to conceptualize, to grasp, to articulate that it might as well be magic for all intents and purposes, but we can gradually start to unpick how the tricks are done, how nature learned to do these wonderful tricks. And that's the wonder of science, gradually learning what's happening behind the scenes and how these marvelous effects are produced. I'm probably best known for my work on consciousness. My view about this is often caricatured, I think, as a kind of heartless, materialist one, because I'm resistant to all forms of dualism about the mind. I think that's a very unhelpful way of thinking. Some people think that I do that because I have a sort of crass materialist attitude to the world, that there's only things you can measure and weigh and bump into and everything else is just nonsense and fancy and different. What I like about the sort of view I have is that it represents us as fully part of the world, fully part of the same world. We're not sealed off into little private mental bubbles, Cartesian theaters, where all the real action is happening in here, not out there. No, I think we're much more engaged with the world… Another one of my heroes is Daniel Dennett's great friend, Nicholas Humphrey, who has a wonderfully rich range of experience. He's been described as a scientific humanist. What he does is he knows his science, including cognitive neuroscience and psychology, but he's also steeped in literature, art, music, and painting, and he brings all this together in his wonderful book on consciousness Soul Dust, published in 2011, suggests the idea that the soul is actually made of dust, which is a fantastic concept.” www.keithfrankish.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How Can We End the Climate Crisis in One Generation? - Highlights - PAUL HAWKEN | 07 juin 2024 | 00:16:56 | |
“We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease. We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.” Can we really end the climate crisis in one generation? What kind of bold collective action, technologies, and nature-based solutions would it take to do it? Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. A leading voice in the environmental movement, he has founded successful eco-friendly businesses, authored influential works on commerce and ecology, and advised global leaders on economic and environmental policies. As the founder of Project Regeneration and Project Drawdown, Paul leads efforts to identify and model solutions to reverse global warming, showcasing actionable strategies. His pioneering work in corporate ecological reform continues to shape a sustainable future. He is the author of eight books, including Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. https://regeneration.org www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation with PAUL HAWKEN | 07 juin 2024 | 00:53:38 | |
Can we really end the climate crisis in one generation? What kind of bold collective action, technologies, and nature-based solutions would it take to do it? Paul Hawken is a renowned environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist committed to sustainability and transforming the business-environment relationship. A leading voice in the environmental movement, he has founded successful eco-friendly businesses, authored influential works on commerce and ecology, and advised global leaders on economic and environmental policies. As the founder of Project Regeneration and Project Drawdown, Paul leads efforts to identify and model solutions to reverse global warming, showcasing actionable strategies. His pioneering work in corporate ecological reform continues to shape a sustainable future. He is the author of eight books, including Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation. “We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease. We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.” https://regeneration.org www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How Will Our Cities, Communities & Country Cope with Climate Migration - Highlights - ABRAHM LUSTGARTEN | 31 mai 2024 | 00:15:41 | |
“What we do still really, really matters in terms of defining what the future looks like. I don't think that climate change in an apocalyptic sense is a foregone conclusion. Our efforts to change that trajectory to lower emissions will change how severe the impacts are in the future. So I really want people to understand that. And I really want my kids to understand that. I also trust that I want people to understand that we might be entering an era of unprecedented change and disruption. This is the life that we've got and I feel great sadness for the things that I know that we've lost, but younger people don't have that perspective, which in this particular context is maybe a relief, and all there is, is what's in front of them. And, there is an ample supply of natural beauty of rejuvenating resources and inspiring resources in our natural environment and in the people around us. I would just say, as we all settle into a less predictable future with all sorts of bumpy roads and rollercoaster rides, that we also stay focused on experiencing what's in the moment, in that beauty and in that community.” Abrahm Lustgarten is an investigative reporter, author, and filmmaker whose work focuses on human adaptation to climate change. His 2010 Frontline documentary The Spill, which investigated BP’s company culture, was nominated for an Emmy. His 2015 longform series Killing the Colorado, about the draining of the Colorado river, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Lustgarten is a senior reporter at ProPublica, and contributes to publications like The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic. His research on climate migration influenced President Biden’s creation of a climate migration study group. This is also the topic of his newly published book, On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America in which he explores how climate change is uprooting American lives. https://abrahm.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| On The Move: The Overheating Earth & the Uprooting of America with ABRAHM LUSTGARTEN | 31 mai 2024 | 00:57:13 | |
An estimated one in two people will experience degrading environmental conditions this century and will be faced with the difficult question of whether to leave their homes. Will you be among those who migrate in response to climate change? If so, where will you go? Abrahm Lustgarten is an investigative reporter, author, and filmmaker whose work focuses on human adaptation to climate change. His 2010 Frontline documentary The Spill, which investigated BP’s company culture, was nominated for an Emmy. His 2015 longform series Killing the Colorado, about the draining of the Colorado river, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Lustgarten is a senior reporter at ProPublica, and contributes to publications like The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic. His research on climate migration influenced President Biden’s creation of a climate migration study group. This is also the topic of his newly published book, On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America in which he explores how climate change is uprooting American lives. “What we do still really, really matters in terms of defining what the future looks like. I don't think that climate change in an apocalyptic sense is a foregone conclusion. Our efforts to change that trajectory to lower emissions will change how severe the impacts are in the future. So I really want people to understand that. And I really want my kids to understand that. I also trust that I want people to understand that we might be entering an era of unprecedented change and disruption. This is the life that we've got and I feel great sadness for the things that I know that we've lost, but younger people don't have that perspective, which in this particular context is maybe a relief, and all there is, is what's in front of them. And, there is an ample supply of natural beauty of rejuvenating resources and inspiring resources in our natural environment and in the people around us. I would just say, as we all settle into a less predictable future with all sorts of bumpy roads and rollercoaster rides, that we also stay focused on experiencing what's in the moment, in that beauty and in that community.” https://abrahm.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How Can Music Heal Trauma & Foster Identity? - Highlights - MATTIA MAURÉE | 29 mai 2024 | 00:11:24 | |
“So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.” Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AUDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain. http://mattiamauree.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Exploring the Sensory World of Autism, ADHD & Non-Binary Artists with MATTIA MAURÉE | 29 mai 2024 | 00:58:14 | |
How can we learn to flourish because of who we are, not in spite of it? What is the sensory experience of the world for people with autism and ADHD? How can music help heal trauma and foster identity? Mattia Maurée is an interdisciplinary composer whose work centers around themes of perception, body, sensation, trauma, and resilience. Their scores for critically acclaimed films have been played in 13 countries. Their poems have been featured in Boston City Hall as part of the Mayor's Poetry Program, Guerrilla Opera, and Arc Poetry Magazine. Mattia composes and performs on violin, voice, and piano, and has taught music for over 20 years. They have received a Master's of Music in Composition at New England Conservatory and a Bachelor's of Music from St. Olaf College. They also are an AUDHD coach, host the AuDHD Flourishing podcast and help other neurodivergent folks heal and find their creative flow in their course Love Your Brain. “So for me, it just kind of removing a lot of the shame and then a lot of the energy that I was wasting trying to fit myself into a neurotypical process or framework or way of thinking or being. So, you know, some people call that unmasking, just kind of removing. I was wasting a lot of energy, basically trying to be someone else and function in a different way. And then just beating myself up internally for not being able to do that. And throughout my healing journey, as I really realized, Oh, that's actually what's happening. Like there's not actually anything wrong with me being able to...That's why it's called Love Your Brain. It's not just, you know, tolerate your brain. Or, fine, you can work with this brain that you have. It's like, no, I genuinely love the weird experiences that my brain can give me and the incredibly rich, deep experience I have of the world. Like I experience nature so deeply and so intensely. I have really strong connections with animals. I have really great intuition, which I think is just from picking up all this sensory data and putting it together. All these experiences that I get to have, but I don't get to have those experiences if I'm just trying to make myself be something else, which I think is most people who are late diagnosed, I feel like that's their experience. It's just like I've been trying to be someone else for so long. It's exhausting. And then you don't have the energy then to be creative, the carving out the time, making the time to actually create.” http://mattiamauree.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Apocalyptic Optimism: How We Can We Save Ourselves from the Climate Crisis? - Highlights - DANA FISHER | 24 mai 2024 | 00:14:44 | |
“There's been some interesting research recently about the fact that we don't really know how many people are losing lives because of extreme heat, right? Extreme events are climate change-exacerbated events, which I call climate shocks in the book. We haven't been counting that. I think we will start counting it and we'll get a better sense of the trends, but there's no doubt that the numbers are going up, even though we aren't sure about the exact numbers globally. We need a lot more people pushing back against power, particularly given the way that fossil fuel interests are continuing to push greenwash to try to continue to affect decision-making. The Trump administration is trying very hard to attract funds from oil companies with the promise that all regulations will be gone. And fossil fuel interests are supporting elected officials and pushing for decision-making that reflects their interests, which is not in the interest of the planet and certainly not in the interest of the general public. I know at the most recent COP, OPEC had its own pavilion. You would have never seen that back in the 1990s, but nowadays, they are trying to present themselves as a pathway towards the other side of the climate crisis, which is just absolutely not true.” Dana R. Fisher is the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity and Professor in the School of International Service at American University. Fisher’s research focuses on questions related to democracy, civic engagement, activism, and climate politics. Current projects include studying political elites’ responses to climate change, and the ways federal service corps programs in the US are integrating climate into their work. She is a self-described climate-apocalyptic optimist and co-developed the framework of AnthroShift to explain how social actors are reconfigured in the aftermath of widespread perceptions and experiences of risk. Her seventh book is Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action. https://danarfisher.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action - DANA FISHER | 24 mai 2024 | 00:40:00 | |
How can we make the radical social changes needed to address the climate crisis? What kind of large ecological disaster or mass mobilization in the streets needs to take place before we take meaningful climate action? Dana R. Fisher is the Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity and Professor in the School of International Service at American University. Fisher’s research focuses on questions related to democracy, civic engagement, activism, and climate politics. Current projects include studying political elites’ responses to climate change, and the ways federal service corps programs in the US are integrating climate into their work. She is a self-described climate-apocalyptic optimist and co-developed the framework of AnthroShift to explain how social actors are reconfigured in the aftermath of widespread perceptions and experiences of risk. Her seventh book is Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action. “There's been some interesting research recently about the fact that we don't really know how many people are losing lives because of extreme heat, right? Extreme events are climate change-exacerbated events, which I call climate shocks in the book. We haven't been counting that. I think we will start counting it and we'll get a better sense of the trends, but there's no doubt that the numbers are going up, even though we aren't sure about the exact numbers globally. We need a lot more people pushing back against power, particularly given the way that fossil fuel interests are continuing to push greenwash to try to continue to affect decision-making. The Trump administration is trying very hard to attract funds from oil companies with the promise that all regulations will be gone. And fossil fuel interests are supporting elected officials and pushing for decision-making that reflects their interests, which is not in the interest of the planet and certainly not in the interest of the general public. I know at the most recent COP, OPEC had its own pavilion. You would have never seen that back in the 1990s, but nowadays, they are trying to present themselves as a pathway towards the other side of the climate crisis, which is just absolutely not true.” https://danarfisher.com www.creativeprocess.info Credit Sarah Fillman from FillmanFoto, 2023 | |||
| Working to Restore: Harnessing the Power of Business to Heal the Earth - Highlights - ESHA CHHABRA | 20 mai 2024 | 00:14:26 | |
“There’s a lot of greenwashing that's going on these days. It is great marketing. And that was really the reason why I wrote this book. I had started to see the patterns. You can start to tell them the companies that are genuinely doing it versus the companies that are just talking about it. So that was one indicator, you know, a company that would send out a press release about their goals and what they anticipated to do in the next 5 to 10 years was very different from companies who had said, you know what, this is what we've achieved. Regenerative started coming into the lexicon, the term in 2017, 2018. And regenerative means to regenerate, means to bring life into something. To sustain means to keep the status quo. And regenerative looks at things from a very holistic lens. You know, it's like if you're going to run a regenerative farm, it's all the different components of the farm and the ecosystem ideally come within the ecosystem.” Esha Chhabra has written for national and international publications over the last 15 years, focusing on global development, the environment, and the intersection of business and impact. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, and other publications. She is the author of Working to Restore: Harnessing the Power of Business to Heal the Earth. www.eshachhabra.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How can Regenerative Business Help Heal the Earth? - ESHA CHHABRA | 20 mai 2024 | 00:44:50 | |
What is regenerative business? How can we create a business mindset that addresses social, economic and environmental issues? Esha Chhabra has written for national and international publications over the last 15 years, focusing on global development, the environment, and the intersection of business and impact. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, and other publications. She is the author of Working to Restore: Harnessing the Power of Business to Heal the Earth. “There’s a lot of greenwashing that's going on these days. It is great marketing. And that was really the reason why I wrote this book. I had started to see the patterns. You can start to tell them the companies that are genuinely doing it versus the companies that are just talking about it. So that was one indicator, you know, a company that would send out a press release about their goals and what they anticipated to do in the next 5 to 10 years was very different from companies who had said, you know what, this is what we've achieved. Regenerative started coming into the lexicon, the term in 2017, 2018. And regenerative means to regenerate, means to bring life into something. To sustain means to keep the status quo. And regenerative looks at things from a very holistic lens. You know, it's like if you're going to run a regenerative farm, it's all the different components of the farm and the ecosystem ideally come within the ecosystem.” www.eshachhabra.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| What can AI teach us about human cognition & creativity? - Highlights - RAPHAËL MILLIÈRE | 17 mai 2024 | 00:10:25 | |
“One very interesting question is what might we learn from recent developments in AI about how humans learn and process language. The full story is a little bit more complicated because, of course, humans don't learn from the same kind of data as language models. Language models learn from this internet-scraped data that includes New York Times articles, blog posts, thousands of books, a bunch of programming code, and so on. That's very different from the kind of linguistic input that children learn from, which is child-directed speech from parents and relatives that’s much simpler linguistically. That said, there is a lot of interesting research trying to train smaller language models on data that is similar to the kind of input that a child might receive when they are learning language. You can, for example, strap a head mounted camera on a young child's head for a few hours every day and record whatever auditory information the child has access to, which would include any language spoken around or directed at the child. You can then transcribe that, and use that data set to train a language model on the child-directed speech that a real human would have received during their development. So some artificial models are learning from child-directed speech, and that might eventually go some way towards advancing debates about what scientists and philosophers call “nativism versus empiricism” with respect to language acquisition—the nature/nurture debate: Are we born with a universal innate grammar that enables us to learn the rules of language, as linguists like Noam Chomsky have argued, or can we learn language and its grammatical rules just from raw data, just from hearing and being exposed to language as children?If these language models that are trained from this kind of realistic datasets of child-directed speech manage to learn grammar, to learn how to use language in the way children do, then that might put some pressure on the nativist claim that there is this innate component to language learning that is part of our DNA, as opposed to just learning from exposure to language itself.” Dr. Raphaël Millière is Assistant Professor in Philosophy of AI at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His research primarily explores the theoretical foundations and inner workings of AI systems based on deep learning, such as large language models. He investigates whether these systems can exhibit human-like cognitive capacities, drawing on theories and methods from cognitive science. He is also interested in how insights from studying AI might shed new light on human cognition. Ultimately, his work aims to advance our understanding of both artificial and natural intelligence. https://raphaelmilliere.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How can we ensure that AI is aligned with human values? - RAPHAËL MILLIÈRE | 17 mai 2024 | 01:01:14 | |
How can we ensure that AI is aligned with human values? What can AI teach us about human cognition and creativity? Dr. Raphaël Millière is Assistant Professor in Philosophy of AI at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. His research primarily explores the theoretical foundations and inner workings of AI systems based on deep learning, such as large language models. He investigates whether these systems can exhibit human-like cognitive capacities, drawing on theories and methods from cognitive science. He is also interested in how insights from studying AI might shed new light on human cognition. Ultimately, his work aims to advance our understanding of both artificial and natural intelligence. “One very interesting question is what might we learn from recent developments in AI about how humans learn and process language. The full story is a little bit more complicated because, of course, humans don't learn from the same kind of data as language models. Language models learn from this internet-scraped data that includes New York Times articles, blog posts, thousands of books, a bunch of programming code, and so on. That's very different from the kind of linguistic input that children learn from, which is child-directed speech from parents and relatives that’s much simpler linguistically. That said, there is a lot of interesting research trying to train smaller language models on data that is similar to the kind of input that a child might receive when they are learning language. You can, for example, strap a head mounted camera on a young child's head for a few hours every day and record whatever auditory information the child has access to, which would include any language spoken around or directed at the child. You can then transcribe that, and use that data set to train a language model on the child-directed speech that a real human would have received during their development. So some artificial models are learning from child-directed speech, and that might eventually go some way towards advancing debates about what scientists and philosophers call “nativism versus empiricism” with respect to language acquisition—the nature/nurture debate: Are we born with a universal innate grammar that enables us to learn the rules of language, as linguists like Noam Chomsky have argued, or can we learn language and its grammatical rules just from raw data, just from hearing and being exposed to language as children?If these language models that are trained from this kind of realistic datasets of child-directed speech manage to learn grammar, to learn how to use language in the way children do, then that might put some pressure on the nativist claim that there is this innate component to language learning that is part of our DNA, as opposed to just learning from exposure to language itself.” https://raphaelmilliere.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Is understanding AI a bigger question than understanding the origin of the universe? - Highlights, NEIL JOHNSON | 14 mai 2024 | 00:15:38 | |
“It gets back to this core question. I just wish I was a young scientist going into this because that's the question to answer: Why AI comes out with what it does. That's the burning question. It's like it's bigger than the origin of the universe to me as a scientist, and here's the reason why. The origin of the universe, it happened. That's why we're here. It's almost like a historical question asking why it happened. The AI future is not a historical question. It's a now and future question. I'm a huge optimist for AI, actually. I see it as part of that process of climbing its own mountain. It could do wonders for so many areas of science, medicine. When the car came out, the car initially is a disaster. But you fast forward, and it was the key to so many advances in society. I think it's exactly the same as AI. The big challenge is to understand why it works. AI existed for years, but it was useless. Nothing useful, nothing useful, nothing useful. And then maybe last year or something, now it's really useful. There seemed to be some kind of jump in its ability, almost like a shock wave. We're trying to develop an understanding of how AI operates in terms of these shockwave jumps. Revealing how AI works will help society understand what it can and can't do and therefore remove some of this dark fear of being taken over. If you don't understand how AI works, how can you govern it? To get effective governance, you need to understand how AI works because otherwise you don't know what you're going to regulate.” How can physics help solve messy, real world problems? How can we embrace the possibilities of AI while limiting existential risk and abuse by bad actors? Neil Johnson is a physics professor at George Washington University. His new initiative in Complexity and Data Science at the Dynamic Online Networks Lab combines cross-disciplinary fundamental research with data science to attack complex real-world problems. His research interests lie in the broad area of Complex Systems and ‘many-body’ out-of-equilibrium systems of collections of objects, ranging from crowds of particles to crowds of people and from environments as distinct as quantum information processing in nanostructures to the online world of collective behavior on social media. https://physics.columbian.gwu.edu/neil-johnson https://donlab.columbian.gwu.edu www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast | |||
| How can physics help solve real world problems? - NEIL JOHNSON, Head of Dynamic Online Networks Lab | 14 mai 2024 | 00:50:41 | |
How can physics help solve messy, real world problems? How can we embrace the possibilities of AI while limiting existential risk and abuse by bad actors? Neil Johnson is a physics professor at George Washington University. His new initiative in Complexity and Data Science at the Dynamic Online Networks Lab combines cross-disciplinary fundamental research with data science to attack complex real-world problems. His research interests lie in the broad area of Complex Systems and ‘many-body’ out-of-equilibrium systems of collections of objects, ranging from crowds of particles to crowds of people and from environments as distinct as quantum information processing in nanostructures to the online world of collective behavior on social media. “It gets back to this core question. I just wish I was a young scientist going into this because that's the question to answer: Why AI comes out with what it does. That's the burning question. It's like it's bigger than the origin of the universe to me as a scientist, and here's the reason why. The origin of the universe, it happened. That's why we're here. It's almost like a historical question asking why it happened. The AI future is not a historical question. It's a now and future question. I'm a huge optimist for AI, actually. I see it as part of that process of climbing its own mountain. It could do wonders for so many areas of science, medicine. When the car came out, the car initially is a disaster. But you fast forward, and it was the key to so many advances in society. I think it's exactly the same as AI. The big challenge is to understand why it works. AI existed for years, but it was useless. Nothing useful, nothing useful, nothing useful. And then maybe last year or something, now it's really useful. There seemed to be some kind of jump in its ability, almost like a shock wave. We're trying to develop an understanding of how AI operates in terms of these shockwave jumps. Revealing how AI works will help society understand what it can and can't do and therefore remove some of this dark fear of being taken over. If you don't understand how AI works, how can you govern it? To get effective governance, you need to understand how AI works because otherwise you don't know what you're going to regulate.” https://physics.columbian.gwu.edu/neil-johnsonhttps://donlab.columbian.gwu.edu www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast | |||
| Humanity's Deadly Shadow: The Toll on Birds and Wildlife - Highlights - BEN GOLDFARB | 10 mai 2024 | 00:13:00 | |
“We actually do need these animals on the landscape, and we're going to protect them and restore them and help their populations increase. And so, to me, beavers are proof that what we're doing as conservationists is not futile, right? That there really is reason for hope and optimism, which beavers demonstrate. I think that's a really important lesson for young people to hear is that you're not just entering this world of eco-anxiety and climate change and depression. There are some really hopeful wildlife stories out there, and you can be part of that future.” Ben Goldfarb is a conservation journalist. He is the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet, named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Times, and Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. www.bengoldfarb.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet with BEN GOLDFARB | 10 mai 2024 | 00:43:22 | |
Every year, humanity's footprint casts a deadly shadow over our skies and landscapes, claiming the lives of billions of birds and other wildlife. What is road ecology? How are our roads driving certain species towards extinction? And what can we do about it? Ben Goldfarb is a conservation journalist. He is the author of Crossings: How Road Ecology Is Shaping The Future of Our Planet, named one of the best books of 2023 by the New York Times, and Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, winner of the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. “We actually do need these animals on the landscape, and we're going to protect them and restore them and help their populations increase. And so, to me, beavers are proof that what we're doing as conservationists is not futile, right? That there really is reason for hope and optimism, which beavers demonstrate. I think that's a really important lesson for young people to hear is that you're not just entering this world of eco-anxiety and climate change and depression. There are some really hopeful wildlife stories out there, and you can be part of that future.” www.bengoldfarb.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Crisis, Philosophy & the Search for Meaning - ROBERT PIPPIN - Highlights | 10 mai 2024 | 00:13:32 | |
“The Greek Enlightenment introduced the idea of centrality and the priority of rationality in understanding ourselves and our relation to the world. Heidegger wants to move us away from what he thinks has culminated in a kind of dead end. We appear in this world without any instruction manual, we have these finite, corporeal lives that begin in ways- we have no control over and end in ways we often have no control over. The classical conception was that the cosmos was good, because it was open to human interrogation. It allowed itself to be interrogated, so the thing that mattered most of all was knowing, because knowing was the way in which we became at home in the world. Heidegger thought we had prioritized the question of knowledge to such a degree as the primordial relationship to all of reality. He connected this to the kind of predatory stance of contemporary technology, which is essentially destroying the world because it considers the world as just material stuff, which we can understand and manipulate for our own ends. He thinks there's a huge influence in the original understanding of being as intelligibility that eventually has cut us off from all sources of meaning in a possible life other than this successful control of the environment for our own satisfaction.” What is the importance of philosophy in the 21st century as we enter a post-truth world? How can we reintroduce meaning and uphold moral principles in our world shaken by crises? And what does philosophy teach us about living in harmony with the natural world? Robert Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago where he teaches in the College, Committee on Social Thought, and Department of Philosophy. Pippin is widely acclaimed for his scholarship in German idealism as well as later German philosophy, including publications such as Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, and Hegel’s Idealism. In keeping with his interdisciplinary interests, Pippin’s book Henry James and Modern Moral Life explores the intersections between philosophy and literature. Pippin’s most recent published book is The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy. https://socialsciences.uchicago.edu/directory/Robert-Pippin https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo208042246.html www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| Reflections on Philosophy, Art & Crisis in the 21st Century with ROBERT PIPPIN | 06 mai 2024 | 00:52:36 | |
What is the importance of philosophy in the 21st century as we enter a post-truth world? How can we reintroduce meaning and uphold moral principles in our world shaken by crises? And what does philosophy teach us about living in harmony with the natural world? Robert Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago where he teaches in the College, Committee on Social Thought, and Department of Philosophy. Pippin is widely acclaimed for his scholarship in German idealism as well as later German philosophy, including publications such as Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, and Hegel’s Idealism. In keeping with his interdisciplinary interests, Pippin’s book Henry James and Modern Moral Life explores the intersections between philosophy and literature. Pippin’s most recent published book is The Culmination: Heidegger, German Idealism, and the Fate of Philosophy. “The Greek Enlightenment introduced the idea of centrality and the priority of rationality in understanding ourselves and our relation to the world. Heidegger wants to move us away from what he thinks has culminated in a kind of dead end. We appear in this world without any instruction manual, we have these finite, corporeal lives that begin in ways- we have no control over and end in ways we often have no control over. The classical conception was that the cosmos was good, because it was open to human interrogation. It allowed itself to be interrogated, so the thing that mattered most of all was knowing, because knowing was the way in which we became at home in the world. Heidegger thought we had prioritized the question of knowledge to such a degree as the primordial relationship to all of reality. He connected this to the kind of predatory stance of contemporary technology, which is essentially destroying the world because it considers the world as just material stuff, which we can understand and manipulate for our own ends. He thinks there's a huge influence in the original understanding of being as intelligibility that eventually has cut us off from all sources of meaning in a possible life other than this successful control of the environment for our own satisfaction.” https://socialsciences.uchicago.edu/directory/Robert-Pippin www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| The Emotional Brain, Music, Consciousness & Memory with JOSEPH LEDOUX - Highlights | 03 mai 2024 | 00:14:25 | |
“We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing.” Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids. www.joseph-ledoux.com www.creativeprocess.info | |||
| How does the brain process emotions and music? JOSEPH LEDOUX - Neuroscientist, Author, Musician | 03 mai 2024 | 01:00:41 | |
How does the brain process emotions? How are emotional memories formed and stored in the brain, and how do they influence behavior, perception, and decision-making? How does music help us understand our emotions, memories, and the nature of consciousness? Joseph LeDoux is a Professor of Neural Science at New York University at NYU and was Director of the Emotional Brain Institute. His research primarily focuses on survival circuits, including their impacts on emotions, such as fear and anxiety. He has written a number of books in this field, including The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human, The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self, Anxious, and The Deep History of Ourselves. LeDoux is also the lead singer and songwriter of the band The Amygdaloids. “We've got four billion years of biological accidents that created all of the intricate aspects of everything about life, including consciousness. And it's about what's going on in each of those cells at the time that allows it to be connected to everything else and for the information to be understood as it's being exchanged between those things with their multifaceted, deep, complex processing.” www.joseph-ledoux.com www.creativeprocess.info Music courtesy of Joseph LeDoux | |||
| Remembering PAUL AUSTER - Writer, Director (1947-2024) | 01 mai 2024 | 00:49:14 | |
It is said that people never die until the last person says their name. In memory of the writer and director Paul Auster, who passed away this week, we're sharing this conversation we had back in 2017 after the publication of his novel 4 3 2 1. Auster reflects on his body of work, life, and creative process. Paul Auster was the bestselling author of Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Invisible, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. He has been awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, the Prix Médicis étranger, an Independent Spirit Award, and the Premio Napoli. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has also penned several screenplays for films such as Smoke (1995), as well as Lulu on the Bridge (1998) and The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007), which he also directed. “But what happens is a space is created. And maybe it’s the only space of its kind in the world in which two absolute strangers can meet each other on terms of absolute intimacy. I think this is what is at the heart of the experience and why once you become a reader that you want to repeat that experience, that very deep total communication with that invisible stranger who has written the book that you’re holding in your hands. And that’s why I think, in spite of everything, novels are not going to stop being written, no matter what the circumstances. We need stories. We’re all human beings, and it’s stories from the moment we’re able to talk.” We apologize for the quality of the recording since it was not originally meant to be aired as a podcast. Portrait of Paul Auster by Mia Funk, inspired by his novel 4 3 2 1. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/1045/paul-auster | |||