Episodes
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How do we define intelligence? What is the point of creativity and intelligence if we are not creating good in the world? In this age of AI, what is the importance of a synthesizing mind?
Howard Gardner, Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an author of over 30 books, translated into 32 languages, and several hundred articles, is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. He has twice been selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. In the last few years, Gardner has been studying the nature of human synthesizing, a topic introduced in his 2020 memoir, A Synthesizing Mind.
For 28 years, with David Perkins, he was Co-Director of Harvard Project Zero, and in more recent years has served in a variety of leadership positions. Since the middle 1990s, Gardner has directed The Good Project, a group of initiatives, founded in collaboration with psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and William Damon. The project promotes excellence, engagement, and ethics in education, preparing students to become good workers and good citizens who contribute to the overall well-being of society. Through research-based concepts, frameworks, and resources, The Good Project seeks to help students reflect upon the ethical dilemmas that arise in everyday life and give them the tools to make thoughtful decisions.
"I had two close colleagues, both psychologists: William Damon, a student of moral development, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, recently deceased, probably known to many of your audience because he developed the notion of flow, which is that psychological state where anxiety and boredom are mediated by something that really involves and engrosses you. And the three of us were able to spend a year together at a research center, and the question we came up with was: Can you be creative and humane at the same time? Creative means having your mind go free, think about all sorts of things, try them out. Nothing is taboo, nothing is off limits. But at the same time, can you do it in a way that's humane and ethical and avoids, for example, creating the Einstein equation, which was a brilliant physics explanation, but also led to nuclear weapons.
And similarly with cracking genetic code in any way. And we thought this was a good question, but we weren't wise enough to come up with an answer. So that's why we spent 10 years, roughly from 1995 to 2005, interviewing about 1, 500 people from nine different professions. And it was from that very intensive and extensive study that we came up with the three E's of good work. Excellence, engagement, and ethics. Since then, my research group at Harvard has called this The Good Project. And The Good Project is looking at the development of a moral and ethical stance as young as the age of three or four, preschool, all the way to professions and middle life. And we have a website thegoodproject.org where you can read dozens of blogs and various papers on this topic. And, as Mia indicated, there were also our books in which there's one book called Good Work, and another book called Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Refrain, where we describe our current thinking. And, you know, I think the study would have been different if we had done it in the age of ChatGPT."
www.howardgardner.com
http://thegoodproject.org
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262542838/a-synthesizing-mindwww.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
Co-Founder of 350.org · Founder Third Act · Author of The Activist Humanist
Viewed one way, we live in a very hopeful moment. Thanks to in large part
the work of university scientists and engineers, we now live on a planet
where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the
sun. That is to say, we could run our Earth on energy from heaven instead
of hell, and we could do it fast. The fast is the hard part here. The only
difference between all the examples of the long victories of social justice
activism that we're in now is that this one is a time-limited problem. If
we don't solve it fast, then no one's got a plan for how you refreeze the
Arctic once you've melted it. And so we have to move very quickly. Our
systems are not designed to move quickly. It's the easiest thing in the
world to slow down and delay change, which is all that the fossil fuel
industry at this point is trying to do, and that means that it's time for
maximum effort from all of us. The story to tell is that the planet is
outside its comfort zone, so we need to be outside ours. -
Missing episodes?
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In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu talks with legendary climate activist Bill McKibben and scholar Caroline Levine. McKibben relates his long struggle to get companies to divest from fossil fuels and for the world in general to act immediately to seriously and substantially address this existential crisis. Levine tells of her efforts to get the giant pension fund, TIAA-CREF, to divest. She also talks about her new book, The Activist Humanist, and its relation to both her teaching and her activism.
Bill McKibben is founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice. His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. Heâs gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the alternative Nobel, in the Swedish Parliament. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the worldâs 100 most important global thinkers.
McKibben helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects like Keystone XL, and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $40 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. He stepped down as board chair of 350 in 2015, and left the board and stepped down from his volunteer role as senior adviser in 2020, accepting emeritus status. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists credited his career by naming a new species of woodland gnatâMegophthalmidia mckibbeniâin his honor.
Caroline Levine has spent her career asking how and why the humanities and the arts matter, especially in democratic societies. She argues for an understanding of forms and structures as essential both to understanding links between art and society and to the challenge of taking meaningful political action. She is the author of four books. The most recent, The Activist Humanist: Form and Method in the Climate Crisis (Princeton University Press 2023), grows out of the theoretical work of Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (2015, winner of the James Russell Lowell Prize from the MLA, and named one of Flavorwireâs â10 Must-Read Academic Books of 2015â). Levine has also published The Serious Pleasures of Suspense: Victorian Realism and Narrative Doubt (2003, winner of the Perkins Prize for the best book in narrative studies) and Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts (2007).
"Viewed one way, we live in a very hopeful moment. Thanks to in large part the work of university scientists and engineers, we now live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That is to say, we could run our Earth on energy from heaven instead of hell, and we could do it fast. The fast is the hard part here. The only difference between all the examples of the long victories of social justice activism that we're in now is that this one is a time-limited problem. If we don't solve it fast, then no one's got a plan for how you refreeze the Arctic once you've melted it. And so we have to move very quickly. Our systems are not designed to move quickly. It's the easiest thing in the world to slow down and delay change, which is all that the fossil fuel industry at this point is trying to do, and that means that it's time for maximum effort from all of us. The story to tell is that the planet is outside its comfort zone, so we need to be outside ours."
https://billmckibben.com
https://350.org
https://thirdact.orghttps://english.cornell.edu/caroline-levine
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691250588/the-activist-humanist
https://tiaa-divest.orgwww.palumbo-liu.com
https://speakingoutofplace.com
https://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20 -
How do some people face incredible tragedies and find within these experiences inspiration to improve the lives of others? Our guest today lost her grandfather, who was the assassinated Prime Minister of the Buganda Kingdom, and her father, who was disappeared by Idi Amin, and yet she went on to become a leading conservationist.
Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka is Uganda's first full-time wildlife veterinarian and the Founder and CEO of Conservation Through Public Health. Interested in animals from a young age, she pursued her studies at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London before returning to Uganda. In the time since, she's worked tirelessly to preserve the animals of Uganda, being awarded the Whitley Gold Award, Sierra Club Earth Care Award, Edinburgh Medal, National Geographic Explorer, and most recently an appointment to become a United Nations Champion of the Earth for Science and Innovation. She is author of Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet.
"I was really excited to win the UN Champion of the Earth Award for our One Health approach to conservation. I was so excited when Dr. Jane Goodall wrote the foreword of my book, and she really has a big focus now on the younger generation through Roots and Shoots. And being that I developed my career by setting up a wildlife club at high school so that from a young age teenagers should know that they can make a difference. They don't have to be much older to make a difference.
Even as a teenager, you can make a huge difference. I'm excited. My son wrote a book Zookeeper for a Week, which he wrote during the pandemic because he had spent a week at the zoo when he was 13. And when he was 16, he was able to write this book.
So you're never too young to make a difference. And I think what I would like to tell many young people is to follow your dreams and the rest will follow. Even if what you're trying to do is something that no one has ever done before. Or let's say women are not considered, it's a male-dominated profession. Wildlife conservation, veterinary medicine in Uganda is still very male-dominated. And you shouldn't really worry about what people think about you, what culture, or society expects you to be doing. If you feel that it's an important thing to do, you should go ahead and do it. And it's so important to protect the natural world, to protect nature and the wildlife because we, we protect nature, we protect nature. We are ultimately protecting ourselves. Gorillas are so few numbers still. I mean, we are happy that the numbers are growing because of so many successful conservation efforts."
www.ctph.org
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781950994267/walking-with-gorillas/www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
A recent UN report shows that women are underrepresented at all levels of decision-making worldwide. They say that women in executive government positions and gender equality in the highest positions of power will not be reached for another 130 years. How can we close the gender gap and achieve true representation?
With a distinguished career in public service, Mary Hayashi has spearheaded substantial reforms in mental health services, championed gender equality, and forged powerful, unprecedented partnerships for social causes that previously had no financial or public backing. Recognized as âLegislator of the Yearâ by the American Red Cross and the California Medical Association, Mary has also been featured on Redbookâs âMothers and Shakersâ list and Ladiesâ Home Journal âs âWomen to Watch.â Mary remains a steadfast proponent of social justice expansion and the rights of underrepresented communities. She is author of Far From Home: Shattering the Myth of the Model Minority, and Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.
"My parents expected me to go to college just enough that I could find somebody, marry, and have kids. Because over 21, you're like an old maid and nobody's going to want to marry you. That was really their mentality. I'd only been in the country for seven years at that time and just kind of feeling lost and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And one day I signed up for this Women's Studies class. And I thought it was more about how I could be a better woman to my husband and my kids, that type of home economics class. And that's when I was introduced to feminist literature. And I started reading about the women's movement and how Gloria Steinem went from being a Playboy model to becoming a feminist and how that transpired. And when I started reading about these women who did what they did, a light bulb went on my head that I actually could have a career and do something with my life. And so, I'm not a professional writer. I'm a politician. I do government affairs work but publishing a book is a way to help other women realize their path because that's what feminist literature did for me."
www.maryhayashi.com
https://womeninpoliticsbook.orgwww.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
How we think, feel, and experience the world is a mystery. What distinguishes our consciousness from AI and machine learning?
Liad Mudrik studies high level cognition and its neural substrates, focusing on conscious experience. She teaches at the School of Psychological Sciences at Tel Aviv University. At her research lab, her team is currently investigating the functionality of consciousness, trying to unravel the depth and limits of unconscious processing, and also researching the ways semantic relations between concepts and objects are formed and detected.
"So I think, first of all, I would like young people to keep an open mind and to be able to extract information from multiple sources and gain interdisciplinary training. So if you are a computer scientist, read philosophy. If you're a philosopher, read neuroscience or whatever is interesting for you. And don't be ignorant. It's important for climate change. It's important for politics, for sure. Again, going back to what's going on in the last few weeks, it's important for science, and it's important for who you are.
So my, kind of aspiration, if some genie came and gave me one wish, well, I would like three. So after I got my loved ones to be healthy and happy, that's the most important thing. The next wish for me would be to continue learning throughout my life and learn and if I can also teach, that's a plus. But this ability to evolve and expand your horizons and chase the truth, irrespective of which type of truth you're interested in, which field. What's the burning question that you want to answer? But find it yourself. Don't believe others. Build yourself on the knowledge of others, learn from others, but develop this kind of inner sense of critical thinking that allows you to say this is what I believe in. This is what I don't. And leave that to your children as well. So I hope our future generations will build on and will cherish knowledge and kind of generate new knowledge - but qualitative knowledge. It just allows us to know more about ourselves, about the world we live in, about other human beings. And be respectful of others, and be kind."
https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/mudriklab
https://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/mudriklab/people/#gkit-popupwww.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
âCoral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean area, over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rainforests of the sea. And if you think of a coral reef as a rainforest, the trees are the coral themselves. Which are incredible organisms, so, magic is really the right word to describe them. They're these animals that are one of the original forms of animal life, the second branch of the animal kingdom is actually Cnidaria, which includes coral and jellyfish. So, an ancient animal, but they have a symbiotic relationship with algae, and so inside the animal tissue are these zooxanthellae, these algae that do photosynthesis, like algae do, like plants do. It's able to capture sunlight and convert it into sugars and energy. And so, it's an animal, but it's got plants that live inside it, this algae, and then even more wild - it grows a skeleton that is rock!
So coral skeleton is actually calcium carbonate, which is limestone. And most of the limestone that exists on the earth was grown by these organisms. And so they're animals with plants inside of them that grow rock as skeleton. And the rock skeletons form these incredibly intricate structures that are coral reefs that can grow for thousands of miles and the corals can live for thousands of years to be seen from space and to create these essential ecosystems that are really the cornerstone of all of life in the ocean and, and therefore much of life on Earth.â
Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean. Over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rain forests of the sea.
Gator Halpern is the Co-founder and President of Coral Vita, a mission-driven company working to restore our worldâs dying coral reefs. He is a lifelong entrepreneur who is passionate about starting projects that can help create a better harmony between society and nature. His work has earned him a number of awards including being named a United Nationâs Young Champion of the Earth, a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur, and an Echoing Green fellow. Before founding Coral Vita, he worked on development projects in Brazil, Peru, and South Africa. During his career, he has helped distribute millions of baby fish for aquaculture to remote villages in the Amazon, heâs analyzed the environmental effects of land-use change projects on three different continents, and worked for the World Wildlife Fund Global Marine Program. Gator founded Coral Vita during his graduate studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and he lives and works in the Bahamas where Coral Vita operates the worldâs first commercial land-based coral farm for reef restoration.
https://coralvita.co
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
Coral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean. Over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rain forests of the sea.
Gator Halpern is the Co-founder and President of Coral Vita, a mission-driven company working to restore our worldâs dying coral reefs. He is a lifelong entrepreneur who is passionate about starting projects that can help create a better harmony between society and nature. His work has earned him a number of awards including being named a United Nationâs Young Champion of the Earth, a Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur, and an Echoing Green fellow. Before founding Coral Vita, he worked on development projects in Brazil, Peru, and South Africa. During his career, he has helped distribute millions of baby fish for aquaculture to remote villages in the Amazon, heâs analyzed the environmental effects of land-use change projects on three different continents, and worked for the World Wildlife Fund Global Marine Program. Gator founded Coral Vita during his graduate studies at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and he lives and works in the Bahamas where Coral Vita operates the worldâs first commercial land-based coral farm for reef restoration.
âCoral reefs are the most biodiverse habitat on the planet, despite covering less than 1 percent of the ocean area, over a quarter of all marine life exists in these rainforests of the sea. And if you think of a coral reef as a rainforest, the trees are the coral themselves. Which are incredible organisms, so, magic is really the right word to describe them. They're these animals that are one of the original forms of animal life, the second branch of the animal kingdom is actually Cnidaria, which includes coral and jellyfish. So, an ancient animal, but they have a symbiotic relationship with algae, and so inside the animal tissue are these zooxanthellae, these algae that do photosynthesis, like algae do, like plants do. It's able to capture sunlight and convert it into sugars and energy. And so, it's an animal, but it's got plants that live inside it, this algae, and then even more wild - it grows a skeleton that is rock!
So coral skeleton is actually calcium carbonate, which is limestone. And most of the limestone that exists on the earth was grown by these organisms. And so they're animals with plants inside of them that grow rock as skeleton. And the rock skeletons form these incredibly intricate structures that are coral reefs that can grow for thousands of miles and the corals can live for thousands of years to be seen from space and to create these essential ecosystems that are really the cornerstone of all of life in the ocean and, and therefore much of life on Earth.â
https://coralvita.co
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
"Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and those are environmental injustices. So I thought it was important to have an intersectional approach to environmental advocacy that doesn't ignore these things and these intersections of identity, but explores them to make sure that every community, especially those most impacted by environmental injustices, no longer are. And I wanted to write a really accessible introduction that was targeted at school kids or anyone who wants to learn more."
Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. Sheâs passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term âIntersectional Environmentalism.â She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her articles on this topic have appeared in Vogue, Elle, The Good Trade, and Youth to the People and she has been featured in Harperâs Bazaar, W Magazine, Domino, GOOP, Fashionista, BuzzFeed, and numerous podcasts. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Chapman University and worked for the National Park Service and Patagonia headquarters before pursuing activism full time. She lives in Carpinteria, California. She is the author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, and Winner of the Creative Force Foundation Award 2023.
www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com
www.instagram.com/greengirlleah
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/leah-thomas/the-intersectional-environmentalist/9780316281935/?lens=voraciousSeason 2 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs , Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.oneplanetpodcast.org -
Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. Sheâs passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and was the first to define the term âIntersectional Environmentalism.â She is the founder of @greengirlleah and The Intersectional Environmentalist platform. Her articles on this topic have appeared in Vogue, Elle, The Good Trade, and Youth to the People and she has been featured in Harperâs Bazaar, W Magazine, Domino, GOOP, Fashionista, BuzzFeed, and numerous podcasts. She has a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from Chapman University and worked for the National Park Service and Patagonia headquarters before pursuing activism full time. She lives in Carpinteria, California. She is the author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, and Winner of the Creative Force Foundation Award 2023.
"Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and those are environmental injustices. So I thought it was important to have an intersectional approach to environmental advocacy that doesn't ignore these things and these intersections of identity, but explores them to make sure that every community, especially those most impacted by environmental injustices, no longer are. And I wanted to write a really accessible introduction that was targeted at school kids or anyone who wants to learn more."
www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com
www.instagram.com/greengirlleah
www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/leah-thomas/the-intersectional-environmentalist/9780316281935/?lens=voraciousSeason 2 of Business & Society focuses on CEOs , Sustainability & Environmental Solutions
Business & Society is a limited series co-hosted by Bruce Piasecki & Mia Funk
www.oneplanetpodcast.org -
"It's a really good point because I think that the modern sensibility and certainly the post-modern sensibility tells us that everything is self-referential. That if we have a certain feeling, it's because of our chemistry, it's because of our sexuality or urges that come within ourselves. But the older way of thinking is that we're in a relationship with a world that actually is reflected in our mind. And I think that that older sensibility is probably closer to the truth. It explains a lot more. It makes a lot more sense of things.
So every writer knows this, that he's not actually drawing so much from himself as some kind of literal inspiration, some kind of breathing into him that connects him, his own experiences, his childhood experiences, life experiences, his mental experiences with something that is very real outside him. And what he's trying to do in art, I think, is communicate that experience to other people in the only way possible. You can't describe it, you can't put adjectives into it. You have to dramatize it or paint a picture of it or write a song about it. That's the way human beings communicate the experience of being human."
What makes a good drama? What advantages do human storytellers have over their AI counterparts? Where do ideas come from? And what do spiritual beliefs share with artists' faith in the creative process?
Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally bestselling crime novels as True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, Donât Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas, Empire of Lies and When Christmas Comes. He has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of Americaâs Edgar Award five times and has won twice. He wrote the screenplays to A Shock to The System starring Michael Caine, One Missed Call starring Edward Burns, and Gosnell: The Trial of Americaâs Biggest Serial Killer starring Dean Cain. His essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, his political satire videos have been viewed by tens of millions of people, and he hosts a popular podcast The Andrew Klavan Show at the Daily Wire. He is also the author of a memoir about his religious journey The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ and the USA Today bestseller The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England's Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus. His latest crime novel is The House of Love and Death, the third book in the Cameron Winter series.
www.andrewklavan.com
www.amazon.com/House-Death-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613164467www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
What makes a good drama? What advantages do human storytellers have over their AI counterparts? Where do ideas come from? And what do spiritual beliefs share with artists' faith in the creative process?
Andrew Klavan is the author of such internationally bestselling crime novels as True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, Donât Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas, Empire of Lies and When Christmas Comes. He has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of Americaâs Edgar Award five times and has won twice. He wrote the screenplays to A Shock to The System starring Michael Caine, One Missed Call starring Edward Burns, and Gosnell: The Trial of Americaâs Biggest Serial Killer starring Dean Cain. His essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, his political satire videos have been viewed by tens of millions of people, and he hosts a popular podcast The Andrew Klavan Show at the Daily Wire. He is also the author of a memoir about his religious journey The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ and the USA Today bestseller The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England's Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus. His latest crime novel is The House of Love and Death, the third book in the Cameron Winter series.
"It's a really good point because I think that the modern sensibility and certainly the post-modern sensibility tells us that everything is self-referential. That if we have a certain feeling, it's because of our chemistry, it's because of our sexuality or urges that come within ourselves. But the older way of thinking is that we're in a relationship with a world that actually is reflected in our mind. And I think that that older sensibility is probably closer to the truth. It explains a lot more. It makes a lot more sense of things.
So every writer knows this, that he's not actually drawing so much from himself as some kind of literal inspiration, some kind of breathing into him that connects him, his own experiences, his childhood experiences, life experiences, his mental experiences with something that is very real outside him. And what he's trying to do in art, I think, is communicate that experience to other people in the only way possible. You can't describe it, you can't put adjectives into it. You have to dramatize it or paint a picture of it or write a song about it. That's the way human beings communicate the experience of being human."
www.andrewklavan.com
www.amazon.com/House-Death-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613164467www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
âSo I wrote this book and it was a lot of fun because I had to learn so much. The book examines three iconic teachers: Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus. And I look at how each of those teachers encourage a certain kind of student. The student as follower, someone who will take on the path that you've developed. In the case of Socrates, the student as critical interlocutor or critical conversation partner, someone who will, in dialogue with you, learn what they don't know, how to take things apart. And in the case of Jesus and the apostles, I look at trying to imitate a way of life to transform themselves to strive towards being the kind of person that Jesus incarnated. And so that's the beginning of the book, these models of studenthood, if I could use that word, and being a teacher. And then I look at the way in which these ideas reverberate in the West across a long period of time. So I'm interested in the idea of the student before there were schools. What did we expect young people to learn even when they weren't going to school?â
What is the purpose of education? How are we educating students for the future? What is the importance of the humanities in this age of AI and the rapidly changing workplace?
Michael S. Roth is President of Wesleyan University. His books include Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters and Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatistâs Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses. He's been a Professor of History and the Humanities since 1983, was the Founding Director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute, and was the Associate Director of the Getty Research Institute. His scholarly interests center on how people make sense of the past, and he has authored eight books around this topic, including his latest, The Student: A Short History.
https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/mroth/profile.html
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300250039/the-student/
www.wesleyan.edu
https://twitter.com/mroth78www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
What is the purpose of education? How are we educating students for the future? What is the importance of the humanities in this age of AI and the rapidly changing workplace?
Michael S. Roth is President of Wesleyan University. His books include Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters and Safe Enough Spaces: A Pragmatistâs Approach to Inclusion, Free Speech, and Political Correctness on College Campuses. He's been a Professor of History and the Humanities since 1983, was the Founding Director of the Scripps College Humanities Institute, and was the Associate Director of the Getty Research Institute. His scholarly interests center on how people make sense of the past, and he has authored eight books around this topic, including his latest, The Student: A Short History.
âSo I wrote this book and it was a lot of fun because I had to learn so much. The book examines three iconic teachers: Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus. And I look at how each of those teachers encourage a certain kind of student. The student as follower, someone who will take on the path that you've developed. In the case of Socrates, the student as critical interlocutor or critical conversation partner, someone who will, in dialogue with you, learn what they don't know, how to take things apart. And in the case of Jesus and the apostles, I look at trying to imitate a way of life to transform themselves to strive towards being the kind of person that Jesus incarnated. And so that's the beginning of the book, these models of studenthood, if I could use that word, and being a teacher. And then I look at the way in which these ideas reverberate in the West across a long period of time. So I'm interested in the idea of the student before there were schools. What did we expect young people to learn even when they weren't going to school?â
https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/mroth/profile.html
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300250039/the-student/
www.wesleyan.edu
https://twitter.com/mroth78www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
Brian David Johnson is Futurist in Residence at Arizona State Universityâs Center for Science and the Imagination, a professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and the Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab. He is Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted, Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, 21st Century Robot: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories, Humanity in the Machine: What Comes After Greed?, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing, and the Devices We Love.
https://csi.asu.edu/people/brian-david-johnson/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
Brian David Johnson is Futurist in Residence at Arizona State Universityâs Center for Science and the Imagination, a professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society, and the Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab. He is Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted, Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, 21st Century Robot: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories, Humanity in the Machine: What Comes After Greed?, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing, and the Devices We Love.
"Let's talk about technology and the role of humanity and the role of being human and what it means to be present in that. We need to keep humans at the center of everything that we do, that everything that we do in our life is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be technologies and businesses and all these things in between, but we should measure the effect on humans.
When I talk to people about artificial intelligence or technology, I'm generally asking them two questions. What are you optimizing for? What's the effect that you're trying to get? Developing technology for technology's sake, although it can be kind of interesting...then is why you're doing it because you think it's interesting? But then ultimately, if you're doing it beyond your own gratification, why are you doing it?
So much of what I do in that is talking to governments and militaries and large organizations to say we always have to keep humans in the loop. You have to keep humans in the center because it's about us. That really is incredibly important. And that's one of the central ideas in the future. The future should be about humans, and where are humans going. And what do we want as humans? And how are we using technology to make us more human, or healthier, or happier, or more productive?"
https://csi.asu.edu/people/brian-david-johnson/
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
"It's been surprising to me how quiet things have been in the humanities. Maybe we're all just taking it in, but I also think that - and this really makes me sad - the tech leaders have been looked at by the media and probably by the politicians themselves as being the important voices at the table for the implications of technology. And there's been a lot of confusion about scientific development versus speculation. So you're seeing everybody wanting to interview the CEOs at the big tech companies or the big AI researchers. And then all of a sudden the idea that they somehow have a monopoly on ideas about conscious machines, for example, or merging with AI. Elon Musk never stops with philosophical claims, and a lot of times you have to wonder what they're supposed to be doing for his stock values as opposed to whether they're true or not. But people just take this, sadly, as what the scientists or AI companies say. You know, well, 'they know the science, so it's got to be true.' But that is not the case. That's where the humanities should be more involved. And it's been a slow plotting situation to see people really step up. I've just been sort of taking it all in, and I've been doing a lot of advising in Washington. So maybe we're all waiting to see where this all goes, right? But I think at this point, I finally achieved a sort of confidence about how I think it's going to play out."
Will AI become conscious? President Biden has just unveiled a new executive order on AI â the U.S. governmentâs first action of its kind â requiring new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance, and research on AIâs impact on the labor market. With this governance in place, can tech companies be counted on to do the right thing for humanity?
Susan Schneider is a philosopher, artificial intelligence expert, and founding director of the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University. She is author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, and The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. She held the NASA Chair with NASA and the Distinguished Scholar Chair at the Library of Congress. She is now working on projects related to advancements in AI policy and technology, drawing from neuroscience research and philosophical developments and writing a new book on the shape of intelligent systems.
www.fau.edu/artsandletters/philosophy/susan-schneider/index
www.fau.edu/future-mind/www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
Will AI become conscious? President Biden has just unveiled a new executive order on AI â the U.S. governmentâs first action of its kind â requiring new safety assessments, equity and civil rights guidance, and research on AIâs impact on the labor market. With this governance in place, can tech companies be counted on to do the right thing for humanity?
Susan Schneider is a philosopher, artificial intelligence expert, and founding director of the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University. She is author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, and The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. She held the NASA Chair with NASA and the Distinguished Scholar Chair at the Library of Congress. She is now working on projects related to advancements in AI policy and technology, drawing from neuroscience research and philosophical developments and writing a new book on the shape of intelligent systems.
"It's been surprising to me how quiet things have been in the humanities. Maybe we're all just taking it in, but I also think that - and this really makes me sad - the tech leaders have been looked at by the media and probably by the politicians themselves as being the important voices at the table for the implications of technology. And there's been a lot of confusion about scientific development versus speculation. So you're seeing everybody wanting to interview the CEOs at the big tech companies or the big AI researchers. And then all of a sudden the idea that they somehow have a monopoly on ideas about conscious machines, for example, or merging with AI. Elon Musk never stops with philosophical claims, and a lot of times you have to wonder what they're supposed to be doing for his stock values as opposed to whether they're true or not. But people just take this, sadly, as what the scientists or AI companies say. You know, well, 'they know the science, so it's got to be true.' But that is not the case. That's where the humanities should be more involved. And it's been a slow plotting situation to see people really step up. I've just been sort of taking it all in, and I've been doing a lot of advising in Washington. So maybe we're all waiting to see where this all goes, right? But I think at this point, I finally achieved a sort of confidence about how I think it's going to play out."
www.fau.edu/artsandletters/philosophy/susan-schneider/index
www.fau.edu/future-mind/www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
What will the future look like? What are the risks and opportunities of AI? What role can we play in designing the future we want to live in?
Voices of philosophers, futurists, AI experts, science fiction authors, activists, and lawyers reflecting on AI, technology, and the Future of Humanity. All voices in this episode are from our interviews for The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast.
Voices on this episode are:
DR. SUSAN SCHNEIDER
American philosopher and artificial intelligence expert. She is the founding director of the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University. Author of Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind, Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence, and The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness.
www.fau.edu/artsandletters/philosophy/susan-schneider/indexNICK BOSTROM
Founder and Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford, Philosopher, Author of NYTimes Bestseller Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Bostromâs academic work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He is a repeat main TED speaker and has been on Foreign Policyâs Top 100 Global Thinkers list twice and was included in Prospectâs World Thinkers list, the youngest person in the top 15.
https://nickbostrom.com
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.ukBRIAN DAVID JOHNSON
Futurist in residence at Arizona State Universityâs Center for Science and the Imagination, a professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab. He is Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted, Science Fiction Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction, 21st Century Robot: The Dr. Simon Egerton Stories, Humanity in the Machine: What Comes After Greed?, Screen Future: The Future of Entertainment, Computing, and the Devices We Love.
https://csi.asu.edu/people/brian-david-johnson
DEAN SPADE
Professor at SeattleUâs School of Law, Author of Mutual Aid, Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next), and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law.www.deanspade.net
ALLEN STEELE
Science Fiction Author. He has been awarded a number of Hugos, Asimov's Readers, and Locus Awards. of the Coyote Trilogy, Arkwright, and other books. His books include Coyote Trilogy and Arkwright. He is a former member of the Board of Directors and Board of Advisors for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He has also served as an advisor for the Space Frontier Foundation. In 2001, he testified before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the U.S. House of Representatives in hearings regarding space exploration in the 21st century.www.allensteele.com
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast -
Originally aired 2021
âWe become the stories we tell ourselvesâŠI started writing around the time I learned English because we moved to the States soon after my fourth birthday, and so I was here for kindergarten into elementary school. I grasped this new language just as I was learning how to also put things onto the page. Those two things really happened at the same time for me. I entered this world where I felt very different and very other, for all intents and purposes I was set to be raised in Kuwait. And then that of course got turned upside down after the invasion by Saddam. I think that so much of my trying to make sense of the world had to do with the displacement, exile and these experiences that my parents had experienced but then that I had as well as we were fleeing the war. Itâs hard to know because I think that language was being formed in my brain at the same time that these things were happening.âHala Alyan is the author of the novel Salt Houses, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, as well as the forthcoming novel The Arsonistsâ City, and four award-winning collections of poetry, most recently The Twenty-Ninth Year. Her work has been published by the New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, where she works as a clinical psychologist.
· halaalyan.com
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