My guest today is Michael Garfield, a paleontologist, futurist, writer, podcast host and strategic advisor whose “mind-jazz” performances — essays, music and fine art — bridge the worlds of art, science and philosophy.

This year, Michael received a $10k O’Shaughnessy Grant for his “Humans On the Loop” discussion series, which explores the nature of agency, power, responsibility and wisdom in the age of automation.

This whirlwind discussion is impossible to sum up in a couple of sentences (just look at the number of books & articles mentioned!) Ultimately, it is a conversation about a subject I think about every day: how we can live curious, collaborative and fulfilling lives in our deeply weird, complex, probabilistic world.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. For the full transcript, episode takeaways, and bucketloads of other goodies designed to make you go, “Hmm, that’s interesting!”, check out our Substack.

Important Links:

Show Notes:

What is “mind jazz”?
Humans “ON” the loop?
The Red Queen hypothesis and the power of weirdness
Probabilistic thinking & the perils of optimization
Context collapse, pernicious convenience & coordination at scale
How organisations learn
Michael as World Emperor
MORE!

Books, Articles & Podcasts Mentioned:

The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves; by W. Brian Arthur
Pharmako-AI; by K Allado-McDowell
The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century; by Howard Bloom
The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism; by Howard Bloom
One Summer: America, 1927; by Bill Bryson
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There; by Lewis Carroll
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World; by David Deutsch
Scale Theory: A Nondisciplinary Inquiry; by Joshua DiCaglio
Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders and the Rise of Social Engineering; by Malcolm Gladwell
The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous; by Joseph Henrich
Do Conversation: There's No Such Thing as Small Talk; by Robert Poynton
Reality Hunger: A Manifesto; by David Shields
The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture; by William Irwin Thompson
The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science; by Robert Anton Wilson
Designing Neural Media; by K Allado-McDowell
Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning; by Steward Brand
Losing Humanity: The Case against Killer Robots; by Bonnie Docherty
What happens with digital rights management in the real world?; by Cory Doctorow
The Evolution of Surveillance Part 1: Burgess Shale to Google Glass; by Michael Garfield
An Introduction to Extitutional Theory; by Jessy Kate Schingler
175 - C. Thi Nguyen on The Seductions of Clarity, Weaponized Games, and Agency as Art; Future Fossils with Michael Garfield
🎶⚔️👏🏼 205 - Greg Thomas & Stephanie Lepp on Jazz Leadership & Antagonistic Cooperation; Future Fossils with Michael Garfield
🌏🚜🫀212 - Manfred Laubichler & Geoffrey West on Life In The Anthropocene & Living Inside The Technosphere; Future Fossils with Michael Garfield

EP. 242: Dr. Conny Lin, the toe-wiggling neuroscientist