29: Jonathon Keats – You Belong to the Universe

Jonathon Keats is an American conceptual artist and experimental philosopher known for creating large-scale thought experiments. He is the author of various books, including You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future which sets out to revive the inventor Buckminster Fuller’s (1895-1983) unconventional practice of comprehensive anticipatory design, placing Fuller’s philosophy in a modern context and dispelling much of the mythology surrounding Fuller’s life. As a major influence on this podcast, we were delighted to have a chance to delve deep into the life and work of Buckminster Fuller with Jonathon, a visionary thinker in his own right. Indeed, legendary sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling says of Jonathon: “If he’s one in a billion rather than just a million, he might become the pioneer of a mighty school of twenty­first century scientific art­philosophy. If he’s lucky, he won’t be—but if we’re lucky, he will." We discussed experimental philosophy, thought experiments, Spaceship Earth and Bucky’s “world game,” why absurdity is essential, and why boldly transgressive ideas are so important to revitalizing questions that ultimately concern us all: what is to be valued in life and what kind of future do we want? More information on Jonathon can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathon_Keats We discussed: You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future, Oxford University Press, 2016: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/you-belong-to-the-universe-9780199338238?cc=us&lang=en& The Library of the Great Silence: https://www.seti.org/event/seti-live-library-great-silence-and-fermi-paradox The Museum of Future History: https://mofh.net/ The Future Democracies Laboratory: https://projects.cadre.sjsu.edu/democracyproject/ The Plasmodium Consortium: https://sites.hampshire.edu/gallery/the-plasmodium-symposium/