Books & Writers · The Creative Process: Novelists, Screenwriters, Playwrights, Poets, Non-fiction Writers & Journalists Talk Writing, Life & Creativity

"There is no reason for doom and gloom in our species. Evolution has produced the most amazing organism that is capable of almost instantaneous change for the better. And I didn't know that when I was a kid, but I think I sensed it. I think I sensed that all these other 20 million species knew something we didn't know. And that was: there's always hope if you let it out of the bag. We're always willing to say that we're right to other people, but the joy comes from realizing that the truth eventually comes out. And it's by the inexorable floating of science to the surface, by people who are willing to say they're wrong. They think it's a sign of weakness, and in my view, it's the ultimate sign of strength in a politician to say, "Yeah, I was wrong last week. I was wrong last month. I was wrong last year." We're always looking for better ideas, and so if you've got one, let us know. Politicians think it's a sign of weakness to change their minds. And I think, are you kidding? Evolution is selecting for people to change their minds all the time. That's what works in nature. Evolution is the process by which things that are better replace things which aren’t."What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably? If we want to be sustained by this planet indefinitely, we need to stop trying to suck it dry.Doug Larson is an award winning scientist, author, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Guelph. He is an expert on deforestation and regularly contributes to The Guardian and other publications. His books include Cliff Ecology: Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, The Urban Cliff Revolution: New Findings on the Origins and Evolution of Human Habitats, Storyteller Guitar, and The Dogma At My Homework.https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson https://volumesdirect.com/products/the-dogma-ate-my-homework https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cliff-ecology/7502E52B487789BEA2CACC4553AA663Bhttps://www.amazon.com/Urban-Cliff-Revolution-Evolution-Habitats/dp/1550419927 https://www.amazon.com/Storyteller-Guitar-Doug-Larson-ebook/dp/B00B9VZQXUwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage courtesy of Doug Larson

What can thousand-year-old trees teach us about living sustainably? If we want to be sustained by this planet indefinitely, we need to stop trying to suck it dry.Doug Larson is an award winning scientist, author, and Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Guelph. He is an expert on deforestation and regularly contributes to The Guardian and other publications. His books include Cliff Ecology: Pattern and Process in Cliff Ecosystems, The Urban Cliff Revolution: New Findings on the Origins and Evolution of Human Habitats, Storyteller Guitar, and The Dogma At My Homework."There is no reason for doom and gloom in our species. Evolution has produced the most amazing organism that is capable of almost instantaneous change for the better. And I didn't know that when I was a kid, but I think I sensed it. I think I sensed that all these other 20 million species knew something we didn't know. And that was: there's always hope if you let it out of the bag. We're always willing to say that we're right to other people, but the joy comes from realizing that the truth eventually comes out. And it's by the inexorable floating of science to the surface, by people who are willing to say they're wrong. They think it's a sign of weakness, and in my view, it's the ultimate sign of strength in a politician to say, "Yeah, I was wrong last week. I was wrong last month. I was wrong last year." We're always looking for better ideas, and so if you've got one, let us know. Politicians think it's a sign of weakness to change their minds. And I think, are you kidding? Evolution is selecting for people to change their minds all the time. That's what works in nature. Evolution is the process by which things that are better replace things which aren’t."https://experts.uoguelph.ca/doug-larson https://volumesdirect.com/products/the-dogma-ate-my-homework https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cliff-ecology/7502E52B487789BEA2CACC4553AA663Bhttps://www.amazon.com/Urban-Cliff-Revolution-Evolution-Habitats/dp/1550419927 https://www.amazon.com/Storyteller-Guitar-Doug-Larson-ebook/dp/B00B9VZQXUwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastImage courtesy of Doug Larson

"The original edition of The Paradox of Choice came out in 2004, and the internet was just getting started in a major league way, and already the choice overload was a problem. I would say that from the modern perspective, 2004 seems like the 18th century, and as near as I can tell, all of these changes, every single one of them has made the problem substantially worse. The idea that you can get information to help guide you through - well, yeah, but what information do you believe? What's trustworthy? What's being motivated by an opportunity to sell you something? So there is a haze, there is this fog that we're operating in. And I think we just sort of give up in resignation and look at recommendations and hope that they're legitimate because how else do you get through the day?"Does having too many choices make us unhappy? How can we learn practical wisdom?Dr. Barry Schwartz is the Dorwin P. Cartwright Professor Emeritus of Social Theory and Social Action in the psychology department at Swarthmore College. He is the author of many books, including Why We Work, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, and co-author of Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing.www.swarthmore.edu/profile/barry-schwartzwww.simonandschuster.com/books/Why-We-Work/Barry-Schwartz/TED-Books/9781476784861 https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-paradox-of-choice-barry-schwartz?variant=32207920234530https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/307231/practical-wisdom-by-barry-schwartz-and-kenneth-sharpewww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto credit: Bill Holsinger-Robinson - CC BY 2.0

Dr. Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice & Why We Work, discusses the impact of having too many choices and the challenges of navigating information in the digital age. The podcast explores the influence of language on decision making, the importance of practical wisdom in communication within families, and the performative aspect of education. It also emphasizes the value of critical thinking and the power of listening in the classroom.

Guest speaker discusses his book and critiques the Green New Deal while advocating for degrowth communism. Exploring the journey from Marx to the Anthropocene, the importance of reading Marx today, and defining de-growth communism. Critiquing the Green New Deal and discussing the challenges in the Antelpocene. Analyzing the concept of metabolic rift and its connection to spatial and temporal rifts. Rationalizing domination through freedom, comparing communism and capitalism. Exploring the notion of buying less, driving less, and meditating more for systemic change.

In this episode of the Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu speaks with noted researcher and scholar Ben Franta about two new articles he has written that add to his growing archive of seminal work on climate change.  Ben tells us now the fossil fuel industry paid economists to join scientists in denying the true nature of the fossil fuel industry’s destruction of the environment. Economists argued that even if some science were correct, implementing change would be too costly. This became a powerful tool to stall and kill climate change legislation. Ben also talks about how communities have tried to sue fossil fuel companies for damages incurred by such misinformation and disinformation. In sum, we learn about what the industry has done, and how ordinary people and municipalities can fight back.Benjamin Franta is the founding head of the Climate Litigation Lab and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford Sustainable Law Programme. The Climate Litigation Lab is a multidisciplinary research initiative to inform, enable, and accelerate climate change litigation globally. Ben is also an Associate at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford, and a former research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is the recipient of numerous academic and research fellowships including the Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. His research and writing have appeared in 10 languages, been featured in the Paramount+ documentary Black Gold, been cited in the U.S. Congressional Record, and been published in numerous scholarly and popular venues including Nature Climate Change, Global Environmental Change, The Guardian, Project Syndicate, and more. “For 40 years, the American Petroleum Institute has hired economists to argue it would be too expensive to try and control fossil fuels and that climate change wasn't that bad. The same go-to consultancy firm has been involved in every major climate policy fight from the very beginning and hired by the fossil fuel industry, but what are the courts going to do? It's not just the historical deception. It's an ongoing deception.”www.inet.ox.ac.uk/people/benjamin-franta www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/oxford-sustainable-law-programme/research/climate-litigation-labwww.palumbo-liu.com https://speakingoutofplace.comhttps://twitter.com/palumboliu?s=20

"The idea that the laws of nature are fixed is taken for granted by almost all scientists and within physics, within cosmology, it leads to an enormous realm of speculation, which I think is totally unnecessary. We're assuming the laws of nature are fixed. Most of science assumes this, but is it really so in an evolving universe? Why shouldn't the laws evolve? And if we think about that, then we realize that actually, the whole idea of a law of nature is a metaphor. It's based on human laws. I mean, after all, dogs and cats don't obey laws. And in tribes, they don't even have laws. They have customs. So it's only in civilized societies that you have laws. And then if we think through that metaphor, then actually the laws do change.All artists are influenced by other artists and by things in the collective culture, and I think that morphic resonance as collective memory would say that all of us draw unconsciously as well as consciously on a collective memory and all animals draw on a collective memory of their kind as well. We don't know where it comes from, but there's true creativity involved in evolution, both human and natural."How do we navigate ambiguity and uncertainty? Moving beyond linear thinking into instinct and intuition, we might discover other sources within ourselves that lie beyond the boundaries of science and reason.Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. His many books include The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past, and Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work. At Cambridge University, Dr. Sheldrake worked in developmental biology as a fellow of Clare College. From 2005 to 2010,  he was director of the Perrott Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College Cambridge. He was among the top 100 global thought leaders for 2013, as ranked by the Duttweiler Institute.www.sheldrake.orgwww.amazon.com/Science-Delusion/dp/1529393221/?tag=sheldrake-20www.amazon.com/Science-Set-Free-Paths-Discovery/dp/0770436722/?tag=sheldrake-20

How do we navigate ambiguity and uncertainty? Moving beyond linear thinking into instinct and intuition, we might discover other sources within ourselves that lie beyond the boundaries of science and reason.Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. His many books include The Science Delusion, The Presence of the Past, and Ways to Go Beyond and Why They Work. At Cambridge University, Dr. Sheldrake worked in developmental biology as a fellow of Clare College. From 2005 to 2010,  he was director of the Perrott Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College Cambridge. He was among the top 100 global thought leaders for 2013, as ranked by the Duttweiler Institute."The idea that the laws of nature are fixed is taken for granted by almost all scientists and within physics, within cosmology, it leads to an enormous realm of speculation, which I think is totally unnecessary. We're assuming the laws of nature are fixed. Most of science assumes this, but is it really so in an evolving universe? Why shouldn't the laws evolve? And if we think about that, then we realize that actually, the whole idea of a law of nature is a metaphor. It's based on human laws. I mean, after all, dogs and cats don't obey laws. And in tribes, they don't even have laws. They have customs. So it's only in civilized societies that you have laws. And then if we think through that metaphor, then actually the laws do change.All artists are influenced by other artists and by things in the collective culture, and I think that morphic resonance as collective memory would say that all of us draw unconsciously as well as consciously on a collective memory and all animals draw on a collective memory of their kind as well. We don't know where it comes from, but there's true creativity involved in evolution, both human and natural."www.sheldrake.orgwww.amazon.com/Science-Delusion/dp/1529393221/?tag=sheldrake-20www.amazon.com/Science-Set-Free-Paths-Discovery/dp/0770436722/?tag=sheldrake-20

"These ideas go as far back as Ancient Greece, which basically gave birth to two lines of thinking, two ideologies, materialism and idealism. And the idealist thinkers like Plato regarded reality as a projection of our minds, as something that is not real. And the only thing that is real is our consciousness and our minds and everything else around us is just constructs of our proception and projections. And that was a philosophy that was opposed to materialism, which regards the world as in a materialistic way, made up of atoms and matter and our minds are a product of these chemical reactions and the matter is coming together and forming our minds and consciousness. And everything in the world exists regardless of our consciousness or our minds and the universe is there and it's a materialistic view of the world. So these are two competing ideologies, and this is actually how we see the world today in a materialistic way.What the simulated universe philosophical idea belongs to is this idealistic view of the world. And the idealism philosophy morphs into something else in this simulation hypothesis where not only everything is a simulated construct, but our minds and our consciousness are part of it.So for example, Plato saw our minds and, if you want, our spirit as a fundamental central piece and the only real thing, and everything emerged from this. The simulated hypothesis assumes that everything, including our minds and consciousness, is part of a simulation. So it's a bit of a modern iteration of idealism which has been triggered by these recent developments in advancing technologies and computing science that began in the 1940s with the development of silicon technologies, early microchips, and digital computers creating digital memories.This highly accelerated rate of development, in terms of our technological progress, in less than a hundred years going from analog technologies means we are entering a new era of quantum computers, like generative AI, and artificial intelligence, and all these VRs are a reality today. So this development has helped in some ways to lead to the emergence of this simulated universe concept because we are now reaching a new technological level where we see that we are beginning to simulate virtual realities and they are becoming more and more immersive and sophisticated."Dr. Melvin M. Vopson is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Portsmouth, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Chartered Physicist and Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Information Physics Institute, editor-in-chief of the IPI Letters and Emerging Minds Journal for Student Research. He is the author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe. Dr. Vopson has a wide-ranging scientific expertise in experimental, applied and theoretical physics that is internationally recognized. He has published over 100 research articles, achieving over 2500 citations.https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/melvin-vopsonhttps://ipipublishing.org/index.php/ipil/RRwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Are we living in a Simulated Universe? How will AI impact the future of work, society & education?Dr. Melvin M. Vopson is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Portsmouth, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Chartered Physicist and Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Information Physics Institute, editor-in-chief of the IPI Letters and Emerging Minds Journal for Student Research. He is the author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe. Dr. Vopson has a wide-ranging scientific expertise in experimental, applied and theoretical physics that is internationally recognized. He has published over 100 research articles, achieving over 2500 citations."These ideas go as far back as Ancient Greece, which basically gave birth to two lines of thinking, two ideologies, materialism and idealism. And the idealist thinkers like Plato regarded reality as a projection of our minds, as something that is not real. And the only thing that is real is our consciousness and our minds and everything else around us is just constructs of our proception and projections. And that was a philosophy that was opposed to materialism, which regards the world as in a materialistic way, made up of atoms and matter and our minds are a product of these chemical reactions and the matter is coming together and forming our minds and consciousness. And everything in the world exists regardless of our consciousness or our minds and the universe is there and it's a materialistic view of the world. So these are two competing ideologies, and this is actually how we see the world today in a materialistic way.What the simulated universe philosophical idea belongs to is this idealistic view of the world. And the idealism philosophy morphs into something else in this simulation hypothesis where not only everything is a simulated construct, but our minds and our consciousness are part of it.So for example, Plato saw our minds and, if you want, our spirit as a fundamental central piece and the only real thing, and everything emerged from this. The simulated hypothesis assumes that everything, including our minds and consciousness, is part of a simulation. So it's a bit of a modern iteration of idealism which has been triggered by these recent developments in advancing technologies and computing science that began in the 1940s with the development of silicon technologies, early microchips, and digital computers creating digital memories.This highly accelerated rate of development, in terms of our technological progress, in less than a hundred years going from analog technologies means we are entering a new era of quantum computers, like generative AI, and artificial intelligence, and all these VRs are a reality today. So this development has helped in some ways to lead to the emergence of this simulated universe concept because we are now reaching a new technological level where we see that we are beginning to simulate virtual realities and they are becoming more and more immersive and sophisticated."https://www.port.ac.uk/about-us/structure-and-governance/our-people/our-staff/melvin-vopsonhttps://ipipublishing.org/index.php/ipil/RRwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast