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

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

"One of the big differences I've noticed talking with people from more communally oriented cultures is that American culture has a strong emphasis on the individual on individual happiness, individual achievement on individual self-expression. And there are other cultures where the community, the family, and the neighborhood where they live and the well-being of others are paramount and are the first thing they think about. The most exemplary instance of that is in Bhutan, where they can't even propose a law for the legislature to consider unless they have a full section describing the effect on the community of any given law, the effect on the well-being of the whole population. So nothing is about the individual. It's all about the collective."What makes a good life? How important are relationships in helping us lead happy and meaningful lives?Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. Dr. Waldinger received his AB from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents. He is also a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. His TED Talk about the Harvard study “What makes a good life?” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks ever. He is co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.https://www.robertwaldinger.com/https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Good-Life/Robert-Waldinger/9781982166694https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/ https://www.lifespanresearch.orgwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What makes a good life? How important are relationships in helping us lead happy and meaningful lives?Dr. Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. Dr. Waldinger received his AB from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents. He is also a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. His TED Talk about the Harvard study “What makes a good life?” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the 10 most watched TED Talks ever. He is co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness."One of the big differences I've noticed talking with people from more communally oriented cultures is that American culture has a strong emphasis on the individual on individual happiness, individual achievement on individual self-expression. And there are other cultures where the community, the family, and the neighborhood where they live and the well-being of others are paramount and are the first thing they think about. The most exemplary instance of that is in Bhutan, where they can't even propose a law for the legislature to consider unless they have a full section describing the effect on the community of any given law, the effect on the well-being of the whole population. So nothing is about the individual. It's all about the collective."https://www.robertwaldinger.com/https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Good-Life/Robert-Waldinger/9781982166694https://www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org/ https://www.lifespanresearch.orgwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“I had so many people around me when I was young– famous poets like Ary dos Santos, one of Portugal’s greatest poets of the 20th century. Sometimes he would be there talking with my mother, and I had this information that was getting in, but I wasn’t aware of it. And then in the early days, when I had just started playing, I was really into modern jazz, which was very instrumental, so I didn’t really pay attention to lyrics. It took me a while to get interested in Portuguese music, and in that mixture between jazz, Fado music and Portuguese popular music. For a while I was into the importance of a good poem. Now what moves me most of the time is that mixture of cultures— trying to do something that you cannot find in other countries. If you are into a lot of American jazz, for instance, you can play great music, but you are always playing music that started elsewhere, you know? And for a European like me, it’s challenging to try and find what makes you different in such a big market. What sound can you try to create that you wouldn’t hear in France or in Japan or in New York? So that's a very difficult challenge, actually, because you try to get really into your heart and your emotion. And I think Portugal has a lot of good emotions in its popular music that you don't find elsewhere. The music I make always has a kind of nostalgic ambience. It's not always sadness. It's a melancholic approach that is very hard to put into words– you just need to feel it.”Bernardo Moreira is one of the most active Portuguese double bassists. He has performed as a guest soloist with Gulbenkian, Metropolitan de Lisboa, and Nacional do Porto orchestras, and gained prominence for his collaborations with international artists, including the legendary Benny Colson, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Art Farmer, and Kenny Wheeler. He is a regular collaborator with many jazz musicians in Portugal, participating in formations such as the Maria João/Mário Laginha quartet, the Mário Laginha trio, and singer Cristina Branco. In 2021, he released Enter Paredes, and in 2022, he led Cantina’s de Main and SUL.www.clavenamao.orghttps://open.spotify.com/artist/0Yse2njeXg2XDiQmmxhAc5www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastMusic on this episode:António Marinheiro, Bernardo Moreira Sextet, from the album Entre Paredes PROMESSAS MIX V3 ULT from SULCourtesy of Bernardo Moreira

Bernardo Moreira is one of the most active Portuguese double bassists. He has performed as a guest soloist with Gulbenkian, Metropolitan de Lisboa, and Nacional do Porto orchestras, and gained prominence for his collaborations with international artists, including the legendary Benny Colson, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Art Farmer, and Kenny Wheeler. He is a regular collaborator with many jazz musicians in Portugal, participating in formations such as the Maria João/Mário Laginha quartet, the Mário Laginha trio, and singer Cristina Branco. In 2021, he released Enter Paredes, and in 2022, he led Cantina’s de Main and SUL.“I had so many people around me when I was young– famous poets like Ary dos Santos, one of Portugal’s greatest poets of the 20th century. Sometimes he would be there talking with my mother, and I had this information that was getting in, but I wasn’t aware of it. And then in the early days, when I had just started playing, I was really into modern jazz, which was very instrumental, so I didn’t really pay attention to lyrics. It took me a while to get interested in Portuguese music, and in that mixture between jazz, Fado music and Portuguese popular music. For a while I was into the importance of a good poem. Now what moves me most of the time is that mixture of cultures— trying to do something that you cannot find in other countries. If you are into a lot of American jazz, for instance, you can play great music, but you are always playing music that started elsewhere, you know? And for a European like me, it’s challenging to try and find what makes you different in such a big market. What sound can you try to create that you wouldn’t hear in France or in Japan or in New York? So that's a very difficult challenge, actually, because you try to get really into your heart and your emotion. And I think Portugal has a lot of good emotions in its popular music that you don't find elsewhere. The music I make always has a kind of nostalgic ambience. It's not always sadness. It's a melancholic approach that is very hard to put into words– you just need to feel it.”www.clavenamao.orghttps://open.spotify.com/artist/0Yse2njeXg2XDiQmmxhAc5www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastMusic on this episode:António Marinheiro, Bernardo Moreira Sextet, from the album Entre Paredes PROMESSAS MIX V3 ULT from SULCourtesy of Bernardo Moreira

"One of the things that we need to remember is that we are data stakeholders and not data subjects. We're often called data subjects if you look at the way legislation is written and tech companies talk about the users of their technology as data subjects.Being a subject casts this sort of 'you can't help but have this happen to you' effect. But we're actually data stakeholders for the reason that data cannot be created without us. If companies were incentivized to follow data minimization for example, where they only collect the data they need, that would change the way we interact with digital technologies."Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold?Wendy H. Wong is Professor of Political Science and Principal's Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She is the author of two award-winning books: Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights and (with Sarah S. Stroup) The Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of International NGOs. Her latest book is We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age.www.wendyhwong.comhttps://mitpress.mit.edu/author/wendy-h-wong-38397www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

Does privacy exist anymore? Or are humans just sets of data to be traded and sold?Wendy H. Wong is Professor of Political Science and Principal's Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. She is the author of two award-winning books: Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights and (with Sarah S. Stroup) The Authority Trap: Strategic Choices of International NGOs. Her latest book is We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age."One of the things that we need to remember is that we are data stakeholders and not data subjects. We're often called data subjects if you look at the way legislation is written and tech companies talk about the users of their technology as data subjects.Being a subject casts this sort of 'you can't help but have this happen to you' effect. But we're actually data stakeholders for the reason that data cannot be created without us. If companies were incentivized to follow data minimization for example, where they only collect the data they need, that would change the way we interact with digital technologies."www.wendyhwong.comhttps://mitpress.mit.edu/author/wendy-h-wong-38397www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

The more the science of intelligence (both human and artificial) advances, the more it holds the potential for great benefits and dangers to society.Max Bennett is the cofounder and CEO of Alby, a start-up that helps companies integrate large language models into their websites to create guided shopping and search experiences. Previously, Bennett was the cofounder and chief product offi­cer of Bluecore, one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S., providing AI technologies to some of the largest companies in the world. Bluecore has been featured in the annual Inc. 500 fastest growing com­panies, as well as Glassdoor’s 50 best places to work in the U.S. Bluecore was recently valued at over $1 bil­lion. Bennett holds several patents for AI technologies and has published numerous scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals on the topics of evolutionary neuro­science and the neocortex. He has been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list as well as the Built In NYC’s 30 Tech Leaders Under 30. He is the author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains."When I read some speculative fiction that moves me, for example, part of the reason it moves me is because it came from a human mind who experienced something they were trying to share with a fellow human mind. And it moves me because I can tell in the writing that another human felt something and wanted to share what they experienced, the pain or the joy they felt, or the story they built in their heads. And what I think is interesting about the stories created by ChatGPT is none of them have been any good yet. To me, the only distinction I can draw is when humans do it, there is a message imbued in the art because I am experiencing something as a feeling, thinking human, and I am channeling that into the thing that I'm creating as a little message gift and human solidarity to others who might experience it themselves. And I think that is something missing from AI that does that. And I think it might not be that they're not quote-unquote creative, but that the creativeness is almost vacuous because it lacks that message from another thinking sentient being that's trying to communicate with us. And that's why when we look at it, we see something feels missing. That's hard to articulate. So it begs an interesting question: Do you need to feel and suffer a little bit and to get the trials and triumphs of the human experience to write art that is compelling or to create art that is compelling and meaningful to a fellow human?"www.abriefhistoryofintelligence.com/ www.alby.com www.bluecore.com www.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"We're polluting the air that we breathe. We're polluting the seas and the waters. We're polluting the soil. We're polluting every aspect of our lives. So there's no getting away from it. That's absolutely sure. And yes, there is absolutely a way forward to make change. And yes, it is a question of relearning so much, without question. I mean, part of the reason that not only did I start the White Feather Foundation with indigenous tribes in mind back then. And then, one of the key ways forward for me was education, of course. I think that's been part of our problem worldwide. People just haven't known how serious or taken it seriously enough before. And there's so much propaganda that's misinformation that's pushed out into the world. You see in the film as well how the truth gets pushed away and shoved aside by money and greed and corporations. And that's a really difficult one to get over, but, you know, writing the children's books was a way to get in the same theme. Again, not shoving it down their throats, but presenting the situation as is and getting children to say...Reading and asking and reminding their parents, and relearning as well. Why is there plastic in the water? Why don't they have any water over there? Why, do you know, why? And there are answers for all of this, and the parents need to pick up on that too.But this should be made, you know, these two films and many more should be mandatory. I mean, you want to talk about Clockwork Orange...I don't mean pinning their eyes back, you know, forcing them to watch the film, but certainly, this really should become part of the curriculum in many ways.I hate to use the word logic all the time, but if you're not ignorant and you have an understanding about the world around you, then you know how you can help it. You can know how to make changes and how to move forward. And this is exactly what these films do.So, may that Josh and Rebecca and everybody who supports them continue moving forward and making more films because until things change, which they are changing, thankfully. I think it's a real credit to Josh and Rebecca, how many lives they've changed and how many eyes and ears they've opened through the course of their filmmaking."How can the arts inspire us to lead lives of greater meaning and connection? What kind of world are we leaving for future generations?Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of children's books. Executive Producer of Common Ground and its predecessor Kiss the Ground, which reached over 1 billion people and inspired the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The natural world and indigenous people are also the focus of Lennon’s other documentaries Whaledreamers, and Women of the White Buffalo. In 2007, Julian founded the global environmental and humanitarian organization The White Feather Foundation, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous culture, causes he also advances through his photography, exhibited across the US and Europe. His latest album Jude spans a body of work created over the last 30 years. Julian was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020.https://julianlennon.com https://commongroundfilm.org https://kissthegroundmovie.com https://whitefeatherfoundation.com https://julianlennon.lnk.to/JudeWE https://julianlennon-photography.comwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How can the arts inspire us to lead lives of greater meaning and connection? What kind of world are we leaving for future generations?Julian Lennon is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, photographer, documentary filmmaker, and NYTimes bestselling author of children's books. Executive Producer of Common Ground and its predecessor Kiss the Ground, which reached over 1 billion people and inspired the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. The natural world and indigenous people are also the focus of Lennon’s other documentaries Whaledreamers, and Women of the White Buffalo. In 2007, Julian founded the global environmental and humanitarian organization The White Feather Foundation, whose key initiatives are education, health, conservation, and the protection of indigenous culture, causes he also advances through his photography, exhibited across the US and Europe. His latest album Jude spans a body of work created over the last 30 years. Julian was named a Peace Laureate by UNESCO in 2020."We're polluting the air that we breathe. We're polluting the seas and the waters. We're polluting the soil. We're polluting every aspect of our lives. So there's no getting away from it. That's absolutely sure. And yes, there is absolutely a way forward to make change. And yes, it is a question of relearning so much, without question. I mean, part of the reason that not only did I start the White Feather Foundation with indigenous tribes in mind back then. And then, one of the key ways forward for me was education, of course. I think that's been part of our problem worldwide. People just haven't known how serious or taken it seriously enough before. And there's so much propaganda that's misinformation that's pushed out into the world. You see in the film as well how the truth gets pushed away and shoved aside by money and greed and corporations. And that's a really difficult one to get over, but, you know, writing the children's books was a way to get in the same theme. Again, not shoving it down their throats, but presenting the situation as is and getting children to say...Reading and asking and reminding their parents, and relearning as well. Why is there plastic in the water? Why don't they have any water over there? Why, do you know, why? And there are answers for all of this, and the parents need to pick up on that too.But this should be made, you know, these two films and many more should be mandatory. I mean, you want to talk about Clockwork Orange...I don't mean pinning their eyes back, you know, forcing them to watch the film, but certainly, this really should become part of the curriculum in many ways.I hate to use the word logic all the time, but if you're not ignorant and you have an understanding about the world around you, then you know how you can help it. You can know how to make changes and how to move forward. And this is exactly what these films do.So, may that Josh and Rebecca and everybody who supports them continue moving forward and making more films because until things change, which they are changing, thankfully. I think it's a real credit to Josh and Rebecca, how many lives they've changed and how many eyes and ears they've opened through the course of their filmmaking."https://julianlennon.com https://commongroundfilm.org https://kissthegroundmovie.com https://whitefeatherfoundation.com https://julianlennon.lnk.to/JudeWE https://julianlennon-photography.comwww.creativeprocess.info www.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast