"We are the extreme animal. We're certainly, technologically speaking, there's no comparison to what humans can do among all the animals that make some tools, even though we should keep in mind that for close to 200,000 years, humans who were essentially identical to us had no tools that were more complicated than a bow and arrow.
I think the most crucial thing is that while we are such extraordinary tinkerers that we can keep creating unbelievable kinds of technologies, we are not very smart about what we do with those things or seeing them through to the implications of what happens when we do these things. If we were wiser about it, we would conduct ourselves much more differently than the all-out charge that we conduct, where often we just follow some technology along without worrying about the implications of what will happen ultimately, or caring about what will happen ultimately, or denying what is happening as a result of the overuse of those technologies or the overpopulation of the world by human beings. And those are causing many of the problems that we have."
Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon, CNN.com, National Geographic News, and other publications. He is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.
www.safinacenter.org
www.carlsafina.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Photo: Carl Safina in Uganda
Carl Safina’s lyrical non-fiction writing explores how humans are changing the living world, and what the changes mean for non-human beings and for us all. His work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series Saving the Ocean with Carl Safina. His writing appears in The New York Times, National Geographic, Audubon, CNN.com, National Geographic News, and other publications. He is the author of ten books including the classic Song for the Blue Ocean, as well as New York Times Bestseller Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. His most recent book is Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace.
"We are the extreme animal. We're certainly, technologically speaking, there's no comparison to what humans can do among all the animals that make some tools, even though we should keep in mind that for close to 200,000 years, humans who were essentially identical to us had no tools that were more complicated than a bow and arrow.
I think the most crucial thing is that while we are such extraordinary tinkerers that we can keep creating unbelievable kinds of technologies, we are not very smart about what we do with those things or seeing them through to the implications of what happens when we do these things. If we were wiser about it, we would conduct ourselves much more differently than the all-out charge that we conduct, where often we just follow some technology along without worrying about the implications of what will happen ultimately, or caring about what will happen ultimately, or denying what is happening as a result of the overuse of those technologies or the overpopulation of the world by human beings. And those are causing many of the problems that we have."
www.safinacenter.org
www.carlsafina.org
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Photo: Carl Safina in Uganda
"So I think this observation that there are sensory cues available that are, either completely different to what's available to us, including a magnetic compass sense that's accessible to some animals, but not us. And also within the sensory modalities that we have available, you find often that different animals, including bees use them completely differently or have a completely different spectrum. So bees can see ultraviolet light. We cannot. And bats can hear ultrasound, but we cannot.
And we think because the way we sense our world is comprehensive and it feels comprehensive to us. And we feel that there is a validity to how we see it, we think that is a kind of complete picture of the environment and a vertical representation of what is out there. That is not the case. So other animals see the same world completely differently from how we do. And so there are limitations. We only perceive certain parts of the environment. Those parts that evolution has given us the kinds of sensors for that have been beneficial in our evolutionary past, but it's by no means a vertical or complete reflection of the environment."
Lars Chittka is professor of sensory and behavioral ecology at Queen Mary University of London, where he founded a new Research Centre for Psychology in 2008 and was its scientific director until 2012. He is the author of The Mind of a Bee and is the coeditor of Cognitive Ecology of Pollination. He studied Biology in Berlin and completed his PhD studies under the supervision of Randolf Menzel in 1993. He has carried out extensive work on the behaviour, cognition and ecology of bumble bees and honey bees, and their interactions with flowers. His discoveries have made a substantial impact on the understanding of animal intelligence and its neural-computational underpinnings. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles, and has been an editor of biology’s foremost open access journal PLoS Biology since 2004. He is an elected Member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), a Fellow of the Linnean Society and Royal Entomological Society, as well as the Royal Society of Biology.
http://chittkalab.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/Lars.html
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691180472/the-mind-of-a-bee
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Photo credit: Markus Scholz / Leopoldina
Lars Chittka is professor of sensory and behavioral ecology at Queen Mary University of London, where he founded a new Research Centre for Psychology in 2008 and was its scientific director until 2012. He is the author of The Mind of a Bee and is the coeditor of Cognitive Ecology of Pollination. He studied Biology in Berlin and completed his PhD studies under the supervision of Randolf Menzel in 1993. He has carried out extensive work on the behaviour, cognition and ecology of bumble bees and honey bees, and their interactions with flowers. His discoveries have made a substantial impact on the understanding of animal intelligence and its neural-computational underpinnings. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles, and has been an editor of biology’s foremost open access journal PLoS Biology since 2004. He is an elected Member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), a Fellow of the Linnean Society and Royal Entomological Society, as well as the Royal Society of Biology.
"So I think this observation that there are sensory cues available that are, either completely different to what's available to us, including a magnetic compass sense that's accessible to some animals, but not us. And also within the sensory modalities that we have available, you find often that different animals, including bees use them completely differently or have a completely different spectrum. So bees can see ultraviolet light. We cannot. And bats can hear ultrasound, but we cannot.
And we think because the way we sense our world is comprehensive and it feels comprehensive to us. And we feel that there is a validity to how we see it, we think that is a kind of complete picture of the environment and a vertical representation of what is out there. That is not the case. So other animals see the same world completely differently from how we do. And so there are limitations. We only perceive certain parts of the environment. Those parts that evolution has given us the kinds of sensors for that have been beneficial in our evolutionary past, but it's by no means a vertical or complete reflection of the environment."
http://chittkalab.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/Lars.html
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691180472/the-mind-of-a-bee
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
www.creativeprocess.info
Photo credit: Markus Scholz / Leopoldina
"If all jobs could be done more cheaply and better by AI, then what would we do? It would be a world without work, and I think that initially that sounds kind of frightening. How would we earn an income? What would we do all day long? I think it's also a big opportunity to rethink what it means to be human and what gives meaning in our lives. I think because we have been forced to work since the rise of our species, we had to earn our bread by the sweat of our brows.
We have kind of defined our identity and dignity around work. A lot of people take pride in being a breadwinner, in making a contribution to society by putting an effort and achieving some useful aims, but in this hypothetical future where that's not needed anymore. We would have to find some other basis for our human worth. Not what we can do to produce instrumental, useful outcomes, but maybe rather what we can be and experience to add value to the world by actually living happy and fulfilling lives. And so leisure culture, cultivating enjoyment of life, all the good things, happy conversation, appreciation for art, for natural beauty.
All of these things that are now seen as kind of gratuitous extras, little frills around the existence of the universe, maybe we would have to build those into the center. That would have profound consequences for how we educate people, the kinds of culture that we encourage, the habits and characters that we celebrate. That will require a big transition. But I think ultimately that is also an enormous opportunity to make the human experience much better than it currently is."
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish-born philosopher with a background in theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic, and artificial intelligence, as well as philosophy. He is the most-cited professional philosopher in the world under the age of 50.
He is a Professor at Oxford University, where he heads the Future of Humanity Institute as its founding director. He is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias, Global Catastrophic Risks, Human Enhancement, and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, a New York Times bestseller which helped spark a global conversation about the future of AI. He has also published a series of influential papers, including ones that introduced the simulation argument and the concept of existential risk.
Bostrom’s academic work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He is a repeat main TED speaker and has been on Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers list twice and was included in Prospect’s World Thinkers list, the youngest person in the top 15. As a graduate student he dabbled in stand-up comedy on the London circuit, but he has since reconnected with the heavy gloom of his Swedish roots.
https://nickbostrom.com
https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk
www.creativeprocess.info
www.oneplanetpodcast.org
From the publisher's feed
Philosophy episodes of the popular The Creative Process podcast. We speak to philosophers, writers, educators, spiritual leaders, environmentalists, bioethicists, artists & creative thinkers in other. disciplines To listen to ALL arts & education episodes of “The Creative Process · Arts, Culture & Society”, you’ll find our main podcast on Apple: tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, Spotify: tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Exploring the fascinating minds of creative people. Conversations with writers, artists & creative thinkers across the Arts & STEM. We discuss their life, work & artistic practice. Winners of Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Pulitzer, leaders & public figures share real experiences & offer valuable insights. Notable guests and participating museums and organizations include: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, Neil Patrick Harris, Smithsonian, Roxane Gay, Musée Picasso, EARTHDAY.ORG, Neil Gaiman, UNESCO, Joyce Carol Oates, Mark Seliger, Acropolis Museum, Hilary Mantel, Songwriters Hall of Fame, George Saunders, The New Museum, Lemony Snicket, Pritzker Architecture Prize, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine Galleries, Joe Mantegna, PETA, Greenpeace, EPA, Morgan Library & Museum, and many others.
The interviews are hosted by founder and creative educator Mia Funk with the participation of students, universities, and collaborators from around the world. These conversations are also part of our traveling exhibition. www.creativeprocess.info
For The Creative Process podcasts from Seasons 1, 2, 3 visit: tinyurl.com/creativepod or creativeprocess.info/interviews-page-1, which has our complete directory of interviews, transcripts, artworks, and details about ways to get involved.
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