Visionaries

Visionaries - 01.22.17

“TV Shows, Movies and Philosophical Zombies.” Today Lobell was supposed to continue with his book recommendations, but he got distracted by artificial intelligence, TV shows, and philosophical zombies. He discusses the new TV series, “Counterpart” about parallel universe intelligence agencies, and also creatures with no inner life.

Visionaries - 01.15.17

“A Reading List: Part 2.” Today Lobell continues through his list of audiobooks chats about each one. In this show we cover: :How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines,” by Thomas C. Foster. “Revolutionary Wealth: How It Will Be Created and How It Will Change Our Lives, by Alvin and Heidi Toffler. “A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age,” by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni. “American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road,” by Nick Bilton. “The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency,” by Annie Jacobsen. “To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death,” by Mark O'Connell. Tune in next time for more, and call in with your book recommendations.

Visionaries - 01.09.17

“A Reading List: Part 1.” Today Lobell goes through his list of audiobooks chats about each one. In this show we cover: “The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball” by Noam Cohen, “Dawn of the New Everything: Encounters with Reality and Virtual Reality” by Jaron Lanier, “Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life” by Daniel C. Dennett, “The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality” by Paul Halpern, “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House by Donna Brazile, “Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, and “Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” by Max Tegmark. Tune in next time for more.

 

Visionaries - 12.19.17

“Extreme Life Extension: Part 2.” Last week we talked about extreme life extension—what if we could live for hundreds of years. Today we talk about what we might do with such long lives. (Oh, and check out http://timeship.org a project on which I work. More on Timeship in a future show.)

Visionaries - 12.11.17

“Extreme Life Extension.” The past 200 years has see (roughly) a doubling of the average life span. But 80 years seems to be a common limit, and perhaps 125 is the absolute limit. But what if we could live for hundreds, even thousands of years. That is the goal of some researchers today who assume that in perhaps 50 years we will be able to stop aging all together. And for those who won’t make it through the next 50 years, there is cryonics. Today’s show looks at some of the issues surrounding “extreme life extension.” (Oh, and check out http://timeship.org a project on which I work. More on Timeship in a future show.)

Visionaries - 11.20.17

“Enemies of Creativity.” We think of creativity as a positive thing, but not everyone is always happy about it — with creation comes destruction. Think of Uber — the yellow taxi industry is not too happy about it. More generally, creativity is a celebration of individuality — long on the hit list of many groups. Today we look at some of the enemies of creativity.

Visionaries - 11.13.17

“Michael Silver.” Once again we check in with Mike to see what is up in consciousness, A.I., and stuff like that. Mike is an architect, cultural commentator, professor, student of consciousness and principal of Critical Systems Lab. He works in robotics among other fields. Today we discuss Artificial Intelligence, Consciousness, and the mind/body problem. That should cover it.

 

Visionaries - 11.06.17

“Christopher Vogler:” Chris is a Hollywood development executive known for his 2007 book “The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers,” a guide for screenwriters. The book grew out of his now legendary 7 page memo, “A Practical Guide to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Chris’s approach not only reveals the mythic patterns underlying our movies, but also underlying ourselves — thus becoming a psychology.

 

Visionaries - 10.30.17

“Inside Education.” We use the term “inside baseball” and “deep in the weeds” when political talk gets wonkish. We can also get wonkish about design education, and in doing so, address a lot of today’s issues. Like what will be the impact of the digital industrial revolution on every aspect of our lives.

Visionaries - 10.23.17

“Meandering Thoughts on One, Two, Three Cultures.” In 1959 C. P. Snow published “The Two Cultures” observing that a split had grown between the sciences and the humanities. More recently John Brockman, the empresario of science as the new culture, published “The Third Culture,” suggesting that science as philosophy had become a third (and the real) culture. Today we ruminate about all of this.