MELVIN VOPSON - Physicist - Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe

MELVIN VOPSON - Physicist - Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe

/

Physicist · Author of Reality Reloaded: The Scientific Case for a Simulated Universe
Co-founder & CEO of the Information Physics Institute

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 makes a good life? - Highlights - ROBERT WALDINGER, Psychiatrist, Author, Zen Priest

What makes a good life? - Highlights - ROBERT WALDINGER, Psychiatrist, Author, Zen Priest

/

Co-Author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development
Psychiatrist · Psychoanalyst · Zen Priest

It's a study of adult lifespan development and when it was started in 1938, it was actually radical to study normal development for two reasons. One is that most of what had been studied was about what goes wrong in development, which we still do because we want to try to help people who are having developmental problems.

So that makes a lot of sense, but to study what goes right in development, that was unheard of. The other thing is that for a long time, we certainly thought about children as developing because you can watch children change every day. That change happens so fast, but many people thought that once you got to be in your 20s, you were kind of done with development. You found a partner, you found a line of work, you were set with regard to your personality, and that was it, then you just lived your life.

And of course, now we understand that there's so much that changes and develops through the course of adult life, but my predecessors (I'm the fourth director) were really, insightful in their understanding of how much there was to learn about all the changes that happen across the adult lifespan.

ROBERT WALDINGER - Co-Author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

ROBERT WALDINGER - Co-Author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness

/

Co-Author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development
Psychiatrist · Psychoanalyst · Zen Priest

It's a study of adult lifespan development and when it was started in 1938, it was actually radical to study normal development for two reasons. One is that most of what had been studied was about what goes wrong in development, which we still do because we want to try to help people who are having developmental problems.

So that makes a lot of sense, but to study what goes right in development, that was unheard of. The other thing is that for a long time, we certainly thought about children as developing because you can watch children change every day. That change happens so fast, but many people thought that once you got to be in your 20s, you were kind of done with development. You found a partner, you found a line of work, you were set with regard to your personality, and that was it, then you just lived your life.

And of course, now we understand that there's so much that changes and develops through the course of adult life, but my predecessors (I'm the fourth director) were really, insightful in their understanding of how much there was to learn about all the changes that happen across the adult lifespan.

MAX BENNETT - Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains - CEO of Alby

MAX BENNETT - Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains - CEO of Alby

/

Author of A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains
Cofounder & CEO of Alby · Fmr. Cofounder & CPO of Bluecore

So, modern neuroscientists are questioning if there really is one consistent limbic system. But usually when we're looking at the limbic system, we're thinking about things like emotion, volition, and goals. And those types of things, I would argue reinforcement learning algorithms, at least on a primitive level, we already have because the way that we get them to achieve goals like play a game of go and win is we give them a reward signal or a reward function. And then we let them self-play and teach themselves based on maximizing that reward. But that doesn't mean that they're self-aware, doesn't mean that they're experiencing anything at all. There's a fascinating set of questions in the AI community around what's called the reward hypothesis, which is how much of intelligent behavior can be understood through the lens of just trying to optimize a reward signal. We are more than just trying to optimize reward signals. We do things to try and reinforce our own identities. We do things to try and understand ourselves. These are attributes that are hard to explain from a simple reward signal, but do make sense. And other conceptions of intelligence like Karl Friston's active inference where we build a model of ourselves and try and reinforce that model.

Highlights - JULIAN LENNON - Singer-songwriter, Author, Founder of The White Feather Foundation, Doc Filmmaker

Highlights - JULIAN LENNON - Singer-songwriter, Author, Founder of The White Feather Foundation, Doc Filmmaker

/

Singer-songwriter · Photographer · Documentary Filmmaker
Founder of The White Feather Foundation
Executive Producer of Common Ground

I thought, wow, how are they going to bring this across in a way that isn't shoving things down people's throats? It's presenting information in a way that is creative, but also in a way that drives your curiosity into understanding, number one, why are we in the position that we're in? And number two, how can we fix this? What can we do to change all of this? And so, I initially got involved as an executive producer on Kiss the Ground, and I was blown away by how that film came out at the end. How well rounded it was, the flow of the film, the storytelling, and really feeding me information that I didn't even know previously. And so also watching that become a platform around the world was jaw-dropping. I mean, the fact that the belief and the understanding and the wisdom that came out of that project has touched so many hearts, minds, and souls around the world, that people are really single-handedly almost making change for the better around the world. Now, when Common Ground was presented, I did love that concept because Kiss the Ground had been very much a broad approach and about America, for the majority, really, and Common Ground was a much more...I mean, we're still dealing with the same subject matter obviously, but I think it felt great to come from a more personal aspect." 

JULIAN LENNON - Singer-songwriter, Author, Doc Filmmaker, Exec. Producer of Common Ground

JULIAN LENNON - Singer-songwriter, Author, Doc Filmmaker, Exec. Producer of Common Ground

/

Singer-songwriter · Photographer · Documentary Filmmaker
Founder of The White Feather Foundation
Executive Producer of Common Ground

I thought, wow, how are they going to bring this across in a way that isn't shoving things down people's throats? It's presenting information in a way that is creative, but also in a way that drives your curiosity into understanding, number one, why are we in the position that we're in? And number two, how can we fix this? What can we do to change all of this? And so, I initially got involved as an executive producer on Kiss the Ground, and I was blown away by how that film came out at the end. How well rounded it was, the flow of the film, the storytelling, and really feeding me information that I didn't even know previously. And so also watching that become a platform around the world was jaw-dropping. I mean, the fact that the belief and the understanding and the wisdom that came out of that project has touched so many hearts, minds, and souls around the world, that people are really single-handedly almost making change for the better around the world. Now, when Common Ground was presented, I did love that concept because Kiss the Ground had been very much a broad approach and about America, for the majority, really, and Common Ground was a much more...I mean, we're still dealing with the same subject matter obviously, but I think it felt great to come from a more personal aspect." 

DUANE L. CADY - Philosopher, Author of Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking & From Warism to Pacifism

DUANE L. CADY - Philosopher, Author of Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking & From Warism to Pacifism

/

Author of Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking · From Warism to Pacifism
Philosopher · Outstanding Educator of the Year · United Methodist Foundation for Higher Education

Warism, taking war for granted as morally acceptable, even morally required, is the primary obstacle to peace. The task for us is to understand how we can get moral visions and then consider the ethics of negotiating between and among them, including collisions between moral visions. So my interest is in the extent to which various forms of reason take part in these different projects. I argue that contemporary technical philosophers tend to avoid this kind of problem. They tend to think of reason as much more narrow, whereas I want to include things like ordinary experience, the arts, theater, and reading a book. All those things can have an effect.

HOWARD GARDNER - Author of A Synthesizing Mind & Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences - Co-director of The Good Project

HOWARD GARDNER - Author of A Synthesizing Mind & Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences - Co-director of The Good Project

/

Author of A Synthesizing Mind · Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
Co-director of The Good Project

The garden that makes up one's mind is always to some extent the flowers and trees that we get from our families genetically, but also we get from our families culturally. I became interested in synthesis and I wrote the memoir quite a while ago, but now with the advent of large language instruments or ChatGPT, the pressure to figure out what synthesis is, what these computing systems can or can't do that human beings are still the privileged cohort in carrying out those tasks, that's made the interest in synthesis more important than ever. If we're trying to decide what policy to cover, whether it's an economic policy about interest rates, or whether - we're talking now during the beginning of the war in the Middle East - what policies to follow militarily, economically, and ethically. For that matter, do we entrust that to some kind of a computational system, or is this something that human judgment needs to be brought to bear?

Speaking Out of Place: BILL McKIBBEN, Co-Founder of 350.org, Founder Third Act & CAROLINE LEVINE, Author of The Activist Humanist

Speaking Out of Place: BILL McKIBBEN, Co-Founder of 350.org, Founder Third Act & CAROLINE LEVINE, Author of The Activist Humanist

/

Co-Founder of 350.org · Founder Third Act · Author of The Activist Humanist

Viewed one way, we live in a very hopeful moment. Thanks to in large part the work of university scientists and engineers, we now live on a planet where the cheapest way to produce power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun. That is to say, we could run our Earth on energy from heaven instead of hell, and we could do it fast. The fast is the hard part here. The only difference between all the examples of the long victories of social justice activism that we're in now is that this one is a time-limited problem. If we don't solve it fast, then no one's got a plan for how you refreeze the Arctic once you've melted it. And so we have to move very quickly. Our systems are not designed to move quickly. It's the easiest thing in the world to slow down and delay change, which is all that the fossil fuel industry at this point is trying to do, and that means that it's time for maximum effort from all of us. The story to tell is that the planet is outside its comfort zone, so we need to be outside ours.

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA - Founder/CEO, Conservation Through Public Health - UN Champion of the Earth for Science & Innovation

GLADYS KALEMA-ZIKUSOKA - Founder/CEO, Conservation Through Public Health - UN Champion of the Earth for Science & Innovation

/

Founder & CEO of Conservation Through Public Health
UN Champion of the Earth for Science & Innovation · Whitley Award Winner
Author of Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet.

So you're never too young to make a difference. And I think what I would like to tell many young people is to follow your dreams and the rest will follow. Even if what you're trying to do is something that no one has ever done before. Or let's say women are not considered, it's a male-dominated profession. Wildlife conservation, veterinary medicine in Uganda is still very male-dominated. And you shouldn't really worry about what people think about you, what culture, or society expects you to be doing. If you feel that it's an important thing to do, you should go ahead and do it. And it's so important to protect the natural world, to protect nature and the wildlife because we, we protect nature, we protect nature. We are ultimately protecting ourselves. Gorillas are so few numbers still. I mean, we are happy that the numbers are growing because of so many successful conservation efforts.

MARY HAYASHI - Healthcare Advocate, Former Assemblymember - Author of Women in Politics

MARY HAYASHI - Healthcare Advocate, Former Assemblymember - Author of Women in Politics

/

Healthcare Advocate · Former Assemblymember · Author of Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation

One of the studies I mentioned in the book is people don't see women as leaders and the barriers you experience as a candidate during a campaign. And even after you win and you're serving inside the government, there are still challenges to overcome. Last year, we had a record number of women elected and becoming leaders in government positions, but it doesn't mean their path is easy or it's set. Because of gender bias, women are supposed to be coalition builders and not supposed to be ambitious. One of the things that I talk a lot about is the ambition gap. When women show ambition, we're penalized. People are often suspicious of our motivation. It's like, why is she running? What is she about? And being an Asian American woman, I was perceived by my colleagues after I won and chaired one of the most powerful policy committees in the legislature, I often felt like people didn't know how to engage with me as a peer. They'd never seen an Asian American woman in that role before and so they would criticize me for being too ambitious or too aggressive, or too opinionated. And that really takes a toll on you just emotionally. I wasn't raised that way, but when you have an opinion, people are just not used to seeing Asian women as peers in that role and that really needs to change. And I think it will over time as they see more people like us serving in leadership roles.

Highlights - LEAH THOMAS - Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet

Highlights - LEAH THOMAS - Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet

/

Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet
Founder of @greengirlleah & The Intersectional Environmentalist platform

Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and those are environmental injustices. So I thought it was important to have an intersectional approach to environmental advocacy that doesn't ignore these things and these intersections of identity, but explores them to make sure that every community, especially those most impacted by environmental injustices, no longer are. And I wanted to write a really accessible introduction that was targeted at school kids or anyone who wants to learn more.

LEAH THOMAS - Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist - Founder of IE Platform & @GreenGirlLeah

LEAH THOMAS - Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist - Founder of IE Platform & @GreenGirlLeah

/

Author of The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet
Founder of @greengirlleah & The Intersectional Environmentalist platform

Intersectional Environmentalism to me means prioritizing social justice in environmental movements and really thinking about what communities are most impacted by different environmental injustices. So, for example, in the United States, a lot of communities of color, Black, Indigenous communities, and also lower-income communities struggle with things like unclean air and unclean water, and those are environmental injustices. So I thought it was important to have an intersectional approach to environmental advocacy that doesn't ignore these things and these intersections of identity, but explores them to make sure that every community, especially those most impacted by environmental injustices, no longer are. And I wanted to write a really accessible introduction that was targeted at school kids or anyone who wants to learn more.

Highlights - ANDREW KLAVAN - Author of True Crime dir. Clint Eastwood - Don’t Say a Word starring Michael Douglas

Highlights - ANDREW KLAVAN - Author of True Crime dir. Clint Eastwood - Don’t Say a Word starring Michael Douglas

/

Edgar Award-winning Author of The House of Love and Death
True Crime dir. Clint Eastwood · Don’t Say a Word starring Michael Douglas
Journalist & Podcast Host

I think that the modern sensibility and certainly the post-modern sensibility tells us that everything is self-referential. That if we have a certain feeling, it's because of our chemistry, it's because of our sexuality or urges that come within ourselves. But the older way of thinking is that we're in a relationship with a world that actually is reflected in our mind. And I think that that older sensibility is probably closer to the truth. It explains a lot more. It makes a lot more sense of things.

So every writer knows this, that he's not actually drawing so much from himself as some kind of literal inspiration, some kind of breathing into him that connects him, his own experiences, his childhood experiences, life experiences, his mental experiences with something that is very real outside him. And what he's trying to do in art, I think, is communicate that experience to other people in the only way possible. You can't describe it, you can't put adjectives into it. You have to dramatize it or paint a picture of it or write a song about it. That's the way human beings communicate the experience of being human.

ANDREW KLAVAN - Edgar Award-winning Author of The House of Love and Death - True Crime - Don’t Say a Word

ANDREW KLAVAN - Edgar Award-winning Author of The House of Love and Death - True Crime - Don’t Say a Word

/

Edgar Award-winning Author of The House of Love and Death
True Crime dir. Clint Eastwood · Don’t Say a Word starring Michael Douglas
Journalist & Podcast Host

I think that the modern sensibility and certainly the post-modern sensibility tells us that everything is self-referential. That if we have a certain feeling, it's because of our chemistry, it's because of our sexuality or urges that come within ourselves. But the older way of thinking is that we're in a relationship with a world that actually is reflected in our mind. And I think that that older sensibility is probably closer to the truth. It explains a lot more. It makes a lot more sense of things.

So every writer knows this, that he's not actually drawing so much from himself as some kind of literal inspiration, some kind of breathing into him that connects him, his own experiences, his childhood experiences, life experiences, his mental experiences with something that is very real outside him. And what he's trying to do in art, I think, is communicate that experience to other people in the only way possible. You can't describe it, you can't put adjectives into it. You have to dramatize it or paint a picture of it or write a song about it. That's the way human beings communicate the experience of being human.

Highlights - MICHAEL S. ROTH - President of Wesleyan University - Author of The Student: A Short History

Highlights - MICHAEL S. ROTH - President of Wesleyan University - Author of The Student: A Short History

/

President of Wesleyan University
Author of The Student: A Short History

So I wrote this book and it was a lot of fun because I had to learn so much. The book examines three iconic teachers: Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus. And I look at how each of those teachers encourage a certain kind of student. The student as follower, someone who will take on the path that you've developed. In the case of Socrates, the student as critical interlocutor or critical conversation partner, someone who will, in dialogue with you, learn what they don't know, how to take things apart. And in the case of Jesus and the apostles, I look at trying to imitate a way of life to transform themselves to strive towards being the kind of person that Jesus incarnated. And so that's the beginning of the book, these models of studenthood, if I could use that word, and being a teacher. And then I look at the way in which these ideas reverberate in the West across a long period of time. So I'm interested in the idea of the student before there were schools. What did we expect young people to learn even when they weren't going to school?

MICHAEL S. ROTH - Author of The Student: A Short History - President of Wesleyan University

MICHAEL S. ROTH - Author of The Student: A Short History - President of Wesleyan University

/

President of Wesleyan University
Author of The Student: A Short History

So I wrote this book and it was a lot of fun because I had to learn so much. The book examines three iconic teachers: Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus. And I look at how each of those teachers encourage a certain kind of student. The student as follower, someone who will take on the path that you've developed. In the case of Socrates, the student as critical interlocutor or critical conversation partner, someone who will, in dialogue with you, learn what they don't know, how to take things apart. And in the case of Jesus and the apostles, I look at trying to imitate a way of life to transform themselves to strive towards being the kind of person that Jesus incarnated. And so that's the beginning of the book, these models of studenthood, if I could use that word, and being a teacher. And then I look at the way in which these ideas reverberate in the West across a long period of time. So I'm interested in the idea of the student before there were schools. What did we expect young people to learn even when they weren't going to school?

Highlights - BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab - Author of The Future You

Highlights - BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Director of the ASU Threatcasting Lab - Author of The Future You

/

Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted
Director of the Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab
Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

Let's talk about technology and the role of humanity and the role of being human and what it means to be present in that. We need to keep humans at the center of everything that we do, that everything that we do in our life is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be technologies and businesses and all these things in between, but we should measure the effect on humans.

When I talk to people about artificial intelligence or technology, I'm generally asking them two questions. What are you optimizing for? What's the effect that you're trying to get? Developing technology for technology's sake, although it can be kind of interesting...then is why you're doing it because you think it's interesting? But then ultimately, if you're doing it beyond your own gratification, why are you doing it?

So much of what I do in that is talking to governments and militaries and large organizations to say we always have to keep humans in the loop. You have to keep humans in the center because it's about us. That really is incredibly important. And that's one of the central ideas in the future. The future should be about humans, and where are humans going. And what do we want as humans? And how are we using technology to make us more human, or healthier, or happier, or more productive?

BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted - Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON - Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted - Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

/

Author of The Future You: How to Create the Life You Always Wanted
Director of the Arizona State University’s Threatcasting Lab
Futurist in Residence, ASU’s Center for Science & the Imagination

Let's talk about technology and the role of humanity and the role of being human and what it means to be present in that. We need to keep humans at the center of everything that we do, that everything that we do in our life is about humans. It begins with humans and ends with humans. There might be technologies and businesses and all these things in between, but we should measure the effect on humans.

When I talk to people about artificial intelligence or technology, I'm generally asking them two questions. What are you optimizing for? What's the effect that you're trying to get? Developing technology for technology's sake, although it can be kind of interesting...then is why you're doing it because you think it's interesting? But then ultimately, if you're doing it beyond your own gratification, why are you doing it?

So much of what I do in that is talking to governments and militaries and large organizations to say we always have to keep humans in the loop. You have to keep humans in the center because it's about us. That really is incredibly important. And that's one of the central ideas in the future. The future should be about humans, and where are humans going. And what do we want as humans? And how are we using technology to make us more human, or healthier, or happier, or more productive?

Highlights - RICK BASS - Author & Environmentalist - “Why I Came West”, “For a Little While”

Highlights - RICK BASS - Author & Environmentalist - “Why I Came West”, “For a Little While”

/

Environmentalist & Story Prize Award-winning Author
Why I Came West · For a Little While · The Traveling Feast

I grieve the changes to the four seasons that are happening here in Montana. One of the great things about this place is having four distinct seasons, and now they're tilted. Some are short, some are long, and some don't exist anymore. And that's unsettling, to say the least. It's not a fear of what's coming. It's a grief for what's gone away. I'm mindful of the pressure that we are putting on the generations who follow us and the mandate to have fun, to be fully human, to be joyous, to celebrate, and to enjoy being in the midst of nature's beauty.