AI & The Pathway to Flow with Neuroscientist, Fmr. Dancer DR. JULIA CHRISTENSEN

AI & The Pathway to Flow with Neuroscientist, Fmr. Dancer DR. JULIA CHRISTENSEN

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Neuroscientist · Fmr. Dancer
Author of The Pathway to Flow: The New Science of Harnessing Creativity to Heal and Unwind the Body & Mind

The state of being in flow and seeking out that state, sort of disappearing from the here and now... it must have been something that has been part of human cultures for many millennia. We know that, for example, dancing can bring you into these states. And we know from many anthropological works that people dance themselves into trance, a type of flow. So, there is that flow in this scientific sense of a state of well-being. And we will speak about what that does to our brain and our broader wellbeing, but also the flow in what cues enter into our senses. So that would be a scientific field that looks at brain synchrony, physiology synchrony, these waves that we see that sort of connect with us.

JONATHAN YEO - Celebrated Portrait Artist on the Importance of Connection & Intuitive Intelligence

JONATHAN YEO - Celebrated Portrait Artist on the Importance of Connection & Intuitive Intelligence

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Artist

What are you trying to do with the portrait? On a basic level, you're trying to communicate something about the essence of who someone is. You're trying to figure out who they are, not necessarily who they present themselves as. The two things can quite often be different. And then, you're trying to find ways of showing that through their face, their posture, or any other context. My instinct is always to try to reduce down to the essential elements. We read faces. It's obviously very, very deep in our DNA, really our survival instinct. We are programmed to read faces in a very fine-tuned way.

How can the arts help cultivate our intuitive intelligence? - Highlights - JONATHAN YEO

How can the arts help cultivate our intuitive intelligence? - Highlights - JONATHAN YEO

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Artist

What are you trying to do with the portrait? On a basic level, you're trying to communicate something about the essence of who someone is. You're trying to figure out who they are, not necessarily who they present themselves as. The two things can quite often be different. And then, you're trying to find ways of showing that through their face, their posture, or any other context. My instinct is always to try to reduce down to the essential elements. We read faces. It's obviously very, very deep in our DNA, really our survival instinct. We are programmed to read faces in a very fine-tuned way.

How has our biology shaped world history? - Highlights - LEWIS DARTNELL

How has our biology shaped world history? - Highlights - LEWIS DARTNELL

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Astrobiologist · Science Communicator
Author of Origins: How the Earth Made Us · Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History

The challenges facing our society at the moment effectively are the unintended consequence of a solution we found in the late 1700s when society was running out of energy, we had no more timber, and we realized we could dig underground for ancient fossilized woodland, which is basically what coal is from about 300 million years ago. The consequence of burning all that coal and then oil was a release of carbon dioxide, changing our atmosphere and warming the planet. So, it's a problem born out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness, but I'm confident that we will find the solution out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness.

LEWIS DARTNELL - Author of Origins: How the Earth Made Us & Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History

LEWIS DARTNELL - Author of Origins: How the Earth Made Us & Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History

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Astrobiologist · Science Communicator
Author of Origins: How the Earth Made Us · Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History

The challenges facing our society at the moment effectively are the unintended consequence of a solution we found in the late 1700s when society was running out of energy, we had no more timber, and we realized we could dig underground for ancient fossilized woodland, which is basically what coal is from about 300 million years ago. The consequence of burning all that coal and then oil was a release of carbon dioxide, changing our atmosphere and warming the planet. So, it's a problem born out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness, but I'm confident that we will find the solution out of our ingenuity and resourcefulness.

Does having too many choices make us unhappy? - Highlights - DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ

Does having too many choices make us unhappy? - Highlights - DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ

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Psychologist · Author of Why We Work
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

In 2004, 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?

DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ - Author of The Paradox of Choice & Why We Work

DR. BARRY SCHWARTZ - Author of The Paradox of Choice & Why We Work

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Psychologist · Author of Why We Work
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

In 2004, 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?

Highlights - HENRIK FEXEUS - Mentalist, Author & TV Host - The Art of Reading Minds, Mind Melt

Highlights - HENRIK FEXEUS - Mentalist, Author & TV Host - The Art of Reading Minds, Mind Melt

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Mentalist, Internationally Bestselling Author & TV Host
The Art of Reading Minds · Mind Storm · Cult · BOX

A mentalist is a kind of magician, an illusionist. And a mentalist uses whatever techniques are at that person's disposal to create the illusion of being able to read minds or being able to contact a supernatural presence…The only rule is that that part is fake, but then you can use techniques for magic or from stagecraft or from psychology. A mentalist is really someone who creates this illusion of having an almost supernatural ability. Having said that, today a mentalist sort of has come to mean something else, mainly due to popular culture TV series like The Mentalist and so on. And now there's this understanding of a mentalist as someone being able to read body language and influence behavior. It sort of ties into it all. And I've had a lifelong passion for magic, and it started when I was seven. Because I was always interested in the question: what if there's a color in the sky that we can't see? What if a handkerchief actually can vanish? What does that mean in terms of how the world works?

HENRIK FEXEUS - Mentalist, Author & TV Host “The Art of Reading Minds”,“Mind Melt”,“Cult”

HENRIK FEXEUS - Mentalist, Author & TV Host “The Art of Reading Minds”,“Mind Melt”,“Cult”

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Mentalist, Internationally Bestselling Author & TV Host
The Art of Reading Minds · Mind Storm · Cult · BOX

A mentalist is a kind of magician, an illusionist. And a mentalist uses whatever techniques are at that person's disposal to create the illusion of being able to read minds or being able to contact a supernatural presence…The only rule is that that part is fake, but then you can use techniques for magic or from stagecraft or from psychology. A mentalist is really someone who creates this illusion of having an almost supernatural ability. Having said that, today a mentalist sort of has come to mean something else, mainly due to popular culture TV series like The Mentalist and so on. And now there's this understanding of a mentalist as someone being able to read body language and influence behavior. It sort of ties into it all. And I've had a lifelong passion for magic, and it started when I was seven. Because I was always interested in the question: what if there's a color in the sky that we can't see? What if a handkerchief actually can vanish? What does that mean in terms of how the world works?

Highlights - BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living

Highlights - BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living

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Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living
Professor at University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences

In today's world, feeling happy is no longer simply a state of mind. It's become a marker of mental health and success. On the flip side, pain and sadness are viewed as signals of failure and sickness. If we're not happy, then there is something wrong with us, and we need to fix it. It is no wonder that the painkiller and antidepressant markets, already worth billions of dollars, continue their rapid expansion. We've come to treat even commonplace experiences of pain and sadness as pathological, as things that need to be medicated and eradicated.

BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living

BROCK BASTIAN - Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living

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Author of The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living
Professor at University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences

In today's world, feeling happy is no longer simply a state of mind. It's become a marker of mental health and success. On the flip side, pain and sadness are viewed as signals of failure and sickness. If we're not happy, then there is something wrong with us, and we need to fix it. It is no wonder that the painkiller and antidepressant markets, already worth billions of dollars, continue their rapid expansion. We've come to treat even commonplace experiences of pain and sadness as pathological, as things that need to be medicated and eradicated.

Highlights - Todd Kashdan - APA Award-winning Author of The Art of Insubordination, and Curious?

Highlights - Todd Kashdan - APA Award-winning Author of The Art of Insubordination, and Curious?

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APA Award-winning Author of The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively
Curious? · The Upside of Your Dark Side
Leading Authority on Well-being, Curiosity, Courage & Resilience

We're really talking about principled rebels. And when we talk about insubordination, we're talking about most of us live in these social hierarchies, and there's the idea, this started in the military and still goes on, where if someone at a lower rank questions or challenges a command or a norm that someone of a higher rank, that's considered an act of insubordination. And one of the main problems of that, I think anyone who's listening can acknowledge, is it depends on the quality of the idea of the person who's raising the question. I just realized there was this whole body of literature on minority influence that no one had put together into a book for the general public, and considering the racial reckoning that occurred during COVID-19, the extra attention to diversity, to disadvantaged groups, every moment of society, it just feels like it's more and more relevant of what I've been working on.

Todd Kashdan - Award-winning Author of “The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively”

Todd Kashdan - Award-winning Author of “The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively”

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APA Award-winning Author of The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively
Curious? · The Upside of Your Dark Side
Leading Authority on Well-being, Curiosity, Courage & Resilience

We're really talking about principled rebels. And when we talk about insubordination, we're talking about most of us live in these social hierarchies, and there's the idea, this started in the military and still goes on, where if someone at a lower rank questions or challenges a command or a norm that someone of a higher rank, that's considered an act of insubordination. And one of the main problems of that, I think anyone who's listening can acknowledge, is it depends on the quality of the idea of the person who's raising the question. I just realized there was this whole body of literature on minority influence that no one had put together into a book for the general public, and considering the racial reckoning that occurred during COVID-19, the extra attention to diversity, to disadvantaged groups, every moment of society, it just feels like it's more and more relevant of what I've been working on.

Highlights - Philip Fernbach - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director, Ctr. for Research, Consumer Financial Decision Making - Co-author, “The Knowledge Illusion”

Highlights - Philip Fernbach - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director, Ctr. for Research, Consumer Financial Decision Making - Co-author, “The Knowledge Illusion”

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Co-author of The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone
Cognitive Scientist · Co-Director of Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making, CU Boulder

The human mind is both genius and pathetic, brilliant and idiotic. People are capable of the most remarkable feats, achievements that defy the gods. We went from discovering the atomic nucleus in 1911 to megaton nuclear weapons in just over forty years. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and developed genetically modified tomatoes. And yet we are equally capable of the most remarkable demonstrations of hubris and foolhardiness. Each of us is error-prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant… How is it that people can simultaneously bowl us over with their ingenuity and disappoint us with their ignorance? How have we mastered so much despite how limited our understanding often is?

Philip Fernbach - Co-author of “The Knowledge Illusion” - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director of Ctr. for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making

Philip Fernbach - Co-author of “The Knowledge Illusion” - Cognitive Scientist - Co-Director of Ctr. for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making

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Co-author of The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone
Cognitive Scientist · Co-Director of Center for Research on Consumer Financial Decision Making, CU Boulder

The human mind is both genius and pathetic, brilliant and idiotic. People are capable of the most remarkable feats, achievements that defy the gods. We went from discovering the atomic nucleus in 1911 to megaton nuclear weapons in just over forty years. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and developed genetically modified tomatoes. And yet we are equally capable of the most remarkable demonstrations of hubris and foolhardiness. Each of us is error-prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant… How is it that people can simultaneously bowl us over with their ingenuity and disappoint us with their ignorance? How have we mastered so much despite how limited our understanding often is?

Highlights - Donald Hoffman - Author of “The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes”

Highlights - Donald Hoffman - Author of “The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes”

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Professor of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine
Author of The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes

This is really what life, I think, is about - learning to not believe your thoughts. Watch your thoughts, see their patterns and learn that you are not at the whim and beck and call of your thoughts. You can watch your thoughts, and you can choose to let go of thoughts and just be present and let go of the complaints. And that then opens up a level of creativity that's surprising. It could be in dance, science, it could be in music, or art. Wherever you have creative expression, letting go of thought and having this balance between thinking and no thinking, going into complete silence and then pulling ideas back for your art, your science, your dance, whatever it might be, is really the dance of life.

Donald Hoffman - Prof. of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine - Author of “The case against reality”

Donald Hoffman - Prof. of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine - Author of “The case against reality”

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Professor of Cognitive Sciences, UC Irvine
Author of The case against reality: Why evolution hid the truth from our eyes

This is really what life, I think, is about - learning to not believe your thoughts. Watch your thoughts, see their patterns and learn that you are not at the whim and beck and call of your thoughts. You can watch your thoughts, and you can choose to let go of thoughts and just be present and let go of the complaints. And that then opens up a level of creativity that's surprising. It could be in dance, science, it could be in music, or art. Wherever you have creative expression, letting go of thought and having this balance between thinking and no thinking, going into complete silence and then pulling ideas back for your art, your science, your dance, whatever it might be, is really the dance of life.