Philosophy, Ideas, Critical Thinking, Ethics & Morality: The Creative Process: Philosophers, Writers, Educators, Creative Thinkers, Spiritual Leaders, Environmentalists & Bioethicists

How does a changing climate affect our minds, brains and bodies?Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and Bodies, which explores the neurobiological impacts of rapid environmental change."Our brain is the organ from which our rich experience of the world arises. Brains are responsible for love, for sadness, and these profound experiences are those in which I sought to investigate."https://claytonaldern.comwww.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717097/the-weight-of-nature-by-clayton-page-aldern https://csde.washington.edu www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

“Doubling is kind of a big theme, and maybe it always is in spy literature, but maybe I think that that's why Viet chose to write a spy novel in a way and play with those sort of tropes because it's central and I think it's central to the message of the show and of the book. This idea that there's another side to every question. I mean, that's the central quandary. There's this problem with the whole Vietnam War. It's saying to Americans, at least put yourself on the other side, the Vietnamese side, and then recognize that that side also has two sides and then within that, there are further divisions. And if you do that, I think what it's proposing is that you have to step back. It forces a sort of objectivity and humility, and it asks you to step back and allow the bigger human questions to resonate."Don McKellar is a highly accomplished writer, director, and actor. He has written films including Roadkill, Highway 61, Dance Me Outside, The Red Violin, and Blindness. He won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for his directorial debut, Last Night, which he also wrote and starred in. He is an eight-time Genie Award nominee and a two-time winner.He wrote the book for the acclaimed musical The Drowsy Chaperone, for which he received a Tony Award. Most recently, Don served as writer, executive producer, and co-showrunner on The Sympathizer, a television adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The series was co-created with Park Chan-wook.www.imdb.com/name/nm0001528/mediaviewer/rm2411273728/?ref_=nm_ov_phwww.imdb.com/title/tt14404618/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_the%20sympawww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhoto courtesy of HBO

What are the stories we tell ourselves to justify our actions in times of war? How can the arts convey complexity and foster understanding?Don McKellar is a highly accomplished writer, director, and actor. He has written films including Roadkill, Highway 61, Dance Me Outside, The Red Violin, and Blindness. He won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for his directorial debut, Last Night, which he also wrote and starred in. He is an eight-time Genie Award nominee and a two-time winner.He wrote the book for the acclaimed musical The Drowsy Chaperone, for which he received a Tony Award. Most recently, Don served as writer, executive producer, and co-showrunner on The Sympathizer, a television adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The series was co-created with Park Chan-wook.“Doubling is kind of a big theme, and maybe it always is in spy literature, but maybe I think that that's why Viet chose to write a spy novel in a way and play with those sort of tropes because it's central and I think it's central to the message of the show and of the book. This idea that there's another side to every question. I mean, that's the central quandary. There's this problem with the whole Vietnam War. It's saying to Americans, at least put yourself on the other side, the Vietnamese side, and then recognize that that side also has two sides and then within that, there are further divisions. And if you do that, I think what it's proposing is that you have to step back. It forces a sort of objectivity and humility, and it asks you to step back and allow the bigger human questions to resonate."www.imdb.com/name/nm0001528/mediaviewer/rm2411273728/?ref_=nm_ov_phwww.imdb.com/title/tt14404618/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_the%20sympawww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.org IG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastPhotos courtesy of HBOSusan Downey, Robert Downey Jr., Don McKellarRobert Downey Jr. in The Sympathizer, photo by Beth Dubber/HBOHoa Xuande in The Sympathizer, photo by Hopper Stone/HBO

"You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance.""Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beautiful book and it was the reason that made me want to do it. Jeff Daniels gave me the book. He'd been having trouble getting it made, getting a script that he liked. And he said to me, "Will you read this and just remind me what I love about it? And if you feel that way?" And I read it very quickly and felt that it was terrific. And there were a lot of possibilities in making it. So just kudos to Philipp Meyer. He wrote a beautiful novel. And if anybody's listening is looking for a great novel to read, there's that and there's Adam Rapp's novel Wolf at the Table."Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee.Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders. www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246www.imdb.com/name/nm1452688/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1www.imdb.com/title/tt1532495/ https://outsidersmusical.com/ www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-rapp/wolf-at-the-table/9780316434164/?lens=little-brownwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What role do the families we’re born into or the traumas we experience shape the people we become? Do good deeds offset bad deeds? How can the arts increase our capacity for empathy, understanding, and kindness?Dan Futterman is creator, executive producer, and writer of Amazon Prime's American Rust, the acclaimed crime drama starring Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, and David Alvarez. Previously, Dan has written screenplays for Capote, Foxcatcher, In Treatment, and Gracepoint. He served as executive producer on The Looming Tower. Dan is also an actor, director, and two-time Oscar nominee.Adam Rapp is the executive producer and writer of American Rust. He has written plays, films, and series, including Red Light Winter, The Sound Inside, In Treatment, Blackbird, The Looming Tower, and Dexter: New Blood. His latest novel is Wolf at the Table. He recently wrote the book for the new Broadway musical, The Outsiders."You can't choose your family. You know, I hear that all the time. I'm always amazed when I see families that stick together and wind up being friends at the second, third, fourth decades of their lives. I didn't grow up with that. I didn't see that. I've only seen it as an adult, and it's remarkable when I see it. So I think viewers will relate to this nature versus nurture versus DNA, raising all the questions of psychological and biological inheritance.""Philipp Meyer wrote a very, very beautiful book and it was the reason that made me want to do it. Jeff Daniels gave me the book. He'd been having trouble getting it made, getting a script that he liked. And he said to me, "Will you read this and just remind me what I love about it? And if you feel that way?" And I read it very quickly and felt that it was terrific. And there were a lot of possibilities in making it. So just kudos to Philipp Meyer. He wrote a beautiful novel. And if anybody's listening is looking for a great novel to read, there's that and there's Adam Rapp's novel Wolf at the Table." www.imdb.com/name/nm0001246www.imdb.com/name/nm1452688/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1www.imdb.com/title/tt1532495/ https://outsidersmusical.com/ www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-rapp/wolf-at-the-table/9780316434164/?lens=little-brownwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"The Judeo-Christian idea is of Adam in the Garden of Eden, where he's given dominion over all things on the Earth, including plants and animals, and he is in a superior position, and the living world is subordinate to him. And you have this idea of a kind of divine approval for this hierarchy. Then, in the 17th century, Descartes comes along, and he takes the idea from Aristotle that what humans have is the capacity to reason, and they have the capacity to speak. And that is what fundamentally distinguishes humans from other animals is they have the capacity to speak, and they have capacity to speak a particular kind of language that allows us to express the results of a rational thinking, and all of that's very much concentrated in the mind.So, what's happening, of course, is that alongside this, we find that the idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative."Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. He is the current holder of the Chair of French (est. 1776) at TCD. He is the author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene, Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene, and other books.www.tcd.ie/French/people/michaelcronin.phpwww.cambridge.org/core/books/ecotravel/24263DF8E2E021915FEF4F937F146D25www.routledge.com/Eco-Translation-Translation-and-Ecology-in-the-Age-of-the-Anthropocene/Cronin/p/book/9781138916845www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

How has tourism and writing about travel contributed to the ecological degradation of the planet?How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more-than-human world?Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. He is the current holder of the Chair of French (est. 1776) at TCD. He is the author of Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene, Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene, and other books."The Judeo-Christian idea is of Adam in the Garden of Eden, where he's given dominion over all things on the Earth, including plants and animals, and he is in a superior position, and the living world is subordinate to him. And you have this idea of a kind of divine approval for this hierarchy. Then, in the 17th century, Descartes comes along, and he takes the idea from Aristotle that what humans have is the capacity to reason, and they have the capacity to speak. And that is what fundamentally distinguishes humans from other animals is they have the capacity to speak, and they have capacity to speak a particular kind of language that allows us to express the results of a rational thinking, and all of that's very much concentrated in the mind.So, what's happening, of course, is that alongside this, we find that the idea of a kind of inert world that is simply there for our pleasure, enjoyment, and exploitation has proved to be catastrophically mistaken because we see it with flooding, we see it with forest fires. We see it with acidification of the oceans. We see it with the continuing rise in temperatures that the world itself, the more-than-human world is fighting back. It has taken on its own agency. And therefore, the idea of a pyramid, a hierarchy, is no longer operative."www.tcd.ie/French/people/michaelcronin.phpwww.cambridge.org/core/books/ecotravel/24263DF8E2E021915FEF4F937F146D25www.routledge.com/Eco-Translation-Translation-and-Ecology-in-the-Age-of-the-Anthropocene/Cronin/p/book/9781138916845www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

"I think it's really a crossroads between knowledge and wisdom. And I think that wisdom for me is so connected to nature and the information that we get from nature. We ultimately are part of the natural world. And the knowledge of knowing things and facts and these kinds of bits of information doesn't necessarily mean that we are going in the right direction that we know things. In this space, a lot of wisdom is being lost... About being connected to an earlier time. I feel that that's true. Language is being diminished. There's so many things that are being diminished in this moment. And yet, we're creating something that is going to have vastly more knowledge. But this is where it splits. And what is the idea of consciousness? Is wisdom something that's external? Is it something that is more related to quantum physics and the quantum world, more than just the physical body and the physical brain?"Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He has composed for Wayne McGregor (The Royal Ballet, London), Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Ammonite starring Kate Winslet, and The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes. He produced Katy Perry’s “Into Me You See” from her album Witness and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance. With six solo albums under his name, his latest album 1 0 0 1, which explores ideas of technology, humanity and mind-body dualism, is available on Deutsche Grammophon.https://dustinohalloran.com/www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/dustin-o-halloranwww.imdb.com/name/nm0641169/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_smMusic courtesy of Dustin O’Halloran and Deutsche Grammophonwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

What will happen when Artificial General Intelligence arrives? What is the nature of consciousness? How are music and creativity pathways for reconnecting us to our humanity and the natural world?Dustin O’Halloran is a pianist and composer and member of the band A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Winner of a 2015 Emmy Award for his main title theme to Amazon's comedy drama Transparent, he was also nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA for his score for Lion, written in collaboration with Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka). He has composed for Wayne McGregor (The Royal Ballet, London), Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Ammonite starring Kate Winslet, and The Essex Serpent starring Claire Danes. He produced Katy Perry’s “Into Me You See” from her album Witness and appears on Leonard Cohen’s 2019 posthumous album Thanks For The Dance. With six solo albums under his name, his latest album 1 0 0 1, which explores ideas of technology, humanity and mind-body dualism, is available on Deutsche Grammophon."I think it's really a crossroads between knowledge and wisdom. And I think that wisdom for me is so connected to nature and the information that we get from nature. We ultimately are part of the natural world. And the knowledge of knowing things and facts and these kinds of bits of information doesn't necessarily mean that we are going in the right direction that we know things. In this space, a lot of wisdom is being lost... About being connected to an earlier time. I feel that that's true. Language is being diminished. There's so many things that are being diminished in this moment. And yet, we're creating something that is going to have vastly more knowledge. But this is where it splits. And what is the idea of consciousness? Is wisdom something that's external? Is it something that is more related to quantum physics and the quantum world, more than just the physical body and the physical brain?"https://dustinohalloran.com/www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/artists/dustin-o-halloranwww.imdb.com/name/nm0641169/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_smMusic courtesy of Dustin O’Halloran and Deutsche Grammophonwww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast

""That idea of planting seeds for future generations came from the Tusculan Disputations. There’s something especially empowering about Cicero. And it's very striking that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and so many in the Founding Era viewed this manual about overcoming grief as the definition for achieving happiness. And I think it's because it's a philosophy of self-mastery, self-improvement, and self-empowerment.The habits of deep reading are themselves the most tangible expression of the virtues. In that sense, the virtue of industry is the one that I still take with me. So many of the Founders did, too. They fell short of so many virtues, as we all do every day. But it was the habits of deep reading and writing, keeping up a consistent daily schedule, and setting aside time for deep reading and writing that they maintained until the end of their lives."Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law. His essays and commentaries have appeared in The New York Times Magazine; on NPR; in The New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor; and in The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer. His latest book is The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.https://constitutioncenter.org/about/board-of-trustees/jeffrey-rosenwww.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Pursuit-of-Happiness/Jeffrey-Rosen/9781668002476https://constitutioncenter.org/news-debate/podcastswww.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcast