Being in the World Podcast 074: What makes a good story

A tour of legendary, academy award winning production designer Dennis Gassner's home in the Hollywood hills. Dennis Gassner (born October 22, 1948) is an American-Canadian production designer. He is notable for his work on Bugsy, Big Fish, Into the Woods, and Blade Runner 2049, his collaborations with the Coen brothers and Sam Mendes, as well the James Bond films Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre, the latter two directed by Mendes. He has been nominated seven times for the Academy Award for Best Production Design, and has won once. Gassner was nominated for the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for a Contemporary Film for his work on Quantum of Solace, and won for his work on Skyfall.

A both very intimate and very expansive conversation with Dulcinee about creativity, addiction, mental health, technology, "artificial" "intelligence", politics, relationships, and more.

Poetry & Beats by Dulcinee DeGuere Piano and Synths by Tao Ruspoli The boundaries of your bias Trickle, trembling With a shudder that you deny Though it wraps you in a fog So taught your veins start to pop I’m trying to rupture something I can’t see But it dangles right in front of me Entangling my dreams with delusion And death The stench of which flirts, converts, and perverts The precious flames of what I thought I could be An animal A siren Anything other than this flesh How can I cauterize this wound This womb that pulses with fire, desire The dire necessity To rip skin from flesh And uncover what’s underneath But somehow, always We speak of other things Freedom, And the sun Because we’re scared of duration We’re just fucking impatient And no one taught me how to breathe Try, and try again Try, and try when Try, and try again Try, and try when Yucca Valley, California September 7, 2023

Tao and Dulcinee discuss the deals they've made with each other to successfully quit smoking, meditate, and drastically reduce phone time. They also discuss the nature of technology, art, artifacts, and how to remain human in a technological world.

Tao takes a walk with his friend Eric Kaplan, a TV writer (Futurama, Big Bang Theory, etc.) with a PhD in philosophy. They try to get to the bottom of what makes a good story and what makes a good storyteller. Yucca Valley July 13, 2023

Riccardo Manzotti is a philosopher, psychologist, and AI expert and the author of The Spread Mind: Why Consciousness and the World Are One. Born in Parma, Italy, in 1969, Manzotti received his PhD from the University of Genova in 2001, and is currently full professor of theoretical philosophy at IULM University (Milan). He has been Fulbright Visiting Scholar at MIT (Boston).Manzotti originally specialized in robotics and AI where he started to wonder how can matter have experience of the surrounding world. Eventually he has been a psychologist from 2004 to 2015 and then he has become a full time philosopher. His current research focuses on the issue of consciousness and the structure of reality: What is the relationship between experience and the physical world? What is consciousness? Is there a separation between our experience of the world and the world? Does the present have a fixed time span? Can we design and build a conscious machine? What ethical questions do consciousness and technology raise in the 21st century? In 2014, at MIT, Riccardo Manzotti presented the Spread Mind Theory (elsewhere dubbed the Mind-Object Identity Theory) that addresses the hard problem of consciousness in a completely radical and new way. Over the last few years, Manzotti has continued to develop and test this hypothesis interacting with the international scientific and philosophical community. Published in 2018, Manzotti’s The Spread Mind has outlined a radical change in the way we conceive us and the world. Based on empirical evidence from physics and neuroscience, the book develops and verify the astonishing hypothesis that our conscious experience is indeed one and the same with the external world. The book revisits familiar notions about dreams, illusions, and hallucinations. The book has been translated in many languages such as Chinese, Italian, Turkish. In 2019 Riccardo Manzotti returned together with the acclaimed novelist Tim Parks with Dialogues on Consciousness, an engaging and humorous dialogue about the nature of consciousness and our everyday life. Prof. Manzotti lectures around the world on the topics explored in his books and articles, and has written for publications such as The New York Review of Books, Doppio Zero. He also offers his knowledge and time to various organizations and audiences on a voluntary basis.

Dulcinée is a filmmaker, conceptual/performance artist, & Systems Architect for the Bombay Beach Biennale. Tao and Dulcinée have a frank and vulnerable conversation about both personal and societal mental health following her recent Bipolar 2 diagnosis. Speaking publicly about it for the first time, Dulcinée and Tao explore the complex landscape of contemporary mental health, using both an autobiographical framework and a sociopolitical analysis, to outline the personal, the psychological, the political, the philosophical, and the communal aspects of being in the world...

Tao talks to chatGPT4 about its philosophical, political, and creative implications. Part 2 of 2

Tao talks to chatGPT 4 about its philosophical, political, and creative implications.

Eric Kaplan is an American television writer and producer. His work has included shows such as Late Show with David Letterman, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Malcolm in the Middle, Futurama, The Simpsons and Rick and Morty. He also worked on The Big Bang Theory throughout its run.  Kaplan was raised in a Jewish family in Flatbush, Brooklyn where his father was a "storefront lawyer" and his mother taught high school biology at Erasmus Hall.  Kaplan graduated from Hunter College High School and Harvard College (where he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon) in 1989. Prior to committing to a career in professional writing, Kaplan had been an English teacher in Thailand. After that he took five years of philosophy graduate school at Columbia and UC Berkeley.  Starting in 1986, Kaplan interned for Spy magazine, where his duties included mopping the floors and writing blurb-length film reviews.   Career in television Eric Kaplan's first television writing job was with Late Show with David Letterman which he worked on for a year and a half before quitting and moving to Hollywood to look for a job in "half-hour" work. It was at this time that Kaplan learned of Matt Groening doing a show set in the year 3000. This show would turn out to be Futurama. After applying for work on the show using some writing samples, Eric would have to, as he says, "sweat it out", for over a month before getting the job.  Upon Futurama's cancellation, Kaplan went to work for the short-lived comedy series Andy Richter Controls the Universe, writing just one episode. After Fox dropped Andy Richter, Eric Kaplan then began work on the hit show Malcolm in the Middle, Eric also wrote the "Girlfriends" episode of the popular HBO series, Flight of the Conchords.  Futurama In his first year with Futurama, which was also the show's first season, Kaplan served as story editor on every episode. Though having an input on many aspects of the entire first season, Kaplan would not get a writing credit until 9 episodes in. After this premiere season, he would be promoted to producer status. This was a role that he would keep through the show's end. He returned to those roles in the Futurama DVD movies. Work in Philosophy, Does Santa Exist? Kaplan's "Does Santa Exist?: A Philosophical Investigation" was published by Dutton Books in 2015. It is a serious and humorous work of philosophy. He has also contributed to "The Stone", The New York Times philosophy blog. Kaplan has a PhD. in philosophy from UC Berkeley. His doctoral thesis discusses the humour in Søren Kierkegaard.  Kaplan was interviewed in 2020 by lifelong friend Roger Kimmel Smith (whose father, Robert Kimmel Smith, wrote the book The War with Grandpa, which in 2020 was adapted into a motion picture starring Robert De Niro). Their conversation about humor and philosophy was released over the YouTube channel When Humanists Attack.