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Time is really weird. You may be inclined to say only the present is real, while the future and past have a sort of “unreality” to them. Or perhaps you think only the past and present are real, while the future is unwritten. Philosophers have tried to understand how time, religion, and physics relate throughout time itself. Our understanding of how time works underwent a radical shift when relativity came along. We can no longer say that you and I experience the present in the same way. Events that you see as simultaneous I may see in succession. Time may flow faster for you than it does for me. Even the moment we define as now may be different. Why can’t we travel freely in time like we can in space? What happened before the Big Bang? How does the reality of the future relate to free will? How is the narrative of time important for religion, and can it be reconciled with what we see in physics? Today I’m joined by Dr. Timothy Maness to discuss time, religion, and physics. Tim is a philosophical theologian interested in the way physics and cosmology interact with religion, He has a Ph.D. in religion and science from Boston University, an MA from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago’s Zygon Center for Religion and Science, and a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Chicago. So let’s go on this weird and wonderful voyage through our understanding of time! If you are a patron of the podcast, check the Patreon page all this month for bonus content from this episode. Background music you heard are clips from: Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/33345 Ft: Morusque, Jeris, CSoul, Alex Beroza Black Ice by Mr_Yesterday (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Mr_Yesterday/58884 Ft: reusenoise Ethereal Space by Snowflake (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/snowflake/33318 Ft: Zep Hurme Warm Vacuum Tube by Admiral Bob (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/admiralbob77/59533 Ft: starfrosch Drops of H2O ( The Filtered Water Treatment ) by J.Lang (c) copyright 2012 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/djlang59/37792 Ft: Airtone

What would it be like if New York City was partially underwater?  What would it feel like, what would it taste like?  How would the economy continue to tick, how would commuters reach their jobs?  To answer this, our guest today uses art to tell the narrative of climate change.   We aren’t all numbers people.  Therefore, using art to tell the story of climate change can make the effects of climate change real to a population that may not be fully engaged with the science or the trends.  Further, it can make how our world is changing more real, more relatable, more understandable, and hopefully, give us the inspiration to change. Today’s guest is Carolyn Hall.  She uses art, narrative, and the imagination to take people on tours through time to see how our world is constantly changing, what seeds this change, and what we can do about it.  Carolyn is a historical marine ecologist, a contemporary dancer, and a science communicator. She does each independently but most enjoys, and is most challenged by, finding ways to combine all three.  And today, she talks about three artistic endeavors seeking to unite art and climate change – Sunk Shore, Walks on Water, and Walking the Edge.   You can follow Carolyn on Instagram @gatablanco.  Also be sure to check out her “time traveling videos” to the years 2068 and 2092 where she presents an artistic view of the future of New York City.   If you are a patron of the podcast, check the Patreon page all this month for bonus content from this episode. Background music you heard are clips from: I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque Start To Grow (cdk Mix) by Analog By Nature (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/cdk/43815 Ft: Jeris ITS FOR MY FLY GIRL by BOCrew (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/BOCrew/32102 Ft: THEDEEPR / BOCREW / ANGELA Mountains (Hip hop instrumental) by Robbero (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Robbero/42877

AI in healthcare can do amazing things.  It can help doctors diagnose their patients.  It can streamline patient care, and can help people to receive the best care possible.  But what happens when AI in healthcare goes awry? Today, our guest is Dr. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad.  Muhammad  discusses the promise of healthcare, but also reminds us that it has limitations.  Sometimes, AI can be biased, especially against certain minority populations and women.  Sometimes, we humans may not understand why AI makes the decisions it does.  And other times, AI could be just plain wrong. But by knowing the limitations of AI in healthcare, we can also improve how it works and come up with ways to combat problems, biases, and to help doctors and AI systems work together.   Muhammad is an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at University of Washington and a Research Scientist at KenSci, an AI in healthcare company based in Seattle. His research is on accountability of AI, AI in healthcare, and AI from a cross-cultural and ethical perspective. He has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. If you are a patron of the podcast, be sure to check the Patreon page all this month for bonus content from this episode. Background music you heard are clips from: eighteen pieces (soda) by Soda (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/soda/16738 SkyDub by Psykick (c) copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Psykick/52937 Start To Grow (cdk Mix) by Analog By Nature (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/cdk/43815 Ft: Jeris Reusenoise (DNB Mix) by spinningmerkaba (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/56531

There are places where people can choose to ignore climate change.  Then, there are places that it could never be considered a myth.  Here, the effects of climate change can never be ignored – with floods, heat waves, extreme storms, or literal rising waters.  Such a place is India – particularly, North Bihar.  The floods in India are so extreme that hundreds of villages and thousands of farms can find themselves underwater.  Rivers can dramatically shift course overnight.  And it is not only a problem of water.  In the floodplain of the Himalayas, climate change collides with poverty, culture, caste, and life.   Today, we are joined by Dr. Luisa Cortesi.  Luisa has lived around the world, in places where climate change where was particularly felt.  She saw how people lived through and dealt with these disasters.   In 2007, while working as an applied anthropologist, Luisa happened to be living in North Bihar when the worst floods in India in decades hit.  Again, she experienced major flooding in 2008 when she saw the entire course of the Kosi River shift.  Today, she shares her experiences.    Luisa is an environmental and engaged anthropologist of water, disasters, and inequalities. She received a joint PhD from Yale University in Anthropology and Environmental Studies. She has been the Taylor Postdoctoral Fellow and Atkinson Fellow, and is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at Cornell University. She is now Assistant Professor at the International Institute of Social Studies at the Erasmus University in The Netherlands, as well as Marie S. Curie Fellow at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies in Germany. Luisa has worked extensively in India and continues to support NGOs there in an advisory capacity. She has recently started the Water Justice and Adaptation Lab. If you are a patron of the podcast, be sure to check the Patreon page all this month for bonus content from this episode, including some of Luisa’s pictures from her time in India and a discount code for her book. Luisa’s recent work includes:  2021    “The Ontology of Water and Land and Flood Control Infrastructure in North Bihar, India” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute  27:4  2021    Split waters: The Idea of Water Conflicts. London and New Delhi: Routledge (edited with Joy, K.J.) ISBN 978-0-367-37175-3  Forthcoming, The Shape of Water: the Geometry and Epistemology of Infrastructures of Fluvial Management and Flood Control in India,” in Amphibious Anthropologies: Life between the Wet and the Dry (edited with Krause, F. & A. Camargo)  Forthcoming, Disastrous Water: The Environmental Knowledge and Technologies of Floods, Toxic Drinking water, and Other Muddy Disasters Background music you heard are clips from: Adagio teru by rocavaco (c) copyright 2009 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.

Pope Francis has taken a special interest in science. Part of his interest is AI – particularly, how to make AI systems more ethical. Today, we are joined by Dr. Brian Patrick Green, the Director of Technology Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. We discuss why ethics in AI systems is important, from suggested videos on YouTube to privacy to how AI algorithms decide who is approved for a loan. We also discuss what exactly morality is, if AI could ever approach human intelligence, and what exactly makes the human mind so special.

Grief in the time of COVID is a very real thing. COVID has changed the way we interact with each other and the world. But perhaps most poignantly, it has introduced new types of grief in our lives. The grief of the dying, not allowed to touch or even see family members one last time. The grief of losing friendships, old traditions, or normal life. Or even the grief of waiting for a COVID vaccine, seeing others return to some sort of normalcy around you. Today, our guest is Dr. Kristel Clayville. Kristal has a PhD in religious ethics and works at the intersection of religion and medical ethics. She currently works as a hospital chaplain and ethicist at the University of Chicago. Today she discusses her unique perspective of COVID through the lens of a hospital chaplain – from how hospitals decide who gets a ventilator to what it’s like to stand in for family when someone is dying of COVID.  We also discuss how COVID revealed how fractured our healthcare system is.   You can follow Kristal on Twitter @RevDrClayville. If you are a patron of the podcast, be sure to check the Patreon page all this month for bonus content from this episode. Background music you heard are clips from: nightRain by airtone (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/airtone/55887 Silence Await by Analog By Nature (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/cdk/17432 Ft: oldDog Dark Woods II by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2010 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/ramblinglibrarian/25168 Two Pianos by Stefan Kartenberg (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/57454 Ft: Admiral Bob (admiralbob77)

Quantum entanglement is weird. Two particles can share properties no matter where they are in the Universe. Have they always shared these properties, and they are somehow hidden from us, or do they decide these properties the moment they are measured, and somehow communicate across the vastness of space, instantaneously? Or is something else at work? Can people become entangled? Can we put a human consciousness in a sort of "Schrodinger's Cat" situation, where they are in two states at once? And is your reality the same as my reality? Guest Dr. Eric Cavalcanti addresses these questions and more on this episode of SparkDialog Podcasts.

Gratefulness and COVID feel like they don’t belong in the same sentence. But a year into this pandemic, perhaps there are some lessons we can learn, and some ways that this year has changed us all – maybe for the better.

Today, I am joined by Seth Villegas from Boston University's School of Theology to talk about transhumanism - gradually merging body with machine to become faster, stronger, or even live forever. Why is this movement so appealing? And what does this apparently secular movement have to do with religion?

What similarities do the brains of religious people share? Do these similarities span differences in lifestyle, geography, culture, and religion? I am joined by Dr. Adam Weinberger, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Last month, scientists published word that an incredible discovery was made on Venus.  They found what is called a “biomarker” in the clouds of Venus.  Now, a biomarker is not life, but a chemical that may indicate life is present. In Venus’ case, this chemical is phosphine. It’s hard to explain why phosphine would exist in the atmosphere of Venus without life being present, especially in the quantities found. This exciting discovery has renewed the conversation – what if we find life within the Universe? Or life within the solar system? If life was found on two worlds within our solar system, it may indicate that life arises easily. This means that life could be anywhere. Or everywhere. Today on the podcast, I talk to Dr. Niels Ligterink. Niels is an Ambizione Fellow at the Space Research and Planetary Science Division of the University of Bern, Switzerland.  He leads an international group of researchers to develop an instrument called ORIGIN – an instrument that can actually travel to different worlds and find chemicals that may indicate life exists there. We take a tour of the solar system and ask – why are some places good to look for potential life while others, we’re pretty sure, are desolate?  Could life be on Pluto?  What does life need, and why does life start in the first place? We talk about the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn and their underground oceans.  How do we know that these oceans exist?  Why might they be ideal places to find life?  What kind of missions are planned to these moons, and how will they detect life there?  And what do these underground oceans have in common with Earth’s own oceans? Then we talk about Venus.  What, exactly, did scientists find within the clouds?  Does it mean there is really life on Venus? What does all of this mean?  If we found life in the solar system on two worlds (or more) it would indicate that perhaps, life starts more easily than we previously thought.  And this could have implications across the Universe. For patrons of the podcast, check out the photos and video of The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission that Niels provided.  If you are not a patron and want to become one, you can join at Patreon.com/sparkdialog.  Thank you all for your support! Image Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute  https://europa.nasa.gov/resources/29/europas-stunning-surface/ Some of the background music you heard are clips from: Between Worlds (Instrumental) by Aussens@iter (c) copyright 2017 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.

Can online privacy exist today? What kind of ways does our personal data leak out when we are going about our buisness online, or even in person? I talk to Rob Shavell, co-founder of a privacy company called Abine