inspiration

scientists and thinkers:

Rodney Brooks - Thoughtful polemicist for thoughtless robots.
Cecilia Heyes - Proponent of cultural evolution as a major factor in human cognition.
Melanie Mitchell - Uses complexity and artificial life to think about cognition. A beacon of common sense unweathered by so many waves of techno-hype.
Robert Sapolsky - Endocrinologist and rare non-toxic enthusiast of human biology.
Cosma Shalizi - Statistical physicist (of the Santa Fe variety) turned statistics professor. Has read everything that I would like to if I never needed to sleep and lived to 500. His notebooks (1994-present) are gems of exposition atop heaped piles of references on everything from boolean networks to Borges.
Peter Turchin - Movement ecologist who has pivoted to become a theorist and empiricist of history.

podcasts

Brain Inspired
Theoretical Neuroscience

blogs

Maciej Ceglowski
Cory Doctorow
Crooked Timber

other

Complexity Explorer - Tutorials by the Santa Fe Institute
Complexity Explorables - Web-based interactive models
Crescent Loom - Make creatures with CPGs in your browser