Genes, Computers, and Medicine

Saturday, February 20, 2016
2:30-4:30 p.m.

Past Event

Developments in computational neuroscience, molecular biology, and genomics have opened up new ways of looking at disease. In a relatively short time span, these advances may lead to significant innovations in the understanding of various diseases, as well as in therapeutics designed to treat them.read more »

The Meditative State

Saturday, March 12, 2016
2:30 - 4:30 pm

Past Event

What is meditation? As difficult as it may be to define this state of mind, its beneficial effects on mental and physical health are incontrovertible. What are the respective roles of conscious and unconscious processes in this voluntarily invoked mental state?
read more »

Fear: Wherefore, Whence?

Saturday, May 7, 2016
2:30 - 4:30 pm

Past Event

Someone is shouting! Ho! Do you hear? Am I howling in vain? For if one is frightened, everything makes a noise!

 – Sophocles, Acrisius [fragment]

…the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.

read more »

Happiness

Saturday, September 24, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Past Event

Call no man happy until he is dead.

 – Solon of Athens (c. 640 – c. 560 BCE)

“Happiness” may be understood in prosaic and philosophic senses: as referring to a moment of experience or the entirety of a life; as referring to a psychological state of mind, relating to pleasurable emotions, as well as referring to a life regarded as going well, flourishing, for the individual leading it, and as such, a prudential value judgement of ultimate goods.… read more »

The Electorate: 2016 (Cocktail Benefit Reception and Roundtable)

Wednesday, September 28, 2016
6:00-8:00 pm

Past Event

What:

Cocktail Benefit Reception and Roundtable

Where:

The Penn Club
30 West 44th Street
New York, NY

Participants:

Janet Dewart Bell, Communications Strategist & Management Consultant

Lester Crystal, MacNeil/Leher Productions – Retired President

Michael Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

Elizabeth Harris, Education Reporter for The New York Times

Kesha Ram, Vermont State Legislator

 

 

 

THE HELIX CENTER
invites you to
“The Electorate: 2016”

A cocktail reception & roundtable benefit
in memory of Themis and Theodore Dimon
on
Wednesday, September 28th, 2016
6:00 – 8:00 pm
at
The Penn Club
30 West 44th Street
New York City
Roundtable participants including:
Janet Dewart Bell, Communications Strategist & Management Consultant
Lester Crystal, Retired President, MacNeil Lehrer Productions
Michael Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist
Elizabeth Harris, Education Report for the New York Times
Kesha Ram, Vermont State Legislator
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Sander Abend
Antonio Beltramini
Tony Low-Beer
Antonio Magliocco
Edward Nersessian
Robert Penzer
Albert Sax
Charles Schaefer III
Daniel Vasella

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Edward Nersessian, Director
Robert Penzer, Associate Director
Phillip Blumberg
Anne-Marie Levine
Ann-Louise Lipman
Mary Luallen
Adam Sacks
Carla Solomon
Beverley Zabriskie… read more »

Embodied AI

Saturday, October 22, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Past Event

The increasing appreciation of the body’s role in cognition—that the brain-mind is embedded in a physical, sensory-motor system interacting with the real world—is shedding the dualistic straitjacket that has characterized “classical” artificial intelligence research. So, as proposed by Grady Booch, let’s imagine unleashing a technology platform using natural language processing and machine learning, such as IBM’s Watson, in the physical world.read more »

Autism and the Mind/Brain

Saturday, November 5, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Past Event

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects more than 1% of the population. For many years, it was thought to be a rare disorder, resulting from a bad relationship of the children with their so-called refrigerator mothers. However, there is clear evidence now that autism results from abnormalities in brain development, and that the behavior observed in children is the consequence of disturbances in brain circuitry.… read more »