Mind Matters: Past, Present, and Future

Saturday, February 10th, 2018, 2:30pm

Past Event

From Xenophanes’ 6th c. BCE theory of divine intellection imbuing, comprehending, and organizing the cosmos, through Nicholas of Cusa’s 15th c. definition of mind as “the limit and measure of all things,” through Hume and his Enlightenment kin’s aspiration to be the “Newton of the mind,” to the naturalized explanations of contemporary cognitive science, Western men and women have wrestled with the proper place of mind among the constituents—material and non-material—of the universe. How has our understanding of mind evolved in light of advances in brain science, computer science, mathematics, physics, psychology, and psychoanalysis? What part can and should metaphysics and theology play in this advance? Where—and what—will ‘mind’ be 100 years from now?

Participants:

John Krakauer

Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Director of BLAM Lab, Co-founder of the KATA project

Dr. Krakauer is the John C. Malone Professor at the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare, Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Director of the Brain, Learning, Animation, and Movement Lab, and co-founder of the Kata Project at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His areas of research interest… read more »

Jonathan Kramnick

Maynard Mack Professor of English, Yale University

Jonathan Kramnick is Maynard Mack Professor of English at Yale University. His research and teaching is in eighteenth-century literature and philosophy, philosophical approaches to literature, and cognitive science and the arts. He is the author of three books. His new book, Paper Minds: Literature and the Ecology of Consciousness (Chicago, 2018), asks what distinctive knowledge… read more »

George Makari

Director, The DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry
Professor of Psychiatry, Weill-Cornell Medical College

Historian, psychoanalyst, and psychiatrist George Makari is the Director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute of Psychiatry: History, Policy, and the Arts, and Professor of Psychiatry at Weill-Cornell Medical College, where for over two decades he has led efforts to integrate humanistic scholarship into mind/brain medicine and science. His latest book, Of Fear and Strangers:  A… read more »

Kenneth Miller

Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Physiology and Director, Center for Theoretical Biology, Columbia University

Kenneth Miller is the Peter Taylor Professor of Neuroscience, co-Director of the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, and co-Director of the Neurobiology and Behavior Graduate Program at Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Reed College, his M.S. and Ph.D. (with distinction) from Stanford University, and completed his postdoctoral work at UCSF and Caltech. He is… read more »

Barbara Montero

Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame

Barbara Montero is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Her research concerns two notions of “body”: body as the physical or material substance of the world, and body as the moving, breathing, flesh and blood instrument we use when we run, walk, dance, or play. One side of this bifurcation comprises her work on… read more »

2 comments on “Mind Matters: Past, Present, and Future

  1. THE HELIX CENTER / Mind Matters Panel, Greetings 2-13-18
    IF: Humans prep to travel and colonize mars. What type of person(s) has the will to endure this mind boggling inescapable destination?
    Education alone is not a qualifier.
    S.O.A.P. are talking points.
    Q: Be honest panel, would you be ready to take a leap of faith and begin your human race in your mind(s) conditioned image?
    Complexity with no safety net!?
    Respectfully
    Susan Irene Platt 2-13-2018

  2. This is an interesting question about adventure.The person so to speak,would say they were born, a “naturual explorer”. They would dream of having this experience,and might even believe it was destined. The importance though of education would be tremendous.One could look back on the past and consider the movie/book,the Time Traveller and with great admiration,ponder,what were the “three” books he took with him,into the future,his new destination. If it were to be Mars,it would be no diffferent,you are the helper/creator of a new society. This endevor is not yours alone,to acheive this great mission,not only would you have a conviction of self, you would also hold dear the convictions of others.Others who also felt the dream was worth while.While it is about the economics of loss and gain,the gains perceived would out weigh the losses.Unfotunately,it may be about keeping the human race alive,if on a new planet > so be it.There are alot of people,with a “what ever it takes attitude” /even if this is only a little of what it would take.I may be compelled to go myself…

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