Podcast: The Helix Center

What underlying conceptual questions prompted this new characterization of our planet’s present era? What does this imply for the distinctions we have become accustomed to: between human subjects (however varied) and the non-human realm, between nature and artifice, between agency and objectivity?… read more »

With billions of stars and galaxies in the observable universe, the possibility of life elsewhere has intrigued both scientists and philosophers alike. In this roundtable, we will explore the notion of life in the universe and what it might look like elsewhere.… read more »

If a biologist were asked for a single word that would appropriately point to the essence and substance of biology, the word might be Life. It stands for the essential unity of that subject despite the enormous range of different interests of biologists—from proteins to the behavior of elephants to medical applications.… read more »

Ancient Egyptians placed animal and bird heads on divinities’ bodies, in an embracing worldview wherein both gods and beasts extend and transcend the human ken. In his scientific extension of this ancient mythology, Darwin’s 1872 The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals explored non-human sentience.… read more »

Proof, in the form of step by step deduction, following the rules of logical reasoning, is the ultimate test of validity in mathematics. Some proofs, however, are so long or complex, or both, that they cannot be checked for errors by human experts.… read more »

Psychoanalysis ushered a new era of understanding psychiatric conditions which lasted half a century. The advent of psychopharmacology moved the focus back to the importance of diagnosis and selection of the appropriate medication. As we learn more about the brain, with increasingly sophisticated technology, we are looking towards a revolution in diagnosis, etiology and treatment of mental illnesses.… read more »

The Creative Turbulence roundtable is the culmination of the Creative Turbulence art exhibition—on view at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute from the afternoon of Saturday, June 9th through Saturday, June 16th—of four artifacts fusing art and science in a collaborative creative process embodying the physics of fluid dynamics, turbulence, and complex systems, and exemplifying the experimental methodology at the root of art and science alike.… read more »

Schopenhauer described boredom as “a tame longing without any particular object,” Dostoevsky as “ a bestial and indefinable affliction,” and poet Joseph Brodsky as “time’s invasion of your world system.”

Unsurprisingly, not many can describe boredom even though most have felt it, and it is one of the central preoccupations of the age.… read more »

Science can stake its claim to truth on the evidence of its empirical success accounting for reality. Does it therefore follow, necessarily, that science can lay claim to its universality? Does reality cohere in such a way that we are ultimately seeking a reductionistic account of it in toto, as some would argue is promised by physics?… read more »

The rapid development of technology in the modern era has inspired a movement known as transhumanism. Envisioned is a near future in which human bodies and minds will be transformed and enhanced through genomics, pharmaceuticals, nanotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, and any number of prosthetic devices inside and outside our bodies.… read more »