The Pari Center

The Enchanted Universe
2022-08-29 00:00 - 2022-09-05 23:59 (Europe/Rome)
Dates: August 29 – September 5, 2022

Speakers: Jessica Ball, Bernard Carr, Patrick Curry, Alex Gomez-Marin, Ruth Kastner, Alison MacLeod, Hester Reeve

Chaired by Alex Gomez-Marin

Venue: Pari, Italy

Price: 1700.00 euros (This fee includes 7-night stay in private accommodation, all meals and sessions and workshops.)

About the Event:

Enchantment is the experience of sheer wonder. It returns us to a state of mind, and condition of the world, as undivided concrete magic: equally natural and cultural, material and spiritual, inner and outer.Patrick Curry

This will be an informal meeting with presentations by experts followed by roundtable discussions. The cost of the event is 1700.00 euros. The event fee includes a 7-night stay in private accommodation and all meals. It also includes activities, materials, sessions and workshops. The event starts on Monday August 29 at 19:00 with a welcome dinner and ends on Monday September 5 after lunch.

Participating in an event at the Pari Center means not only meeting with scholars and experts but living for a week in a medieval village, mingling with the tiny local population, eating local dishes and drinking local wines, appreciating the beauty of the surrounding countryside, and participating in a very gentle way of life far from the frenzy of work and city living. David Peat compared Pari to an alchemical vessel—a place where transformation can come about—as well as an opportunity to pause for a moment and re-assess one’s life. It’s a unique opportunity open to everyone.

Please contact Eleanor if you would like more information about this event at: eleanor@paricenter.com

While technology is occupying an ever growing place in our modern world and the predominance of abstraction gets us farther and farther removed from the living world, an increasing longing is developing for a return to our roots in nature, to the enchantment and awe of existence, to the fantastic realms of imagination, to the symbolic richness of myth and fairytale.

We are meaning-making creatures, we are explorers and adventurers of the symbolic dimension. We feel that our life is worth living only when our experiences speak to us, when we live in conversation with the mystery, when we commune with it.

Come join us in this journey through the forests of imagination, reclaiming a territory we once roamed, recovering the soul of the world.

Presentations:

The Body, Nature and Dialogue with Jessica Ball

The View Beyond: Magic and Enchantment at the Frontiers of Physics with Bernard Carr

What is Enchantment, and What Follows? with Patrick Curry

Science and Magic: A Disturbing Charming Braid with Àlex Gómez-Marín

Quantum Physics and the Return of Enchantment with Ruth E. Kastner

The Deep Imagination, Metaphor, and “All’s One” Vision with Alison MacLeod

Brain Seed: Planting the Mind in the Non-Human Universe with Hester Reeve

Information:

For additional information about the event, you can check the PDF.

For additional information about The Pari Center, you can check the PDF.

For Terms and Conditions, you can check the PDF.

Il Processo della Trasformazione
2022-09-10 00:00 - 2022-09-11 23:59 | Pari, Italy
Date: settembre 10 – settembre 11, 2022

Speakers: Max Bindi, Gloria Nobili, Martina Stolzlechner, Chiara Zagonel

Venue: Pari, Italy

Prezzo: 420 euro

Seminario teorico-esperienziale alla scoperta delleteorie quantistiche di David Bohm e di alcune sue applicazioni

Il seminario si articola in un’alternanza di momenti di spiegazione e altri di sperimentazione pratica delle idee del fisico quantistico David Bohm: la vita e lo sviluppo del suo pensiero, la tecnica metamorfica riletta alla luce del concetto di ordini di realtà, la connessione tra fisica e senso della vita, e la ricerca del superamento della coscienza individuale attraverso il dialogo bohmiano.

Sabato 10 settembre 2022

Ore 10-11

Saluti iniziali. Presentazione del Workshop

Ore 11-13

Fisica e metafisica di David Bohm: la sua vita e le sue ideecon Chiara Zagonel

Il fisico americano David Bohm è stato una figura estremamente significativa nel panorama scientifico del secolo scorso e le sue idee ed intuizioni hanno contribuito a una trasformazione profonda e radicale dell’immagine della realtà.Aspetti fondamentali delle teorie di Bohm sono i concetti di processo, di olismo e di totalità, che nelle sue mani diventavano dei potenti strumenti di indagine e interpretazione della realtà e grazie ai quali Bohm è riuscito a creare un vero ponte con il mondo del misticismo, raggiungendo moltissime persone anche al di fuori del mondo scientifico.

Ore 15 -18.30

L’ordine implicato a portata di manocon Martina Stolzlechner

La Tecnica Metamorfica, sviluppata da Gaston Saint Pierre negli anni 70, consiste in leggeri sfioramenti ai piedi, alle mani e alla testa e opera oltre spazio, tempo e materia, raggiungendo il livello dell’Unità paradossale dell’Essere e del Non-Essere, ossia l’ordine implicato di David Bohm. Per Gaston Saint-Pierre, in ogni cosa c’è un’intelligenza innata che a partire da questo livello si manifesta in tempo, spazio e materia. E’ come una ghianda che, quando il tempo è maturo, si trasforma proprio in una quercia perché dentro contiene questa coscienza, questa intelligenza Nella prima parte del suo intervento, Martina Stolzlechner ci presenta la Tecnica Metamorfica, un semplice rituale dove viene riconosciuto il potere di trasformazione, di metamorfosi, che proviene dall’interno e si manifesta all’esterno, proprio, come l’onda quantistica diventa particella. E così interno ed esterno risultano avviluppati in un continuo divenire.Nella seconda parte del pomeriggio avremo modo di mettere in pratica questa tecnica e sperimentare l’essere semplicemente presenti ai fatti che emergono.

Ore 21

Proiezione di un dialogo tra David Bohm e Jiddu Krishnamurti

Domenica 11 settembre 2022

Ore 9-11

Mente e materia tra matematica, fisica e concezioni del mondocon Gloria Nobili

Negli ultimi anni della sua vita, David Bohm aveva allargato la ‘lettura’ della Fisica quantisitca secondo la sua interpretazione a connessioni molto più ampie, che esulavano dalla stretta trattazione attraverso la formulazione matematica e le teorie scientifiche. Il suo sguardo si ricollegava all’uomo, alle grandi domande che l’uomo si pone riguardo al senso della propria vita, oltre alla relazione tra la parte impalpabile mentale e quella materiale connessa con le nostre percezioni sensoriali.

Ore 11.30-12.30Introduzione al dialogo bohmiano previsto nel pomeriggio.

Ore 14.30-17.30

Il dialogo bohmianocon Max Bindi

Grazie alla facilitazione di Max Bindi il gruppo farà un’esperienza di dialogo bohmiano: una forma di dialogo libero dagli schemi dove si dà spazio al flusso della comunicazione e nel quale i partecipanti cercano di raggiungere una comprensione comune, sperimentando il punto di vista di tutti completamente, allo stesso modo e senza giudicare.

Ore 17.30-18

Conclusioni

Il costo dell’evento è di 420 euro. Sono previsti dei prezzi di favore per chi completa l’iscrizione secondo il seguente calendario: -I primi 12 iscritti entro il 15 luglio 2022 potranno usufruire di un prezzo agevolato di 380 euro. Dopo il 15 luglio il prezzo sarà quello intero di 420 euro. Il prezzo comprende: partecipazione alle attività previste dal programma, alloggio in stanza privata nel caratteristico Borgo di Pari, il pranzo e la cena di Sabato 10 settembre e la colazione e il pranzo di Domenica 11 settembre presso il Bar-Ristorante “Le Due Cecche”, nella suggestiva piazzetta del Paese. Al momento dell’iscrizione dovrà essere versata una caparra di 200 euro, da saldare entro il 01 di settembre. L’evento inizierà Sabato 10 settembre alle ore 10:00 e terminerà Domenica 11 settembre alle ore 18:00.

The Future Scientist - A Conversation with Tim Ingold
2022-09-28 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KGbCQKhE8A

A Conversation between Prof. Tim Ingold and Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday September 289:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

The session is live and all registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

A monthly virtual encounter to understand where science is going and to reimage where we hope it might go.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

Join the event at the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82791503732

The dialogue will be in a lively and spontaneous format of approximately 45 minutes up to an hour and we will then open up for questions from the audience.

In the current zeitgeist of conjectural multiverses and promissory metaverses it has become increasingly hard to know what counts as real. Simultaneously, the dominant narrative insists on severing imagination from real life, as experts are urged to tell fact from fiction. In this instalment of The Future Scientist series we will join Prof. Ingold in his venture to heal the bifurcation between imagined and real worlds. After having tackled what he deems to be the central question of anthropology (namely, why people perceive their environments in different ways), the challenge now is, as he puts it, “to make allowance for imagination without reopening the gap between humanity and nature”. Completing a trilogy that started with The Perception of the Environment (2000) and Being Alive (2011), Ingold’s recent collection of essays entitled Imagining for Real (2022) masterfully merges relational, systems, and ecological thinking in order for imagination to join the real “instead of playing off against it”. Orbiting around “the inescapable condition of human existence in a world”, and highlighting the central role of creation, attention, and correspondence, Ingold gently but powerfully subverts the multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinarily mantra and instead proposes a return to the perennial “love of learning” that The Future Scientist shall reenact.

Prof. Tim Ingold, FBA, FRSE, is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He has carried out fieldwork among Saami and Finnish people in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology and social organisation in the circumpolar North, on animals in human society, and on human ecology and evolutionary theory. His more recent work explores environmental perception and skilled practice. Ingold’s current interests lie on the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. His recent books include The Perception of the Environment (2000), Lines (2007), Being Alive (2011), Making (2013), The Life of Lines (2015), Anthropology and/as Education (2018), Anthropology: Why it Matters (2018), Correspondences (2020) and Imagining For Real (2022).

Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

The Future Scientist Series

Science as we know it is a relatively recent human invention.

After the ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century, science and philosophy remained entangled as ‘natural philosophy’ until they started to separate in the nineteenth century (the very word ‘scientist’ was coined in 1834). Subsequently, science morphed from an activity carried out by wealthy people as a hobby (the ‘amateur,’ in the etymological sense of the word) into a paid job within an institutionalized system (the ‘professional’). Paradoxically or not, great ideas come more easily from people who are not paid to have them—it’s like forcing someone to be free, or compelling creativity by an act of will.

In the last decades, a series of technological and societal changes have further accelerated mutations of what it means to be a scientist; from the selection forces cast by neoliberalism on ‘scientific careers,’ to the kind of ‘science in the age of selfies’ that social media promotes. Scientists too are prey to the perverse dynamics of nowadays ‘attention economy.’ To understand what scientists do and why they do it, one must also understand the political and social contexts in which they live.

In addition, the rise of ‘big science’—initially in physics (particle physics and astronomy), and subsequently in life and mind sciences (genomics, and connectomics)—is reconfiguring the landscape typically inhabited by the romantic figure of the lone scientist receiving visions in dream-like states of consciousness and, eventually, advancing science in a stroke of genius. In turn, the idea of the scientist bred in the current academe is that of a diligent caffeinated deluxe technician as a part within the larger mechanism of research group army; a person trained exquisitely (and almost exclusively) on a research aspect, a specialist unable to keep track of what goes on beyond the narrow confines of his/her discipline. Young scientists are indeed trained to be good at following rules and procedures (explicit laboratory protocols, but also implicit codes of conduct and metaphysical commitments) but discouraged to learn to see when and how to transcend them.

In turn, the more recent promises of ‘big data’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ posit a near-future landscape where some of the core skills and tasks traditionally attributed to humans may be soon carried out by machines (or so the ‘scientific soteriologists’ claim). Algorithms are not just ingenious means to an end that require human intervention to imbue them with meaning, but are swiftly becoming ends in themselves, pretending they offer an automated unbiased interpretation of the data.

A re-appraisal of the habits of the modern scientist entails an ethical dimension as well: why do we treat animals as objects (as means, rather than ends in themselves), why do we study life in laboratories primarily by killing it, and why do we study life in laboratories in the first place? These questions also reflect on ecological considerations regarding our place in nature (humans in relationship with other animals, and other kingdoms of life) and our destruction of the planet. Francis Bacon’s prophetic vision of the Promethean scientist, so vividly captured in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, has become both a cautionary tale and an inspiration.

In addition, and despite the real ‘paradigm changes’ in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century, other branches of science such as biology and neuroscience remain under the spell of philosophical promissory materialism. Research facts are sold in tandem with covert metaphysical commitments. The objective-subjective divide still puzzles both scientists and the layperson. The mind-body problem remains to be solved (or dissolved).

In sum, the whole enterprise seems to be committed to suppressing broad thinkers, promoting academics that look more like corporate managers, PR mavericks and professional fund-raisers and less like scholars, who are asked to inhibit their interest in philosophy, and to cast suspicion on their fertile imagination. Dogma and habit are inhibiting free inquiry.

It is as if science as a whole is becoming less scientific.

In the face of this milieu of factors, in this series of online events we seek to reflect on what ‘the future scientist’ may look like. This is an ambitious exercise indeed, which goes beyond mere theoretical speculation. It is not unlikely that sooner than we think current science will be unrecognizable to most of us. The consequences for humanity writ large, not just for scientists themselves, are pressing.

The question at stake is whether by ‘future scientist’ we mean what scientists in the future are all likely to look like, or what a future better scientist might look like. In our conversations we will engage more in prescribing than in predicting, that is, we might begin by describing where science is going (prediction) to then describe where we hope science might go (prescription). Attempting the art of ‘dia-logos,’ we hope to express a creative voice that will enlighten the way of a new science in the twenty-first century.

The series will be direct conversations, that is, no formal presentation of the invited speaker but a kind of ‘thinking aloud’ in the mode of a dialogue between each guest and Àlex Gómez-Marín as the conversation host. The idea is to engage critically with various aspects of ‘the future scientist’ in a lively and spontaneous format for approximately 45 minutes to an hour, followed by comments and questions from the audience. Each conversation will take place virtually, on a Wednesday each month.

The invited speakers to The Future Scientist series are chosen not just as great interlocutors to discuss these issues, but also as exemplars and hints of what ‘the future scientist’ may actually look like here and now.

The Future Scientist - A Conversation with Stephen Jenkinson
2022-10-12 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0veQNp3yW0&t=2091s

A Conversation between Stephen Jenkinson and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday October 12 9:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

The session is live and all registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

This event is free and open to everyone.

Join the event at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81425962114

A monthly virtual encounter to understand where science is going and to reimage where we hope it might go.

As the Future Scientist series is coming to an end, we do not want to miss the opportunity to be in conversation with Stephen Jenkinson. Stephen is a poet of non-negotiable truths; a teacher who always talks about the very same ineffable but never says the same thing twice. He is sometimes known as “grief-walker” due to his insistence on avoiding the pervasive absurdity of the current cultural imperative to “die not dying”. Life includes everything (also death). Is science dying? Is dying a deity? In the face of culture failure, we will discuss a method of inquiry that can reveal (and perhaps heal) our death phobia, grief illiteracy, and amnesia of ancestry. Beyond the current pernicious triad “cope, hope & dope”, we will acknowledge our own ectopic ideas and cultural homelessness. Stephen talks about the “death trade”, whose biologism and psychologism resonates with the indoctrination of the “scientific trade”. Science is the agent, the culprit, and the victim of the restless impulse to globalize everything. We are sold seven paradigm shifts before breakfast – all expensive because they ask so little of us. Subversion too often becomes decoration. Can we avoid the famous dictum that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce? The future scientist shall inhabit (that is, occupy without claiming ownership) an orphan wisdom that may lead to a sort of cultural redemption. Celebrating Leonard Cohen’s genius verse, “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”, this is not going to be an easy conversation. Stephen’s allegations are a dark pool of light – a harsh blessing that calls for reckoning and elderhood in a time of trouble for the sciences and for humanity writ large.

Stephen Jenkinson, MTS, MSW is a worker, author, storyteller, musician and culture activist. In 2010, he founded Orphan Wisdom, a house for learning skills of deep living and making human culture that are mandatory in endangered, endangering times. It is a redemptive project that comes from where he comes from. It is rooted in knowing history, being claimed by ancestry, working for a time he won’t live to see. When not on the road, he makes books, succumbs to interviews, tends to labours on a small farm, mends broken handles and fences, and bends towards lifeways dictated by the seasons of the boreal borderlands. In 2016 he and Canadian singer/songwriter and recording artist Gregory Hoskins fused their separate works into an evening of music that is part concert, part poetry, part lamentation, part ribaldry, part lifting the mortal veil and learning the mysteries there. That’s what’s been performed to sold out houses in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Iceland and the USA. The Nights of Grief & Mystery is their devotional act.

Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

The Future Scientist Series

Science as we know it is a relatively recent human invention.

After the ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century, science and philosophy remained entangled as ‘natural philosophy’ until they started to separate in the nineteenth century (the very word ‘scientist’ was coined in 1834). Subsequently, science morphed from an activity carried out by wealthy people as a hobby (the ‘amateur,’ in the etymological sense of the word) into a paid job within an institutionalized system (the ‘professional’). Paradoxically or not, great ideas come more easily from people who are not paid to have them—it’s like forcing someone to be free, or compelling creativity by an act of will.

In the last decades, a series of technological and societal changes have further accelerated mutations of what it means to be a scientist; from the selection forces cast by neoliberalism on ‘scientific careers,’ to the kind of ‘science in the age of selfies’ that social media promotes. Scientists too are prey to the perverse dynamics of nowadays ‘attention economy.’ To understand what scientists do and why they do it, one must also understand the political and social contexts in which they live.

In addition, the rise of ‘big science’—initially in physics (particle physics and astronomy), and subsequently in life and mind sciences (genomics, and connectomics)—is reconfiguring the landscape typically inhabited by the romantic figure of the lone scientist receiving visions in dream-like states of consciousness and, eventually, advancing science in a stroke of genius. In turn, the idea of the scientist bred in the current academe is that of a diligent caffeinated deluxe technician as a part within the larger mechanism of research group army; a person trained exquisitely (and almost exclusively) on a research aspect, a specialist unable to keep track of what goes on beyond the narrow confines of his/her discipline. Young scientists are indeed trained to be good at following rules and procedures (explicit laboratory protocols, but also implicit codes of conduct and metaphysical commitments) but discouraged to learn to see when and how to transcend them.

In turn, the more recent promises of ‘big data’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ posit a near-future landscape where some of the core skills and tasks traditionally attributed to humans may be soon carried out by machines (or so the ‘scientific soteriologists’ claim). Algorithms are not just ingenious means to an end that require human intervention to imbue them with meaning, but are swiftly becoming ends in themselves, pretending they offer an automated unbiased interpretation of the data.

A re-appraisal of the habits of the modern scientist entails an ethical dimension as well: why do we treat animals as objects (as means, rather than ends in themselves), why do we study life in laboratories primarily by killing it, and why do we study life in laboratories in the first place? These questions also reflect on ecological considerations regarding our place in nature (humans in relationship with other animals, and other kingdoms of life) and our destruction of the planet. Francis Bacon’s prophetic vision of the Promethean scientist, so vividly captured in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, has become both a cautionary tale and an inspiration.

In addition, and despite the real ‘paradigm changes’ in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century, other branches of science such as biology and neuroscience remain under the spell of philosophical promissory materialism. Research facts are sold in tandem with covert metaphysical commitments. The objective-subjective divide still puzzles both scientists and the layperson. The mind-body problem remains to be solved (or dissolved).

In sum, the whole enterprise seems to be committed to suppressing broad thinkers, promoting academics that look more like corporate managers, PR mavericks and professional fund-raisers and less like scholars, who are asked to inhibit their interest in philosophy, and to cast suspicion on their fertile imagination. Dogma and habit are inhibiting free inquiry.

It is as if science as a whole is becoming less scientific.

In the face of this milieu of factors, in this series of online events we seek to reflect on what ‘the future scientist’ may look like. This is an ambitious exercise indeed, which goes beyond mere theoretical speculation. It is not unlikely that sooner than we think current science will be unrecognizable to most of us. The consequences for humanity writ large, not just for scientists themselves, are pressing.

The question at stake is whether by ‘future scientist’ we mean what scientists in the future are all likely to look like, or what a future better scientist might look like. In our conversations we will engage more in prescribing than in predicting, that is, we might begin by describing where science is going (prediction) to then describe where we hope science might go (prescription). Attempting the art of ‘dia-logos,’ we hope to express a creative voice that will enlighten the way of a new science in the twenty-first century.

The series will be direct conversations, that is, no formal presentation of the invited speaker but a kind of ‘thinking aloud’ in the mode of a dialogue between each guest and Àlex Gómez-Marín as the conversation host. The idea is to engage critically with various aspects of ‘the future scientist’ in a lively and spontaneous format for approximately 45 minutes to an hour, followed by comments and questions from the audience. Each conversation will take place virtually, on a Wednesday each month.

The invited speakers to The Future Scientist series are chosen not just as great interlocutors to discuss these issues, but also as exemplars and hints of what ‘the future scientist’ may actually look like here and now.

Recovering the Sacred
2022-11-05 17:59 - 2022-11-27 20:00 | Online
Recovering the Sacred

with Anne Baring, Bernard Carr, Matthijs Cornelissen, Alex Gomez-Marin, Jeremy Lent, David Lorimer, Iain McGilchrist, Peter Reason, Mary-Jayne Rust

Curated by John Pickering

Pari Center Online Series

November 5 – 27, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

8-two-hour sessions every Saturday and Sunday

All sessions are live; recordings will be available for any sessions you are unable to attend.

We are living in a time of anxiety and uncertainty. As more environmental damage is done, the means to repair it seems to be getting less. It is increasingly difficult to know what to trust in politics and the media. Spiritual traditions survive, but the authority they once had has passed to science and so it might seem that the idea of ‘The Sacred’ has disappeared.

But as science reveals more and more about the place of the earth in the cosmos there is a growing awareness of how precious our living world is and of how inter-dependent we are with it. Perhaps this is not only a scientific discovery but also the re-appearance of the sacred in a form fit for our times.

How the living world came to be and how it persists is the business of the sciences. How cultures appear and develop is the business of the humanities. Powerful though those styles of inquiry are, they offer little comfort to those anxious about the destructive direction in which our globalised culture is going. What appears to be missing is some way of restoring our sense of spiritual interdependence with the living world.

This series of talks is an opportunity to hear from people concerned with these ideas and to participate in a dialogue on how they might help us to keep hope alive and decide what to do for the best in our challenging times.

Program of Event

Saturday November 5Recovering the Soulwith Iain McGilchrist

Sunday November 6The Sacred and the Evolution of Consciousnesswith Matthijs Cornelissen

Saturday November 12Finding our Way Home to Nature as Sacredwith Mary-Jayne Rust

Sunday November 13The Sacred as Immanent in a Sentient Worldwith Peter Reason

Saturday November 19Towards a Transmaterialist Science of the Sacredwith Bernard Carr and Alex Gomez-Marin

Sunday November 20The Loss and Recovery of the Sacredwith Anne Baring

Saturday November 26Recovering a Sense of the Sacred – an Evolutionary Imperativewith David Lorimer

Sunday November 27Weaving a Web of Meaning: How Recognizing Our Deep Interrelatedness Lays a Path to Sustainable Flourishingwith Jeremy Lent

Recovering the Soul
2022-11-05 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/l-PrCIprgIU?si=DghmvkkPB9wBuNAS

Recovering the Soul

with Iain McGilchrist

Saturday November 5, 202210:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

The topic of the sacred is immense, as I confirmed to myself when I wrote a very long chapter on it in The Matter with Things. I have chosen to approach it here by directing our attention, as it might seem at first, to one side: on the soul. I will argue that the sacred exists not simply in this or that thing—an object, a place, or an act—but in the relationship between whatever it is beyond ourselves that we recognise as sacred and that part of our being that has been traditionally referred to as the soul; that this relationship is one of the reasons for evolved beings such as ourselves to have come into existence; that whatever else it may be, the soul is a faculty, like intellect or eyesight, but much more than, and more important than, either; and that our sense of the sacred is both driven by, and in turn drives, the actively receptive attention paid by the soul. I suggest that the soul is in process, and that it is one task of our lives to grow the soul—an important task, because much depends on it: we can, like attentive or neglectful gardeners, nourish, stunt the growth of, or extinguish, that soul. I suggest that therefore we need first to attend to our souls if we are to recover the sacred, and I make a few exploratory forays into what we can (and cannot) say about the soul, and how it might be integrated into a new cosmology.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009). A book on neuroscience, epistemology and ontology called The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, was published in November 2021.

The Sacred and the Evolution of Consciousness
2022-11-06 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/TklytlsHY44?si=gTv9vWN76JYmMdmA

The Sacred and the Evolution of Consciousness

with Matthijs Cornelissen

Sunday November 6, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

We tend to think of the Sacred as something unchanging. There is some point to this: the Sacred is, after all, what connects us to eternity or even to something beyond space and time. But could it be changing? To address this question, since the modern West pays so little attention to the Sacred, it makes sense to go back to other cultures who have developed deeper knowledge about it.

Most major spiritual traditions, in the West as well as in India, make some kind of distinction between the Divine who is eternal and perfect, and the world which is constrained by time and imperfect, but what if our conception of this split is due to the limited nature of our human consciousness and our too limited mental understanding of reality?

In the first half of last century Sri Aurobindo developed the idea that evolution is the progressive embodiment of ever higher types of consciousness. He argued that we are on the brink of the next stage in evolution which will see the embodiment of a radically different type of consciousness.

In this talk Matthijs will indicate the direction in which Sri Aurobindo saw the world evolving, and, perhaps, more relevant for us today, what we can do during the transitional period.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

Matthijs Cornelissen MD, was born in the Netherlands and studied Medicine and Psychology in Amsterdam. He is deeply interested in the work of Sri Aurobindo, and at 27, he moved to India where he has lived ever since. In the Delhi Branch of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram he helped to set up the Institute for Integral Education, Mirambika, and at present he teaches the psychological aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s work at SAICE in Pondicherry. He assisted with the publication of Sri Aurobindo’s Complete Works, and has written articles and book chapters on Sri Aurobindo’s contributions to Consciousness Studies and Psychology. He has also organised conferences, given workshops and lectures, and edited books on the same subject. He founded and maintains the websites of the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Consciousness Studies, the Indian Psychology Institute and Infinity in a Drop.

Reflections on Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things
2022-11-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5irBZhy15s

Reflections on Iain McGilchrist’s The Matter with Things

Iain McGlichristwith Mary Attwood | Sharon Dirckx | Alex Gómez-Marín | Jürg Kesselring | David Lorimer | Martin Rossor | Jonathan Rowson | Jan Zwicky

Tuesday November 8, 20221-3pm EST | 6-8pm GMT | 7–9pm CET

FREE EVENT

Anniversary event, hosted by The Pari Centerin conjunction with Channel McGilchrist, Perspectiva, The Scientific and Medical Network and The Arthur Conan Doyle Centre.

Trouble Registering: just send us an email and we will send you the link! eleanor@paricenter.com

To mark the one year since the publication of The Matter with Things, this free online event will reflect on its first year of being in the world. Dr. McGilchrist will be interviewed by the publisher of the book, Perspectiva’s Jonathan Rowson, followed by a discussion with experts for the sciences and humanities. The final part of the event will give you a chance to put a question to Dr. McGilchrist.

You can view the footage of The Matter with Things launch party in 2021 by Perspectiva Press in the following link: https://youtu.be/ibI0mRLgMI8

Finding our Way Home to Nature as Sacred
2022-11-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
https://youtu.be/5OMEfeZO-bc?si=ZRl–LKxnhoF7BQ9

Finding our Way Home to Nature as Sacred

with Mary-Jayne Rust

Saturday November 12, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

The Rainmaker Story tells of a Taoist elder who brought rain to a region of great drought in ancient China; it was one of C.G. Jung’s favourite stories about the capacity to bring about a state of natural balance. It is also one of many examples of an ancient worldview where the earth is seen as sacred and humans are part of that sacred matrix. Can we reinhabit this way of seeing in our modern world? In this talk I will bring stories, experiences and examples of ways in which our relationship with the earth, and with our own animal nature, can be restored, opening doors to imagination, synchronicity and the numinous. Along the way there may be many difficult and painful encounters with the shadow of our dominant culture; when this is honoured our ecological crisis can then become an extraordinary portal of modern times.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

Mary-Jayne Rust is an ecopsychologist and Jungian analyst Journeys to Ladakh (on the Tibetan plateau) in the early 1990’s alerted her to the seriousness of the ecological crisis and its cultural, economic and spiritual roots. This led her into the field of ecopsychology which has been the focus of her teaching and writing ever since. Her numerous publications can be found on www.mjrust.net, including Towards an Ecopsychotherapy, Confer Books, London 2019 and Vital Signs: Psychological Responses to Ecological Crisis, eds M.J. Rust & Nick Totton. Karnac, London 2011. She grew up beside the sea and is wild about swimming. Now she lives and works beside ancient woodland in north London where she has both an indoor and outdoor ecopsychotherapy practice.

The Sacred as Immanent in a Sentient World
2022-11-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tz3JjQ2tgM

The Sacred as Immanent in a Sentient World

with Peter Reason

Sunday November 13, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

What does it mean to live on Earth as Gaia—that is to say, as a living, vital entity in which many kinds of beings create meaning and tell stories? If we invoke such a world of sentient presence, calling to other-than-human beings as persons, might we be graced with a response? And what does this mean for recovering the sacred?

Over the past four years I have initiated and participated in a series of co-operative inquiries, drawing on Freya Mathews’ articulation of ‘living cosmos panpsychism.’ In this talk I will give some accounts of our experiences from these inquiries, narratives of occasions when the world has indeed ‘answered back’ to our invocation. From this I will say something about living cosmos panpsychism that has underpinned our work.

I will continue to explore the ethical position inherent in this perspective—the ought which is ontological, at the core of what is. This is the Law in the pattern in things that enables the living cosmos to renew and re-articulate itself in perpetuity. It provides an understanding of the sacred as immanent, and offers a foundation for a more ontologically reverent, cosmocentric way of inhabiting the world.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

Peter Reason

As Director of the Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at the University of Bath, England, Peter Reason was an international leader in the development of participative approaches to action research. In these forms of experiential inquiry all are co-researchers, contributing both to the thinking that forms the research and to the action that is its subject. He published widely, co-editing the Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice and co-founding the journal Action Research.

Since retiring from his academic position, Peter has focused on writing that links the tradition of nature writing with the ecological crisis of our times, drawing on scientific, ecological, philosophical and spiritual sources. He is currently engaged in a series of experiential and co-operative inquiries exploring living cosmos panpsychism in relation to Rivers. His books include Spindrift: A wilderness pilgrimage at sea; In Search of Grace: An ecological pilgrimage, and most recently (with artist Sarah Gillespie) On Presence: Essays | Drawings and On Sentience: Essays | Drawings. He is currently preparing Living in a Sentient World: An inquiry with his colleagues Freya Mathews, Andreas Weber, Stephan Harding, and Sandra Wooltorton.

Peter is Professor Emeritus at the University of Bath.

Towards a Transmaterialist Science of the Sacred
2022-11-19 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gIYNYys3DU

Towards a Transmaterialist Science of the Sacred

with Bernard Carr and Alex Gomez-Marin

Saturday November 19, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Science is traditionally associated with the material world but in this conversation Bernard (President of the Scientific and Medical Network) and Alex (Director of the Pari Center) will discuss whether, and to what extent, it can be expanded to accommodate the worlds of mind and spirit. This is the remit of what is sometimes termed ‘postmaterialist’ science, although ‘transmaterialist science’ is another possible designation, this requiring a change in the nature of both science and scientists themselves. From this perspective, the sacred can be found in all three worlds and not just the domain of spirit. While materialist science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a divine element in the universe, an expanded version may reinforce the link between science and spirituality, thus healing a bifurcation that harms both our planet and our humanity. The conversation will include a brief presentation in which Bernard introduces his hyperdimensional theory, this unifying the three worlds by invoking extra dimensions beyond ordinary space and time. This suggests that consciousness is fundamental and not necessarily restricted to brains, with evolution operating on the level of mind and spirit as well as body. This is congruent with Alex’s research as a neuroscientist, investigating the strong version of the extended mind hypothesis, in which memory and perception are non-local and the brain has a permissive rather than a productive function.

Consciousness is also associated with life, which might itself be regarded as sacred. But there may be forms of life beyond our own planet and the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence would surely have a huge impact on humanity—technologically, culturally and spiritually. The future scientist will need to be a well-versed practitioner of the science of the sacred.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

Bernard Carr is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. His professional area of research is cosmology and astrophysics and includes such topics as the early universe, dark matter, black holes and the anthropic principle. For his PhD he studied the first second of the Universe, working under the supervision of Stephen Hawking at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology. He was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1975 and moved to Queen Mary College in 1985. He has also held Visiting Professorships at Kyoto University, Tokyo University, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. He is the author of nearly three hundred scientific papers and the books Universe or Multiverse?and Quantum Black Holes. Beyond his professional field, he is interested in the role of consciousness in physics and in an expanded paradigm which accommodates mind. He also has a long-standing interest in the relationship between science and religion. He was President of the Society for Psychical Research in 2000-2004 and is currently President of the Scientific and Medical Network.

Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

The Loss and Recovery of the Sacred
2022-11-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/e22uwZFa30o?si=ghyq7F8dDHl-nA3s

The Loss and Recovery of the Sacred

with Anne Baring

Sunday November 20, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Jesus said that men do not put new wine in old bottles, lest the bottles break and the wine is lost. There is new wine pouring into our culture from different sources: new bottles are being created to hold it. This talk will explore aspects of the new wine and the new bottles. It will also explore when, where and how we lost a vital aspect of the sacred, together with visionary imagination and experience. In focussing so much on the rational mind, we have lost touch with the heart and the soul. For increasing numbers, religion has become meaningless. God has been pronounced dead—an outgrown superstition. But while the image of the sacred may die, the Sacred cannot die. After an interval marked by cultural and social disintegration, chaos and despair, a new image may appear, unheralded, from the depths of the human psyche. We are living at such a time, in the final stages of an old era and the birth of a new one.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

Anne Baring b. 1931. MA Oxon. PhD (Hons) in Wisdom Studies Ubiquity University 2018. Jungian Analyst, author and co-author of 7 books including, with Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess; Evolution of an Image; with Andrew Harvey, The Mystic Vision and The Divine Feminine; with Dr Scilla Elworthy, Soul Power: An Agenda for a Conscious Humanity. Also a book for children, The Birds Who Flew Beyond Time. Her most recent book The Dream of the Cosmos: A Quest for the Soul (2013, updated and reprinted 2020) was awarded the Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize for 2013. The ground of all her work is a deep interest in the spiritual, mythological, shamanic and artistic traditions of different cultures. Her websites are devoted to the affirmation of a new vision of reality and the issues facing us at this crucial time of choice. www.annebaring.com and www.anne-baring.com

The Future Scientist - A Conversation with Dr. Jordi Pigem
2022-11-23 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs1FuPevbtQ

A Conversation between Dr. Jordi Pigem and Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday November 239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

The session is live and all registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

You are not a robot. And yet it is necessary to say the obvious. Under the spell of techno-capitalism, machines are made in the image of people, and people in the image of machines. At the same time, the distinction between true and false is waning as virtual worlds are proclaimed by academic and technocratic celebrities as a sort of “reality+”. The artificial is the new natural. And the Orwellian, the new normal. In this installment of The Future Scientist we will draw attention to the roots, falsehoods, and perils of “post-truth” in the context of the so-called fourth industrial revolution — to distract and confuse, to discipline and punish, such are the means of totalitarianism, now overpowered by digital media. If not dark, the mirror of science has become rather blurred. Who to trust, and why? The post-pandemic challenges of global control and dehumanization apply not only to science, but also to education, health, and the economy. Despite the accelerated proliferation of scientism (and precisely because of this), science still has a vital role to play. A post-materialist view of consciousness and of life may bring back the critical free thought we have missed, and the joy we have lost. In the context of the covert philosophies and confounded ideologies that scientists profess, and also in the context of actual science itself, we will attempt a vital conversation in the minor key.

This event is free and open to everyone.

Join the event at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84980605546

A monthly virtual encounter to understand where science is going and to reimage where we hope it might go.

Following an hour-long lively and spontaneous dialogue between Alex and his guests, the sessions will be open to questions from the audience.

Jordi Pigem holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona. He devoted his doctoral work to the intercultural thought of the philosopher and theologian Raimon Panikkar, being also the author of the edition and introduction of Raimon Panikkar, Ecosophy: the wisdom of the Earth (2021). From 1998 to 2003 he was a professor of Philosophy of Science in the Masters in Holistic Science at the Schumacher College in England. He currently teaches several courses in Spanish universities. He is the author, amongst other books, of the following Spanish titles: Pandemic and post-truth: Life, consciousness and the fourth industrial revolution (2021), Thus speaks the Earth (2021), Angels or robots: the human condition in the hyper-technological society (2018), and Vital intelligence: a postmaterialist vision of life and consciousness (2016). He was granted the Philosophical Award of the Institute of Catalan Studies in 1999, the Essay Award of Resurgenceand the Scientific and Medical Network in 2006, and the prestigious Joan Maragall Award in 2016.

Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

The Future Scientist Series

Science as we know it is a relatively recent human invention.

After the ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century, science and philosophy remained entangled as ‘natural philosophy’ until they started to separate in the nineteenth century (the very word ‘scientist’ was coined in 1834). Subsequently, science morphed from an activity carried out by wealthy people as a hobby (the ‘amateur,’ in the etymological sense of the word) into a paid job within an institutionalized system (the ‘professional’). Paradoxically or not, great ideas come more easily from people who are not paid to have them—it’s like forcing someone to be free, or compelling creativity by an act of will.

In the last decades, a series of technological and societal changes have further accelerated mutations of what it means to be a scientist; from the selection forces cast by neoliberalism on ‘scientific careers,’ to the kind of ‘science in the age of selfies’ that social media promotes. Scientists too are prey to the perverse dynamics of nowadays ‘attention economy.’ To understand what scientists do and why they do it, one must also understand the political and social contexts in which they live.

In addition, the rise of ‘big science’—initially in physics (particle physics and astronomy), and subsequently in life and mind sciences (genomics, and connectomics)—is reconfiguring the landscape typically inhabited by the romantic figure of the lone scientist receiving visions in dream-like states of consciousness and, eventually, advancing science in a stroke of genius. In turn, the idea of the scientist bred in the current academe is that of a diligent caffeinated deluxe technician as a part within the larger mechanism of research group army; a person trained exquisitely (and almost exclusively) on a research aspect, a specialist unable to keep track of what goes on beyond the narrow confines of his/her discipline. Young scientists are indeed trained to be good at following rules and procedures (explicit laboratory protocols, but also implicit codes of conduct and metaphysical commitments) but discouraged to learn to see when and how to transcend them.

In turn, the more recent promises of ‘big data’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ posit a near-future landscape where some of the core skills and tasks traditionally attributed to humans may be soon carried out by machines (or so the ‘scientific soteriologists’ claim). Algorithms are not just ingenious means to an end that require human intervention to imbue them with meaning, but are swiftly becoming ends in themselves, pretending they offer an automated unbiased interpretation of the data.

A re-appraisal of the habits of the modern scientist entails an ethical dimension as well: why do we treat animals as objects (as means, rather than ends in themselves), why do we study life in laboratories primarily by killing it, and why do we study life in laboratories in the first place? These questions also reflect on ecological considerations regarding our place in nature (humans in relationship with other animals, and other kingdoms of life) and our destruction of the planet. Francis Bacon’s prophetic vision of the Promethean scientist, so vividly captured in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, has become both a cautionary tale and an inspiration.

In addition, and despite the real ‘paradigm changes’ in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century, other branches of science such as biology and neuroscience remain under the spell of philosophical promissory materialism. Research facts are sold in tandem with covert metaphysical commitments. The objective-subjective divide still puzzles both scientists and the layperson. The mind-body problem remains to be solved (or dissolved).

In sum, the whole enterprise seems to be committed to suppressing broad thinkers, promoting academics that look more like corporate managers, PR mavericks and professional fund-raisers and less like scholars, who are asked to inhibit their interest in philosophy, and to cast suspicion on their fertile imagination. Dogma and habit are inhibiting free inquiry.

It is as if science as a whole is becoming less scientific.

In the face of this milieu of factors, in this series of online events we seek to reflect on what ‘the future scientist’ may look like. This is an ambitious exercise indeed, which goes beyond mere theoretical speculation. It is not unlikely that sooner than we think current science will be unrecognizable to most of us. The consequences for humanity writ large, not just for scientists themselves, are pressing.

The question at stake is whether by ‘future scientist’ we mean what scientists in the future are all likely to look like, or what a future better scientist might look like. In our conversations we will engage more in prescribing than in predicting, that is, we might begin by describing where science is going (prediction) to then describe where we hope science might go (prescription). Attempting the art of ‘dia-logos,’ we hope to express a creative voice that will enlighten the way of a new science in the twenty-first century.

The series will be direct conversations, that is, no formal presentation of the invited speaker but a kind of ‘thinking aloud’ in the mode of a dialogue between each guest and Àlex Gómez-Marín as the conversation host. The idea is to engage critically with various aspects of ‘the future scientist’ in a lively and spontaneous format for approximately 45 minutes to an hour, followed by comments and questions from the audience. Each conversation will take place virtually, on a Wednesday each month.

The invited speakers to The Future Scientist series are chosen not just as great interlocutors to discuss these issues, but also as exemplars and hints of what ‘the future scientist’ may actually look like here and now.

Recovering a Sense of the Sacred – an Evolutionary Imperative
2022-11-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/hM2TknIlvNE?si=_A5jk7EnW27grTzg

Recovering a Sense of the Sacred – an Evolutionary Imperative

with David Lorimer

Saturday November 26, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Scientific materialism and modern consumerism have led to a widespread loss of a sense of the sacred where Nature is regarded as dead and a resource to exploit for monetary gain. Correspondingly, the human being is understood in mechanistic terms, and the vision of transhumanism and technocracy is a future ‘upgrade of the human operating system’ where we are, in the memorably chilling phrase of Yuval Noah Harari, simply hackable animals. The very nature of what it means to be human is now at stake, and a recovery of a sense of the sacred with respect to both humans and Nature is now an evolutionary imperative. This entails resisting the transhumanist agenda of universal surveillance and control, and forging a beneficial relationship both with Nature and emerging technologies with human flourishing at the centre; also recognising the centrality of our transcendent nature that gives us access to deeper structures of reality. In the words of King Charles III, the watchword is Harmony.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

David Lorimer, MA, PGCE, FRSA is a writer, lecturer, poet, editor and spiritual activist who is a Founder of Character Education Scotland, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network (www.scientificandmedical.net) and former President of Wrekin Trust and the Swedenborg Society (www.swedenborgsociety.org.uk). He has also been editor of Paradigm Explorer since 1986 and completed his 100th issue in 2019. He was the instigator of the Beyond the Brain conference series in 1995 (www.beyondthebrain.org) and has co-ordinated the Mystics and Scientists conferences every year since the late 1980s.

Originally a merchant banker then a teacher of philosophy and modern languages at Winchester College, he is the author and editor of over a dozen books, including Survival? Death as Transition (1984, 2017) Resonant Mind (originally Whole in One) (1990/2017), The Spirit of Science (1998), Thinking Beyond the Brain (2001), The Protein Crunch (with Jason Drew) and A New Renaissance (edited with Oliver Robinson). He has edited three books about the Bulgarian sage Beinsa Douno (Peter Deunov): Prophet for our Times (1991, 2015), The Circle of Sacred Dance, and Gems of Love, which is a translation of his prayers and formulas into English. His book on the ideas and work of the Prince of Wales – Radical Prince (2003) – has been translated into Dutch, Spanish and French. His new book of essays, A Quest for Wisdom was published in 2021.

David is also Chair of the Galileo Commission (www.galileocommission.org) which seeks the expand the evidence base of science of consciousness beyond a materialistic world view.

In 2020 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award as a Visionary Leader by the Visioneers International Network and the 2021 Aboca Human Ecology Prize. He is a Creative Member of the Club of Budapest. His website is www.davidlorimer.co.uk

Weaving a Web of Meaning: How Recognizing Our Deep Interrelatedness Lays a Path to Sustainable Flourishing
2022-11-27 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/T_dUhQE6TlM?si=JlXotccW7_WMoCpj

with Jeremy Lent

Sunday November 27, 20229:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Our dominant worldview tells us we’re split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world. This worldview has passed its expiration date: it’s based on a series of flawed assumptions that have been superseded by modern scientific findings. In this talk, based on themes from his recent book, The Web of Meaning, author Jeremy Lent will discuss how another worldview is possible—recognizing our deep interrelatedness with all of life.

Showing how modern scientific knowledge echoes the ancient wisdom of earlier cultures, the talk weaves together findings from modern systems thinking, evolutionary biology, and cognitive neuroscience with insights from Buddhism, Taoism, and Indigenous wisdom.

To see the Full Recovering the Sacred Program

Jeremy Lent, described by Guardian journalist George Monbiot as ‘one of the greatest thinkers of our age,’ is an author and speaker whose work investigates the underlying causes of our civilization’s existential crisis, and explores pathways toward a life-affirming future. His award-winning books, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, and The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, trace the historical underpinnings and flaws of the dominant worldview, and offer a foundation for an integrative worldview that could lead humanity to a flourishing future. He has written extensively about the vision of, and pathways toward, an ecological civilization and is founder of the Deep Transformation Network.

The Future Scientist - A Conversation with Dr. Shantena Sabbadini
2022-12-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjlv-_aPMas

A Conversation between Dr. Shantena Sabbadini and Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín

Tuesday December 139:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

The session is live and all registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

In this final instalment of The Future Scientist series we will be in conversation with the former director of The Pari Center, Dr. Shantena Augusto Sabbadini. We will discuss the I Ching, also known as The Book of Changes, which Dr. Sabbadini translated to English together with Rudolf Ritsema, the former director of the Eranos Foundation. The I Ching is a divination system, a formidable three-thousand years old manual, whose language defies Western rationality. It is not a philosophical text, nor a prediction machine. Rather than guessing the future, the I Ching allows us to read into the present moment, weaving together context and chance as an organic whole at the moment of observation. Causality gives way to synchronicity; and yet, meaningful randomness sounds like an oxymoron to the contemporary left-hemispheric scientific mind. Integrating the principles of yin and yang, structure and action, form and energy, and chaos and order, the I Ching offers us a doorway into the imaginal world, closer to the language of dreams. In ending, inspired by Carl Gustav Jung’s foreword to the I Ching translation by Richard Wilhelm, we will conclude our series by asking the oracle about the future scientist.

This event is free and open to everyone.

Join the event at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82101234528

A monthly virtual encounter to understand where science is going and to reimage where we hope it might go.

The dialogue will be in a lively and spontaneous format of approximately 45 minutes up to an hour and we will then open up for questions from the audience.

Shantena Augusto Sabbadini graduated from the University of Milan in 1968 and was awarded his PhD in physics from the University of California in 1976. In Milan he researched the foundations of quantum physics, laying the base for what is currently known as the decoherence interpretation of quantum physics. At the University of California, he contributed to the theoretical work behind the first identification of a black hole, the X-ray source Cygnus X-1. In the 1990s he was scientific consultant for the Eranos Foundation, an East-West research center founded under the auspices of C.G. Jung in the 1930s. In that context he produced various translations and commentaries of Chinese classics in Italian and English, including the Yijingand the trilogy of Daoist classics, the Laozi, the Zhuangzi and the Liezi. From 2002 onwards he collaborated with F. David Peat running the Pari Center for New Learning and in 2017 he succeeded his friend and colleague as director of the center.

Shantena leads workshops and courses on the philosophical implications of quantum physics, on Daoism, and on using the Yijing as a tool for introspection. His most recent book in English, Pilgrimages to Emptiness: Rethinking Reality through Quantum Physics, was published by Pari Publishing in 2017.

Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

The Future Scientist Series

Science as we know it is a relatively recent human invention.

After the ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century, science and philosophy remained entangled as ‘natural philosophy’ until they started to separate in the nineteenth century (the very word ‘scientist’ was coined in 1834). Subsequently, science morphed from an activity carried out by wealthy people as a hobby (the ‘amateur,’ in the etymological sense of the word) into a paid job within an institutionalized system (the ‘professional’). Paradoxically or not, great ideas come more easily from people who are not paid to have them—it’s like forcing someone to be free, or compelling creativity by an act of will.

In the last decades, a series of technological and societal changes have further accelerated mutations of what it means to be a scientist; from the selection forces cast by neoliberalism on ‘scientific careers,’ to the kind of ‘science in the age of selfies’ that social media promotes. Scientists too are prey to the perverse dynamics of nowadays ‘attention economy.’ To understand what scientists do and why they do it, one must also understand the political and social contexts in which they live.

In addition, the rise of ‘big science’—initially in physics (particle physics and astronomy), and subsequently in life and mind sciences (genomics, and connectomics)—is reconfiguring the landscape typically inhabited by the romantic figure of the lone scientist receiving visions in dream-like states of consciousness and, eventually, advancing science in a stroke of genius. In turn, the idea of the scientist bred in the current academe is that of a diligent caffeinated deluxe technician as a part within the larger mechanism of research group army; a person trained exquisitely (and almost exclusively) on a research aspect, a specialist unable to keep track of what goes on beyond the narrow confines of his/her discipline. Young scientists are indeed trained to be good at following rules and procedures (explicit laboratory protocols, but also implicit codes of conduct and metaphysical commitments) but discouraged to learn to see when and how to transcend them.

In turn, the more recent promises of ‘big data’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ posit a near-future landscape where some of the core skills and tasks traditionally attributed to humans may be soon carried out by machines (or so the ‘scientific soteriologists’ claim). Algorithms are not just ingenious means to an end that require human intervention to imbue them with meaning, but are swiftly becoming ends in themselves, pretending they offer an automated unbiased interpretation of the data.

A re-appraisal of the habits of the modern scientist entails an ethical dimension as well: why do we treat animals as objects (as means, rather than ends in themselves), why do we study life in laboratories primarily by killing it, and why do we study life in laboratories in the first place? These questions also reflect on ecological considerations regarding our place in nature (humans in relationship with other animals, and other kingdoms of life) and our destruction of the planet. Francis Bacon’s prophetic vision of the Promethean scientist, so vividly captured in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, has become both a cautionary tale and an inspiration.

In addition, and despite the real ‘paradigm changes’ in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century, other branches of science such as biology and neuroscience remain under the spell of philosophical promissory materialism. Research facts are sold in tandem with covert metaphysical commitments. The objective-subjective divide still puzzles both scientists and the layperson. The mind-body problem remains to be solved (or dissolved).

In sum, the whole enterprise seems to be committed to suppressing broad thinkers, promoting academics that look more like corporate managers, PR mavericks and professional fund-raisers and less like scholars, who are asked to inhibit their interest in philosophy, and to cast suspicion on their fertile imagination. Dogma and habit are inhibiting free inquiry.

It is as if science as a whole is becoming less scientific.

In the face of this milieu of factors, in this series of online events we seek to reflect on what ‘the future scientist’ may look like. This is an ambitious exercise indeed, which goes beyond mere theoretical speculation. It is not unlikely that sooner than we think current science will be unrecognizable to most of us. The consequences for humanity writ large, not just for scientists themselves, are pressing.

The question at stake is whether by ‘future scientist’ we mean what scientists in the future are all likely to look like, or what a future better scientist might look like. In our conversations we will engage more in prescribing than in predicting, that is, we might begin by describing where science is going (prediction) to then describe where we hope science might go (prescription). Attempting the art of ‘dia-logos,’ we hope to express a creative voice that will enlighten the way of a new science in the twenty-first century.

The series will be direct conversations, that is, no formal presentation of the invited speaker but a kind of ‘thinking aloud’ in the mode of a dialogue between each guest and Àlex Gómez-Marín as the conversation host. The idea is to engage critically with various aspects of ‘the future scientist’ in a lively and spontaneous format for approximately 45 minutes to an hour, followed by comments and questions from the audience. Each conversation will take place virtually, on a Wednesday each month.

The invited speakers to The Future Scientist series are chosen not just as great interlocutors to discuss these issues, but also as exemplars and hints of what ‘the future scientist’ may actually look like here and now.

Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps
2022-12-16 20:00 - 21:30 | Online
With the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35kzTlV1LxI

Spiritual Intelligence – what is it, how can it be cultivated, and why does it matter?

Mark Vernon in conversation with Beth Macy

Friday December 1611:00am PST | 2:00pm EST | 7:00pm GMT | 8:00pm CET

Free Online Pari Dialogue

To celebrate the release of his new book Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps, we have invited Mark Vernon, to talk about his new work. Mark’s book will be out in time for Christmas (December 9) and would make an excellent gift. He will be in conversation with Beth Macy followed by Q&A and discussion from the audience.

“In Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps, Mark Vernon draws on the understanding of numerous individuals and cultures, weaving them into a text that leads the reader on a journey into the very heart of their self and, at the same time, to the reality that lies behind and is expressed as the world. Like the journey which his mentor, Dante, undertakes, each chapter guides us more and more deeply into the perennial understanding that lies at the foundation of our civilisation.” Rupert Spira

“Compellingly readable, urgently important, kind, wise and scholarly. This is a manual for living and dying that begins with the usually overlooked questions: ‘What are we?’ and ‘Where did we come from?’ Unless we have informed answers we can’t begin to say how we should behave, or what makes us thrive, or speculate on our prognosis as a species, let alone about the therapy that might avert catastrophe. Vernon’s gentle, humble and powerful book needs to be widely read before it’s too late for us all.” Charles Foster

“The world is desperately in need the kind of spiritual intelligence which Vernon presents, based on humility, insight, compassion and, above all, joy. His attempt to talk about it in a way which is not circumscribed by specific religious belief, but rather draws upon the wisdom of all the great spiritual traditions as well as the contemporary psychology and science, is both original and immensely helpful for those who wish to cultivate these qualities in themselves.” Jane Clark

“As entertaining and passionate as it is profound, this book is a treasure trove of spiritual insight and guidance. Expertly interweaving the wisdom of mysticism, philosophy and psychology, Mark Vernon shows that spiritual awakening is the most urgent need of our time.” Steve Taylor

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81518521680

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist. He contributes to and presents programmes on the radio, as well as writing for the national and religious press, and online publications. He also podcasts, in particular The Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues with Rupert Sheldrake, gives talks and leads workshops. He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and other degrees in physics and in theology, having studied at Durham, Oxford and Warwick universities. He is the author of several books, including A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness which in part explores the work of Owen Barfield. He used to be an Anglican priest and lives in London, UK. He is working on the notion of spiritual intelligence with the research group, Perspectiva. Mark’s latest book is Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey, Angelico Press, 2021. For more information see www.markvernon.com.

Beth Macy, The common thread weaving through Beth’s career has been change, having been a manager, leader, consultant or participant in organizations experiencing difficult issues: organizations from small to large, private to public, non-profit to profit, health care to oil and gas, local to global. David Bohm’s dialogue has been core to her research, writing, consulting and teaching for nearly three decades. Living in the USA (Texas) she is completing a book on the ideas and individuals who influenced Bohm’s methodology of dialogue.

Beth is a contributor in the forthcoming Holoflux:Codex – Form/Movement/Vision inspired by David Bohm (Pari Publishing).

The Future Scientist: A Recapitulation
2022-12-21 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZoyZM4-94g&t=1s

A Recapitulation and Conversation between the Audience and Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday December 219:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

The session is live and all registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

The Future Scientist conversation series is reaching an end. After a whole year of monthly encounters with prominent, deep, and visionary scholars, the project will complete the first phase of a greater journey. In this last event of the year, at the heart of the winter solstice, Alex will revisit the initial intention of the series, briefly recapitulate each of the twelve sessions we have had so far, and seek comments and feedback from the participants in an extended Q&A. He will then introduce the rationale for bringing The Future Scientist to a close and evolve it into The Future Human conversation series, which will begin in January 2023 as a natural continuation of the 2022 quest. Paraphrasing one of our very mottos, this will be a virtual encounter to understand where the series is going and to reimage where we hope it might go.

This event is free and open to everyone.

Join the event at this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86553137353

Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

The Future Scientist Series

Science as we know it is a relatively recent human invention.

After the ‘scientific revolution’ of the seventeenth century, science and philosophy remained entangled as ‘natural philosophy’ until they started to separate in the nineteenth century (the very word ‘scientist’ was coined in 1834). Subsequently, science morphed from an activity carried out by wealthy people as a hobby (the ‘amateur,’ in the etymological sense of the word) into a paid job within an institutionalized system (the ‘professional’). Paradoxically or not, great ideas come more easily from people who are not paid to have them—it’s like forcing someone to be free, or compelling creativity by an act of will.

In the last decades, a series of technological and societal changes have further accelerated mutations of what it means to be a scientist; from the selection forces cast by neoliberalism on ‘scientific careers,’ to the kind of ‘science in the age of selfies’ that social media promotes. Scientists too are prey to the perverse dynamics of nowadays ‘attention economy.’ To understand what scientists do and why they do it, one must also understand the political and social contexts in which they live.

In addition, the rise of ‘big science’—initially in physics (particle physics and astronomy), and subsequently in life and mind sciences (genomics, and connectomics)—is reconfiguring the landscape typically inhabited by the romantic figure of the lone scientist receiving visions in dream-like states of consciousness and, eventually, advancing science in a stroke of genius. In turn, the idea of the scientist bred in the current academe is that of a diligent caffeinated deluxe technician as a part within the larger mechanism of research group army; a person trained exquisitely (and almost exclusively) on a research aspect, a specialist unable to keep track of what goes on beyond the narrow confines of his/her discipline. Young scientists are indeed trained to be good at following rules and procedures (explicit laboratory protocols, but also implicit codes of conduct and metaphysical commitments) but discouraged to learn to see when and how to transcend them.

In turn, the more recent promises of ‘big data’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ posit a near-future landscape where some of the core skills and tasks traditionally attributed to humans may be soon carried out by machines (or so the ‘scientific soteriologists’ claim). Algorithms are not just ingenious means to an end that require human intervention to imbue them with meaning, but are swiftly becoming ends in themselves, pretending they offer an automated unbiased interpretation of the data.

A re-appraisal of the habits of the modern scientist entails an ethical dimension as well: why do we treat animals as objects (as means, rather than ends in themselves), why do we study life in laboratories primarily by killing it, and why do we study life in laboratories in the first place? These questions also reflect on ecological considerations regarding our place in nature (humans in relationship with other animals, and other kingdoms of life) and our destruction of the planet. Francis Bacon’s prophetic vision of the Promethean scientist, so vividly captured in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, has become both a cautionary tale and an inspiration.

In addition, and despite the real ‘paradigm changes’ in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century, other branches of science such as biology and neuroscience remain under the spell of philosophical promissory materialism. Research facts are sold in tandem with covert metaphysical commitments. The objective-subjective divide still puzzles both scientists and the layperson. The mind-body problem remains to be solved (or dissolved).

In sum, the whole enterprise seems to be committed to suppressing broad thinkers, promoting academics that look more like corporate managers, PR mavericks and professional fund-raisers and less like scholars, who are asked to inhibit their interest in philosophy, and to cast suspicion on their fertile imagination. Dogma and habit are inhibiting free inquiry.

It is as if science as a whole is becoming less scientific.

In the face of this milieu of factors, in this series of online events we seek to reflect on what ‘the future scientist’ may look like. This is an ambitious exercise indeed, which goes beyond mere theoretical speculation. It is not unlikely that sooner than we think current science will be unrecognizable to most of us. The consequences for humanity writ large, not just for scientists themselves, are pressing.

The question at stake is whether by ‘future scientist’ we mean what scientists in the future are all likely to look like, or what a future better scientist might look like. In our conversations we will engage more in prescribing than in predicting, that is, we might begin by describing where science is going (prediction) to then describe where we hope science might go (prescription). Attempting the art of ‘dia-logos,’ we hope to express a creative voice that will enlighten the way of a new science in the twenty-first century.

The series will be direct conversations, that is, no formal presentation of the invited speaker but a kind of ‘thinking aloud’ in the mode of a dialogue between each guest and Àlex Gómez-Marín as the conversation host. The idea is to engage critically with various aspects of ‘the future scientist’ in a lively and spontaneous format for approximately 45 minutes to an hour, followed by comments and questions from the audience. Each conversation will take place virtually, on a Wednesday each month.

The invited speakers to The Future Scientist series are chosen not just as great interlocutors to discuss these issues, but also as exemplars and hints of what ‘the future scientist’ may actually look like here and now.

The Future Human - A Conversation with Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal
2023-02-15 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meF3nIRcQDc&t=12s

A Conversation between Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal and Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday February 158:30am PST | 11:30am EST | 4:30pm GMT | 5:30pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

A monthly virtual encounter to reckon whence and whither humanity.

Following an hour-long lively and spontaneous dialogue between Alex and his guests, the sessions will be open to questions from the audience.

What will the future look like? How will the Future Human live? How will families, child rearing, education, health services, work, art, religion, love, science, language, storytelling change? And politics, economics, government, and the law? Will we be able to inhabit our planet in harmony, have sufficient energy, and afford to eat healthy food? Will we even survive? Can we thrive? These are just some of the topics that will be discussed online at the Pari Center in 2023.

Each month the Director of the Pari Center, physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín, will be thinking and feeling aloud in the mode of dialogue with a prominent guest for about an hour, followed by questions and comments from the audience. Pursuing a major theme without rehearsal or script, they will attempt to engage with ‘that’ which sometimes takes place between (and beyond) two people talking.

Throughout 2022, Àlex hosted the very successful conversation series The Future Scientist, a monthly virtual encounter that aimed to understand where science is going and to reimage where we hope it might go. Maintaining the spirit and the format, the series will now expand its scope and morph into The Future Human as a natural continuation of the quest to reckon whence and whither humanity.

We will inaugurate the series on Wednesday 15th of February of 2023 (from 17:30 to 19:00 CET) with Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal. Our conversation will orbit around “The Superhumanities”.

Jeffrey J. Kripal is the Associate Dean of the Faculty and Graduate Programs in the School of the Humanities and the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He also helps direct the Center for Theory and Research at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and sits on numerous advisory boards in the U.S. and Europe involving the nature of consciousness and the sciences. Jeff is the author of ten single-authored books, including, most recently, The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities (Chicago, 2022), where he intuits an emerging new order of knowledge that can engage in robust moral criticism but also affirm the superhuman or nonhuman dimensions of our histories, cultures, and futures. He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in the sciences, modern esoteric literature, and the hidden history of science fiction for the University of Chicago Press collectively entitled The Super Story: Science (Fiction) and Some Emergent Mythologies. His full body of work can be seen at http://jeffreyjkripal.com He thinks he may be Spider-Man.

Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception across species, from flies and worms to mice and humans. Since 2016 he has been the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining computational biology and continental philosophy, his current research concentrates on consciousness in the real world.

Entanglement
2023-02-18 17:59 - 2023-03-08 20:00 | Online
Entanglement: Physics, Mind and Worlds

with Emily Adlam, Jonathan Allday, Basil Hiley, José Latorre, Dean Radin, Vandana Shiva

Curated by Jonathan Allday

February 18 – March 5, 20239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

6-two-hour sessions every Saturday and Sunday

All sessions are live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Given the recently awarded 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger “for the experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”, the mysterious notion of entanglement has come back with renewed force not only to the Olympus of mainstream science, but also to the lives of laypeople, recapturing our imagination as to the fundamental interconnected nature of the cosmos.

In a spirit of celebration, this online series brings together world-experts to discuss what entanglement entails, from a theoretical perspective, along with the experiments that have confirmed “spooky action at a distance” and closed increasingly implausible loopholes that might provide another explanation.

The conversation will also address the impact of entanglement beyond physics, and its promise for technological applications in quantum computing.

We intend to cover in relative depth some of the following questions: What is entanglement? What experimental evidence is there for entanglement? Is entanglement the distinctive difference between classical and quantum physics? How does entanglement impact on conventional notions such as ‘part’ and ‘whole’? Does entanglement point to a different conception of space and time? How might entanglement impact on areas of conventional science – e.g., quantum biology, consciousness studies? Is entanglement anything more than a useful analogy in areas of less conventional science – e.g., parapsychology? Has entanglement been anticipated in the worldviews of other cultures? Does entanglement radically undermine the prevailing materialist western worldview?

As physicist David Bohm proposed, “the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. . . . At some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.”

Program of Event

Saturday February 18Entanglement for Amateurswith Dr. Jonathan Allday

Sunday February 19Quantum Computingwith Prof. José Latorre

Saturday February 25Spooky Action at a (Temporal) Distancewith Dr. Emily Adlam

Sunday February 26My Entanglement with Entanglementwith Prof. Basil Hiley

Saturday March 4Entangled Minds and Matterwith Dr. Dean Radin

Sunday March 5Living in a Non-Local World: Entanglement Meets Ecologywith Dr. Vandana Shiva

Entanglement for Amateurs
2023-02-18 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Entanglement for Amateurs

with Dr. Jonathan Allday

Saturday February 18, 20239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

In this talk I will explore the theoretical aspects of entanglement, keeping the technicalities to a minimum but providing an adequate grounding for the other presentations to come. The work of John Bell will be discussed, as he provided a means of experimentally showing exactly how counter to classical expectations quantum entangled systems really are. The experiments that have been carried out based on Bell’s work will also be covered in outline.

To see the Full Entanglement program

Jonathan Allday was born in Liverpool in 1960. He did his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge in 1982 and then returned to Liverpool to complete a PhD in elementary particle physics. As part of this, he was fortunate to spend some time working at the European particle physics centre, CERN, in Geneva.

Also, during that time he was co-opted onto a working party looking at the teaching of particle physics in schools and universities. The upshot was a new syllabus in particle physics and cosmology to be added to UK A-level (16-18) physics qualifications. The first questions were set in 1992.

On the back of the work on this syllabus, Jonathan wrote his first book Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang, which was published in 1998 and is about to enter its fourth edition. Jonathan has also collaborated on a couple of textbooks and written his own books on Quantum Theory, General Relativity and the Apollo moon missions.

Professionally, Jonathan worked as a physics teacher for 30 years in a variety of independent day and boarding schools in the UK. He was a head of physics, a head of science and latterly an academic deputy head. He retired in 2000 and now runs a consulting company providing training and educational advice for schools.

Jonathan is married to Carolyn, and they have three sons all of whom are far better at sport than he was. Carolyn was a GB swimmer, which explains how come the boys can do sport. Jonathan and Carolyn live in a hamlet not far from Worcester in the UK. When not writing or consulting, Jonathan enjoys watching cricket, James Bond movies and Formula 1 races.

José Ignacio Latorre
2023-02-19 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Sunday February 19, 20239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

José Ignacio Latorre got his PhD in Particle Physics at Univ. Barcelona. He was a Fullbright Fellow at MIT (USA) and a postdoc at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. He then became associate professor at the Univ. Barcelona and, later, full professor in Theoretical Physics.

He has written over 100 papers on Particle Physics and Quantum Information and has directed 12 PhD thesis.

He was a founder of the Centro de Ciencias de Benasque Pedro Pascual.

He produced two documentaries, one of them on the last voice of the Manhattan Project.

He works on Ariticial Intelligence and was a founder of the NNPDF collaboration.

He is a partner at Entanglement Partners.

To see the Full Entanglement program

Spooky Action at a (Temporal) Distance
2023-02-25 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
with Dr. Emily Adlam

Saturday February 25, 2023

9:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Since the discovery of Bell’s theorem, the physics community has come to take seriously the possibility that the universe might contain physical processes which are spatially nonlocal, but there has been no such revolution with regard to the possibility of temporally nonlocal processes. In this talk, I will explore what temporal nonlocality might mean for physics. I will begin by arguing that temporal locality is incompatible with relativity and I will consider what kind of temporal nonlocality is suggested by relativistic considerations. I will introduce the temporal Bell inequalities, and discuss how temporal nonlocality is related to retrocausality. Finally, I will describe how accepting temporal nonlocality might change scientific explanations and open up new possibilities for research in physics. The talk will be followed by audience discussion of possible objections to temporal nonlocality and areas of science that might be affected by temporal nonlocality.

Emily Adlam is a postdoctoral associate at the Rotman Institute for Philosophy of Science, associated with the University of Western Ontario. Adlam received her PhD in relativistic quantum information from the University of Cambridge. Prior to that she completed the Perimeter Scholar’s International programme in theoretical physics, and she did her undergraduate degree in physics and philosophy at the Univeristy of Oxford. Adlam works on the foundations of quantum mechanics and related issues in the philosophy of physics. Adlam is particularly interested in approaches to physics which go beyond the time evolution paradigm – encompassing a range of possibilities like temporal non-locality, retrocausality, and all-at-once laws.

To see the Full Entanglement program

My Entanglement with Entanglement
2023-02-26 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
My Entanglement with Entanglement

with Prof. Basil J. Hiley

Sunday February 26, 20239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Basil J. Hiley is a British quantum physicist and professor emeritus of the University of London. He received the Majorana Prize ‘Best Person in Physics’ in 2012. A long-time co-worker of David Bohm, Hiley is known for his work with Bohm on the implicate order and for his work on algebraic descriptions of quantum physics in terms of underlying symplectic and orthogonal Clifford algebras. Hiley co-authored the book The Undivided Universe with David Bohm, which is considered the main reference for Bohm’s interpretation of quantum theory.

The work of Bohm and Hiley has been characterized as primarily addressing the question ‘whether we can have an adequate conception of the reality of a quantum system, be this causal or be it stochastic or be it of any other nature’ and meeting the scientific challenge of providing a mathematical description of quantum systems that matches the idea of an implicate order.

In 1961 Hiley was appointed assistant lecturer at Birkbeck College, where Bohm had taken the chair of Theoretical Physics shortly before. Hiley wanted to investigate how physics could be based on a notion of process, and he found that David Bohm held similar ideas. He reports that during the seminars he held together with Roger Penrose he was particularly fascinated by John Wheeler’s ‘sum over three geometries’ ideas that he was using to quantize gravity.

Hiley worked with David Bohm for many years on fundamental problems of theoretical physics. Initially Bohm’s model of 1952 did not feature in their discussions; this changed when Hiley asked himself whether the ‘Einstein-Schrödinger equation,’ as Wheeler called it, might be found by studying the full implications of that model. They worked together closely for three decades. Together they wrote many publications, including the book The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory, published 1993, which is now considered the major reference for Bohm’s interpretation of quantum theory.

In 1995, Basil Hiley was appointed to the chair in physics at Birkbeck College at the University of London. He was awarded the 2012 Majorana Prize in the category The Best Person in Physics for the algebraic approach to quantum mechanics and furthermore in recognition of ‘his paramount importance as natural philosopher, his critical and open minded attitude towards the role of science in contemporary culture.’

To see the Full Entanglement program

The Future Human - A Conversation with Satish Kumar
2023-03-01 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yswI-Y8Xs9g

A Conversation between Satish Kumar and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday March 19:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

A monthly virtual encounter to reckon whence and whither humanity.

Following an hour-long lively and spontaneous dialogue between Alex and his guests, the sessions will be open to questions from the audience.

What will the future look like? How will the Future Human live? How will families, child rearing, education, health services, work, art, religion, love, science, language, storytelling change? And politics, economics, government, and the law? Will we be able to inhabit our planet in harmony, have sufficient energy, and afford to eat healthy food? Will we even survive? Can we thrive? These are just some of the topics that will be discussed online at the Pari Center in 2023.

Each month the Director of the Pari Center, physicist and neuroscientist Àlex Gómez-Marín, will be thinking and feeling aloud in the mode of dialogue with a prominent guest for about an hour, followed by questions and comments from the audience. Pursuing a major theme without rehearsal or script, they will attempt to engage with ‘that’ which sometimes takes place between (and beyond) two people talking.

Throughout 2022, Àlex hosted the very successful conversation series The Future Scientist, a monthly virtual encounter that aimed to understand where science is going and to reimage where we hope it might go. Maintaining the spirit and the format, the series will now expand its scope and morph into The Future Human as a natural continuation of the quest to reckon whence and whither humanity.

The second conversation in this series will be on Wednesday March 1, 2023 with Satish Kumar. Our conversation will orbit around “Love”.

Peace-pilgrim, life-long activist and former monk, Satish Kumar has been inspiring global change for over 50 years. Aged 9, Satish renounced the world and joined the wandering Jain monks. Inspired by Gandhi, he decided at 18 that he could achieve more back in the world and soon undertook a peace-pilgrimage, walking without money from India to America in the name of nuclear disarmament. Now in his 80s, Satish has devoted his life to campaigning for ecological regeneration, social justice and spiritual fulfilment.

Satish founded Schumacher College as well as The Resurgence Trust, an educational charity that seeks a just future for all. To join Satish in protecting people and planet, become a member of Resurgence (with 20% off), entitling you to this charity’s change-making magazine, Resurgence & Ecologist.

Satish appears regularly on podcasts, radio and television shows. He has been interviewed by Richard Dawkins, Russell Brand and Annie Lennox, appearing as a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Thought for the Day and Midweek. Satish presented an episode of BBC2’s Natural World documentary series, which was watched by 3.6 million people. An acclaimed international speaker and author, Satish’s autobiography sold over 50,000 copies, inspiring change around the world.

Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception across species, from flies and worms to mice and humans. Since 2016 he has been the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining computational biology and continental philosophy, his current research concentrates on consciousness in the real world.

Entangled Minds and Matter
2023-03-04 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Entangled Minds and Matter

with Dr. Dean Radin

Saturday March 4, 20239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Methods for investigating mind-matter interactions were proposed by Sir Francis Bacon at the very origins of empiricism, over three centuries ago. Systematic scientific studies began about a century ago. In this talk, I will briefly review the modern experimental literature on “psychokinetic” effects, then I will present in more detail experiments I have conducted involving random physical systems based on quantum indeterminacy, photon polarization, scattering, and entanglement, the molecular structure of water, growth of plants and stem cells in vitro, and influences on human mood and physiology. I will also discuss the epistemological challenges in conducting these kinds of studies, as well as the practical and philosophical implications of mind-matter entanglements.

Dean Radin is Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), Associated Distinguished Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and chairman of the biotech company, Cognigenics. He earned an MS (electrical engineering) and a PhD (psychology) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and in 2022 was awarded an Honorary DSc (doctor of science) from the Swami Vivekananda University (an accredited university in Bangalore, India).

Before joining the IONS research staff in 2001, Radin worked at AT&T Bell Labs, Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, and SRI International. He has given over 690 talks and interviews worldwide, and he is author or coauthor of some 300 scientific and popular articles, four dozen book chapters, and nine books, four of which have been translated into 15 foreign languages: The Conscious Universe (1997, HarperCollins), Entangled Minds (2006, Simon & Schuster), Supernormal (2013, RandomHouse), and Real Magic (2018, PenguinRandomHouse).

To see the Full Entanglement program

Living in a Non-Local World: Entanglement Meets Ecology
2023-03-05 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Living in a Non-Local World: Entanglement Meets Ecology

with Dr. Vandana Shiva

Sunday March 5, 20239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

The session is live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

I will discuss the implications of the concept of nonlocality and hidden variables to our understanding of life in the real world. Making a concrete analogy between quantum systems and humane societies reveals a way of being-in-the-world that is not only more Beautiful and True but also Good. I will argue that the revolutionary discoveries of the quantum revolution inform and inspire current revolutions in ecology, agriculture, and politics.

Dr Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar, activist, and author. A food sovereignty advocate, environmentalist, and ecofeminist, Shiva holds a PhD in physics and has written more than 20 books, including Making Peace with the Earth, Staying Alive, Monocultures of the Mind, Democratizing Biology, Soil Not Oil, and Stolen Harvest. Based in Delhi, she is referred to as “Gandhi of grain” for her activism associated with the anti-GMO movement. Shiva is one of the leaders and board members of the International Forum on Globalization, and a figure of the anti-globalization movement. She has worked as a consultant for the Indian government and abroad, and in NGOs such as the International Forum on Globalization, Women’s Environment & Development Organization and Third World Network. She is a co-founder of the gender unit of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, and of the Women’s Environment & Development Organization. Shiva has received numerous international honors, such as the John Lennon-Yoko Ono Grant for Peace (2008), Sydney’s Peace Prize (2010), Calgary’s Peace Prize (2011), and the Right Livelihood Award (1993), which is regarded as the “alternative Nobel Prize”.

To see the Full Entanglement program

Reflections On Rupert Sheldrake’s “The Science Delusion”
2023-03-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3wA4KEjxYo

Reflections On Rupert Sheldrake’s “The Science Delusion”

On the 10th anniversary of his banned TED talk

Dr. Rupert Sheldrakein conversation with Dr. Alex Gomez-Marin

Tuesday March 1410:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

Free Online Pari Dialogue

In January 2013 Rupert Sheldrake gave a talk at TEDx Whitechapel entitled “The Science Delusion” where he questioned ten fundamental beliefs of mainstream science. The event was called “Visions for Transition: Challenging existing paradigms and redefining values (for a more beautiful world)”. After protests from two militant materialists, P.Z. Myers and Jerry Coyne, and in consultation with an undisclosed Scientific Board, TED declared: “we feel a responsibility not to provide a platform for talks which appear to have crossed the line into pseudoscience.”

The irony (and tragedy) was twofold. First, Sheldrake’s questioning of dogmatism was met with a dogmatic canceling of his questioning. Second, despite TED’s famed ethos of “ideas worth spreading”, they deemed other ideas worth canceling, especially when challenging TED’s sanctioned narrow worldview. Mislaying their reputation, TED’s decision refuted itself.

Ten years after the controversy, Dr. Sheldrake will reflect together with Dr. Gomez-Marin on the effectiveness of heterodox critiques of mainstream scientific thinking. Did they make a difference? What has changed, if anything, after such clashes?

Nowadays’ media landscape affords new opportunities to expose and share different worldviews through podcasting and blogging. However, curricula remain unchanged, as students continue to be indoctrinated with the materialist mechanistic reductionist program. In addition, venues such as Wikipedia profess the same unexamined prejudices, and so do major newspapers, TVs, and grant agencies. In the meantime, scientific breakthroughs stagnate.

In this free online event we will ask what has to really change for things to really change.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

You can view the censored TEDx talk here:https://youtu.be/hO4p3xeTtUA

As well a recent animation by After Skool on “Exposing Scientific Dogma”:https://youtu.be/sF03FN37i5w

TED’s justification and Sheldrake’s reply:https://blog.ted.com/open-for-discussion-graham-hancock-and-rupert-sheldrake/

Sheldrake’s book “The Science Delusion”:https://sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-science-delusion-science-set-free

And a conversation between Sheldrake and Gomez-Marin on scientific dogmatism:https://youtu.be/nFQWgnVrmZU

Dr Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than ninety technical papers and nine books, including The Science Delusion (called Science Set Free in the US). As a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, he was Director of Studies in Cell Biology, and was also a Research Fellow of the Royal Society. He worked in Hyderabad, India, as Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), and also lived for two years in the ashram of Fr Bede Griffiths in Tamil Nadu. From 2005-2010, he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project for the study of unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California and of Schumacher College in Dartington, Devon. He lives in London and is married to Jill Purce, with whom he has two sons. His web site is www.sheldrake.org.

Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception in flies, worms, mice, humans and robots. Since 2016 he is the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining high-resolution experiments, computational and theoretical biology, and continental philosophy, his latest research concentrates on real-life cognition and consciousness.

Nexus with Dr Jeffrey Dunne
2023-04-18 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phP9kecFbEc

Nexus

Dr. Jeffrey Dunne in conversation with Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marin

Tuesday April 189:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Dr. Jeffrey Dunne is the President and Chairman of the Board of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL), a charitable research organization established in the late 1990’s to build upon the foundation laid by Dr. Robert Jahn and Dr. Brenda Dunne in the research carried out at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR) Laboratory. In addition to his role with ICRL, Jeff is a researcher and systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins University and an award-winning author and playwright. In his recently published book, Nexus, Jeff brings unites three decades of scientific experience with four decades of pursuits in philosophy and metaphysics to weave a story that introduces the principle of syntropy and its importance of finding balance at every scale – personal, societal, and global. Jeff’s driving passion is to help transform our world such that materialism gives way to the recognition of the crucial role that consciousness plays in the formation of reality.

Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception across species, from flies and worms to mice and humans. Since 2016 he has been the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining computational biology and continental philosophy, his current research concentrates on consciousness in the real world.

Incredible Minds
2023-04-22 17:59 - 2023-05-07 20:00 | Online
Incredible Minds: Exploring Actual, Virtual, and Possible Minds Across Living Matter

with Paco Calvo, Lars Chittka, Audrey Dussutour, Michael Levin, Julia Mossbridge, Matthew Segall

Pari Center Online Series

April 22 – May 7, 20239:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

6-two-hour sessions every Saturday and Sunday

All sessions are live and you will be sent the RECORDING.

Do plants have feelings? How blind are we to their own internal experiences? Perhaps they offer an untapped opportunity to reconsider how we understand ourselves. What about bees? Do we appreciate their unique cognitive abilities, both as a group and as individuals? Their brains may grant them a kind of consciousness akin, or not, to ours. And, what about cells? How does bioelectricity contribute to their collective problem-solving? Given the evolution of their multiscale competencies, one can marvel at the relentless manifestation of such accomplishments throughout development, every time a batch of chemicals becomes a metacognitive human. Let us also ask whether synthetic life forms could have minds, or whether they only behave as if they did. Can we tell? How do slime molds, a sister group to fungi and animals, live and thrive in worlds as complex as our own. We can use such creatures to learn to think critically and better understand science itself. What, if anything, is then uniquely human about our minds? Does our desire for improvement hinder the very possibility of self-transcendence? Here’s a challenge: to continue learning about us and the world while loving everything as it is. Is the cosmos really a fluke accident sprinkled with improbable biological organisms with epiphenomenal minds? It is ironic that some conscious intelligences (mainly academics) insist on explaining themselves away. An alternative cosmology, and no less scientifically compatible, can root mind and life in cosmogenesis from the very beginning. Thus, at the end of the day, all such alien minds living in all such alien worlds may be more natural, and even more incredible, than we are led to believe. Join us to explore and enjoy them all.

Program of Event

Saturday April 22Planta Sapiens: The Incredible Minds of Plantswith Dr. Paco Calvo

Sunday April 23The Mind of a Beewith Dr. Lars Chittka

Saturday April 29The Collective Intelligence of Cells During Morphogenesis: What Bioelectricity Outside the Brain Means for Understanding our Multiscale Naturewith Dr. Michael Levin

Sunday April 30Human Thinking and Human Beingwith Dr. Julia Mossbridge

Saturday May 6The Use of Slime Molds in Promoting Science for and by the Peoplewith Dr. Audrey Dussutour

Sunday May 7Mind and Life in the Cosmoswith Dr. Matthew David Segall
