Processes of Creation
2022-07-16 18:00 - 2022-07-17 20:00 (Europe/Rome) | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/XDP6Quiqo2Y?si=pPufF3aUROIdPeuf

https://youtu.be/QN3nvuz2cWs?si=OCzTvHRoYY9gKfgm

Processes of Creation

with Steven Breaux, Aja Bulla-Richards, Sky Hoorne and Hester Reeve

Saturday July 16 and Sunday July 17, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

Two 2-hour sessions

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

Most artists, most artisans – really, anyone who creates – go through some process of envisioning…formulating…gestating…imagining. There are, as well, processes of intending, expressing, embodying, disclosing. And then further, manifesting, revealing, exhibiting. Some of these processes may operate prior to the threshold of conscious awareness. Some of them may move in a grey area. Some may be, or may become, overtly intentional. These various processes – and many others not named – may loop back on one another, interpenetrate one another, fuel or negate one another. For many who create, there is an element of mystery, of uncertainty, a dance of the unexpected and unforeseen.

With four artists over two days, we will explore the dynamic nature of these processes, which have multiple resonances with David Bohm’s implicate and explicate orders, and with his notions of wholeness and fragmentation. Each artist will present and discuss selections of their work. They will then further discuss their work in conversation with the three other artists in the program, before opening their segment to audience comment and participation.

July 16 Steven Breaux

As a painter I have always believed that the paint in a brushstroke is encoded with the mental states of the artist during the process of its making, and that in the analysis of the work of art by a “viewer” these states could be accessed.

I propose that during the creative art-object process a “field” or subtle structure is formed and sustained by the artist’s qualitative states and consciousness – and that this field exists as a hidden aspect of the material art-object. Revealing distinguishing features between a traditional painting and other mediums including digital (algorithmic) work, I propose that this field or subtle structure is dynamic, viable and accessible to the artist and the viewer.

Highlighting my artistic process, exploration and discovery I will focus on how these are influenced by aspects of David Bohm’s ontology.

July 16 Aja Bulla-Richards

By giving form to unseen and latent qualities and processes we open up the possibility of new ways of relating to the world around us and within us. As a designer, making latent natural systems and cycles visible is part of my creative process, one that involves collaborating with these movements in and on the earth.

This way of working is a a response to the urgent environmental crisis we are facing – a crisis that necessitates a shift out of a mechanical worldview that sees nature as resource, and towards an exploration of our participatory relationship with a living world. In this presentation I will outline and illustrate how this process of bringing forth the “implicate” aspects of natural systems works in practice, and how all of us can shift our vision to more fully see “into” the natural world.

July 17 Sky Hoorne

A lens-based, photographic way of perceiving the world has become deeply embedded in, and come to dominate, fundamental aspects of human consciousness. This mode of perception more often than not leads to fragmentation and subtle alienation, which then becomes reflexive in our relationship with the world. Through different mediums I try to counterbalance this photographic and object-oriented “error” by turning to our imaginative potential, which can reveal the world to us in new ways.

Nature – both human-impacted and the wild remnants – is not to be “transcended” and sublimated to mental objects, but rather to be “inscended” – to be stepped into and fully experienced in all of its richness, beauty, ugliness, and power. In this presentation I will illustrate some of these limits on our perception, and how these limits might be opened. The body forms an integral part of this process: the subject matter is not only perceived visually, but also psychologically, emotionally, and by imagining “into” the processes observed.

July 17 Hester Reeve

Through engaging with David Bohm’s understanding of creativity, I have had to question whether I really am creative or not – such questioning opens up a complicated but rich terrain and Bohm’s perspective has confirmed my intuition that the task is as much philosophical as artistic. There is an important line to wonder and wander along in creative unfurling, exercising a balance between being a creative creature in my own life with some sort of experimental outward stretch to enable larger, often incomprehensible processes to fulfil some sort of potential of existence.

I love to think about such things as much as I love the smell of turps in an art studio, but my real excitement is how such mental gymnastics ‘knead’ out the cultural habits and personal assumptions from my brain-body, clearing the way for attunement to fresh possibilities – in how I behave, in the forms I make, or how I might work with others. For this presentation, I will lead with examples from my art practice that engage these various philosophical and artistic interests.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm https://paricenter.com/event/beyond-bohm-2022-2/Program

The Artists

Steve Breaux, BFA, MFA, Florida State University, is retired (2020) Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he taught Art and the Computer, Conceptual and Formal Development, Advanced Drawing, and 2d. Design. For 25 years he has worked both as a solo artist and in collaboration with his wife and partner, Kathy Reed, in a variety of media including process art, printmaking, painting on silk, computer animation/video, photography, and painting often in combination. He has researched the nature of the art process as it relates to differences between painting and digital (algorithmic) artwork for over 25 years. In 2011, his research led to the ideas and concepts in quantum physics, David Bohm in particular, which helped to shift his private research into a more public arena that included lectures and presentations.

In 2015 Steve was invited to present the research behind his abstract, Waking Space: The Emerging Art Object, Quantum Theory, and Algorithmic Art at the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference in Helsinki, Finland. The abstract can be found here:

https://stevebreaux-kathyreed.com/pdfs.html

Steve’s work has been accepted regionally, nationally and internationally for inclusion in galleries, museums, catalogues and exhibitions.

https://stevebreaux-kathyreed.com/section/188730.htmlhttps://stevebreaux-kathyreed.com/section/258261-COLLABORATIVE-WORK.html

Aja Bulla-Richards is an architectural and landscape architectural designer, public artist, and educator. She works at the intersection of social, ecological, and conceptual systems and everyday experience. As the Creative Director at Watershed Progressive, Aja is responsible for managing and designing resilient landscape projects and educational programs throughout California. As a Lecturer in the landscape architecture and urbanism graduate program at University of Southern California, she leads design studios that address adapting our constructed world to shifting natural and sociocultural forces. Aja’s ongoing research questions our dominant cultural narratives, and explores multiple forms of knowledge formation and co-creation. Her projects explore how we can re-imagine and transform monofunctional systems into resilient socio-ecological cycles that engage and re-enchant everyday experience, promote alternative cultural practices, and uncover latent ecological processes.

Aja is a contributor to the forthcoming Holoflux:Codex – Form/Movement/Vision inspired by David Bohm (Pari Publishing 2022)

http://www.watershedprogressive.com/M.S. Architecture, Arid Lands Institute at Woodbury UniversityM.L.A., University of Virginia, School of DesignM.Arch, University of Virginia, School of DesignB.A., Architecture, University of California at Berkeley

Sky Hoorne holds a MS in Computer Science from Vrije Universiteit Brussel and attended LUCA School of Arts Ghent. She is a graphic artist, creator of comic strips, and a dedicated scholar of the work of David Bohm. Currently she is focused on ceramic sculptures, drawings, paintings, and on making complex issues digestible to a broader, non-academic public.

Rooted in her life philosophy of ‘active context’/’contexting’, Sky attempts to make ‘inscendental’ works of art, in which the viewer is invited to step into the subject by appealing to their primal imagination and subtle participation. This approach involves free play with clichés, perspectives, and polarities. Despite her background in IT, her main interests include psychology, eastern philosophy, science of mind, no-nonsense metaphysics and kiko/qi gong.

Sky is a contributor to the forthcoming Holoflux:Codex – Form/Movement/Vision inspired by David Bohm (Pari Publishing 2022)

https://www.antihype.be/

Hester Reeve is a Reader in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University UK. Her practice encompasses live art, drawing, sculpture, poetry, philosophy and ‘dialogue’ (as set out by David Bohm): Art is not viewed straightforwardly as a tool of communication or form of personal expression, but more as a complex kingdom that is continually attempting to establish itself through human thought and action.

Hester’s work has been shown internationally, including at former Randolph Street Gallery Chicago, LIVE Biennale Vancouver, BONE Performance Festival Switzerland, Tate Britain, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Halle G Vienna and, most recently, Nirox Sculpture Park, South Africa.

Hester is a contributor the forthcoming Holoflux:Codex – Form/Movement/Vision inspired by David Bohm (Pari Publishing 2022)

https://hester-reeve.squarespace.com/https://www.shu.ac.uk/about-us/our-people/staff-profiles/hester-reeve

Dialogue in the Age of Zoom
2022-07-23 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/bLlTWvifB-0?si=Zn3plc9IpimUy9Ik

Dialogue in the Age of Zoom

with Julie Arts, Richard Burg, Anna Factor, Sally Jeffery, Beth Macy, Lee Nichol and David Schrum

Saturday July 23, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

It is impossible to overstate the effects of Covid-19 on the manner in which human beings interact. High on the list of these effects is a massive shift to online interaction for work, social engagement, and personal interaction. Dialogue in its many forms – Bohmian or otherwise – has also been significantly impacted by this online shift. In this session we will draw on the experience of seven people who have deep roots in various aspects of dialogue, both before and during the Covid pandemic. At the forefront of our inquiry will be the many variances that occur between in-the-flesh interaction on one hand, and interaction through the medium of streaming video on the other. What experiences are gained through the digital milieu? What experiences are lost? Is the future of dialogue – and conversation more generally – being re-shaped in accord with technology? As Covid-19 becomes endemic, will groups still gather face-to-face? What are the implications of these many changes?

Our roundtable will also take up more general questions regarding the cultural impact of social media and the human-digital interface. In what ways does the milieu of these technologies shape our awareness? What new skills of critical thinking can guide us as the digital world becomes omnipresent? At multiple junctures, we will invite audience members to engage with us on all of these questions.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

The Panel

Julie Arts is currently on a sabbatical from being a senior faculty member and consultant with the Presencing Institute (PI), an organisation founded in 2006 by Otto Scharmer and colleagues, to support action research and leadership development for systems change and societal transformation.Julie is an economist by training and has worked as a senior consultant, designing and hosting multi-stakeholder transition processes and ecosystem leadership programs such as the UN SDG Leadership Lab and many in-house leadership programs for companies and NGOs. Julie is also a board member of Meg Wheatley’s Berkana Institute. She lives in Mechelen, Belgium and in Pari, Italy.

Richard Burg – In 2003 I retired from consulting, my fourth career (IT, potter, Continuing Medical Education research). Simple Idea worked with corporate leaders to integrate human values and productivity in a constantly changing environment – engaging with teams and individuals to build relationships within the organization that nurture the humanity in everyone, even as they work together to achieve audacious goals.

In 1990 a friend sent me a transcript of a talk given by David Bohm at MIT. In my organization development practice – focused on changing corporate cultures – group work was a built-in aspect of the process. Bohm’s dialogue experiment was thus enticing, and I discovered a Bohmian dialogue group in the San Francisco Bay Area, which I attended weekly for the next eight years. Stemming from that group, Lee Nichol and I designed a nine-hour, multi-day introduction to Bohm’s experiment at the first National Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation in Washington DC. I have since engaged in dialogue in many different contexts – most recently, like many, in online dialogues, before and during the covid pandemic.

Early on in my dialogue work, I received permission to transcribe the little pamphlet, Dialogue: A Proposal (D. Bohm, D. Factor, and P. Garrett) and post it online via colleagues at MIT. It is still available, in multiple “versions,” some with several addenda/commentaries.

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

Anna and her husband, Don Factor, were longtime friends and supporters of David Bohm and the process of dialogue he envisioned. Don had first met Bohm in the 1970s in London, and the two continued their friendship from that time on. It was their early acquaintance that led to inviting Bohm to be interviewed by Don at the Human Unity Conference – a large gathering of people from many different spiritual traditions – held at Warwick University, in March of 1983. Following the enthusiastic response to this interview, Bohm was invited to present more of his thinking at a weekend conference held in Mickleton, England. It was during the ensuing weekend that what is considered to have been the very first Bohmian dialogue occurred. The transcript of the weekend has been preserved by Don Factor in the book, Unfolding Meaning.

Following that weekend, Anna and Don began offering their home for dialogues among those who had been so inspired by the initial dialogue idea, and along with Peter and Jenny Garrett and David and Saral Bohm, they organized public dialogues at many locations across western Europe, Scandinavia, and Israel during the late 1980s. Stemming from these early dialogues is the well-known publication by Bohm, Don Factor and Peter Garrett, “Dialogue, A Proposal” which still is considered a cornerstone description of Bohm’s intention for dialogue.

Looking back, Anna remembers David Bohm: “He was a dear man. He really was so very kind and had a lot of humanity. I found him – and still find him – an inspiration…a lovely, lovely man.”

Sally Jeffery was introduced to the teachings of J. Krishnamurti while a young undergraduate in Sociology. Through involvement with his international school in England, she met and was deeply impressed by David Bohm (a founding trustee of the school) and, later, his proposals for dialogue. Over three decades, she has taken part in dialogue in many settings, including prisons and her local (Lancaster) dialogue group. Involvement in two online dialogue groups began in 2018/19, but since the pandemic and through the Lancaster group website, others have been in contact, expressing interest and wanting to start new ​online groups to explore David Bohm’s thinking in practice. During this same period, Sally was employed as a body work therapist, including over 20 years working with people who’d had a cancer diagnosis, along with their families. A leaning to such work might suggest she would take less readily to online dialogue, missing the physical presence of the other participants. After initial hesitation, this has proved not to be the case.

Beth Macy, PhD, organizational consultant, Bohmian dialogue practitioner

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 the the forthcoming Holoflux:Codex – Form/Movement/Vision inspired by David Bohm (Pari Publishing).

Lee Nichol is a freelance writer and editor. His latest works are Entering Bohm’s Holoflux and, as editor, the forthcoming Holoflux:Codex – Form/Movment/Vision inspired by David Bohm (both from Pari Publishing). He was a long-time friend and collaborator of David Bohm, and is editor of Bohm’s On Dialogue, The Essential David Bohm, and On Creativity.

Lee has been on the faculty of the Arthur Morgan School in Celo, North Carolina; the Oak Grove School in Ojai, California; the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, California; and Denver University in Denver, Colorado. He sits on the Advisory Committee of the Pari Center, the Advisory Council of the Indigenous Education Institute, and is a member of the Founding Circle of the Native American Academy. Lee lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife Eva Casey.

David Schrum received his PhD in quantum theory at Queen’s University, following which he spent two post-doctoral years with David Bohm at Birkbeck College. Here, he entered Bohm’s world of creative and subtle philosophical approaches to physics and his enquiry into consciousness and what may lie beyond.

David Schrum continues in these explorations, in physics developing a new approach to relativistic quantum theory and, through the dialogue process, going into what it is to bring to light that which lies enfolded within our individual and collective consciousness.

Indigenous Dialogue: Walk in Beauty
2022-07-24 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/PNhCLFrgXK8?si=pcMbssGQtAznkEUA

Indigenous Dialogue: Walk in Beauty

with Leroy Little Bear, Jeannette Armstrong, Greg Cajete, Amethyst First Rider, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Melissa Nelson, John Briggs, Harvey Locke and Lee Nichol

Facilitated by Leroy Little Bear

Sunday July 24, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

In Memory of Rose Imai

The concept of “ecological niche” has gained much traction since the early 20th century, with many hundreds of plant and animal species now thoroughly assessed, analyzed, and categorized under this rubric. But what is the ecological niche of homo sapiens – of us, human beings? We know that, like any other species, humans exist in a very narrow band of specific conditions within which we can live and flourish. With the onset of the Anthropocene – the “new human” era – those specific conditions have increasingly come under assault, threatening the well-being not only of homo sapiens, but of all life, of the entire planet.

In this dialogue we will question whether utilitarian conservation – an approach that subtly or overtly emphasizes the benefit of conservation for humans – is sufficient to address the many implications of life in the Anthropocene. We will consider the prospect of relational conservation, which is innate to indigenous worldviews. In relational conservation, all of existence is considered animate, and the intricate web of connections between “all my relations” is not a metaphor – it is the fundamental reality that must be steadily held in view.

While exploring the implications of these different approaches to conservation, our dialogue will also examine the tacit infrastructures of the currently dominant “western paradigm.” Through such examination, we may come to a clearer understanding of wholeness and fragmentation, and perhaps see a way forward to fundamental shifts in our underlying metaphysics. We may begin to see glimmerings of what our Navajo brothers and sisters mean when they say, “May you walk in beauty.”

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

The Panel

Leroy Little Bear, PhD. Blackfoot Native—Professor Emeritus University of Lethbridge, Canada.

Leroy Little Bear was born and raised on the Blood Indian Reserve (Kainai First Nation), approximately 70 km west of Lethbridge, Alberta. One of the first Native students to complete a program of study at the University of Lethbridge, Little Bear graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1971. He continued his education at the College of Law, University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, completing a Juris Doctor Degree in 1975.

Following his graduation, Little Bear returned to his alma mater as a founding member of Canada’s first Native American Studies Department. He remained at the University of Lethbridge as a researcher, faculty member and department chair until his official retirement in 1997.

In recent years Little Bear has continued his influential work as an advocate for First Nations education. From January 1998 to June 1999 he served as Director of the Harvard University Native American Program. Upon his return to Canada, he was instrumental in the creation of a Bachelor of Management in First Nations Governance at the University of Lethbridge—the only program of its kind in the country.

In the spring of 2003, Little Bear was awarded the prestigious National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Education, the highest honour bestowed by Canada’s First Nations community. Little Bear is the recipient of honorary doctorates from the University of Lethbridge and the University of Northern British Columbia. Along with his wife, Amethyst First Rider, Little Bear brought about the historic Buffalo Treaty between First Nations on both sides of the USA-Canada border in 2014. Little Bear was inducted into the Alberta Order Excellence and the Order of Canada in 2016 and 2019 respectively.

After a lifetime of educational service, Little Bear remains a dedicated and dynamic teacher and mentor to students and faculty at the University of Lethbridge. He continues to pursue new research interests including North American Indian science and Western physics, and the exploration of Blackfoot knowledge through songs, stories and landscape.

While his educational achievements are remarkable, Little Bear’s contribution to the First Nations community extends well beyond the classroom. He has served as a consultant to local and national organizations including the Blood Tribe, Indian Association of Alberta and the Assembly of First Nations of Canada. His notable reputation has also earned him a place on numerous government commissions and boards including the Task Force on the Criminal Justice and Its Impact on the Indian and Metis Peoples of Alberta (1990-91). Little Bear’s legal advice is widely sought on such significant issues as land claims, treaties, and hunting and fishing rights.

Dr Little Bear is the co-author of several books on self-government and Aboriginal rights, including Pathways to Self Determination, Quest For Justice, and Governments in Conflict. His credits also include a variety of influential articles such as, ‘A concept of Native Title,’ which was cited in a Canadian Supreme Court decision.

Jeannette Armstrong, Syilx Okanagan, is Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Okanagan Philosophy at UBC Okanagan Campus. She is a fluent speaker and teacher of the Nsyilxcn Okanagan language, and a traditional knowledge keeper of the Okanagan Nation. She is a founder of En’owkin, the Okanagan Nsyilxcn language and knowledge institution of higher learning of the Syilx Okanagan Nation. She holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Ethics and Syilx Indigenous Literatures.

Jeannette is the recipient of the Eco Trust USA Buffett Award in Indigenous Leadership, and in 2016 received the BC George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award. She is an author whose published works include poetry, prose and children’s literary titles, and academic writing on a wide variety of Indigenous issues. She currently serves on Canada’s Traditional Knowledge Subcommittee of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. Jeannette was recently named to the class of 2021 as a Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada.

Some of her publications include:

Slash. Theytus, 1987; revised edition, 1998.

Whispering in Shadows. Theytus Books, 1999.

Breathtracks. Theytus, 1991.

Enwhisteetkwa; Walk in Water (for children). Theytus, 1982.

Neekna and Chemai (for children), illustrated by Barbara Marchand. Theytus, 1984.

with Douglas Cardinal. The Native Creative Process: A Collaborative Discourse. Theytus, 1992.

Gregory Cajete is a Native American educator whose work is dedicated to honoring the foundations of Indigenous knowledge in education. Dr. Cajete is a Tewa Indian from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico.

Dr. Cajete is a practicing ceramic, pastel and metal artist. He is extensively involved with art and its application to education. He is also a scholar of herbalism and holistic health. Dr. Cajete also designs culturally-responsive curricula geared to the special needs and learning styles of Native American students.

He worked at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico for 21 years. While at the Institute, he served as Dean of the Center for Research and Cultural Exchange, Chair of Native American Studies and Professor of Ethno- Science. He is the former Director of Native American Studies (18 years) and is Professor Emeritus in the Division of Language, Literacy and Socio Cultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico. In addition, he has lectured at colleges and universities in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Italy, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, England, France and Germany.

Dr. Cajete has authored 10 books: “Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education,” (Kivaki Press, 1994); “Ignite the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Education Curriculum Model”, (Kivaki Press, 1999); “Spirit of the Game: Indigenous Wellsprings (2004),” “A People’s Ecology: Explorations in Sustainable Living,” and “Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence” (Clear Light Publishers, 1999 and 2000). “Critical Neurophilosophy and Indigenous Wisdom,” Don Jacobs (Four Arrows), Gregory Cajete and Jongmin Lee) Sense Publishers, 2010. “Indigenous Community: Teachings of the Seventh Fire,” (Living Justice Press, 2015). His most recent books are edited volumes entitled: “Native Minds Rising” and “Sacred Journeys” (John Charlton Publications, 2020). Dr. Cajete also has chapters in 36 other books along with numerous articles and over 350 national and international presentations.

Amethyst First Rider is a member of the Kainai Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Alberta, Canada and married to Leroy Little Bear. She is a leader in the performing arts community for more that 20 years, producing and directing plays depicting Aboriginal stories and culture. Her experience in the arts has included dance productions, consulting for the University of California, Berkeley’s planetarium, as well as narration and production in the National Film Board’s documentary: Kainayssini Imanistaiswa, The People Go On. She co-conceived Iniskim an immersive puppet lantern performance celebrating the reintegration of Bison into the natural ecosystem of Banff National Park. She is central to the development and success of The Buffalo: A Treaty of Cooperation, Renewal and Restoration signed by over 30 First Nations and Tribes in Canada and the USA. It is the biggest modern Treaty amongst First Nations. Its purpose is to “one again welcome the Buffalo to live among us” and it recognizes “Buffalo as a wild free-ranging animal and as an important of the ecological ecosystem.” She is also a founding-advisor to the Kainai Ecosystem Protection Association.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. She tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability.

As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.

Melissa K. Nelson is an ecologist and Indigenous scholar-activist. She earned her Ph.D. in ecology at the University of California, Davis. Formerly a professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University, she now teaches at Arizona State University in the School of Sustainability, Global Futures Laboratory. From 1993 to 2021, she served as the founding executive director and CEO of the Cultural Conservancy. She now serves as their president emerita. Melissa is the Bundle Holder for the Native American Academy. She is a contributor and co-editor of Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. She is also a contributor and the editor of Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future (2008). She is Anishinaabe/Métis/Norwegian and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.

John Briggs, PhD, taught for 25 years at Western Connecticut State University. He has taught aesthetics, journalism, and creative writing and served as co-chair of the English Department; he was one of the founders of the Department of Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process and one of the principal developers of the MFA in Professional and Creative Writing. He is now Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Writing and Aesthetics at WCSU. Among his many publications are three books he co-authored with David Peat, Looking Glass Universe (1984), Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness (1989), and Seven Life Lessons of Chaos (1999). He lives in the New England town of Granville, Massachusetts.

Dr. Harvey Locke is a conservationist, writer and photographer who lives in Banff National Park, Canada. He works on protecting the natural world and humanity’s relationship with nature at all scales from local to global. He has a particular interest in both the patterns and processes of nature and in shared narratives that genuinely engage both western science and other knowledge systems to build an equitable, nature positive and carbon neutral world. He is a co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, the global Nature Needs Half Movement and the Nature Positive global goal for nature.

Lee Nichol is a freelance writer and editor. His latest works are Entering Bohm’s Holoflux and, as editor, the forthcoming Holoflux:Codex – Form/Movment/Vision inspired by David Bohm (both from Pari Publishing). He was a long-time friend and collaborator of David Bohm, and is editor of Bohm’s On Dialogue, The Essential David Bohm, and On Creativity.

Lee has been on the faculty of the Arthur Morgan School in Celo, North Carolina; the Oak Grove School in Ojai, California; the Tibetan Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, California; and Denver University in Denver, Colorado. He sits on the Advisory Committee of the Pari Center, the Advisory Council of the Indigenous Education Institute, and is a member of the Founding Circle of the Native American Academy. Lee lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife Eva Casey.

Bohm and Philosophy: An Introduction
2022-08-06 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/FlW7_cQmPNo?si=kUSEgshFmyGySUbj

Bohm and Philosophy: An Introduction

with Paavo Pylkkänen

Saturday August 6, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

This introductory talk will provide an overview of the topic of Bohm and philosophy. Bohm worked on many topics and from different points of view over the years. Are there some themes and views which persisted? What might contemporary philosophers learn from Bohm?

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

Paavo Pylkkänen, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in Theoretical Philosophy and Director of the Bachelor’s Program in Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy (currently on leave) at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Sweden, where he initiated a Consciousness Studies Programme. His main research areas are philosophy of mind, philosophy of physics and their intersection. In his book Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order (Springer) he proposed that new notions emerging from quantum physics (especially Bohm and Hiley’s interpretation) provide new ways of approaching key problems in philosophy of mind, such as mental causation and time consciousness. In 2018-2020 working as the Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Arts he had the main responsibility for developing the new profiling area Mind and Matter for the University of Helsinki https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/mind-and-matter. Paavo Pylkkänen has been a visiting researcher in Stanford University, Oxford University, London University, Charles University Prague and Gothenburg University and was a member of the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence in the Philosophy of Social Sciences (TINT). https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/paavo-pylkkänen/publications/

Creativity and the Generative Order
2022-08-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/JGI7HOnaXC8?si=1t3V7bNPNAAHwy-T

Creativity and the Generative Order

with Petteri Limnell interviewed by Paavo Pylkkänen

Sunday August 7, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

One issue that David Bohm was concerned with was creativity. In physics some of his models appeared deterministic, raising the question of how genuine creativity is possible if everything is pre-determined. In this discussion Limnell and Pylkkänen explore how creativity and freedom can be understood in the Bohmian physical universe.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

Petteri Limnell lives in Pori, Finland. He was awarded his Master’s in philosophy in 2008, from the University of Tampere, Finland. The subject of his thesis was about the moment NOW—the ‘Analysis of the present Moment from the Perspectives of Physics, Metaphysics and Consciousness Studies.’ His BA thesis was about creativity: ‘Paul Feyerabend’sFarewell to Personal Creativity.’ Limnell teaches two ongoing courses at the Pori municipality Center, and has worked as a consultant, teacher, tutor and in-house philosopher at the Pori Art Museum. He also works for the Critical College of Finland and runs the Satakunta Critical College in Pori. I have been President of the Pori Philosophical Society for 11 years, since the very beginning. His main interests in philosophy relate to three of Popper’s ‘emergent’ worlds. Why and how do the universe, life and human beings and consciousness exist? It all ultimately culminates in Kant’s three questions: ‘What can I know?,’ ‘What should I do?,’ and ‘What can I hope for?’

Paavo Pylkkänen, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in Theoretical Philosophy and Director of the Bachelor’s Program in Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy (currently on leave) at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Sweden, where he initiated a Consciousness Studies Programme. His main research areas are philosophy of mind, philosophy of physics and their intersection. In his book Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order (Springer) he proposed that new notions emerging from quantum physics (especially Bohm and Hiley’s interpretation) provide new ways of approaching key problems in philosophy of mind, such as mental causation and time consciousness. In 2018-2020 working as the Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Arts he had the main responsibility for developing the new profiling area Mind and Matter for the University of Helsinki https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/mind-and-matter. Paavo Pylkkänen has been a visiting researcher in Stanford University, Oxford University, London University, Charles University Prague and Gothenburg University and was a member of the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence in the Philosophy of Social Sciences (TINT). https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/paavo-pylkkänen/publications/

The Role of Philosophy in Bohm and Hiley’s Research in Physics
2022-08-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/hJ2RTsloqlQ?si=MvxMGl1CVxUqCs1i

The Role of Philosophy in Bohm and Hiley’s Research in Physics

with Basil Hiley interviewed by Petteri Limnell

Saturday August 20, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

Basil Hiley worked with David Bohm for over 30 years. While their research focused on physics, philosophy played an important role in the discussions. What was this role? In this session Petteri Limnell interviews Basil Hiley to find out.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

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.’

Petteri Limnell lives in Pori, Finland. He was awarded his Master’s in philosophy in 2008, from the University of Tampere, Finland. The subject of his thesis was about the moment NOW—the ‘Analysis of the present Moment from the Perspectives of Physics, Metaphysics and Consciousness Studies.’ His BA thesis was about creativity: ‘Paul Feyerabend’sFarewell to Personal Creativity.’ Limnell teaches two ongoing courses at the Pori municipality Center, and has worked as a consultant, teacher, tutor and in-house philosopher at the Pori Art Museum. He also works for the Critical College of Finland and runs the Satakunta Critical College in Pori. I have been President of the Pori Philosophical Society for 11 years, since the very beginning. His main interests in philosophy relate to three of Popper’s ‘emergent’ worlds. Why and how do the universe, life and human beings and consciousness exist? It all ultimately culminates in Kant’s three questions: ‘What can I know?,’ ‘What should I do?,’ and ‘What can I hope for?’

Consciousness, Bohm and the Quest for Intelligibility
2022-08-21 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/pZQLlQvxT1s?si=iG28bDKssti52KB7

Consciousness, Bohm and the Quest for Intelligibility

with William Seager

Sunday August 21, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

David Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics can be understood as driven by a need for an intelligible account of the physics of the world. But Bohm went beyond physics and linked the physics to metaphysics, especially the metaphysics of consciousness. I will explore how the drive towards an intelligible account of the world and our place in it led Bohm to a view of nature which is arguably a form of panpsychism.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

William Seager is Professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He has been working on the the philosophy of mind and especially the problem of consciousness for about 45 years, but still hasn’t gotten very far. Two recent books of his are Theories of Consciousness (2nd ed. 2016) and The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism (2020).

The Future Scientist - A Conversation with Prof. Avi Loeb
2022-08-24 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

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

A Conversation between Prof. Avi Loeb and Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday August 249:00am 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/84147810626

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.

To count as scientific, evidence must be replicable. What to do with anomalies, then? Rare-but-relevant events can help rather than hinder scientific progress. In fact, science is not about making puzzles by discarding unfit pieces. In this installment of The Future Scientist series, we will consider the interesting triad formed by the words “evidence”, “experts” and “extraterrestrial”. On October 19th 2017 an interstellar object called ‘Oumuamua was detected passing relatively close to the Earth. Its behavior was anomalous-enough to interpret it as either a natural object of a type never seen before, or as an artificial object. Whether ‘Oumuamua is some sort of extraterrestrial technological debris or not we cannot say with certainty now, but we can certainly prepare ourselves to search for more. Enrico Fermi famously asked “where is everybody?”. Daring to look may entail seeing. As astounding images of unimaginable distant galaxies come from the Webb telescope, perhaps we could also tailor telescopes to pay attention to closer objects moving fast in the sky. Cosmological matters cannot be disentangled from sociological ones. What unknowns should be studied, and why? While stagnated research avenues continue to get a great deal of attention and funding, the suggestion to search for signs of extraterrestrial life by means of a kind of extraterrestrial archeology is still often met with reluctance, if not derision. And yet, extraordinary evidence requires extraordinary funding, claims Avi Loeb, paragraphing Carl Sagan’s skeptic mantra. On a bigger picture (or perhaps smaller), the current academic culture wears out creative, authentic, and generous individuals, indoctrinating them into the narrow conservative chambers of the familiar. But what does society want? And how can science operate at its uppermost potential? The future scientist will certainly know herself as not-knowing. She will be a friend of the unknown.

Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University and a bestselling author (in lists of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, L’Express and more). He received a PhD in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at age 24 (1980-1986), led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983-1988), and was subsequently a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1988-1993). Loeb has written 8 books, including most recently, Extraterrestrial, and nearly a thousand papers (with h-index of 119 and i10-index of 543) on a wide range of topics, including black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe. Loeb is the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and also serves as the Head of the Galileo Project (2021-present). He had been the longest serving Chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy (2011-2020) and the Founding Director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative (2016-2021). He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. Loeb is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) at the White House, a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies (2018-2021) and a current member of the Advisory Board for “Einstein: Visualize the Impossible” of the Hebrew University. He also chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative (2016-present) and serves as the Science Theory Director for all Initiatives of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. In 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space and in 2020 Loeb was selected among the 14 most inspiring Israelis of the last decade. Click here for Loeb’s commentaries on innovation and diversity.

Personal website: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/

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.

Why Bohm was Never a Determinist
2022-08-27 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/m16j7dcsipo?si=VITcDJ5I7JuVg8-i

Why Bohm was Never a Determinist

with Marij van Strien

Saturday August 27, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

David Bohm’s theory of quantum mechanics is mostly known as a way to give a fully deterministic account of quantum mechanics. For this reason, it has often been thought that Bohm’s aim was to restore the determinism of classical physics, and he has been criticized as conservative and unwilling to accept the radical implications of quantum physics.

However, although the interpretation of quantum mechanics which Bohm proposed in 1953 does indeed have the feature of being deterministic, for Bohm this was never the main point. In other texts which he published shortly before and after, he argued that the assumption that nature is deterministic is unjustified, and modified his interpretation to give a role to pure chance. His aim was a different one: to develop an intuitively understandable theory of quantum mechanics. This talk will explore the aims and philosophical commitments which motivated Bohm’s work in physics, and argue that the role of determinism in debates about quantum physics has generally been exaggerated.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

Marij van Strien is a postdoctoral researcher at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal. After studying physics and history and philosophy of science at Utrecht University, she obtained a PhD at Ghent University. Her research focusses on the relation between physics and philosophy, and in particular the philosophical implications that have been drawn and can be drawn from theories in physics.

Aristotelian Metaphysical and Epistemological Reflections in David Bohm
2022-08-28 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/RZtVgSeG7Vo?si=9BeaWhbcMXq-MDM5

Aristotelian Metaphysical and Epistemological Reflections in David Bohm

with Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila

Sunday August 28, 20229:00 PDT | 12:00 EDT | 17:00 BST | 18:00 CEST

2-hour session

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

It is well known that David Bohm’s causal interpretation of quantum mechanics and its development with Basil Hiley offers a realist ontological view of particles, waves, quantum potential, and active information (Bohm 1952, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990; Bohm and Hiley 1975, 1987, 1993). However, the other epistemological and metaphysical underpinnings of the causal interpretation are still in need of detailed scrutiny. This presentation will explore two other realist components in Bohm’s thinking which bear some resemblance to Aristotle’s philosophy. The familiar argument from laws to the existence of the quantum objects and the reality of their properties will be only briefly mentioned. The focus will be on Bohm’s peculiar methodology of intuitive intelligibility (II), and his argument for the two metaphysical properties of causal powers, which bear clear similarities to Aristotle’s epistemology and metaphysics.

The first part of the talk presents the (II) methodology. It is developed and applied it to demonstrate the reality of the strange properties of quantum causation, such as, non-locality, self-activity, and holism, by showing that they are similar to phenomena in our daily life and thus familiar in common experience (Bohm and Hiley 1987, 1993). In this manner Bohm and Hiley respond to the challenges of physicists to develop an intuitively comprehensible interpretation of quantum mechanics (see Pylkkänen 2017). The argument here will be that the (II) methodology has a systematic role in the causal interpretation.

The epistemological approach underlying the (II) methodology truly differs from the then popular empiricist epistemology, according to which observations and observations merely, form a foundation of scientific research. Observations, though an important source and criteria of knowledge, constitute a mere subset of what can be taken as common experience. However, one may point to interesting similarities between the epistemological background assumptions of the (II) methodology and Aristotle’s methodology of saving the appearances (SA) (Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics, for (SA) see Nussbaum 1986). In spite of important methodological differences, both saving the appearances position and the (II) methodology adopt the epistemological stand that common experience is a valuable source of scientific and philosophical knowledge.

The second part of the presentation discusses the metaphysical properties of active information as a causal factor. A closer look at how Bohm speaks about active information as a causal factor in connection with the radio, for instance, reveals the power concept of causation (Meincke 2020). This forms a clear contrast to the empiricist view of causation as consisting merely of regularities between concomitant events. In talking about the functioning of the radio, for instance, one can identify two traditional metaphysical properties of causal powers (Bohm 1989, Bohm and Hiley 1987, 1993). These are the distinction between actuality and potentiality and the idea of full power as constituting of a pair of partner powers, one active and the other a receiver of the activity of the other (Aristotle Metaphysics book IX chs. 1-7).

The claim that the causal interpretation involves classical elements of power metaphysics, may sound somewhat puzzling, since Bohm and Hiley do not explicitly speak about powers and their metaphysical properties. This can be explained in a natural way, however, by referring to Aristotle’s argument against Megaric philosophers for the necessity of potentialities (Metaphysics book IX ch. 3). My claim is that while Aristotle shows that the reality of potentialities is a necessary precondition of human action and causal relations in general, the epistemological approach of the causal interpretation is quite similar. Power metaphysics is adopted as a chief element underlying our common experience.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Kuuttila has been professor of Philosophy of Management at the Aalto University Business School. She has taught courses in Philosophy of the Social Sciences and other philosophy courses for business students. She has worked on the dialogue method and philosophy of science in Aristotle and contemporary notions of dialogue. This interest has inspired her recently to investigate methodology and ontology in David Bohm’s and Basil Hiley’s causal interpretation of quantum mechanics.

The Enchanted Universe
2022-08-29 00:00 - 2022-09-05 23:59
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
