The Pari Center

The Future Human - A Conversation with Mauro Biglino
2023-08-23 18:00 - 19:30 (Europe/Rome) | Online
Watch the recording

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

A Conversation between Mauro Biglino and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday August 239:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

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 guest, the session will be open to questions from the audience.

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

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

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

The eighth conversation in this series will be on Wednesday August 23, 2023 with Mauro Biglino. Our conversation will orbit around “the literal translation of the Bible and the oldest secret in history”.

Mauro Biglino is an Italian biblical scholar, translator, popularizer and best-selling author for Mondadori, one of the major publishing houses in Italy. During his career, Biglino has directed and supervised the translation and publication of 17 books of the Old Testament for Edizioni San Paolo, Italy’s main Catholic publisher. Mauro’s books take the reader by the hand and – free of any preconceptions or theological filters – accompany them through a fascinating narration of biblical verses, which are analysed in their original form in ancient Hebrew.”

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.

David Bohm and An Order Between and Beyond
2023-08-26 18:00 - 20:00
David Bohm and An Order Between and Beyond: Toward a New Human Being and a New Culture

with David Schrum

and guests Steven Rosen and Paavo Pylkkänen

Saturday August 26, 20239:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

2-hour session

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

David Bohm was a physicist and an explorer of mind who probed deeply the question of what might bring about a transformation of consciousness in the individual and in society as a whole. Such a renaissance he perceived could arise as humanity awakened to what he termed orders between and beyond, new orders of cognition within which thought would operate in a movement subtle and creative. One approach that he brought to opening this understanding to others was to bring attention to how new orders of perception may be formed by bringing together and transcending orders already present.

We will look into several such transformations of order to develop a feeling for this, following which we will focus on the ubiquitous orders of understanding which Bohm terms ‘literal’ thought and ‘participatory’ thought. The processes involved in these two sorts of comprehension, we nowadays recognize as corresponding respectively to left hemisphere- and right hemisphere-dominated activities of the brain. Considering these orders brings out David Bohm’s approach to exploration of consciousness, and it opens into his perception of truth as a process. This latter view brings questions as to its possible relevance to metaphysics and to cognitive science.

We will explore what it is to enter into these issues not only conceptually but also in movements subtle beyond words, as it is in the liminal region beyond the poles of concepts on one hand and felt movement on the other, that we may participate in a vital order between.

After the presentation, a roundtable discussion with Paavo Pylkkanen, Steven M. Rosen, and David Schrum will consider these issues. This will be followed and continued by participation of the group as a whole.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

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.

Steven M. Rosen is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. After receiving his Ph.D. in psychology from the City University in 1971, he began exploring the foundations, frontiers, and poetics of science, his work becoming transdisciplinary and philosophical in nature. Rosen’s essays have appeared in journals and collections spanning the fields of philosophy, psychology, theoretical physics, education, semiotics, and ecology. His published books include Science, Paradox, and the Moebius Principle (1994), Dimensions of Apeiron (2004), Topologies of the Flesh (2006), and The Self-Evolving Cosmos (2008). Rosen’s website is embodyingcyberspace.com.

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/

Bohm and Language
2023-08-27 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Bohm and Language

with Jens Allwood, Michael Richter and Paavo Pylkkänen

Sunday August 27, 20239:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

2-hour session

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

There was “a linguistic turn” in Bohm’s thinking, particularly as a result of interaction with Donald Schumacher. Among other things this led Bohm to propose a new language mode, the rheomode which gives the verb a central role in language structure. In this session Bohm’s proposals will be considered and critically examined.

To see the Full Beyond Bohm Program

Jens Allwood is professor of Linguistics at the University Gothenburg. He is also professor of communication studies at Strömstad Academy. He is born in Moline, Illinois, USA in 1947. He is active as a researcher and professor emeritus in projects at the University of Gothenburg and in the Company Communication Development J.A. & E.A. HB. He is the director of Marston Hill Intercultural Center for Quality of Life, chairman of the board of the Immigrant Institute and editor in chief of the Journal of Intercultural Communication (on-line, open access). He has worked as researcher and teacher in linguistics, specialized in semantics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, multimodal communication and intercultural communication. He has coordinated and participated in a large number of national and international research project in semantics, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, studies of spoken language, multimodal communication, intercultural communication and development of research and research education. He has been the chairman of the department of linguistics, section manager of the Interdisciplinary center SCCIIL (semantics, cognition, communication, information, interaction).

Michael Richter is a Researcher at the Institute of Computer Science at Leipzig University (Department of Natural Language Processing), and at the Institute of Applied Computer Science (InfAI) in Leipzig. His fields of research include Models of Communication in natural language; information theory;corpus linguistics, lexical semantics; text mining; application of information theory in digital humanities; andsyntax models of natural language.

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/

Seizing the Underlying Unity of Science, the Arts and the Sacred
2023-08-29 00:00 - 2023-09-05 23:59
Dates: August 29 – September 5, 2023

Speakers: Mary Attwood, John Cleese (via Zoom), John Krakauer, Mervat Nasser, Melissa Nelson, John Pickering, Jordi Pigem, Mark Vernon

Curated and Chaired by: Àlex Gómez-Marín

Location: Pari, Italy

Price: 1995.00 euros

which includes:

a 7-night stay in private accommodation;

breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local restaurant featuring locally sourced produce and traditional dishes;

the water, wine, and coffee provided with meals;

programmed activities and materials;

refreshments provided at mid-morning and mid-afternoon coffee breaks.

Event: The event starts on Tuesday August 29 at 19:00 with a welcome dinner and ends on Tuesday September 5 after lunch.

About the Event:

There was a time when understanding was unified and spoke to our inner wholeness. This initial vision was lost, leading to a bifurcation of nature that has impeded human flourishing. In the medieval hilltop of a Tuscan town, we will seek to explore and experience the underlying wholeness that was initially present in the spirit of the arts, the scientific mind, and the sense of the sacred.

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 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

The 20th century composer of devotional music, John Tavener, has written of the “one simple memory,” a deeply buried sense of a time when understanding was unified and spoke to our inner wholeness. In that period the artisan, miner, metal worker and artist alike were considered as the midwives to nature, aiding her in her striving to perfection. The physicist Wolfgang Pauli believed that this sprit was still alive in the 17th century when the quantitative science of Kepler and Galileo coexisted with a more deeply symbolic approach to nature and matter—each complementing the other. This later vanished in the hands of the followers of Descartes and Newton and, for Wolfgang Pauli, the ‘spirit in matter’ was banished for over two hundred years. Particularly in the twentieth century, physics (and subsequently other major disciplines, mirroring themselves in it) had lost its initial vision and become obsessed with a “will to power” as it sought control over nature. A “bifurcation of nature” —the harsh separation of reality as conceived by science and as experienced by humans (including scientists) —, in the words of mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, is one of the greatest fallacies of modernity and a major impediment to human flourishing. However, a “resurrection” of spirit within matter may be at hand today. Such wholeness can be explored in the medieval hilltop town of Pari, Tuscany, for in the Middle Ages nature, beauty and the sacred were seen as one. The presenters and participants who come to Pari will bring together many skills to the discussions on the relationship of religious ritual to sacred theatre; of brain activity to the orders of music and mathematics; the ultimate nature of reality as seen from these various disciplines; limitations to knowing, and questions of the origin of the universe. Topics move towards questions that stretch the limits and boundaries that are currently placed around science, the sacred and the arts. We will discuss, and hopefully experience, the underlying unity that was initially present in the spirit of the arts, the scientific mind and the spiritual quest. We shall seek to “re-member” such one simple memory — indeed, we have taken as our maxim a quotation from Carlo Levi “The future has an ancient heart.”

Presentations

The Art of Seeing: Rediscovering the Four Senses HermeneuticMary Attwood

The Humanities as an Emergent Level of ExplanationJohn Krakauer

The Return of Hermopolis as Healing MemoryMervat Nassar

The Journey is the Goal and Beauty is our Guide John Pickering

Towards a Postmaterialistic Worldview: Contributions from Contemporary Science and Eastern and Western PhilosophyJordi Pigem

Dante, Blake and the Revelation of UnityMark Vernon

Information

Additional Information about the event – the pdf

Additional Information about the Pari Center – the pdf

Terms and Conditions – the pdf

Benign Anarchy!
2023-09-09 18:00 - 2023-09-16 13:00 | Pari, Italy
Benign Anarchy!

A gathering of members of AA and NA(mainly Irish!) but open to anyone interested in Dialogue..as developed by David Bohm and also Martin Bubers “I-Thou

Dates: September 9 – September 16, 2023

Organizers: Tom C., Rose R., Jim C.

Location: Pari, Italy

Price: 890 euros for single occupancy, 730 for shared occupancy (two-bedroom apartment, shared bathroom)

which includes:

a 7-night stay in private accommodation;

breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local restaurant featuring locally sourced produce and traditional dishes;

programmed activities and materials;

refreshments provided at mid-morning and mid-afternoon coffee breaks.

Event: The event starts on Saturday September 9 at 19:00 with a welcome dinner and ends on Saturday September 16 after lunch.

Registration and Information: Please contact Tom tcallagyp@gmail.com or Eleanor eleanor@paricenter.com or Chiara chiara@paricenter.com

About the Event:

A Pari gathering/retreat for members of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) plus family and friends will be held in Pari, Tuscany from September 9-16, 2023 (Saturday to Saturday).

The format will be a combination of closed AA and NA meetings and meditation, and some open meetings which everyone can attend.

It is hoped to have discussion groups/workshops on the history of AA and NA; the influence of Carl Jung on Bill W; a talk on Bill W. and Jimmy K. by Irene C.; the deep wisdom of the 12 Steps and the profundity of the 12 traditions.

It is hoped the golden thread running through our week will be‘The Language of the Heart.’

All of the above in magical Pari—the creation of David Peat and Maureen Doolan. Here we will have wonderful Italian food—and—talk, talk, talk in the outdoor café, with music and dancing in the square, soaking in the sulphur springs, and joy and laughter!

Participating in an event at the Pari Center means not only attending meetings but living for a week in a medieval village, mingling with the local population, eating local dishes, 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.

Additional information about the Pari Center – pdf

The Future Human - A Conversation with Tanya Luhrmann
2023-09-13 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recoding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnEcZxvB1WU

A Conversation between Tanya Luhrmann and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday September 139:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

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 guest, the session will be open to questions from the audience.

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

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

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

The ninth conversation in this series will be on Wednesday September 13, 2023 with Tanya Luhrmann. Our conversation will orbit around “belief, experience, and how things come to feel real to people”.

Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in Psychology. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural and the world of psychosis. She has done ethnography on the streets of Chicago with homeless and psychotic women, and worked with people who hear voices in Chennai, Accra and the South Bay. She has also done fieldwork with evangelical Christians who seek to hear God speak back, with Zoroastrians who set out to create a more mystical faith, and with people who practice magic. She uses a combination of ethnographic and experimental methods to understand the way people feel their thoughts and imagine their minds in different social settings, and what follows. At the heart of the work is the question of how things come to feel real to people.

She was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007 and elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022. When God Talks Back was named a NYT Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. It was awarded the $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize for Religion by the University of Louisville. She is also the author of Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft, The Good Parsi, Of Two Minds, When God Talks Back, Our Most Troubling Madness, and How God Becomes Real, and is currently at work on a book entitled Voices.

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.

The Future Human - A Conversation with Luca Possati
2023-10-18 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orWU_MLoK54

A Conversation between Luca Possati and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday October 189:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

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

A monthly virtual encounter to reckon whence and whither humanity.

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

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

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

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

The tenth conversation in this series will be on Wednesday October 18, 2023 with Luca Possati. Our conversation will orbit around “AI and psychoanalysis”.

Luca M. Possati is a postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands). Educated as a philosopher, he has been researcher and lecturer at the University of Porto (Portugal) and Institut Catholique (France), and associate researcher of the Fonds Ricoeur and EHESS (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales). His research focuses on philosophy of technology and AI, technology assessment, AI ethics, and ethics of quantum technologies. He also works in the field of software studies. He has published numerous papers and books on phenomenology, and history of contemporary philosophy. He is the author of The Algorithmic Unconscious. How Psychoanalysis Helps in Understanding AI (Routledge, 2021).

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.

Galileo at 400
2023-10-31 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recordings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v66cS8XoQ2A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4btmqCOYhpk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOeqgq4ymIY

Galileo at 400

Looking Through 21st Century Telescopes

with Avi Loeb, Dean Radin, David Lorimer, Athena Potari, Marjorie Woollacott

Curated by Àlex Gómez-Marín

Free Program in 3 Parts

Tuesday October 3110:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

Part 1 – The Assayer – To Watch the recordingA reading together of Galileo’s seminal book with Àlex Gómez-Marín and James Peat BarbieriFriday October 20 at 12:00-13:30 EDT, 17:00-18:30 BST, 18:00-19:30 CEST

Part 2 – Exploring Outer and Inner Spaces- To Watch the RecordingA conversation between Avi Loeb and Dean Radin with Àlex Gómez-MarínWednesday October 25 at 13:00-14:30 EDT, 18:00-19:30 BST, 19:00-20:30 CEST

Part 3 – Expanding the Scope of Science with the Galileo CommissionA dialogue between David Lorimer, Marjorie Woollacott, Athena Potari, and Àlex Gómez-MarínTuesday October 31 at 12:00-13:30 EDT, 17:00-18:30 GMT, 18:00-19:30 CET

In this online series we will revisit Galileo’s book, The Assayer, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of its publication this very month of October.

Written as a letter in a controversy about the nature of comets, such a foundational text in the history of modern science deserves to be more widely known and read. It contains one of the first and clearest articulations of the scientific method, the famous claim about the mathematical intelligibility of nature, and Galileo’s emphasis on epistemic humility in the face of dogma and authority. Remarkably, in the book we also find Galileo’s programmatic exclusion of consciousness from the purview of science, whose consequences we are still wrestling with today.

Celebrating “Galileo at 400” shall inspire us to dare to look through current “telescopes” in order to continue exploring our inner and outer spaces while expanding the scope of science as we know it.

Galileo’s indelible legacy can be grasped directly from his own words. We encourage attendees to get first-hand experience with The Assayer before the event, via the free material linked below.

REFERENCES

(1) ABRIDGED ENGLISH TRANSLATION: G. Galilei, in The Controversy on the Comets of 1618, S. Drake, C. D. O’Malley, Transl. (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1960). You can read it for free here: https://web.stanford.edu/~jsabol/certainty/readings/Galileo-Assayer.pdf

(2) ORIGINAL TEXT IN ITALIAN: G. Galilei, Il Saggiatore [Works of Galileo Galilei, Part 3, Volume 15, Astronomy: The Assayer] (Giacomo Mascardi, 1623). You can read it for free here: https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666740/

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/

Dean Radin is Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), Associated Distinguished Professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and chairman of the genetic engineering company, Cognigenics. He earned an MS (electrical engineering) and a PhD (psychology) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and in 2022 was awarded an Honorary DSc (doctor of science) from the Swami Vivekananda University (an accredited university in Bangalore, India). He served for five terms as President of the Parapsychological Association (PA), a professional society affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)), and in 2023 received the PA’s Outstanding Career Award.

Before joining the IONS research staff in 2001, Radin worked at AT&T Bell Labs, Princeton University, University of Edinburgh, and SRI International. He has given over 750 talks and interviews worldwide, and he is author or coauthor of some 300 scientific and popular articles, four dozen book chapters, and nine books, four of which have been translated into 15 foreign languages: The Conscious Universe (1997, HarperCollins), Entangled Minds (2006, Simon & Schuster), Supernormal (2013, RandomHouse), and Real Magic (2018, PenguinRandomHouse).

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

Dr. Athena Potari is Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University. She received her PhD from the University of Oxford, specializing in Political Philosophy, and her MA in Political Theory from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is recipient of the Academy of Athens Award of Philosophy (2020), author of A Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities published by the Galileo Commission, and Member of the Galileo Commission Committee. In 2019, she founded Athenoa, a School of Hellenic Philosophy based in Athens, Greece where Hellenism is approached as a living wisdom tradition whose very essence consists in the inextricable combination of science, reason and spirituality. Her work aims to revive the deeper spiritual and experiential dimensions of Hellenic Philosophy, combining discursive rigor and embodied spiritual and meditative practices with the aim of awakening to our true Self.

Marjorie Woollacott, Ph.D., was Professor, and chair of the Dept. of Human Physiology, and member of the Inst. of Neuroscience, at the U. of Oregon for 35 yrs. She is Co-director of the Galileo Commission, President of the Academy for the Advancement of Post-Materialist Sciences (AAPS) and Research Director for the Intl. Assoc. of Near-Death Studies (IANDS). She has received over 7.2 million dollars in research funding and published more than 200 scientific articles on her research in medicine, meditation and spiritual awakening. Her book, Infinite Awareness (2015) pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the mind’s spiritual power.

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.

The Science of Wholeness
2023-11-04 17:59 - 2023-11-19 20:00 | Online
Perspectives from Physics, Ecology, Psychology, and Philosophy

with Jonathan Allday, John Briggs, Chamkaur Ghag, Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Àlex Gómez-Marín, Roger Nelson and Robert Toth

Curated by Jonathan Allday

Pari Center Online Series

November 4 – 19, 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.

Across the broad span of wisdom traditions, one encounter is of key significance: some direct access or contact with the ground of being.

Even in this secular age, dominated as we are by the materialistic, reductionist paradigm of western science, these transcendent experiences still occur, even amongst members of the scientific community.

While this experience is always inexpressible in detail, it commonly involves an overwhelming feeling of wholeness, a blurring of the line between subject and object, a melting away of divisions and an immersion in a state of participatory consciousness.

If the underlying ground of reality is an inexpressible whole, beyond aspects and distinctions, we might expect some echo of this to emerge in our scientific investigations. David Bohm certainly had this intuition, which coloured his approach to quantum theory especially and science and philosophy more generally.

In this series of workshops, we will investigate the extent to which modern science has encountered aspects of wholeness, non-local consciousness and the subject-object distinction. We will also consider what a post-reductionist science might look like, drawing on the experiences of indigenous cultures.

Program of Event

Saturday November 4Does Quantum Theory Reveal an Underlying Wholeness to Reality?with Jonathan Allday

Sunday November 5Global Consciousness: Manifesting Meaningful Structure in Random Datawith Roger Nelson

Sunday November 12Extending the Mind (and Intending Matter)with Àlex Gómez-Marin

Saturday November 18Holocentric Indigenous Consciousnesswith Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Robert Toth and John Briggs

Sunday November 19Universe as Processwith Chamkaur Ghag

Does Quantum Theory Reveal an Underlying Wholeness to Reality?
2023-11-04 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

The Science of Wholeness 1/6: Does Quantum Theory Reveal an Underlying Wholeness to Reality? (with Dr. Jonathan Allday)€10,00

Shop now

Does Quantum Theory Reveal an Underlying Wholeness to Reality?

with Dr. Jonathan Allday

Saturday November 4, 202310:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

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

In the 1970s, a series of books, such as The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters, explored the supposed synergies between quantum theory and the wisdom traditions. These well-meaning books spawned something of an industry and associated quantum hype where quantum theory was portrayed as supporting, or worse justifying, certain worldviews.

Typically, these approaches drew on the Copenhagen interpretation, the idea that the mind causes quantum state collapse and the physics of entanglement and related them to the experience of non-duality, wholeness and immersion in a universal mind characteristic of spiritual insight.

It is now time to look back on these ideas in the light of 50 years further thought on quantum theory and its philosophical implications and to draw some more nuanced conclusions. In the words of Eddington[1] “I have not suggested that either religion or free-will can be deduced from modern physics; I have limited myself to showing that certain difficulties in reconciling them have been removed.”

[1] Eddington “New Pathways in Science”, 1935, p306

To see the Full The Science of Wholeness Program

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

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

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

Professionally, Jonathan worked as a physics teacher for 30 years in a variety of independent day and boarding schools in the UK. He was a head of physics, a head of science and latterly an academic deputy head. He retired in 2020 and now runs a consulting company providing training and educational advice for schools.

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

Global Consciousness: Manifesting Meaningful Structure in Random Data
2023-11-05 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

The Science of Wholeness 2/6: Global Consciousness – Manifesting Meaningful Structure in Random Data (with Dr. Roger Nelson)€10,00

Shop now

Global Consciousness: Manifesting Meaningful Structure in Random Data

with Dr. Roger Nelson

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

2-hour session

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

The Global Consciousness Project (GCP) is a long-term experiment using a world-spanning network of physical random number generators to collect data continuously, 24/7, since 1998. We have recorded parallel sequences of data from the network, consisting of trials of 200 bits recorded each second at each node and sent to archiving servers in Princeton, NJ. A formal experiment ran for 17 years and comprised 500 replications of fully specified and pre-registered event analyses. These tested a general hypothesis that engaging events of deep interest to large numbers of people around the world would correspond to departures of the random data from expectation. Compounded results across the 500 events confirmed the hypothesis (Z = 7.310) and provided a sound basis for further analysis to help understand the effects. A number of explanatory propositions have been suggested, and of those, two stand out, a field-like model and an experimenter effect model. In this talk I will consider several independent analyses and applications using GCP data, including analyses that examine all the data, not just the identified formal events. Neuroscience tools for assessing evoked response potentials (ERP) are applied to the GCP data to look for possible structure from a stimulus-response perspective. All of these additional analyses and applications identify structure that cannot be explained by an experimenter effect or goal orientation model. They are, however, naturally encompassed by field-like models.

To see the Full The Science of Wholeness Program

Roger Nelson, PhD, is Director of the Global Consciousness Project (GCP). He studied physics and sculpture at the University of Rochester, and experimental psychology at New York University and Columbia. He is the author or co-author of 100 technical papers and three books: Connected: The Emergence of Global Consciousness, Der Welt-Geist: wie wir alle miteinander verbunden sind, and Die Welt-Kraft in Dir (German) with Georg Kindel. He was Professor of Psychology at Johnson State College in northern Vermont, and in 1980 joined Princeton University’s PEAR lab to coordinate research. His focus is on mental interactions, anomalous information transfer, and effects on random systems by individuals and groups. He created the GCP in 1997, building a world-spanning random number generator network designed to gather evidence of coalescing global consciousness. He lives in Princeton, NJ, USA, and his website is https://global-mind.org

Extending the Mind (and Intending Matter)
2023-11-12 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

The Science of Wholeness 4/6: Extending the Mind (and Intending Matter) with Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín€10,00

Shop now

Extending the Mind (and Intending Matter)

with Dr. Àlex Gómez-Marín

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

2-hour session

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

Most neuroscientists are convinced that minds live in skull confinement — after all, their metaphysical gospel (cloaked in brain scans) insists that minds are “nothing but” what brains do. Some occasionally let their minds stroll within the body, acknowledging the importance of heart and gut, while maintaining the brain as organ king. A few conservative radicals go further and claim that minds can also protract into the world, much like the blind’s cane or everyone’s phone. Such an “extended mind” is seriously meant but often so rather metaphorically as a heterodox way to lessen the duality by spreading “mind” like butter in the bread of “matter”. I wonder if that’s sufficient, or even necessary. We are still struggling with Descartes’ forced divorce between “res cogitans” and “res extensa”; extended stuff can’t think and thinking stuff can’t enjoy extension. I will argue for a possible dissolution/absolution of the problem and flesh such theoretical considerations with ongoing empirical work on the putative ability of living organisms for non-sensory perception and non-motor action, stepping deep into heretical neuro-land. I will also discuss conceptual implications for the ever-failing quest to locate memories in the brain. Regardless of one’s preferred “-ism”, we must heal such an ontological wound at the heart of science and of civilization. You can indeed separate the whole into parts (split a football, dissect a dog), but you cannot do so without it changing in kind (the game is over, the dog is dead). At the end of the day, we need to think, feel, and practice a science of wholeness beyond New Age “woo-woo” and Old Rage “poo-poo”.

To see the Full The Science of Wholeness Program

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.

Holocentric Indigenous Consciousness
2023-11-18 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

The Science of Wholeness 5/6: Holocentric Indigenous Consciousness (with Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Robert Toth and Dr. John Briggs)€10,00

Shop now

Holocentric Indigenous Consciousness

with Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Robert Toth and Dr. John Briggs

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

2-hour session

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

Traditional Indigenous people the world over regularly employ a holistic mode of consciousness that affirms they are inseparable from the natural world. Their lives are guided by this mode. The holocentric mode is a natural feature of all human consciousness but has been suppressed in the last few thousand years by the rise of cultures organized from a second ancient mode of consciousness: the anthropocentric or human-centered mode.

Anthropocentric consciousness, which derives from perceptions that the world is made of separate things dominates the way most people living today perceive reality. By contrast, holocentric consciousness focuses on the world as a source of unity, relationships, and beauty. The holocentric mode of consciousness continues to function as a “ground state consciousness” for traditional Indigenous people and, in a different context, for creative artists.

The anthropocentric and holocentric modes are roughly parallel to the awarenesses of the left and right brains functions as described by Ian McGilchrist.

Indigenous cultures are shot through with an attention to the whole. The world is approached as a living being and a collection of fellow beings acknowledged in the Lakota phrase, mitakuye oyasin, “all my relations”— animal, vegetable, water, wind, land, sun, sky: all things which are not things, but spirit.

This presentation will show, a holocentered way of being is manifest in the traditional practice of reciprocity; in ceremonies; in metaphors shaped in stories, art and dance, and in engagement with what Leroy Little Bear, borrowing from his friend David Bohm, describes as the “holoflux”: Shape shifting in the holoflux is a potent expression of Indigenous wholeness. Tiokasin says: “You will never know what is really there, but you know something is there. As soon as you think you’ve got it, it changes, shape-shifts. You never get it.”

Working from material they have developed during the past seven years on Indigenous holistic consciousness, the three presenters will sketch a picture of the original holistic mode of consciousness that has been buried and obscured by our virally growing anthropocentric knowledge and our obsessive cleverness at manipulating apparently separate things.

Here’s an Indigenous story of wholeness:

One day when we were visiting her on the Tohono O’odham Reservation in southern Arizona, our friend, elder Ofelia Rivas said, “My mother told me the story of how this farmer was working in the fields. He was really tired and grumpy. He came home, did his normal things. He went to bed early and expected to go back to the fields. He had a dream in which these warriors came and said he was being called to a meeting; so he got ready.

“At the time they had these little lanterns you could light and carry. I think it was kerosene they used. So he took his little light and went with the warriors. In the story he was being brought to a meeting in which he was told that he did something wrong. Did he know what he did and that people were suffering because he did something wrong. He claimed ‘I don’t know what I did wrong. Can you tell me please what it is?’ In that pleading he woke up.

“He got his lantern and he walked the trail he always walked, and he followed his footsteps all the way back to his fields. He finally found a big ant mound. When he was grumpy and was haphazardly walking on that trail, he had accidentally kicked a pebble into the anthill’s entrance hole. Around the whole anthill were dead ants.

“So he removed the pebble from the opening and he left the lantern. He told the ants, ‘The lantern will help you warm up and you can go back in. I’m sorry this happened.’

“That’s the lesson I tell the young people. Be very careful how you walk on this land, you don’t know what is there. You may have missed something that was important and you may have affected it in some way. Those are the kinds of lessons I learned. It’s the same way in ceremony. You regard everything as sacred.”

To see the Full The Science of Wholeness Program

Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota), Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota. Tiokasin is a survivor of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding and Church Missionary School systems designed to “kill the Indian and save the man,” and the “Reign of Terror” from 1972 to 1976 on the Pine Ridge, Cheyenne River and Rosebud Lakota Reservations. He has a long history of Indigenous activism and advocacy. He is a guest lecturer at many universities and international speaker and on Peace, Indigenous and Mother Earth perspectives, cosmology, ecology and forestry and perspectives on the relational/egalitarian vs. rational/hierarchal thinking processes of western society. Tiokasin is the founder, host and executive producer of the 30 year-old “First Voices Radio”, a one-hour live program syndicated to 70 radio stations in the US and Canada.

He was awarded Staten Island’s Peacemaker Award in 2013 and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 by The International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy. Tiokasin serves on boards of several charitable organizations dedicated to bringing non-western education to Native and non-Native children. He is a master musician and teacher of magical, ancient and modern sounds and has performed for audiences worldwide. A Sun dancer in the Lakota Nation tradition, he describes himself as a “perfectly flawed human being.” www.firstvoicesindigenousradio.org

Robert G. Toth served as Executive Director the Merton Institute for Contemplative Living from 1998 to 2010. He co-edited Bridges to Contemplative Living with Thomas Merton, a popular series designed for small group dialogue. He is an active member of The Contemplative Alliance, an initiative of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, which organizes dialogues and programs around the world to advance contemplative approaches to issues affecting the welfare of all being. He also serves on the Board of the Lake Erie Institute which offers holistic ecological leadership programs to individuals engaged in creating flourishing, regenerative, and socially just communities.

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.

Universe as Process
2023-11-19 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

The Science of Wholeness 6/6: Universe as Process (with Prof. Chamkaur Ghag)€10,00

Shop now

Universe as Process

with Prof. Chamkaur Ghag

Sunday November 19, 20239:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

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

We will explore the relationship between apparent dichotomoies through which we perceive our universe and place within it. From wave particle duality, to the left and right hemispheres of the brain, to the Quantum Field Theory and General Relativity divide that plays out in the quest to understand Dark Matter, it is becoming ever clearer that the way forward is to evolve past subjective/objective divides and come recognise the Universe as process.

To see the Full The Science of Wholeness Program

Professor Chamkaur Ghag is an astroparticle physicist leading the research at University College London (UCL) to experimentally detect dark matter in our galaxy. Prior to joining UCL in 2012 he held positions at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Edinburgh, where he completed his PhD in 2006. Chamkaur is the Spokesperson of the international LZ Collaboration, operating the world’s most sensitive dark matter experiment ever constructed. Chamkaur collaborates widely outside fundamental physics within the arts, neuroscience and Earth sciences.

The Future Human - A Conversation with Melissa Nelson
2023-11-30 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C0Xu9EVfbw

A Conversation between Melissa Nelson and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Thursday November 309:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

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

A monthly virtual encounter to reckon whence and whither humanity.

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

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

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

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

The eleventh conversation in this series will be on Thursday November 30, 2023 with Melissa Nelson. Our conversation will orbit around “Indigenous ways of knowing”.

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.

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.

The Future Human - A Conversation with Michael Murphy
2023-12-20 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJrADU7-u5M

A Conversation between Michael Murphy and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday December 209:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

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

A monthly virtual encounter to reckon whence and whither humanity.

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

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

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

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

The twelfth conversation in this series will be on Wednesday December 20, 2023 with Michael Murphy.

Michael Murphy is a graduate of Stanford University, co-founder of Esalen Institute in 1962, and founder of Esalen’s Center for Theory and Research. He is a key figure in the Human Potential Movement and author of The Future of the Body (1992), a massive historical and cross-cultural collection of documentation of various occurrences of extraordinary human functioning such as healing, hypnosis, martial arts, yogic techniques, clairvoyance, telepathy, and feats of superhuman strength and extraordinary potential. He is an author of numerous books. His novels include The Kingdom of Shivas Irons, Golf in the Kingdom, Jacob Atabet, and An End to Ordinary History. His latest nonfiction work is An End to Ordinary History: Comments on a Philosophical Novel. Other nonfiction work includes: God and the Evolving Universe, co-authored with James Redfield and Sylvia Timbers; In the Zone, an anthology of extraordinary sports experiences, co-authored with Rhea White; The Life We Are Given, a book about transformative practice, co-authored with George Leonard; and The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation, co-authored with Steve Donovan.

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.

The Big Questions in Science with Rupert Sheldrake
2024-01-11 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5BQ0rMvDz8

A dialogue between Dr Àlex Gómez-Marín and Dr Rupert Sheldrake

Thursday January 119:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

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

In his 12-part online course, recently launched in an online on-demand format, Rupert Sheldrake argues that the sciences are being constricted by ten assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. In this course he turns the dogmas into questions and examines them scientifically in the light of advances in the sciences themselves. For example, the dogma that nature is mechanical becomes the question “Is nature mechanical?”; the dogma that matter is unconscious becomes “Is matter unconscious?”; the dogma that minds are confined to brains becomes “Are minds confined to brains?” This mind-transforming course is based on Rupert’s award-winning bestselling book The Science Delusion (called Science Set Free in the US) and makes these ideas accessible to scientists and non-scientists alike. Alex and Rupert will discuss some of the ways in which the sciences could be liberated and revitalized. Their discussion will be followed by Q&A. This event is free of charge but participants need to register in advance.

Link to the event: https://advaya.life/courses/the-rupert-sheldrake-course

Please use the 20% single course discount code 20-PARI.

Dr Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 100 technical papers and twelve books, including Science and Spiritual Practices. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and philosophy at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow. He was a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and director of studies in cell biology. From 2005-2010 he was director of the Perrott-Warrick Project, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge, for research on unexplained human and animal abilities. He is currently a fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, near San Francisco, and also of Schumacher College, in Devon.

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.

The Rupert Sheldrake Course

Explore the big questions in science in this 13-week self-paced course.

Are you ready to deepen your understanding of cutting edge science? This course will radically change your view of what is real and what is possible. Embark on an enlightening exploration with Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, challenging the core beliefs of contemporary science.

What’s Included:

13 Modules and 14 Sessions: Uncover the depth of Dr. Sheldrake’s thought-provoking content spread across comprehensive modules and engaging sessions. You’ll explore groundbreaking research into topics like Free will, The consciousness of nature, The mind, The mystery of psychic phenomena, How dogs know when their owners come home, How memory works, The potential of alternative medicine, and more.

Cutting Edge Science: Learn from the distinguished Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist, and author of more than 100 technical papers and twelve books, published in 28 languages. Dr. Sheldrake is a leading authority in pushing the boundaries of scientific inquiry.

Curated Readings and Resources: Access carefully selected readings and resources that deepen your understanding and provide additional context to the course content.

Live Q&A: to be scheduled in February to add a new element to the course

Flexible Formats: Both video and audio formats are available.

In this course, Sheldrake turns the ten fundamental dogmas of materialism into exciting questions and shows how all of them open up startling new possibilities for discovery.

Link to the event: https://advaya.life/courses/the-rupert-sheldrake-course

Please use the 20% single course discount code 20-PARI.

Book-A-Month Club - The Blackwinged Night
2024-01-26 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFpmyLHRYnM&t=1s

The Blackwinged Night: Creativity in Nature and Mindby F. David Peat

Host: Alison MacLeod

Friday January 26, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

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

An informal monthly get-together to discuss books of significance for the Pari Center community.

Each month we will meet with a guest presenter/moderator to discuss a book of their choice that probes important aspects of our focus—Physics and Philosophy, the work of David Bohm, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Jungian Concepts, Gentle Action, Creativity, the Arts, Ethics, Community, the Sacred.

Holoflux: The Meanings of Stone - Day 1
2024-01-27 18:00 - 21:00 | Online
No places available

Facilitated by Lee Nichol

January 27 & 28, 2024

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

The maximum number of 25 participants was reached, registration is closed.

The price of this workshop is 30 euros for the two-days, 6 hours. If you are interested in participating, please use the form above to pre-register.

This two-day, six-hour workshop is hands-on, and fully participatory. Each participant will need to acquire a new “found stone” (not store-bought) and work with that stone in ways specific to the workshop. In addition, each participant will give a brief report to the whole group, on Zoom, of what occurs when working with their found stone.

If you have an interest in this workshop, please read on, and make note of the requirements outlined below. Please don’t register if you feel you can’t follow these group guidelines.

Finding a stone prior to the workshop is the starting point. Stones are everywhere! Open fields, stream beds, hillsides, abandoned lots, the beach, mountains – even parking lots (car parks) – are good places to find stones. Some of the most amazing stones can be found in those concrete islands that partition outdoor parking lots. Urban or rural, you will have no problem finding a stone.

There are four key aspects in the finding. First, this must be a new stone, not one you already have. Second, it must be an opaque stone – no gemstones. Third, it should be palm-sized – easy to hold in the hand, not too big, not too small. Finally, the stone should appeal to you, should have some quality – tactile, visual, or otherwise – that draws you to it.

It is very useful to make notes of anything that seems of interest or value as you search for the stone. You could begin your search now, or you could begin a week or so before the workshop. You might gather multiple stones, and make a final decision shortly before we begin on Jan. 27.

Once you have a new stone, you may be inclined to engage with it right away, naturally and spontaneously. Try to resist this! Set it aside, considering it from afar. Of course, if you cannot resist, by all means enjoy the stone in any way you wish! But the less you work with the stone in advance, the more we will discover together.

Why is this?

The reason is simple. A few days before we begin the workshop, we will all receive some basic instructions on “how” to work with the stone. This short working (10 – 20 minutes) will be done privately, on an individual basis, a day or two before January 27. There is nothing complicated or mysterious in this. It will involve simple things like holding the stone in silence and paying attention to what kinds of sensings occur, and what kinds of images pass through consciousness. The key is that we are all starting from the exact same basis. Different stones, same approach. No one is out wandering into their own “way” of working with stones – we are all doing the same thing, very direct, very uncomplicated.

Needless to say, what occurs once we follow the simple instructions is another matter altogether. Each person will have their own individual and unique experiences. This is why the workshop title refers to “meanings” (plural). It is this great variety that will arise from within the group that allows us to begin to see “what really happens” when we work with a stone, as opposed to what we think should happen, or what we want to happen. When we work as a group with “what really happens,” and share that together, very rich possibilities emerge. Our first day, January 27, will largely consist of this sharing, relying on notes and memory. Making brief notes after each stage of your stone experiment is essential, as reporting back to the group is at the core of the work together.

The second day, January 28, we will use the results of our collective workings as a basis for asking, “What relationship does our body-consciousness have with stone?” Is there meaning, significance in that relationship, apart from utility and enjoyment? This query will lead to further considerations of rheosoma – the flowing body – and how engaging with stone might open new variants of very primordial human experiences.

If this collective, hands-on stone experiment speaks to you, in all its specificity, please join us for Holoflux: The Meanings of Stone.

To pre-register, use the form above or contact Eleanor Peat – eleanor@paricenter.com

Lee Nichol is a freelance writer and editor. His latest works are Entering Bohm’s Holoflux and, as editor, Holoflux: Codex – Form / Movement / 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. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife Eva Casey.

Holoflux: The Meanings of Stone - Day 2
2024-01-28 18:00 - 21:00 | Online
No places available

[rtec-registration-form]

Facilitated by Lee Nichol

January 27 & 28, 2024

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

The maximum number of 25 participants was reached, registration is closed.

The price of this workshop is 30 euros for the two-days, 6 hours. If you are interested in participating, please use the form above to pre-register.

This two-day, six-hour workshop is hands-on, and fully participatory. Each participant will need to acquire a new “found stone” (not store-bought) and work with that stone in ways specific to the workshop. In addition, each participant will give a brief report to the whole group, on Zoom, of what occurs when working with their found stone.

If you have an interest in this workshop, please read on, and make note of the requirements outlined below. Please don’t register if you feel you can’t follow these group guidelines.

Finding a stone prior to the workshop is the starting point. Stones are everywhere! Open fields, stream beds, hillsides, abandoned lots, the beach, mountains – even parking lots (car parks) – are good places to find stones. Some of the most amazing stones can be found in those concrete islands that partition outdoor parking lots. Urban or rural, you will have no problem finding a stone.

There are four key aspects in the finding. First, this must be a new stone, not one you already have. Second, it must be an opaque stone – no gemstones. Third, it should be palm-sized – easy to hold in the hand, not too big, not too small. Finally, the stone should appeal to you, should have some quality – tactile, visual, or otherwise – that draws you to it.

It is very useful to make notes of anything that seems of interest or value as you search for the stone. You could begin your search now, or you could begin a week or so before the workshop. You might gather multiple stones, and make a final decision shortly before we begin on Jan. 27.

Once you have a new stone, you may be inclined to engage with it right away, naturally and spontaneously. Try to resist this! Set it aside, considering it from afar. Of course, if you cannot resist, by all means enjoy the stone in any way you wish! But the less you work with the stone in advance, the more we will discover together.

Why is this?

The reason is simple. A few days before we begin the workshop, we will all receive some basic instructions on “how” to work with the stone. This short working (10 – 20 minutes) will be done privately, on an individual basis, a day or two before January 27. There is nothing complicated or mysterious in this. It will involve simple things like holding the stone in silence and paying attention to what kinds of sensings occur, and what kinds of images pass through consciousness. The key is that we are all starting from the exact same basis. Different stones, same approach. No one is out wandering into their own “way” of working with stones – we are all doing the same thing, very direct, very uncomplicated.

Needless to say, what occurs once we follow the simple instructions is another matter altogether. Each person will have their own individual and unique experiences. This is why the workshop title refers to “meanings” (plural). It is this great variety that will arise from within the group that allows us to begin to see “what really happens” when we work with a stone, as opposed to what we think should happen, or what we want to happen. When we work as a group with “what really happens,” and share that together, very rich possibilities emerge. Our first day, January 27, will largely consist of this sharing, relying on notes and memory. Making brief notes after each stage of your stone experiment is essential, as reporting back to the group is at the core of the work together.

The second day, January 28, we will use the results of our collective workings as a basis for asking, “What relationship does our body-consciousness have with stone?” Is there meaning, significance in that relationship, apart from utility and enjoyment? This query will lead to further considerations of rheosoma – the flowing body – and how engaging with stone might open new variants of very primordial human experiences.

If this collective, hands-on stone experiment speaks to you, in all its specificity, please join us for Holoflux: The Meanings of Stone.

To pre-register, use the form above or contact Eleanor Peat – eleanor@paricenter.com

Lee Nichol is a freelance writer and editor. His latest works are Entering Bohm’s Holoflux and, as editor, Holoflux: Codex – Form / Movement / 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. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife Eva Casey.

The Future Mind - A Conversation with Robert Lawrence Kuhn
2024-01-31 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO8wM06PiPA

A Conversation between Robert Lawrence Kuhn and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday January 319:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

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

A monthly virtual encounter to reckon whence and whither humanity.

The conversation will explore “a landscape of consciousness”, toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications.

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

Throughout 2022 Àlex initiated The Future Scientist conversation series, a monthly virtual encounter to understand where science is going and to reimagine where we hope it might go.

Maintaining the spirit and the format intact, in 2023 the series expanded its scope and morphed into The Future Human as a natural continuation of the quest to reckon whence and whither humanity.

Now, in 2024, Àlex will continue to curate and host such conversations to address The Future Mind, seeking to gain clarity and insight into important contemporary matters that require both urgent action as well as deep reflection.

Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a public intellectual; he is the creator, writer, host and executive producer of Closer To Truth, the long-running PBS/public television series and leading global resource on Cosmos (cosmology/physics, philosophy of science), Consciousness (brain/mind, philosophy of mind), Life (philosophy of biology), and Meaning (theism/atheism/agnosticism, global philosophy of religion, critical thinking). See the Closer To Truth web resource (www.closertotruth.com), Closer To Truth YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/@CloserToTruthTV), and List of Closer To Truth episodes(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Closer_to_Truth_episodes).

Dr. Kuhn has written or edited over 30 books, including The Mystery of Existence: Why is there Anything At All? (with John Leslie); Closer To Truth: Challenging Current Belief; Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future; The Library of Investment Banking; How China’s Leaders Think (featuring President Xi Jinping); The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin (China’s best-selling book in 2005 and in December 2022); “The Origin and Significance of Zero: An Interdisciplinary Perspective” (with Peter Gobets); and Xi Jinping’s New-Era China: The Inside Story (2024).

An international corporate strategist and investment banker, Dr. Kuhn is a recipient of the China Reform Friendship Medal, China’s highest award for 10 foreigners who contributed to China’s reform and opening up over four decades; only five are living; Dr. Kuhn is one of two Americans. He is a frequent commentator in the international media (BBC, CNN, etc.) and Chinese media.

Dr. Kuhn is chairman of The Kuhn Foundation. He has a BA in Human Biology (Johns Hopkins), PhD in Anatomy/Brain Research (UCLA), and SM (MBA) in Management (MIT).

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.

Global Futures, Conscious Leadership
2024-02-07 17:30 - 19:00 | Online
Global Futures, Conscious Leadership

with Jessica Bockler and Bruce Alderman

February 7, 20248:30am PST | 11:30am EST | 4:30pm GMT | 5:30pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE.

As Alfred North Whitehead put it, the world “craves for novelty and yet is haunted by terror at the loss of the past”. We feel we urgently need change but we seem unable to make it happen, at least at the speed, precision, and depth required for it to make a real, positive, and effective difference in the world. In this free live event Àlex Gómez-Marín will be in conversation with Jessica Bockler (Alef Trust) and Bruce Alderman (California Institute of Integral Studies) in the context of their respective new programmes which seek to promote, with the same spirit but in different ways, conscious leadership and conscious change-making in ourselves and the world.

Nurturing the Fields of Change Programme | Alef Trust

Conscious community has always been at the heart of the Alef Trust, a non-profit global learning provider in higher education, research and community development. Our work is about cultivating balanced ways of being, as well as activating the potential of whole-person inquiry for the evolution of human habits, cultures, and systems. In 2023 we launched Nurturing the Fields of Change, a programme for holistic change leaders working on transformation projects. The programme explores the links between inner work, deep ecology, conscious leadership, and social change; and it offers opportunities for collective presencing and sense-making to address the big challenges of our time. We know that transformation thrives through collaboration and supportive community, as well as through deep participation in our inner, multi-dimensional growth. With the support and encouragement of our peers, we feel accompanied and validated in our work; and we grow in our inner capacities and in our ability to engage more expansively and creatively with the questions we face in our work. A new cycle of the programme begins on Monday, 5th February 2024 and we invite you to join us:

https://fieldsofchange2024.sutra.co/space/9mx82r/register

The Blue Sky Leaders Certificate Program | California Institute of Integra Studies.

Blue Sky Leaders at CIIS is a professional certificate program that blends intensive contemplative training with cutting-edge neuroscience, new cosmology, regenerative economics, creative arts, and conscious leadership principles for a profoundly transformative educational experience. Modeled on the “encore” or “third act” programs offered by universities such as Stanford, Notre Dame, or Oxford, the BSL program is designed to provide established or retired professionals, leaders, and cultural creatives with new opportunities for growth and development, an expanded community of practice, and the skills to respond wisely to the fragmentation and loss of meaning that drive many of our current social and environmental ills. Grounded in timeless wisdom and emerging science, and led and facilitated by a team of over 30 thought-leaders and creative change agents from across many disciplines, BSL reimagines leadership development by emphasizing the dynamic intersections of personal transformation, global consciousness, and creative action. Applications for the 2024 cohort are now being accepted:

https://www.ciis.edu/blueskyleaders/bsl-certificate

Jessica Bockler is an applied artist and transpersonal psychologist who has spent the past two decades exploring how integrative practices, spiritual wisdom and creativity can catalyse individual and collective transformation. Jessica is a co-founding director of the Alef Trust, a global provider of transpersonal and integrative education. Jessica’s vision and research interests centre on holistic and creative approaches to social transformation, bridging embodied imagination and sourcing of deep intelligence with transpersonal activism and social change initiatives. Jessica is the research lead of Alef Trust’s Conscious Community Initiative which galvanises and supports projects for human flourishing, social justice, peace and sustainability. She is a certified Warm Data Lab host (Bateson Institute) and she is on the academic advisory board of the Inner Development Goals initiative. She is also a member of the Presencing Institute’s research community and the UN’s Conscious Food Systems Alliance.

Bruce Alderman is the associate director of the Blue Sky Leaders program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, part-time faculty for the Consciousness, Psychology, and Transformation department at National University, and an integral and transpersonal psychologist. He is also a long-time student of David Bohm’s work, and recently led a course with Lee Nichol on the concept and practice of the rheosoma. Prior to working at CIIS and NU, Bruce worked and studied abroad in Asia for several years, teaching courses on creative writing and inquiry at the Rajghat Besant School, a Krishnamurti school in Varanasi, India, and studying and practicing at monasteries and ashrams in Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Nepal. He has published essays in the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice and Consciousness Journal, as well as in several anthologies on Integral philosophy and spirituality. Recently he launched a YouTube channel and podcast called The Integral Stage, dedicated to exploring integral, metamodern, and other holistic and integrative approaches to addressing the complex social, ecological, and spiritual challenges of our time.

Theories of Consciousness
2024-02-10 17:00 - 2024-02-25 19:30
A Pari Center Online Series

Theories of Consciousness: Making Sense of a Field in Revolt and Revolution

withAnna CiaunicaFrancesco ElliaMatteo GrassoJohannes KleinerLiad MudrikMaxwell Ramstead

Hosted by Francesco ElliaCurated by Francesco Ellia and Alex Gómez-Marín

6-two-hour sessions every Saturday and Sunday

February 10 – 25, 2024 9:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

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

The future of consciousness science is going through very interesting turbulent times. Three decades ago, the C-word was taboo in mainstream academia. Today, it is teeming with all sorts of approaches, techniques, and theories. Then, there wasn’t hardly any signal. Today, there is perhaps too much noise. Join us at the heart of consciousness science, as we delve into an in-depth exploration of the field’s trajectory from its nascent stages to its current state and future prospects. This online series is a unique opportunity to learn from and interact with some of the very minds currently leading the field forward.

Sessions

The Philosophy of Consciousness Science
February 10, 2024 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Consciousness and the Brain: Comparing and Testing Neuroscientific Theories of Consciousness
February 11, 2024 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

What (if anything) does the Free Energy Principle Teach us about Consciousness? The Inner Screen Model
February 17, 2024 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

The Bodily Roots of Conscious Experiences in Early Life
February 18, 2024 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Theories of Consciousness in a Structural Turn
February 24, 2024 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Integrated Information Theory: Methodology, Foundations, Explanations
February 25, 2024 @ 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

The Philosophy of Consciousness Science
2024-02-10 18:00 - 20:00
Buy the recording

Theories of Consciousness 1/6: The Philosophy of Consciousness Science (with Francesco Ellia)€10,00

Shop now

The Philosophy of Consciousness Science

With Francesco Ellia

Saturday February 10, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

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

In his seminal 1884 observation, Thomas Huxley likened the enigma of consciousness and its relation to nervous tissue to the inexplicable emergence of a djinn from Aladdin’s magic lamp. This metaphor strikingly encapsulates the persistent complexity of what is now known as the mind-body problem. Despite the exponential growth in our scientific understanding, particularly of the brain, we find ourselves scarcely closer to unraveling this mystery than in Huxley’s time. This talk aims to navigate the foundational issues in consciousness science. It critically examines the prevailing functionalist and physicalist perspectives in contemporary science, arguing their insufficiency in addressing the mind-body problem. The discussion underscores that the crux of this problem is not merely a scientific query but is deeply rooted in the fundamental principles of modern science itself. Through this exploration, the talk endeavors to bridge the gap between philosophical inquiry and scientific research, suggesting a new direction in our quest to understand one of the most profound aspects of human existence.

Francesco Ellia is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bologna and an Honorary Fellow at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy, Science and Cognition from the University of Bologna in 2021 with a dissertation on Integrated Information Theory and the Mind-Body Problem.

Consciousness and the Brain: Comparing and Testing Neuroscientific Theories of Consciousness
2024-02-11 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

Theories of Consciousness 2/6: Consciousness and the Brain – Comparing and Testing Neuroscientific Theories of Consciousness (with Liad Mudrik)€10,00

Shop now

Consciousness and the Brain: Comparing and Testing Neuroscientific Theories of Consciousness

With Liad Mudrik

Sunday February 11, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

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

For centuries, consciousness was considered to be outside the reach of scientific investigation. Yet in recent decades, more and more studies have tried to probe the neural correlates of conscious experience, and several neuronally-inspired theories for consciousness have emerged. In this talk, I will focus on four leading theories of consciousness: Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW), integrated Information Theory (IIT), Recurrent Processing Theory (RPT) and Higher Order Theory (HOT). I will first shortly present the guiding principles of these theories, and compare them. Then, I will provide a bird’s-eye view of the field, using the results of a large-scale quantitative and analytic review we conducted, examining all studies that either empirically tested these theories or interpreted their findings with respect to at least one of them. I will then describe the first results of the Cogitate consortium – an adversarial collaboration aimed at testing GNW and IIT.

Prof. Liad Mudrik is a researcher at the school of psychological sciences and Sagol school of neuroscience at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on conscious experience, its neural mechanisms and functions. Mudrik completed two Ph.D. dissertations at Tel Aviv University, in cognitive psychology and in philosophy. She then continued to a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, in Christof Koch’s lab. In 2019, she was selected as a member of the young Israeli academy of sciences. She is also one of the leaders of the Cogitate consortium, an international adversarial collaboration aimed at arbitrating between theories of consciousness, and a Tenenbaum fellow of the CIFAR Brain, Mind and Consciousness program.

Book-A-Month Club - Quantum Questions
2024-02-15 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIYNit9NMKE

Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World’s Great Physicists

Edited by Ken Wilber

Host: Jonathan Allday

Thursday February 15, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

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

An informal monthly get-together to discuss books of significance for the Pari Center community.

Each month we will meet with a guest presenter/moderator to discuss a book of their choice that probes important aspects of our focus—Physics and Philosophy, the work of David Bohm, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Jungian Concepts, Gentle Action, Creativity, the Arts, Ethics, Community, the Sacred.

What (if anything) does the Free Energy Principle Teach us about Consciousness? The Inner Screen Model
2024-02-17 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

Theories of Consciousness 3/6: What (if anything) does the Free Energy Principle Teach us about Consciousness? The Inner Screen Mode (with Maxwell Ramstead)€10,00

Shop now

What (if anything) does the Free Energy Principle Teach us about Consciousness? The Inner Screen Model

With Maxwell Ramstead

Saturday February 17, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

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

This presentation is about whether we can learn anything about consciousness from the free energy principle (FEP). This presentation will first gently introduce the FEP to a general, nontechnical audience. The FEP says that anything with a Markov blanket will look as if it infers the statistics of other things “beyond” the blanket, to which it is coupled, but from which it can be separated. We will then discuss the “inner screen model” of consciousness that follows directly from applying the FEP to model known human neurophysiology. The ensuing neo-Cartesian model of consciousness provides a deflationary account of the “homunculus.”

Maxwell J. D. Ramstead is the Senior Director of Research at the VERSES AI Research Lab. Ramstead is also an Honorary Fellow at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, at University College London, in the United Kingdom, where he works with Professor Karl Friston within the Theoretical Neurobiology unit. Ramstead’s research focuses on the free-energy principle, Bayesian mechanics, multiscale formulations of active inference, and computational phenomenology.

The Bodily Roots of Conscious Experiences in Early Life
2024-02-18 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

Theories of Consciousness 4/6: The Bodily Roots of Conscious Experiences in Early Life (with Anna Ciaunica)€10,00

Shop now

The Bodily Roots of Conscious Experiences in Early Life

With Anna Ciaunica

Sunday February 18, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

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

Discussions about the nature of consciousness are typically couched in a way that endorses a tacit adult-centric and vision-based perspective. Here I will examine the nature of subjective experiences through a bottom-up developmental lens, drawing attention to experiencing subjects as embodied and situated organisms essentially concerned with self-preservation within a precarious environment. How do embodied experiences ‘arise’ from square one? I will concentrate on a key yet overlooked aspect of human consciousness studies, namely, that the earliest and closest environment of an embodied experiencing subject is the body of another human experiencing subject. I will present evidence for fairly sophisticated forms of early sensorimotor integration of bodily signals and self-generated actions already being established in utero. These primite relational co-embodied roots of our early experiences may have a crucial impact on how we experience our-selves, our bodies and the world across our lifespan.

Anna Ciaunica’s research in philosophy of mind and cognitive science focuses on the relationship between (a)typical forms of self-consciousness, embodiment and social interactions in human and artificial agents. Her PhD thesis ‘Physicalism and Qualia’ tackled the mind-body problem. During her first postdoctoral assignments in Switzerland and Portugal she examined the link between disrupted sense of self, (dis)embodiment and social connectedness in conditions such as Autism, Möbius Syndrome and Depersonalization Disorder. Anna is currently the Principal Investigator of two interdisciplinary projects. (1) The first looks at the relationship between altered sense of self and social alienation in Depersonalisation. (2) The second examines self-consciousness and social interactions in human and artificial agents. In her work, she combines conceptual resources from philosophy of mind and the phenomenological tradition with experimental methods from psychology and cognitive neuroscience. Anna is the main coordinator of the Network for Embodied Consciousness and the Arts (NECTArs) – a collaborative platform bringing together artists, researchers, stakeholders, policy makers and people with lived experiences, aiming at fostering creative approaches to timely issues such as self-awareness and (dis)embodiment in our hyper-digitalized world.

A Field for the Future
2024-02-21 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwwOQh6Iz3Y

A Field for the Future:Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the “Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science”

February 21, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

withKaralee KotheLisa MillerLorne SchusselGary E. SchwartzLaurel WatermanMarjorie Woollacott

Hosted by Àlex Gómez-Marín

A free, online, live event at the Pari Center.

In collaboration with:The Scientific and Medical Network (SMN);The Academy for the Advancement of PostMaterialist Sciences (AAPS).

Karalee Kothe has been a student of consciousness since she was a kid. The beauty of nature, the joy of music and dancing, the exploration of knowledge, and the enduring love of her family have been her guiding lights on her path. She obtained a master’s degree from the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University, and she is currently a clinical health psychology PhD student at the University of Colorado, Denver. Her research interests presently include understanding terminal lucidity, the sudden return of energy and clarity before death, and examining the intersection of meaning, spirituality, and health.

Lisa Miller, Ph.D., is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the Founder and Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology, and has held over a decade of joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical School. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Cerebral Cortex, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Miller is Editor of the Oxford University Press Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality, Founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the APA journal Spirituality in Clinical Practice, an elected Fellow of The American Psychological Association (APA) and the two-time President of the APA Society for Psychology and Spirituality. A graduate of Yale University and University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her doctorate under the founder of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, she has served as Principal Investigator on multiple grant funded research studies. Dr. Miller speaks and consults around The Awakened Brain and The Spiritual Child for the US Military, businesses (including tech, finance, HR and sales), personal development, faith based organizations, schools and universities, and for mental health and wellness initiatives.

Lorne Schussel, Ph.D is Adjunct Assistant Professor and Core Faculty at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute of Columbia University, Teacher College. He is the Research Director of the Contemplative Science and Post Materialism Lab as well as the PI of the Contemplative Neuroscience and Connectivity Project. His research focuses on the utilization of contemplative practices, human connectivity, contemplative neuroscience, EEG hyperscanning, and integrating clinical biomarkers into treatment. Dr. Schussel developed a psychological healing practice known as “The Best Self Visualization Method” which has been cited in the New York Times, ABC-online, and the Huffington Post. His thoughts on creativity and neuroscience have been quoted recently in Health.com He has also been an invited speaker at the United Nations Mission to Nigeria and United Nation Church Center and his method has been added to a curriculum for mental health and resilience at Zucker Hillside Hospital (NorthWell Health) and the Long Beach School District. He has presented to corporate leaders in Indonesia as part of a mental health initiative for the COVID-19 crisis and lectured to Psychiatry Medical Residents at Mount Sinai Hospital, Glendale Adventist Hospital and to the University of Southern California. Dr. Schussel has worked as visiting faculty at the California State Judicial College teaching about mental health and employee burnout to appointed state judges and offered meditation, loving-kindness and resilience programs to Police Officers in NY, CA, and MA.

Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D., is professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry and surgery at the University of Arizona, and Director of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health (www.lach.arizona.edu). He received his PhD from Harvard University, and was a tenured professor of psychology and psychiatry at Yale University. He served as the founding President of the Academy for the Advancement of Post-Materialist Sciences. Schwartz has published more than 500 scientific articles and chapters, including six in the journal Science. His research has been funded by NSF, NIH, NIMH, NCCAM, DARPA, private foundations and donors. Schwartz has co-edited more than a dozen academic volumes and authored more than a dozen books for the general public including The Afterlife Experiments, The G.O.D. Experiments, and The Energy Healing Experiments.

Laurel Waterman is a Ph.D. Candidate in Curriculum and Pedagogy, Wellbeing Emphasis, at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. She teaches narrative non-fiction writing at the University of Toronto and is an Adjunct Faculty in the Alef Trust’s MSc in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Transpersonal Psychology. She is a board member of The Scientific and Medical Network (SMN), an educational organization focused on the intersection of science and spirituality, and belongs to the Academy for the Advancement of Postmaterialist Sciences (AAPS Global). Laurel’s research focuses on consciousness studies and education, with the goal of popularizing participatory and postmaterialist paradigms of consciousness in the field of education.

Marjorie Woollacott, Ph.D., was professor and chair of the Dept. of Human Physiology and is a member of the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. She is President of the Academy for the Advancement of Post-Materialist Sciences, On the Science Committee of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), Co-Director of the Galileo Commission and Research Director for the International Association of Near-Death Studies. Woollacott has received over 7.2 million dollars in research funding for her research in rehabilitation medicine, meditation, spiritual awakening and end-of-life experiences, has published over 200 scientific articles and written or edited nine books, including Infinite Awareness: The Awakening of a Scientific Mind (receiving 8 book awards) and Spiritual Awakenings: Scientists and Academics Describe Their Experiences.

Theories of Consciousness in a Structural Turn
2024-02-24 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

Theories of Consciousness 5/6: Theories of Consciousness in a Structural Turn (with Johannes Kleiner)€10,00

Shop now

Theories of Consciousness in a Structural Turn

With Johannes Kleiner

Saturday February 24, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

2-hour session

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

Recent activities in virtually all fields engaged in consciousness studies indicate early signs of a structural turn, where verbal descriptions or simple formalizations of conscious experiences are replaced by structural tools, most notably mathematical spaces and mathematical structures. This might, on my view, lead to a novel phase in consciousness science that fundamentally changes how we engage in, theorize about, and empirically investigate conscious experiences. My goal in this talk is to introduce the audience to these developments and to paint a picture of how we might expect consciousness science to change if the turn indeed happens, both in terms of scientific achievements and real-world consequences. As part of this picture, we will explore the fundamental question of what it means to represent consciousness mathematically, and discuss the structural claims of two major theories of consciousness.

Johannes Kleiner is a physicist and mathematician who works on mathematical topics in consciousness science. In 2017, he completed a PhD in mathematics at the University of Regensburg, awarded summa cum laude, subsequent to which he was a postdoc at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Leibniz University of Hanover. In 2020, he decided to pursue a second PhD at the LMU Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy and the LMU Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, devoted to what is now called Mathematical Consciousness Science. Since 2023, he is also a postdoc at the Institute for Psychology of the University of Bamberg, and a visiting scholar at the NYU Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness. Johannes has been a visiting scholar at the Department of Computer Science of Oxford University, the Harvard Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications, and the Centre de Physique Théorique of Aix-Marseille Université, and from September 2022 to September 2023, was an academic visitor at the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University. He currently serves on the board of the Association for Mathematical Consciousness Science. https://jkleiner.de/
