The Helix Center

This roundtable will examine the role of the body in musical experience, perception, and cognition through dialogue between artists and scientists.

This roundtable will examine how awareness of mortality shapes human life, from early anxieties to philosophical and spiritual responses, and how scientific and spiritual developments inform ideas about transcendence, perception, and possible forms of existence beyond death.

This roundtable will explore French Surrealist poetry in translation, situating it within the broader history and activities of the Surrealist movement from the 1920s to the 1960s.

This roundtable will examine emergence and complexity in brain, biological, and social systems, and the implications for understanding mind, prediction, and human behavior.

This roundtable will examine the concept of the infinite across cosmological, mathematical, philosophical, psychological, and theological perspectives, and its implications for understanding existence and human knowledge.

This roundtable will examine current advances in the biology of cancer and consider how emerging research informs, and complicates, our understanding of any relationship between mind, immunity, and disease progression.

This roundtable will examine the scope and limits of human knowledge about the universe, and whether metaphysical inquiry can be integrated with empirical approaches to understanding nature.

This event will feature poets Patrick Rosal and Jean Valentine reading and responding to each other’s work, as part of a dialogue-centered poetry series.

This roundtable will examine the causes and consequences of persistent obstacles to women’s employment and advancement, despite increased parity, considering cultural, psychological, and biological factors.

This roundtable will examine the gender gap in STEM, the challenges women face in advancing in scientific fields, and the cultural, psychological, and structural factors that shape equal opportunity in science.

This roundtable will examine Jung and Pauli’s concept of synchronicity as meaningful, acausal coincidence, and consider how such phenomena are approached at the intersection of physics and psychology.

This roundtable will examine the biological, developmental, and social processes that shape group identity, and how affiliation can evolve into fanaticism in ethnic, religious, or national contexts.

This roundtable will examine the nature of mind as it relates to biological systems, the evolutionary origins of cognition and consciousness, and the possibility of engineering artificial minds.

This roundtable will examine children’s drawings and narratives to explore development, representation, and the universal and culture-specific dimensions of inner experience.

This roundtable will explore how the internet and data sharing are reshaping privacy, identity, and the relationship between individuals and institutions, including the role of secrecy and transparency in personal freedom.

This symposium will explore Aby Warburg’s ideas on memory, images, affect, creativity, and the dynamic unconscious, connecting his work to contemporary perspectives in art history, philosophy, and neuroscience.

Part 3: Additional questions/comments regarding both Sunday roundtables and wrap-up This two-day symposium explores Warburg’s ideas and their adumbrations, e.g., his preoccupations with – and intuitions about – memory, both in relation to different forms of artistic creation and in anticipation of concepts related to neuroplasticity and neuroesthetics; the significance and fluency of t...

Part 2: Mnemosyne: Memory & Unconscious This two-day symposium explores Warburg’s ideas and their adumbrations, e.g., his preoccupations with – and intuitions about – memory, both in relation to different forms of artistic creation and in anticipation of concepts related to neuroplasticity and neuroesthetics; the significance and fluency of the image – its elliptical and meta...

This symposium will explore Aby Warburg’s ideas on memory, images, affect, and the dynamic unconscious, and their relevance to neuroplasticity, neuroesthetics, and interdisciplinary approaches to art and history through a series of roundtables and presentations.

Part 3: Classical & Renaissance Art This two-day symposium explores Warburg’s ideas and their adumbrations, e.g., his preoccupations with – and intuitions about – memory, both in relation to different forms of artistic creation and in anticipation of concepts related to neuroplasticity and neuroesthetics; the significance and fluency of the image – its elliptical and... read...

Part 2: An Eccentric Science This two-day symposium explores Warburg’s ideas and their adumbrations, e.g., his preoccupations with – and intuitions about – memory, both in relation to different forms of artistic creation and in anticipation of concepts related to neuroplasticity and neuroesthetics; the significance and fluency of the image – its elliptical and metaphoric... read...

This event will feature The Amygdaloids, a band of scientists and musicians, performing songs about the mind, brain, and behavior, each introduced with brief scientific context by Joseph LeDoux.

This roundtable will examine whether selflessness is an illusion or a genuine human capacity, exploring the evolutionary and psychological roots of empathy, altruism, and the relationship between self-interest and care for others.

This event will feature a performance combining music, neuroscience, and magic, with The Amygdaloids presenting songs about the mind and brain alongside brief talks by Joseph LeDoux, and interludes of magic by Mark Mitton.

This roundtable will examine the promises and risks of synthetic and systems biology, including their potential to transform medicine, energy, and the creation of life, as well as their ethical and societal implications.