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Our roundtable format is designated the Theaetetus Table, an extempore discussion among five participants, all leaders in their respective fields, and named for the classical Greek mathematician and eponym for the Platonic dialogue investigating the nature of knowledge, who proved that there are five regular convex polyhedra, or Platonic solids. Each Theaetetus Table aspires to emulate the dialogue’s unhurried search for wisdom; and, like the five Platonic solids held to be the fundamental building blocks of the classical elements, the contributions of our five participants become the fundamental constituents of interdisciplinary insights emerging in the alchemy of the roundtable, insights that, in turn, transform the elemental thinking of those participants. The gathering of five discussants also symbolizes the five interrelated qualities of mind our interdisciplinary forums are intended to facilitate in our participants, and inculcate in our audience: curiosity, playfulness, inspiration, reflection, and wonder.
Developments in computational neuroscience, molecular biology, and genomics have opened up new ways of looking at disease. In a relatively short time span, these advances may lead to significant innovations in the understanding of various diseases, as well as in therapeutics designed to treat them.… read more »
Name five female geniuses off the top of your head. If you find yourself stumbling after Madame Curie, you are hardly alone. Why should this be when there is no shortage of brilliant, creative women, who are as numerous in history as they are today?… read more »
… read more »Someone is shouting! Ho! Do you hear? Am I howling in vain? For if one is frightened, everything makes a noise!
– Sophocles, Acrisius [fragment]
…the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.
Call no man happy until he is dead.
– Solon of Athens (c. 640 – c. 560 BCE)
“Happiness” may be understood in prosaic and philosophic senses: as referring to a moment of experience or the entirety of a life; as referring to a psychological state of mind, relating to pleasurable emotions, as well as referring to a life regarded as going well, flourishing, for the individual leading it, and as such, a prudential value judgement of ultimate goods.… read more »
What:
Cocktail Benefit Reception and Roundtable
Where:
The Penn Club
30 West 44th Street
New York, NY
Participants:
Janet Dewart Bell, Communications Strategist & Management Consultant
Lester Crystal, MacNeil/Leher Productions – Retired President
Michael Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
Elizabeth Harris, Education Reporter for The New York Times
Kesha Ram, Vermont State Legislator
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Edward Nersessian, Director
Robert Penzer, Associate Director
Phillip Blumberg
Anne-Marie Levine
Ann-Louise Lipman
Mary Luallen
Adam Sacks
Carla Solomon
Beverley Zabriskie… read more »
The increasing appreciation of the body’s role in cognition—that the brain-mind is embedded in a physical, sensory-motor system interacting with the real world—is shedding the dualistic straitjacket that has characterized “classical” artificial intelligence research. So, as proposed by Grady Booch, let’s imagine unleashing a technology platform using natural language processing and machine learning, such as IBM’s Watson, in the physical world.… read more »
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects more than 1% of the population. For many years, it was thought to be a rare disorder, resulting from a bad relationship of the children with their so-called refrigerator mothers. However, there is clear evidence now that autism results from abnormalities in brain development, and that the behavior observed in children is the consequence of disturbances in brain circuitry.… read more »
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