Podcast: The Helix Center

Saturday, December 2st, 2017

STEAM & the Future of Education 1

STEAM – or ScienceTechnologyEngineeringArtMathematics – is the hot topic educational movement sweeping our nation and the world. Growing out of the emphasis to get more students in STEM subjects to remain a scientific and technologically advanced nation, STEAM was born in 2008, and advocates for the integration of arts and design learning in STEM.… read more »

Saturday, December 2st, 2017

STEAM & the Future of Education 1

STEAM – or ScienceTechnologyEngineeringArtMathematics – is the hot topic educational movement sweeping our nation and the world. Growing out of the emphasis to get more students in STEM subjects to remain a scientific and technologically advanced nation, STEAM was born in 2008, and advocates for the integration of arts and design learning in STEM.… read more »

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What principles of order underlie the ascent of complexity, from the simplest particles of physics heralding the birth of the universe, through biological forms, to the achievements of civilization? Has a recurrent theme of combination and integration led to multiple fundamental levels from quarks to culture?… read more »

2:30 pm on Saturday, May 20th, 2017

Complexity and Emergence II: Visions of Cosmic Order, from Particles to People

What principles of order underlie the ascent of complexity, from the simplest particles of physics heralding the birth of the universe, through biological forms, to the achievements of civilization? Has a recurrent theme of combination and integration led to multiple fundamental levels from quarks to culture?… read more »

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Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 2:30pm EST

Music to Whose Ears III: Music and Healing

There are well-known therapeutic effects of melody and rhythm on people with various cognitive and motor problems such as non-fluent aphasia, autism, Alzheimer disease, and Parkinson’s disease. By helping alleviate pain and anxiety, music can be also beneficial for preterm babies and for patients before and after surgeries.… read more »

Saturday, March 11, 2017 at 2:30pm EST

Music to Whose Ears III: Music and Healing

There are well-known therapeutic effects of melody and rhythm on people with various cognitive and motor problems such as non-fluent aphasia, autism, Alzheimer disease, and Parkinson’s disease. By helping alleviate pain and anxiety, music can be also beneficial for preterm babies and for patients before and after surgeries.… read more »

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Saturday, April 22nd, 2017 at 2:30pm

Design in Nature

Though human ingenuity may make various inventions…it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous…

– Leonardo da Vinci, The Da Vinci Notebooks, Vol.

… read more »

Saturday, April 22nd, 2017 at 2:30pm

Design in Nature

Though human ingenuity may make various inventions…it will never devise any inventions more beautiful, nor more simple, nor more to the purpose than Nature does; because in her inventions nothing is wanting, and nothing is superfluous…

– Leonardo da Vinci, The Da Vinci Notebooks, Vol.

… read more »
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Saturday, February 25th, 2017 at 2:30pm

The Displaced and The Other

Generationally and historically, our species has moved through great migrations, across seas, continents, and borders. Some have been journeys infused with hope for the better, or impelled by longing for the unknown, the foreign, the other. Others have been forced.

Today, with more than 65 million refugees and displaced persons around the globe, we are bearing witness to flights of desperation, escaping threats of extinction or submission, environmental disaster, religious and tribal conflict, slavery, and war.… read more »

Saturday, February 25th, 2017 at 2:30pm

The Displaced and The Other

Generationally and historically, our species has moved through great migrations, across seas, continents, and borders. Some have been journeys infused with hope for the better, or impelled by longing for the unknown, the foreign, the other. Others have been forced.

Today, with more than 65 million refugees and displaced persons around the globe, we are bearing witness to flights of desperation, escaping threats of extinction or submission, environmental disaster, religious and tribal conflict, slavery, and war.… read more »

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Saturday, February 11th, 2017 at 2:30pm

Pain

Wisdom comes alone through suffering. Still there drips in sleep against the heart, grief of memory.
– Aeschylus, Agamemnon

What is it to feel pain? We sense it in the body, as a non-trivial, unmediated and imperative perceptual event associated with tissue damage, possessing particular spatiotemporal characteristics of a physical object (e.g.,… read more »

Saturday, February 11th, 2017 at 2:30pm

Pain

Wisdom comes alone through suffering. Still there drips in sleep against the heart, grief of memory.
– Aeschylus, Agamemnon

What is it to feel pain? We sense it in the body, as a non-trivial, unmediated and imperative perceptual event associated with tissue damage, possessing particular spatiotemporal characteristics of a physical object (e.g.,… read more »

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Saturday, January 28th, 2017 at 2:30pm

The Library as Reality and Metaphor

One of the habits of the mind is the invention of horrible imaginings. The mind has invented Hell, it has invented predestination to Hell, it has imagined the Platonic ideas, the chimera, the sphinx, abnormal transfinite numbers (whose parts are no smaller than the whole), masks, mirrors, operas, the teratological Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the unresolvable Ghost, articulated into a single organism ….… read more »

Saturday, January 28th, 2017 at 2:30pm

The Library as Reality and Metaphor

One of the habits of the mind is the invention of horrible imaginings. The mind has invented Hell, it has invented predestination to Hell, it has imagined the Platonic ideas, the chimera, the sphinx, abnormal transfinite numbers (whose parts are no smaller than the whole), masks, mirrors, operas, the teratological Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the unresolvable Ghost, articulated into a single organism ….… read more »

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Saturday, October 22, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Embodied AI

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 »

Saturday, October 22, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Embodied AI

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 »

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Saturday, November 5, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Autism and the Mind/Brain

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 »

Saturday, November 5, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Autism and the Mind/Brain

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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Saturday, September 24, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Happiness

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 »

Saturday, September 24, 2016
2:30-4:30 pm

Happiness

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 »

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