The Helix Center

The Helix Center

By The Helix Center
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The Helix Center episodes

  • Shame
    This roundtable explores shame as a social mechanism, examining how it is produced, used, and amplified across interpersonal, political, and technological contexts. It considers the consequences of shame for individuals and society, particularly in the age of social media and data-driven systems.
    1 hr 51 min
  • Living in the Anthropocene
    This roundtable explores the conceptual foundations of our current planetary era and how emerging perspectives challenge traditional distinctions between humans and the non-human world, nature and artifice, and agency and objectivity. It brings together interdisciplinary viewpoints to consider how these shifts inform our understanding of human action and responsibility in times of ongoing global crisis.
    1 hr 23 min
  • Math models Mind
    This roundtable explores whether mathematics has a unifying essence analogous to “life” in biology, and what that might mean for the discipline as a whole. It considers the role of mathematical language, analogies, and connections in shaping the coherence and perceived beauty of mathematical ideas.
    1 hr 37 min
  • The Animal Human Continuum
    This roundtable explores the continuity between human and animal minds, examining emotions, consciousness, and behavior across species through perspectives from neuroscience, philosophy, and history. It considers the ethical implications of how we understand and relate to animals, and how these insights inform both science and our treatment of other living beings.
    1 hr 38 min
  • The Beauty and Unity of Mathematics
    This roundtable explores the nature of mathematical proof and the growing role of computers and AI in verifying and potentially generating proofs. It considers whether mathematics is a human-centered practice or a process that can ultimately be automated, and what this implies for the future of the field.
    1 hr 48 min
  • The Future of Psychiatry
    This roundtable explores the evolving landscape of mental health care, from psychoanalysis to psychopharmacology and emerging brain-based approaches. It considers how advances in neuroscience and technology may transform the diagnosis, understanding, and treatment of psychiatric conditions.
    1 hr 40 min
  • Creative Turbulence
    This roundtable brings together artists and scientists to explore turbulence as both a scientific challenge and a source of artistic inspiration, examining its visualizations, underlying physics, and broader theoretical and philosophical implications. It focuses on the intersection of art and science in understanding complex, self-organizing systems.
    1 hr 47 min
  • The Completeness of Physics
    This roundtable examines whether science’s empirical success implies a universal account of reality, or whether reality is better understood as consisting of multiple ontological levels and a plurality of scientific frameworks. It considers tensions between reductionist and pluralist views, and reflects on the implications of these positions for the status of the humanities, the possibility of a unified theory of reality, and the limits of human cognition in grasping such unity.
    1 hr 46 min
  • Boredom
    This roundtable brings together scholars from literature, psychiatry, neurology, cultural history, and law to examine boredom as an aversive yet compelling psychological and cultural state. It explores how boredom is defined, experienced, and understood across disciplines, and invites participants to deepen and expand their perspectives on its meaning and significance.
    1 hr 53 min

About The Helix Center

From the publisher's feed

The primary objective of The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation is not to obtain knowledge, per se, but to aspire to an unhurried search for wisdom, emphasizing the centrality of a sense of wonder in this endeavor.

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