The University of Cambridge FREE Festival of Ideas : 20 Oct - 2 NovMy list of the most interesting events PDF prog.. check events using an event number search Shakespeare poetry day
MIND* The conscientious self: mind, identity and ethics @ The (FREE) Cambridge Festival of Ideas Friday 24 October: 6:30pm - 8:00pm No 9, Mill Lane Lecture Rooms , 8 Mill Lane, CB2 1RW Event: 81 - Panel members explore a range of questions around the nature and consequences of identity: What makes me Me? How does body relate to mind? How does mind relate to consciousness of self - and conscience? How does identity influence behaviour, and behaviour influence perceived identity? Participants Peter Atkins, former Professor of Chemistry, University of Oxford Malcolm Brown, Director Mission and Public Affairs Division, Church of England Peter Cave, Chair Humanist Philosophers' Group Katherine McMahon, Historical Novelist Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridge (chair) - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/conscientious-self-mind-identity-and-ethics#sthash.ytLLVGF6.dpuf Will I still be me tomorrow? ' the problem of personal identity Friday 31 October: 4:00pm - 5:00pm @ Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, CB1 1PT Event: 199 - How is personal identity maintained over time? Which is more important ' biological or psychological continuity? If your mind was somehow transferred into a different body, in which it continued to function, would that constitute survival of your self, or death? By discussing this, and other famous thought experiments, Dr Jane Aspell, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University, will introduce the unsettling philosophy of personal identity, which challenges our notions of personhood and has real implications for what kind of future existence we should wish for. http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/will-i-still-be-me-tomorrow-problem-personal-identity#sthash.cZBclmjF.dpuf What is consciousness made of? Sunday 2 November: 11:00am - 12:30pm @ Newnham College, Jane Harrison Room, Sidgwick Avenue, CB3 9DF Event: 232 - Dr Gareth Burr presents this experiential journey into the workings of our minds. What is consciousness, where is it located, and why does this matter for our daily lives? Audience members will be led through a variety of exercises and mindfulness practices which will demonstrate the power we have as co-creators of our own worlds. Presented by Camyoga. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/what-consciousness-made#sthash.vIwOAXal.dpuf From the selfish me to the selfless self. Sunday 2 November: 3:00pm - 4:00pm @Clare College, Latimer Room, Trinity Lane, CB2 1TL Event : 239 - Insights from science and mysticism on the paradox of identity. A talk by Ismael Velasco. Organised by the Cambridge University Baha'i society as part of the multifaith series. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/selfish-me-selfless-self#sthash.4cF0OfXQ.dpuf Spoken English in today's Britain Thursday 30 October: 6:00pm - 7:00pm @Mill Lane Lecture Rooms , Room 9, 8 Mill Lane, CB2 1RW Event: 188 - Cambridge University Press and Lancaster University present fascinating insights from a new project that investigates how British English is spoken today: from variation between regions to the effect of technology and the language of teenagers. Join us to find out how you can get involved too.- See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/spoken-english-todays-britain#sthash.G0Furpga.dpuf In praise of rationality Thursday 30 October: 6:30pm - 7:30pm @Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, CB1 1PT Event: 189 - If you consider yourself a rational agent, you have had to endure some challenges in recent times. Human irrationality has been talked about on many stages: Nobel prize winning economists showed how powerfully irrational biases influence our views, how irrational rules of thumb drive our decisions, how mundane details affect choices about issues as grave as surgery. The recent financial crisis has been attributed to irrational, out-of-control behaviours. What's more, some authorities now argue that irrationality isn't only all around us, but that we should indeed be irrational. It is supposed to be a virtue, not a vice. Dr. Richard Piech, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University, will examine such claims from the perspectives of decision science, psychology, and neuroscience, and will present evidence showing that the 'irrationality-craze' reflects a narrow and often wrong understanding of rationality. He will conclude that rationality is the powerful virtue we should identify with and strive for. http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/praise-rationality#sthash.xSdb5xTj.dpuf Cambridge could be a smarter city 191 ?? * Cambridge stars: big ideas 3 Friday 31 October: 6:30pm - 8:00pm - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/cambridge-stars-big-ideas-3#sthash.thaP513c.dpuf SATURDAY : CLASSICS DAY * Augustus and the rebuilding of Roman identity Friday 31 October: 7:00pm - 8:30pm Museum of Classical Archaeology, Room G.19, Sidgwick Avenue, CB3 9DA Event: 207 - How did Roman identity change under Augustus? Join Prof. Andrew Wallace Hadrill and Dr. Ingo Gildenhard for a lively discussion to celebrate the bimillenium of Augustus' death - and to think about how the first emperor transformed what it meant to be Roman. Drinks to follow in the Museum of Classical Archaeology. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/augustus-and-rebuilding-roman-identity#sthash.GhQJJIUZ.dpuf Heffers Classics Forum 2014 Saturday 1 November: 9:30am - 6:00pm Law, Faculty of, 10 West Road, CB3 9DZ Event: 208 - It's a big day for Classics with the Heffers Classics Forum 2014 at the Law Faculty, University of Cambridge. Come and enjoy some of the biggest names in Classics in short talks about their latest books, favourite interests, debate with each other and talk to you. Come and ask those awkward questions about the Ancient World and have the best brains try to answer them! Featuring: Paul Cartledge, Adrian Goldsworthy, Philip Hardie, Natalie Haynes, Tom Holland, Chris Pellin, Michael Scott, Harry Sidebottom, David Stuttard, Jerry Toner, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Maria Wyke. https://tinyurl.com/heffersclassics2014 - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/heffers-classics-forum-2014#sthash.Scmubbwl.dpuf The Georgian child support agency: unmarried mothers, fathers and gendered identities Sunday 2 November: 4:15pm - 5:15pm Event: 240 - England has had a 'child support agency' since at least 1576 - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/georgian-child-support-agency-unmarried-mothers-fathers-and-gendered-identities#sthash.YirlYf2V.dpuf Supping with the devil at Madingley Hall: identity, heresy and witchcraft in 17th-century Cambridge Sunday 2 November: 5:30pm - 6:30pm Event: 241 - In 1659 two people were tried in Cambridge for turning a woman into a horse and riding her to Madingley Hall for dinner with the Devil. What can this affair tell us about identities past and the present? With Dr Justin Meggitt. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/supping-devil-madingley-hall-identity-heresy-and-witchcraft-17th-century-cambridge#sthash.Nej10nEt.dpuf CLIMATE * Consumers or citizens? - How do we make choices and why does it matter? Wednesday 22 October: 7:30pm - 9:30pm Friends Meeting House, Aldren Wright Room, 12 Jesus Lane, CB5 8BA Event: 58 - Many of us are aware of climate change and the need to act on it, but are confused about what that might involve. Can you see yourself adopting a low carbon lifestyle? What would it be like to live more sustainably? This workshop with Cambridge Carbon Footprint explores the way in which our identities are bound up with our patterns of consumption and also with our other values. Participants are invited to reflect on low carbon choices. What are these choices, at the most practical level? And how would making them tie in with our sense of who we are and what we care about? Would it be difficult to make them - or perhaps surprisingly easy and rewarding? - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/consumers-or-citizens-how-do-we-make-choices-and-why-does-it-matter ** Strangely 3 events see to connect Climate and religion * Are people born to believe? Tuesday 21 October: 5:30pm - 7:00pm McCrum Lecture Theatre, McCrum Lecture TheatreCorpus Christi College, CB2 1RH Event: 31 - The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion presents a talk by Prof Justin Barret exploring if we are born believers. Prof Barrett's area of research covers the cognitive, developmental, and evolutionary approaches to the study of religion. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/are-people-born-believe#sthash.d5VmXZfE.dpuf * Faiths for climate action: multi-faith walk Friday 24 October: 6:00pm - 7:30pm Beside Riverside Bridge, Next to the Museum of Technology, Riverside Road, CB5 8JB Event: 79 - Join a movement of people from all different faiths in Cambridge, to take a walk celebrating unity between religious identities in the face of climate change challenges. A move towards low-carbon lifestyles to reduce human impact on climate change raises deep questions about the nature of truly fulfilling lives and design of flourishing societies. To reduce carbon emissions at the level that is required to impact climate change, radical rethinking of our personal, social and economic actions is needed, much of which can be informed by spiritual and faith identities. This family-friendly walk will begin at dusk and move from Riverside Bridge along the river Cam towpath towards the city, finishing at Jesus Green by 7pm. Here walkers of diverse faith backgrounds will gather to light flashlights, symbolising hope in the face of climate change challenges. A brief message and musical piece will end the event. Don't forget to bring your own flashlight and appropriate outdoor clothes. The event will go ahead rain or shine. This event is supported by Together in Service, a programme delivered by FaithAction and funded by the Department of Communities and Local Government to highlight and support faith-based social action around the country. http://www.cambridgecarbonfootprint.org * Open-mindedness in science and religion Thursday 30 October: 8:00pm - 9:00pm @Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, CB1 1PT Event: 196 - Is science more open-minded than religion? What is the relationship between open-mindedness and progress in science and morality? In this talk, psychologist Dr. John Lambie discusses these questions in relation to the thinking styles of historical figures from both science and religion, including Galileo, Jesus and Martin Luther. Surprisingly, open and closed-minded thinking feature heavily in both science and religion, and Lambie argues that it is not science that is a force for progress in knowledge, and it is not religion that furthers morality, but rather it is 'critically open-minded thinking' ' wherever it is manifested ' that promotes benefits in knowledge and concern for others. Dr. John Lambie is Reader in Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/open-mindedness-science-and-religion#sthash.9PewGfsZ.dpuf * A climate of conspiracy: a heated debate Friday 24 October: 6:00pm - 7:30pm Mill Lane Lecture Rooms , Room 3, 8 Mill Lane, CB2 1RW Event: 80 - The climate change debate, like many political controversies, is riven with accusations of conspiracy. While climate conspiracy theories may seem a distraction from the challenge of dealing with a changing global climate, they provide a starting point for an exploration of a related burning issue: the state of democratic politics today, and the hopes we invest in it. This lecture will begin with an impersonation: a double-act. Two members of the University's Conspiracy & Democracy research project, Professor David Runciman and Dr Alfred Moore, will represent two very different types of climate conspiracist. Here's a quick guide to their world views. : Conspiracy theory one: climate change is a hoax. Environmentalists and scientists have secretly coordinated to conjure the fear of a warming planet in order to justify their own ideological projects and serve their own professional interests. They mask disagreement and present the world with a 'consensus' that nobody is allowed to question. The veil was lifted by the Climategate affair, which showed leading climate scientists colluding to suppress awkward data, hide their own work from critical scrutiny, and marginalise dissenters. Climate scientists are bound by membership in big institutions, research universities, and intergovernmental panels. Dissenting experts are free of the pernicious compromises of institutions. Behind the science of climate change lies conspiracy. : Conspiracy theory two: the climate change conspiracy is itself a conspiracy. There is no credible disagreement on the science of climate change. The only dissent comes from industry-funded studies, think-tanks and websites. They are following the tobacco industry playbook of manufacturing doubt and emphasising uncertainty, in order to prevent public action that would cost them money. Climategate was a manufactured controversy. Those emails didn't reveal a conspiracy or a cover-up. They revealed the ordinary backstage of scientific life, conducted under intense pressure from partisan opponents. And is it a coincidence that the emails were leaked just days before the Copenhagen summit on climate change policy? - For all their obvious differences, these two ways of looking at climate change have a surprising amount in common. They both focus more on discrediting the narratives of their opponents than on identifying an actual conspiracy. They both draw on a conflicted view of science, seeing it as corrupted and endangered by their opponents, but appealing to the norms and images of science as a way of uncovering the truth. They both present the issue in terms of a Manichean struggle with the highest possible stakes, the future of a free society and the future of the planet. And they both express in a new way some long-standing anxieties about democratic government. http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/climate-conspiracy-heated-debate#sthash.T8x2yM6W.dpuf Game of Life competition (ECO BRAINWASHING KIDS ?) Thursday 30 October: 11:00am - 1:00pm @University Centre, Granta PlaceMill Lane, CB2 1RU Event: 183 - University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute is hosting an interactive event<b> for teenagers</b> along with Professor Johan Rockstr'm, the Humanitas Visiting Professor in Sustainability Studies 2014. Participants are divided into teams of 4-5 and using simple tools to represent renewable resources, this activity will hopefully inspire understanding and discussion on the different strategies people use to manage resources in the real world. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/game-life#sthash.33LN1z0Z.dpuf * Reading the Anthropocene Thursday 30 October: 5:30pm - 7:00pm @GR06/07, Faculty of English, Faculty of English9 West RoadCambridge CB3 9DP, CB3 9DP Event: 186 - In the 2000s, scientists suggested that with the escalation of mankind's influence on the planet, we have we now entered a new geological era, that of the Anthropocene. Whilst scientists are continuing to debate when this era began, if it has done at all, literary critics, theorists and environmental philosophers have already adopted the term in order to think about the challenges ahead of us, and the changes needed to meet them. BBC New Generation Thinker and Cambridge Lecturer in Literature and Film, Dr Sarah Dillon, joins Quaternary geologist Professor Phil Gibbard and writer and environmentalist **Tony Juniper**, to discuss the significance of the idea of the Anthropocene across disciplines and culture (maybe this is a tour cos I have seen this title at another festival in 2014) - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/reading-anthropocene#sthash.19ajHyd1.dpuf ________________________________________ irritating that they have womens day/womes networking events as I feel excluded Please note the following updates to the programme: 15 October Mill Road History Please note that the new end time of 9.30pm. 20 October Learning to remember: how should we teach history? Tea, coffee and biscuits will be served from 7pm; the debate will only start at 7.30pm. 21 October Sir Hermann Bondi lecture: life on the edge - the coming of age of quantum biology Please note the new start time of 6:30pm. 24 October The conscientious self: mind, identity and ethics Please note the new start time of 6:30pm. 26 October 'Real' and 'imaginative' objects: experimental writing workshop This event has been CANCELLED. 28 October Literature and conservation Please note that this event will now take place at Little Hall, Sidgwick Site. 1 November Writing and Identity in Contemporary Nigeria This event has been CANCELLED. DIGITALThe computing universe: origins of computational thinking VWednesday 29 October: 6:00pm - 7:00pm @Mill Lane Lecture Rooms , Room 3, 8 Mill Lane, CB2 1RW Event: 173 - In this talk Tony Hey, Vice President of Microsoft Research, will explore the origins of computers and of 'computational thinking'. The story begins with the key contributions of Alan Turing and John von Neumann and the twin concepts of universality and hierarchical abstraction. As an illustration of the importance of abstraction, the 'File clerk' model of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman computing will be described. Our examination of computer hardware takes us from logic gates to the microprocessor and Moore's Law. On the software side, our discussion of algorithms begins with Euclid's algorithm for the Greatest Common Divisor and ends with a description of PageRank, the 'billion dollar' algorithm that launched the search giant Google. An account of the origins of the personal computer, the Internet and Web then brings us up to the present. We end the talk with a look to the future with the rise of AI and Machine Learning and Butler Lampson's 'Third Age of Computing'. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/computing-universe-origins-computational-thinking#sthash.YEi0y7ib.dpuf Big Brother 2.0: our future in an age of surveillance Saturday 1 November: 11:00am - 12:30pm @Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick SiteSidgwick Avenue, CB3 9DA Event: 210 - In what is fast being labelled an age of surveillance, the relationship between privacy and security is becoming extremely important. From the Snowden revelations to Facebook, is our privacy the price we pay for an easier and more secure future? Or is this sense of security a false one? Leading experts will talk us through and debate the many issues around our future in an age of surveillance. Professor Jon Crowcroft (Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge) will speak on the topic form a cyber-security perspective. Professor John Rust (Psychometrics, University of Cambridge) will address the issue of 'nudging' online. Dr. Nayanika Mathur (Social Anthropolgy, University of Cambridge) will provide a concrete case study of the introduction on biometric IDs in India. Professor John Naughton (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge) will speak about the ethical and philosophical questions around surveillance. - See more at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/events/big-brother-20-our-future-age-surveillance#sthash.sjsaJsLR.dpuf
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