Public Dialogues

YHouse continues its program of lectures, events, and conversations on exciting and provocative topics at a number of venues around New York City.

Consciousness Club NYC

YHouse invites you to the Consciousness Club, a study group to promote broadly transdisciplinary discussions on the neural and computational bases of consciousness, and how these concepts can be applied to other fields of interest. Our weekly meetings are for you if you are into awareness, science, technology, philosophy, art, and design.

For more information and meeting schedule, check out our Facebook page, or tune in to our Twitter updates.

Although the meetings are open to all, we encourage technical and scientific discussions for this series of meetings.

Cognition Lunch Salon

YHouse continues to organize informal Lunch Salon events hosted by the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, N.J., West Building Seminar Room, 2nd floor. The format is an informal chat, followed by longer open-ended discussions among the participants, on the topic of consciousness and cognition. This event is by invitation only. To request an invitation, please email us at info@yhousenyc.org

  • Caveat (map)
  • 21 A Clinton Street
  • New York, NY, 10002
  • United States
How understanding the nature of our minds leads directly to acting on society and preserving the biosphere

How understanding the nature of our minds leads directly to acting on society and preserving the biosphere

Speakers: Dr. Carl Pabo, World leader in structure and design of DNA-binding protein, Founder of the Better World Institute for Thought & Policy, looking at questions about the power and limits of human thought, and previously Professor at MIT and Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Eiko Ikegami, Walter A. Eberstadt Professor of Sociology and History at the New School of Social Research in New York. Dr. Scott Bolton, Associate Vice President of the Southwest Research Institute Space Science and Engineering Division and Principal Investigator of Juno, the New Frontiers program mission to Jupiter. Moderator: Prof. Caleb Scharf, Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University and a Global Science Coordinator for the Earth-Life Science Institute’s Origins Network.

Great scientific revolutions come from challenging what we all assume to be true and expanding what science is 'allowed' to ask. Recent technological breakthroughs are pushing against our cherished assumptions about the nature and primacy of our minds, and forcing us to ask new questions about our reality.

Just before Thanksgiving, enjoy a mental feast as the YHouse Institute's brightest and best chew through some tough questions: how do we evaluate the reality of our awareness from within that same awareness? Where does consciousness really come from, and how does it fit into our ideas about the nature of life and the human future? We can't promise to answer them all, but we can guarantee a stimulating evening of stories and provocative thinking from researchers working on the extreme edge of scientific innovation.

With Carl Pabo, world-leading molecular biologist, Eiko Ikegami, pioneering social scientist, and Scott Bolton, NASA astrophysicist who designed the mission allowing us to explore the orbit of Jupiter, the evening will provide a cornucopia of new ideas and perspectives on how understanding our minds directly helps us find our place in the universe.

Doors: 5:30, event 6:00.

Click here for tickets.