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

  • WeWork Park South (map)
  • 110 East 28th Street, 8th-Floor Lounge
  • New York, NY, 10016
  • United States

Consciousness Club #33: Language as Bodily Gesture: From Perception and Action to Speech

Speaker: Hayden Kee (Fordham University)

Abstract: Embodied theories of the mind emphasize the centrality of action and perception in experience and cognition. A challenge for such approaches is to explain how our higher-order cognitive achievements, such as abstract thought and imagination, can be understood starting from more basic bodily abilities. The solution, I propose, may be as simple (or complex) as learning to speak. I turn to developmental studies of infant language learning for insights into the bodily foundations of language and cognition. Perhaps the 7,000 languages of the Earth, for all their diversity, are all variations and elaborations of one fundamental bodily power of gestural expression.

Entrance is free. Registration is required. Click here to register.