The Alpha & the Omega: Beginning & Ending at NYPSI

CELEBRATING A CENTURY OF ADVANCEMENT THROUGH SELF-KNOWLEDGE
THE NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE:
The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation
247 East 82nd St., between 2nd & 3rd, NY, NY, 10028
212-879-6900
www.psychoanalysis.org

Saturday, May 5, 2012,  4:30 PM, Saturday, May 19, 2012, 2:30 PM, Donations accepted

The Alpha & the Omega: Beginning & Ending

NYPSI proudly announces The Helix Center for Interdisciplinary Investigation–a division of the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute (NYPSI)–the primary mission of which is to draw together leaders from the arts and sciences for unique interdisciplinary roundtables exploring the creative frontiers of the mind.

The subject of the inaugural two part series is The Alpha and the Omega: Beginning and Ending.  The first roundtable on May 5th at 4:30 p.m. will be “Beginning,” and on May 19th at 2:30 p.m., the subject will be “Ending.”

For more information, contact enersessianmd@gmail.com

THE DIALECTIC SERIES:
THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA

PART 1: Where Does It Begin?

“We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started /And know the place for the first time. / Through the unknown, remembered gate / When the last of earth left to discover / Is that which was the beginning…”

 – T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets “In the beginning was the Word…”

 – The Gospel According to John

“There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.”

– Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian

Why are we curious about beginnings, whether that of the cosmos or our own? What can we discover from each other’s curiosity about beginnings? What are the organizational properties necessary to call something a beginning? Might similar processes apply to both individual consciousness and the universe at large?

The participants in this roundtable include:

Professor Chris Impey

Chris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Arizona and Deputy Head of the Department of Astronomy, in charge of all academic programs. His research interests are observational cosmology, gravitational lensing, and the evolution and structure of galaxies. He has 160 refereed publications and 60 conference proceedings, and his work has been supported by $18 million in grants from NASA and the NSF. As a professor, he has won eleven teaching awards, and he has been heavily involved in curriculum and instructional technology development. Impey is a past Vice President of the AAS. He has also been an NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar, a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, and the Carnegie Council’s Arizona Professor of the Year. Impey has written over thirty popular articles on cosmology and astrobiology and co-authored two introductory textbooks. His first popular book, The Living Cosmos, was published in 2007 by Random House, Since then he has published How it Ends, Talking about Life, and most recently, How It Began. He was Co-Chair of the Study Group that summarized Astronomy Education and Public Outreach for the upcoming Decadal Survey of the National Academy of Science.

Professor Joseph J. Kohn

Joseph Kohn is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University. He is a winner of the Mathematical Society Steele Prize and the Bergman Prize and is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also received the Bolzano Prize of the Czechoslovak Union of Mathematicians and Physicists and an honorary doctorate from the University of Bologna. He has written numerous research articles and has been involved in various mathematical projects in the Czech Republic, Italy, Mexico, and the United States.

Professor Tim Maudlin

Tim Maudlin (B.A. Yale, Physics and Philosophy; Ph.D. Pittsburgh, History and Philosophy of Science) has interests primarily focused in the foundations of physics, metaphysics, and logic. His books include Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity (Blackwell, 3rd edition now available), Truth and Paradox (Oxford), and The Metaphysics Within Physics (Oxford). Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time is due for publication in 2012 by Princeton University Press. He is currently at work on a second volume for Princeton, and on a large project developing and applying an alternative mathematical account of topological structure. He is a member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences and the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi). He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as a visiting professor at Harvard. From 1986 to 2011, Dr. Maudlin taught at Rutgers; currently, he is a member of the faculty at New York University.

Dr. Mark A. Norell

Mark A. Norell was born July 26, 1957, in St. Paul, Minnesota and spent most of his formative years (from 1964) in southern California. He received a Bachelor of Science in 1980 from Long Beach State University and a Masters of Science from San Diego State University in 1983.  In 1988, he was awarded the John Spanger Nichols prize for best thesis upon completion of his doctoral studies at Yale University. After a year of post-doctoral training studying the molecular genetics of maize, Dr. Norell accepted a curatorial position at the American Museum of Natural History in New York where he is the Chairman of the Department of Paleontology.  The author of many scholarly articles, Dr. Norell’s most recent book is entitled “Traveling the Silk Road: Ancient Pathway to the Modern World.”

Information Regarding CME Credit for Physicians
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of [2] AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.

For information about NYPSI training programs please visit us atwww.psychoanalysis.org

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