One question that we have started to explore within DIAS is about the future of how we study the mind, given our changing conception of the planet. Our planetary environment has traditionally been understood, by cognitive scientists and by human scientists, as merely a background for human culture and behavior. We are now learning that it was a mistake to separate ourselves from nature in this way.
A useful concept for reorienting our thought about our place in nature is the concept of the Anthropocene. This is the proposal that human activity has become the decisive factor shaping the conditions of life on our planet. The future of life on our planet will depend on how wisely we are able to negotiate this new reality.
We have an ongoing series of talks under the title, Mind in the Anthropocene. We are looking forward to hosting talks on October 12 at 11:15-12:15pm from Louise Barrett, University of Lethbridge: Looking forward to a beastly future (a primatologist and theorist of embodied cognition) and November 16 at 11:15-12:15pm from John Sutton, Macquarie University: Meshing Minds: interdependence and vulnerability in the cognitive sciences (a cognitive scientist and distributed cognition theorist). All are welcome to attend these lectures which will take place in person in the DIAS auditorium. The series has been organized by myself (Ed) and Sune Steffensen along with Anthony Fernandez, a DIAS Fellow based at the Institute for Sport and Biomechanics.
Information about the talk series can be found here
Previous talks in the series can be viewed on DIAS's youtube channel here
- Kontakt Email: ebag@sdu.dk