The Human Mind Project will launch on 12 December 2013 with a FREE public panel session entitled ‘What’s so special about the Human Mind?’.  At the School of Advanced Study we are delighted that this important, international, and interdisciplinary project will be launched right here at Senate House by our Institute of Philosophy. 

How does the human mind work?  If we mean by this more than its basic functions, then we are looking not only at the sciences to find our answers but to a truly interdisciplinary collaboration including science, humanities, and the arts.

The Human Mind Project will do just this.  Launched by the Institute of Philosophy, a member institute of the School of Advanced Study, this ambitious project represents a coordinated, international effort to define the major intellectual challenges in understanding the nature and significance of the human mind, and thus the nature of how we think, feel, communicate and interact.

Scientists are making extraordinary progress in unravelling the structure and basic functions of the brain.  But if the ultimate objective is to understand how human beings think, feel, communicate and interact, it is essential that knowledge from the humanities should inform science and vice versa

– Colin Blakemore

The project launches on 12 December 2013 with a FREE public panel session chaired by the institutes Professor Colin Blakemore, director of the Centre for the Study of the Senses (CenSes) on the subject ‘What’s so special about the human mind?’

This is a unique one-off opportunity to meet and hear from the experts and to witness how collaborative research can broaden our understanding of how we think about ourselves.

The panel session is a discussion between disciplines and will feature:

• Professor Deidre Wilson (Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL)
• Professor Robin Dunbar (Experimental Psychology, Oxford)
• Professor Nicola Clayton (Experimental Psychology, Cambridge)
• Professor Vittorio Gallese (Brain Center for Social and Motor Cognition, Parma)

The ‘What’s so special about the human mind?’ panel session will take place in the Beveridge Hall, Senate House, University of London on Thursday 12 December 2013, 5pm-8pm, followed by a reception in the Macmillan Hall.

The event is FREE to all but please reserve your seat on our booking page to avoid disappointment.

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