Academic Seminars
Academic dialogues open to participation
Sophia Iberia has designed two Academic Seminars that constitute the main aspects of its action. The First Seminar (2009) was organised as a sequence of five sessions spread out over seven months and the Second Seminar (2010) will take place during two and a half days including four sessions and a final debate. The themes of these seminars involve in-depth study and discussion on certain special questions related essentially to human evolution.
Second Academic Seminar: December 13-15, 2010
Life, evolution and complexity
Life may be a natural consequence of the physical process of planetary formation or it may be something random, unique or very rare in the universe. Through the process of evolution life tends to become more complex and form advanced interdependent ecosystems. The human brain is said to be the most complex structure in the universe. Through interdisciplinary discussions between world leading researchers the understanding of life evolution and complexity will be discussed from different perspectives. It is the purpose of this scientific seminar to produce new ideas and move our understanding of life evolution and complexity to a higher level.
More about the Second Academic Seminar
First Academic Seminar: May to November, 2009
The scientific explanation of the emergence of Reason
Human evolution has its roots in matter, the universe and life, but the decisive moment when the human species emerged within the framework of the evolutionary process is the appearance of human reason. The chosen theme is "Evolutionary genesis, ontology and functional nature of reason". What is reason? How does rational knowledge function in the human mind? What are the evolutionary causes which have led to the emergence of the rational mind? How can a scientific explanation of reason be constructed?
Results of the First Academic Seminar
Methodology
A process of dialogue carried out in two stages
- Each academic seminar will be made up of seven or eight professors, committed to discussing the themes proposed. The seminar in its first stage will hold several sessions, so that each professor will have the chance to present their reflections to a small group of interested scholars and engage into an in-depth debate so that everybody gains a better insight of the discussed issue. In the second stage, the results of each of the themes from the first stage will be posted on-line and opened to the public for participation.
- First stage: restricted seminar. The professors agree to the themes and their order in the seminar. Each professor then presents a lecture, followed by an interview and a debate session, thus initiating an interactive process involving questions, answers, contributions, alternatives and dialogue in general that will be continued on-line, in a restricted website or per private e-mail.
- Second stage: opening up of the results. While preparing the following sessions, the results of the themes already discussed will be arranged so that they can be accessed on-line on this website, and a new process will begin with the presentation of external papers which will give rise to comments, questions, discussions, and the presentation of alternatives to the results achieved.
- Besides the publication on-line, the global results of the seminar, as well as the more outstanding external papers will be published on paper.
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