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Joanna Kavenna hosts

Winner of the Orange First Novel prize for Inglorious.

Most viewed event

The Reality Illusion

Hilary Lawson, Donald Hoffman, Maria Baghramian. Joanna Kavenna hosts.

'Seeing is believing , seeing is the truth'. Yet cognitive scientists seem to have uncovered these views as incorrect. Evolution led us to perceive what is best for survival and it turns out this has little to do with what we call 'reality'. Is reality then a creative construct that helps us to live but doesn't reflect the world? Are physical objects a useful hallucin...

Madness and Wisdom

Might madness be a strange form of wisdom?

Speakers: Richard Bentall, Robert Rowland Smith, Patricia Casey

In the Beginning Was the Word

Is the world dependent on language?

Speakers: Hilary Lawson, Janne Teller, Stephen Neale

Minds, Machines and Magic

Is human creativity no more than mechanics?

Speakers: Margaret Boden, George Ellis, Warren Ellis

Matter and Mind

Is consciousness inexplicable?

Speakers: Eva Jablonka, Ray Brassier, Markus Gabriel

Who We Have Been and Who We Are

Is memory a recollection or a construction?

Speakers: Steve Fuller, Richard Bentall, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Limits of Language

Can we find the right words for everything?

Speakers: Hilary Lawson, Stanley Fish, Genia Schönbaumsfeld

Biography

Winner of the Orange First Novel prize, Joanna Kavenna’s works include A Field Guide to Reality, The Ice Museum and Inglorious. Her journalism has appeared in the London Review of Books, The Guardian, and the New York Times.