Beyond Space/Time and Mind/Body Dualities, from Theology to Physics and Computing toward Biology

Date/Time
Friday
14 Apr 2023
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Location
470 Stephens Hall

Event Type
Special Event

Giuseppe Longo
Director of Research, CNRS – École Normal Supérieure, Paris

Mitra Azar
Visiting Student Researcher, UC Berkeley

The origin of mathematical space is the result of a theological-pictorial invention (perspectiva artificialis), in the XIV century Italian painting. It shaped our dualistic construction (space/time) in Physics and paved the way to the imitation of the cartesian mind/body dualism, that made possible modern computing and the software/hardware split formalized by Turing. When moving from Physics to Biology the focus goes from conservation properties of a-priori phase spaces and discrete symmetries to the production of unpredictable phase spaces, symmetry breaking and continual (extended) critical transitions, within incompressible "durées" (as H. Weyl acknowledges in reference to Bergson). The talk proposes a transversal reading of this different physical, computational and biological becoming. The respondent (Mitra Azar) will map Longo’s perspectival epistemology in relation to the figure of orientation, disorientation and POV (Point of View), and will facilitate the dialogue in reference to Longo’s suggested reading, listed below.

 

G. Longo, Sara Longo. Infinity of God and Space of Men in Painting, Conditions of Possibility for the Scientific Revolution. In ‘‘Mathematics in the Visual Arts’’ (R. Scheps and M.-C. Maurel ed.), ISTE-WILEY Ltd, London, 2020

G. Longo. Confusing biological twins and atomic clocks. Today’s ecological relevance of Bergson-Einstein debate on time. In "Einstein vs Bergson. An enduring quarrel of time", A. Campo and S. Gozzano, eds, De Gruyter, 2021

G. Longo. Letter to Alan Turing. Invited, in Theory, Culture and Society, Posthumanities Special Issue, 2018

This event is sponsored by CSTMS.
Additional sponsorship comes from:  Rhetoric Department