The Institute of Art and Ideas (IaI) is committed to fostering a progressive and vibrant intellectual culture in the UK. The IaI is a charitable, not-for-profit organisation engaged in changing the current cultural landscape through the pursuit and promotion of big ideas, boundary-pushing thinkers and challenging debates.
Below is a collection of video debates selected specifically for a medical humanities audience.
“Enhancing Morality. Technology will soon have the power to forcibly ‘improve’ our moral behaviour. Outspoken bioethicists Julian Savulescu and John Harris consider what this might mean for the future of mankind.
“‘Genes, Memes and Tenes’: Are ideas, like the genes in our DNA, battling it out in a survival-of-the-fittest evolutionary race? Psychologist Susan Blackmore explores the science of ideas, and what it might mean if technology were able to replicate ideas, ‘temes’, outside of human control.”
“‘Mazes of the Mind‘: Neuroscience promises answers to profound philosophical questions and offers a radical new description of human behaviour. But can it hope to account for issues as complex as the origins of consciousness and the nature of art? Or is this all just neurotrash?”
“‘NeuroEverything?’: Are we on the verge of unlocking the secrets of the human brain? Colin Blakemore reveals neuroscience’s profound new insights into human behaviour, with seismic consequences for everything from economics and warfare to our justice system.”
“‘Mind Change‘: A vast range of new technologies are transforming our lives. Could it be that the human mind is also undergoing unprecedented changes? Susan Greenfield presents her provocative work on what she considers to be the crisis of our changing world.”
“‘Defeating Aging’: Do you want to live forever? Aging expert and Chief Science Officer of the SENS Foundation Aubrey de Grey believes that the power to make us immortal is just around the corner. Here he reveals why.”