ARUNACHALA: THE STORY OF RAMANA MAHARSHI
Thursday February 20th, 18:30
Ramana Maharshi was an Indian saint who lived at the beginning of the 20th century. He received spontaneous enlightenment (Jivanmukti) at the age of sixteen and afterwards made a pilgrimage to the mountain Arunachala (Dakshinamurti, or Siva teaching in silence) where he lived for the remainder of his life. Although effortless in his own striving, his teaching is the living embodiment of the Vedanta philosophy.
The talk is led by Clare Carlisle who is the author of Spinoza’s Religion, Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard and The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life, which won the 2024 PEN Prize for Biography. She grew up in Manchester, studied philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge and is Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London.
LAWS OF FORM: AN INTRODUCTION
Wednesday 26th February, 18:30
Created by George Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form is a non-numerical arithmetic, a calculus that is based on a single mark called “the first distinction”.
In Spencer-Brown’s own words, from Laws of Form:
“The theme of this book is that a universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart. The skin of a living organism cuts off an outside from an inside. So does the circumference of a circle in the plane. By tracing the way we represent such a severance, we can begin to reconstruct, with an accuracy and coverage that appear almost uncanny, the basic forms underlying linguistic, mathematical, physical, and biological science, and can begin to see how the familiar laws of our own experience follow inexorably from the original act of severance. The act is itself already remembered, even if unconsciously, as our first attempt to distinguish different things in a world where, in the first place, the boundaries can be drawn anywhere we please.”
Laws of Form is the inheritance of the same tradition which brought us Ramon Lull’s Ars Combinatoria, John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica and Leibniz’ Monadology. In comparison to these it uses the minimal set of signs or symbols.
Andrew Crompton writes about the design of things that are easily overlooked or in other ways hard to describe or remember.
MUSICOCYBERNETICS: LISTENING BODIES IN A POSTDIGITAL LANDSCAPE
Wednesday 26th March, 18:30
This workshop will explore how cybernetics, originally defined as the science of “communication and control in animal and machine”, has always been deeply concerned with listening. Music has played an important role in cybernetics for this reason, with musicians from Xenakis to Eno and Oliveros all exploring cybernetic ideas in their creative output.
The questions we will explore are: What does listening contribute to the ongoing viability of living things? Why might we not be listening well right now? How could we listen better?
Music provides us with ways of exploring these questions. Using subtle and fine distinctions made through improvising with both digital and analogue instruments and singing (through Oliveros’ “Deep Listening”), Mark will open up an exploration of how living systems coordinate their viability through the finest distinctions at deep levels of recursion, from cells up.
Led by Mark William Johnson who is a transdisciplinary researcher in the department for Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of Manchester. Originally graduating in music, his work spans the application of cybernetics in education and technology, health, music and artificial intelligence. He is an innovator in medical AI diagnostics and founder of an AI diagnostic company, as well as being an internationally recognised AI education consultant.
CHARLES PEIRCE’S “QUASI-MIND”:
WHAT IS IT, HOW DO WE ACCESS IT AND WHAT DOES IT REVEAL?
Wednesday 22nd April, 18:30
Charles Peirce was a scientist, mathematician, Pragmatist philosopher and leader of a group of Harvard scholars known as the Metaphysical Club, which included the psychologist William James.
His research was vast, covering epistemology, semiotics, philosophy of science and logic. For those interested in Laws of Form, Charles Peirce had some influence on George Spencer-Brown’s discovery of that mysterious non-entity, the idea of the “first distinction”.
The talk is led by Gareth Abrahams who researches the relationship between philosophy and spatial theory. His approach draws together a detailed and intricate reading of philosophical texts whilst working as a practising architect.
He has published extensively in the field of philosophy and its relation to architecture, art, and planning. This includes a monograph with Routledge and articles in Deleuze and Guattari Studies. Using a range of diagrams and drawings to help navigate and create links between Continental and American philosophy, Gareth is currently working on a forthcoming monograph of Charles Peirce with Edinburgh University Press.
ON EDUCATION
Sunday 4th May, 16:00
Leibniz, Hildegard of Bingen, Goethe, Blake, Theano, Buber, Hilma af Klimt etc. form a lineage of European Thought which is forgotten about in modern education. How can Bound & Infinity facilitate this mode of enquiry?
How might a new education, one which crosses different disciplines help us to navigate the fragmented time we are living in, and enable us to harness energy in new ways?
We are experiencing the collapse of the University as a place of learning, where the pursuit of knowledge imbibed with a sense of mystery has made way for a machine like entity which buys and sells diplomas.
Can Bound & Infinity accommodate a new course and what are your suggestions for a dynamic curriculum? What do past experiences of teaching Holistic Science at Schumacher College and around the world contribute?
We will be exploring these questions whilst reflecting on a method of enquiry outlined by Wolfgang von Goethe, echoes of which can be found in the East and West, in the ancient and modern world and where the art and science of nature hold equal measure. We invite you to take part in the discussion.
Philip Franses taught Holistic Science at Schumacher College for over a decade, he brings together phenomenology and Goethean science. He is author of Time, Light and the Dice of Creation and co-author with Minni Jain of The Language of Water.