The construction of narratives on the symbology of environmental themes will be discussed on April 17

Joanne Garde-Hansen, director of the Center for Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick, UK, will be at the IEA on April 17, from 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm, to discuss the theme Water: Nostalgia and Trauma - Narratives, Rights and Policies in England. At the meeting, to take place in the former University Council Room, she will suggest a reflection on diversity related to issues that deserve more attention in scientific terminology and public policy.

Garde-Hansen has been working with Brazilian researchers in order to construct social narratives linked to water and public policies, and argues that seeking connections and convergences between terms such as "drought" (which assumes different meanings in Brazil and in Europe) may favor dialogue between nations and cultures. The event will be held in English and broadcast live on the IEA's website.

Moderation will be in charge of professors Pedro Jacobi, from USP's School of Education (FE), Danilo Rothberg, from the São Paulo State University (UNESP), Antonio Almeida, from USP's Luiz de Queiroz School of Agriculture (ESALQ), and Gilson Schwartz, from USP's School of Communications of Arts (ECA) and a participant of IEA's Sabbatical Year Program in 2017. Schwartz is also coordinating the event.

The fluid theme relating water, cultural sharing and memory invites for a dialogue on concepts between cultures, social narratives, rights and public policies. "The term 'drought', for example, assumes a meaning in Europe that does not coincide with the perception of the fact in Brazil or in other countries," says the researcher. "There is no universal definition of terms that only theoretically have the same value or meaning."

Organized by the IEA, the debate is supported by USP's Center for Research in Technology of Architecture and Urbanism (NUTAU), the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), UNESP and the University of Warwick.

The speaker

Joanne Garde-Hansen is a lecturer in the field of Culture, Media and Communication, responsible for the Master's course in Global Media and Communication, and director of the Center for Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick. She conducts researches on media, memory, archives and patrimony, and keeps multidisciplinary collaborations with scientists of the most diverse areas, among them geography, natural resources, computation, history, besides communication and culture.

In Crateús, in the dry region of the Brazilian State of Ceará, residents pay R$ 0.50 for 20 liters of non-potable water

Some of her latest books are Emotion Online: Theorizing Affect in the Internet (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), with Kristyn Gorton; Media and Memory (Edinburgh University Press, 2011), with Andrew Hoskins and Anna Reading, and Social Memory Technology: Theory, Practice, Action (Routledge 2016).

Since 2012, she has been working on projects funded by FAPESP, the British Council and the Warwick Brazil Partnership.

She is the co-investigator of the project Developing a Drought Narrative Resource in a Multi-Stakeholder Decision-Making Utility for Drought Risk Management, or DRY (Drought Risk and You), from 2014 to 2019.

Since 2016, she has been visiting the city of Bauru, in the countryside of the State of São Paulo, exploring the theme "Narratives on Water and Digital Hydrocity", a research carried out with Professor Danilo Rothberg, from UNESP, with funding from FAPESP and the University of Warwick.

Images: Fernanda Carvalho/Fotos Públicas; Fernando Frazão/Agência Brasil

According to Till Roenneberg, "we are loosing our critical view into how we make science.”

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"It seems like they are trying to eliminate the humanities because there is an idea that apparently this field does not bring much money or many students to the institutions. This is the worst direction we could take. There is a crisis in the way we deal with the humanities and we should change it."

The quote by chronobiologist Till Roenneberg seeded his conference on interdisciplinarity given at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) during the 1st Intercontinental Academia (ICA). The dialogue between different kinds of knowledge, or what academia calls interdisciplinarity, will be the topic discussed by Roenneberg on July 19, in the IEA Events Room, from 10 am.

Invited by the IEA to revisit the presentation of the ICA, the scientist from the Institute of Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) will give the conference Why Science needs more than Interdisciplinarity. The event will be broadcast live on the web.

The IEA, an interdisciplinary body par excellence, is revisiting the issue of interdisciplinarity from meetings with renowned experts. German sociologist Peter Weingart, board member and director of the Bielefeld University's Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), has shown that the achievement of interdisciplinary model will only be effective through an institutional restructuring in teaching and research institutions. Despite being fashionable in academia for over 20 years, interdisciplinarity was still a concept "empty of meaning" until recently, he said during his lecture at the IEA.

In Roenneberg's vision, science needs more than interdisciplinarity. "Modern science uses objective methods and criteria to find the ‘true’ mechanistic causes behind observed associations. While we have made great advances in explaining extended putative causal networks, we are loosing our critical view into how we do this," he says.

For the scientist, not biological dogmas or physical theories, not genes or quarks are at the centre of our scientific endeavours. "Only one thing is the central commonality of every scientific discovery: our own brain, which is basically a story-telling machine," he says.

At this meeting, Roenneberg will remember the necessity that we have to fuse as many different brains as possible to make larger jumps in our scientific insights.

The conferencist

Till Roenneberg is a professor of chronobiology at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in München, Germany. He explores the impact of light on human circadian rhythms, focusing on aspects such as chronotypes and social jet lag in relation to health benefits. Roenneberg attended both the University College London and LMU, where he began by studying physics. He switched to medicine in order to focus on the science of the human body, but ended up studying biology. As a postdoctoral fellow, he studied again under Jurgen Aschoff, studying annual rhythms in the body, then moved to the United States to study the cellular basis of biological clocks under Woody Hastings at Harvard University. In 1991, he began the tradition of giving the Aschoff’s Ruler prize to a chronobiologist who has advanced the field. He is currently the vice-chair of the Institute for Medical Psychology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the head of the Centre for Chronobiology, the president-elect of the European Biological Rhythms Society, the president of the World Federation of Societies for Chronobiology, and a member of the Senior Common Room of Brasenose College, University of Oxford. From 2005 to 2010 he was the coordinator of "EUCLOCK" and coordinator of the Daimler-Benz-Foundation network "ClockWORK", and from 2010 to 2012 was the member at large of the Society for Research of Biological Rhythms.

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History of Time and Calendar in Japan

Circadian Clock System in Peripheral Tissues of Mice

Truth and Time in Brouwer’s Intuitionism

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Durante os workshops In Search of Interdisciplinary Dialogue, promovidos pelo Waseda Institute of Advanced Studies (WIAS), da Waseda University, Japão, diversos especialistas se reuniram em Tóquio para discutir a interdisciplinaridade entre os saberes, no dia 14 de março. Além dos cientistas convidados, a segunda fase da Intercontinental Academia (ICA) reuniu, de 6 a 18 de março, 13 jovens pesquisadores selecionados para desenvolver estudos sobre o tema “tempo”. O conteúdo das pesquisas subsidiará a criação de um Massive Open Online Course (Mooc), que será disponibilizado gratuitamente na plataforma Cousera.

Abe: "A pontualidade japonesa não se restringe apenas aos trens."

Entre os palestrantes, o professor Masashi Abe, do Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS), abordou aspectos do calendário japonês e a relação desse povo com o tempo. History of Time and Calendar in Japan foi o título da palestra, que focou como a modernização do calendário transformou a cultura temporal no Japão e tornou aquele povo um dos mais pontuais do planeta.

Abe disse que os estrangeiros que visitam o Japão ficam muito impressionados como tudo por lá é pontual. De fato, isso é verdade. Para confirmar essa premissa, basta citar como exemplo a rede ferroviária de alta velocidade entre Tóquio e Osaka, a Shinkansen, conhecida como Trem Bala no Brasil. Apesar do território habitualmente maltratado por terremotos, o atraso médio desse meio de transporte é de 30 segundos, citou o professor.

“Mas a pontualidade não se restringe apenas aos trens. Os japoneses também são muito pontuais. As pessoas estão sempre preocupadas em não chegar atrasadas aos seus compromissos. Em geral, elas chegam 10 ou 15 minutos antes da hora marcada. Portanto, o tempo regula a vida do cidadão japonês moderno. Mas isso não foi sempre assim”, disse Abe.

No passado, os japoneses costumavam ser muito impontuais. Até o final do século 19, ou durante o Período Edo (1603 – 1868), muitos europeus visitavam o Japão e sempre reclamavam da impontualidade japonesa, contou.

Mas havia uma razão para isso. Os cidadãos comuns não tinham relógios mecânicos. Os relógios dos templos ou das torres tinham que bater 12 vezes ao dia para anunciar a hora. Nesses equipamentos, o tempo era medido através de relógios de incensos, nunca mecânicos. Trata-se de um tipo de relógio tradicionalmente usado na China e depois adotado no Japão e alguns países da Ásia. Era composto por incensos que queimavam a uma daterminada taxa de combustão que permitia ter uma ideia de minutos, horas ou dias.

No Período Edo, o dia e a noite eram seccionados em seis partes, sendo que à noite cada parte tinha uma duração diferente em relação ao dia. Além disso, a duração de cada parte de tempo também mudava em função das diferentes estações do ano. Não havia uma divisão precisa dos segundos e minutos. A menor unidade de tempo era o shihamtoki, que representava um quarto de uma sessão (tokki) ou, aproximadamente, 30 segundos, disse o professor.

Mas, em 1868, a família Tokugawa  Shogun perdeu o poder. Era o início da Era Meiji (1868-1912). O novo governo abandonou as tradições e deu início à modernização do Japão. Mudaram as roupas, o sistema educacional e o de saúde, as danças, as pinturas, a arquitetura, as comidas, refletindo em parte a cultura ocidental dos Estados Unidos e da Europa, disse.

Foi no ano de 1872 que os japoneses abandonaram o calendário tradicional e o antigo sistema de horas. A semana foi dividida em sete dias e o dia, em 24 horas. Também foram introduzidas as menores unidades de tempo, como minutos e segundos.

“A partir disso, através do sistema educacional, social e militar, os japoneses passaram a ser ter treinados para serem pontuais. Além disso, na Era Meiji, os cidadãos passaram a adotar relógios mecânicos”, disse.

O professor Abe também mostrou um breve histórico sobre os sistemas antigos usados num passado mais remoto. Foi durante Período Kofun (século 3 ao 7) que o calendário chinês foi introduzido no país.

Esse sistema já era utilizado na China desde o século 2 A.C. Em 554, um especialista Chinês foi enviado para introduzir o calendário entre os japoneses. Em 602, o calendário chinês passou a ser ensinado para crianças da elite japonesa. Em 604, esse sistema passou a ser utilizado em larga escala, introduzido pela imperatriz Suiko (554- 628). Em 660, o imperador Tenchi chegou a construir uma clepsidra, ou relógio de água. Mas até os tempos modernos, prevaleceu o sistema chinês.

Relógio biológico e a relação com os genes

Tahara pesquisa oscilações do relógio biológico por meio de metodologia não invasiva em ratos.

Circadian Clock System in Peripheral Tissues of Mice foi o tema apresentado pelo professor Yu Tahara, também da Waseda Institute of Advanced Studies. Tahara apresentou os resultados das pesquisas realizadas no laboratório coordenado pelo professor Shigenobu Shibata, do departamento de fisiologia e farmacologia da School of Advanced Science and Engineering, da Waseda University, de Tóquio.

Tahara estuda a expressão dos genes no relógio biológico de ratos. Estabeleceu uma metodologia de captação de imagens in vivo a partir da biolumenescência em tecidos geneticamente modificados. O uso de uma câmera especial de alta resolução permite captar imagens de diferentes tecidos e órgãos.

Seu grupo de pesquisa desenvolveu um protocolo de imagiologia que permite medir os ritmos biológicos facilmente, de forma não invasiva, e longitudinalmente, em ratinhos individuais. Assim, é possível detectar as oscilações circadianas (ou ritmo biológico) de tecidos como rim, fígado e glândula submandibular.

“Antes era preciso sacrificar os ratos após a injeção da luciferina, a fim de retirar os tecidos e realizar a análise. Agora isso não é mais necessário. O método também permite realizar estudos longitudinais”, disse. Luciferina é o substrato da luciferase, enzima capaz de catalisar reações biológicas, transformando energia química em energia luminosa. Dessa forma, é possível registrar as imagens do comportamento das células e tecidos de interesse.

O pesquisador conta que coloca os ratos num local escuro e injeta a enzima nos ratos a cada quatro horas durante o dia todo. Após 10 minutos de cada aplicação, fotografa os tecidos, obtendo uma série de imagens que indicam o aumento e a diminuição de biomassa em diferentes locais do corpo, conforme a luminosidade a que os ratos são submetidos.

Nesse estudo, verifica a importância da luz para o relógio biológico, ou, a incidência do que chamou de “entrainment”. O conceito diz respeito ao ajuste das fases do relógio biológico às diferentes condições ambientais para a sobrevivência do organismo.

O pesquisador também estuda a ação da insulina, da cafeína, do exercício físico e do estresse sobre o relógio circadiano. Os estudos com insulina são associados com a administração de óleo de peixe na alimentação dos ratos que, segundo o pesquisador, melhora a sensibilidade daquela substância metabólica.

A pesquisa revelou que a cafeína tem alto impacto sobre a modulação do relógio biológico, segundo o cientista. A administração de cafeína na parte da manhã não mostrou alteração do ciclo biológico dos ratos, em comparação com o grupo controle. Mas a ingestão à noite antes da hora de dormir prolongou o ciclo acordado, ou seja, provocou um atraso no relógio biológico. O cientista citou uma pesquisa mostrando que essa alteração também ocorre em humanos. “O café tem a capacidade de despertar e também de mudar o relógio circadiano. Portanto, a mensagem: é não beba café à noite antes de dormir”, brincou.

Os efeitos da alimentação sobre o relógio biológico compõem um ramo de estudo chamado de crono-nutrição. Segundo Tahara, as pesquisas sobre nutrição realizadas até o momento focavam o que e quanto deveríamos comer, ou seja, os itens necessários e a quantidade adequada de alimento para cada refeição. “Mas agora as novas pesquisas nos dizem quando comer, ou seja, o momento adequado para as refeições. Esta é a nova estratégia no que diz respeito a nutrição”, afirma.

Tahara estudou as mesmas variáveis levando em consideração o fator idade. Com a idade, houve um decrescimento do período de sono-REM. Os resultados apontam ainda que nenhum daqueles fatores influiu tanto no ritmo biológico de ratos idosos quanto a alimentação.

Intuicionismo de Brouwer

Akyoshi falou da relação da  matemática com outros saberes, como a filosofia.

A filosofia da matemática vista à luz das ideias do matemático holandês Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer (1881-1966) foi o tema apresentado pelo professor Ryota Akiyoshi, da Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS).

Na palestra Truth and Time in Brouwer’s Intuitionism, Akiyoshi analisou a tensão entre o que é verdade matemática e o que é um construto da mente.  Explicou problemas conceituais sobre a lógica e filosofia e seus aspectos interdisciplinares.

Segundo o professor, o objeto da filosofia pode ser qualquer coisa, seja a linguagem, o conhecimento, a matemática, a física, a biologia e assim por diante. A matemática, portanto, ou a lógica, tem sido um tópico central na filosofia desde Aristóteles. Com o desenvolvimento da linguagem e, consequentemente, da matemática, a filosofia da matemática passa a se ocupar essencialmente sobre a origem dos objetos matemáticos.

O platonismo procura responder a essa questão mostrando que existe um mundo abstrato e imutável que contém todos os elementos matemáticos. Como pressuposto, todos os objetos matemáticos já existem, mas nem todos foram descobertos ainda. O papel do matemático seria então encontrar objetos que não foram ainda descobertos nesse mundo abstrato e imutável.

Por outro lado, parte da comunidade matemática não aceitava as ideias do platonismo e rompeu com a matemática clássica. O antagonismo a Platão foi chamado de construtivismo, sendo o intuicionismo a linha mais conhecida dessa corrente. Partiam do pressuposto de que um objeto matemático existiria a partir do momento em que o matemático conseguisse construí-lo na mente.

O professor Akiyoshi também mostrou alguns conceitos essenciais da lógica intuicionista, entre eles a sequência de escolhas, além da noção de sujeito criativo.

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During the workshop In Search of Interdisciplinary Dialogue, sponsored by the Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) as part of the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA), several experts met in Tokyo on March 14 to discuss interdisciplinarity between different kinds of knowledge.

Abe: "Japanese punctuality is not restricted to trains."

Professor Masashi Abe, from the WIAS, has addressed aspects of the Japanese calendar and the relationship of the Japanese people with time. History of Time and Calendar in Japan was the title of the lecture, which focused on how the modernization of the calendar has transformed the temporal culture in Japan, leading to one of the most punctual people in the world.

Abe said that foreigners visiting Japan get very impressed by how everything there is timely. In fact, this is true. To confirm this assumption, one just has to cite the high-speed rail network (shinkansen) between Tokyo and Osaka as an example. Despite having a territory that is usually battered by earthquakes, the transport has an average delay of 30 seconds, according to the professor.

"But punctuality is not restricted to trains. The Japanese are also very punctual. People are always anxious not to be late to their appointments. In general, they arrive 10 or 15 minutes before the scheduled time. Therefore, time regulates the life of the modern Japanese citizen. But it has not been like this forever," said Abe. By the end of the 19th century or during the Edo Period (1603-1868), many Europeans visited Japan and always complained about the Japanese being late.

There was a reason for it. Ordinary citizens had no mechanical watches. The clocks of the temples or towers had to beat 12 times a day to announce time. Time was measured by incense clocks, never by mechanical ones. This was a type of clock traditionally used in China, and then adopted by Japan and some Asian countries. It consisted of burning incense that allowed to have an idea of minutes, hours or days at a particular rate of combustion.

In the Edo Period, day and night were sectioned into six parts, with each part of the evening having a different length in relation to the day. In addition, the duration of each period of time also changed depending on the different seasons. There was no precise division of seconds and minutes. The smallest unit of time was the shihamtoki, representing a quarter of a session (tokki), or approximately 30 seconds, said Abe.

The Japanese abandoned the traditional calendar and the old time system in 1872. The week was divided into seven days and the day into 24 hours. The smallest units of time such as minutes and seconds were also introduced.

"From that, through the educational, social and military systems, the Japanese began to be taught how to be punctual. Moreover, in the Meiji Era, citizens adopted mechanical watches," the professor said.

Abe also showed a brief history of the old systems used in a more distant past. During the Kofun Period (centuries 3-7) the Chinese calendar was introduced in the country. This system was used in China since the 2nd century B.C. In 554, a Chinese expert was sent to introduce the calendar among the Japanese. In 602, the Chinese calendar was taught to children of the Japanese elite. In 604, the system was being used on a large scale, introduced by Empress Suiko (554- 628). In 660, Emperor Tenchi reached to build a water clock. But to modern times, the Chinese system prevailed.

Biological clock and the relationship with the genes

Tahara studies oscillations of the biological clock in mice via a non-invasive method.

Circadian Clock System in Peripheral Tissues of Mice was the theme of the presentation by Professor Yu Tahara, also from the WIAS. Tahara presented the results of research conducted in the laboratory led by Professor Shigenobu Shibata at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology of the School of Advanced Science and Engineering at Waseda University.

Tahara studies the expression of genes in biological clocks of mice. He has established a methodology to capture in vivo images from the bioluminescence in genetically modified tissues. A special high-resolution camera captures images of different tissues and organs.

His research group has developed an imaging protocol that easily measures the biological rhythms in individual mice in a non-invasive and longitudinal way. Thus, it is possible to detect the circadian oscillations (or biological rhythm) of tissues such as kidney, liver and submaxillary gland.

"It used to be necessary to sacrifice mice after an injection of luciferin in order to remove the tissues and carry out the analysis. Now this is no longer necessary. The method also allows longitudinal studies," he said. Luciferin is the substrate of luciferase, an enzyme capable of catalyzing biological reactions, transforming chemical energy into light energy. Thus, it is possible to record images of the behavior of cells and tissues of interest.

The researcher said that he puts the mice in a dark place and injects the enzyme every four hours throughout the day. After 10 minutes of each application he takes photos of the tissue, obtaining a series of images which indicate the increase and the decrease of biomass in different regions of the body according to the lightness at which the mice are submitted.

In this study, Tahara verifies the importance of light to the biological clock, or the incidence of what he calls "entrainment". The concept relates to adjusting the biological clock phases to different environmental conditions for the organism's survival. The researcher also studies the action of insulin, caffeine, physical exercise and stress on the circadian clock. Studies of insulin are associated with fish oil administration in the diet of mice. According to him, this improves the sensitivity of the metabolic substance.

The research has shown that caffeine has a high impact on the modulation of the biological clock, according to the scientist. The administration of caffeine in the morning showed no change of the biological cycle of mice compared to the control group. But eating at night before sleeping prolonged the awake cycle, ie, caused a delayed biological clock. The scientist cited research showing that this change also occurs in humans. "Coffee has the ability to wake up and also change the circadian clock. So the message is do not drink coffee at night before bed," he joked.

The effects of food on the biological clock make up a branch of study called chrono-nutrition. According to Tahara, research on nutrition conducted so far have focused on what and how much we eat, that is, the necessary items and the proper amount of food for each meal. "But now new research tell us when to eat, that is, the right time for meals. This is the new strategy with regard to nutrition," he said.

Tahara studied the same variables taking the age factor into account. With age there was a decrease of the REM-sleep period. The results also indicate that none of those factors influenced the biological rhythm of aged mice as much as food.

Akiyoshi has spoken of the relation of mathematics to other fields of knowledge, such as philosophy.

Brouwer's Intuitionism

The philosophy of mathematics from the point of view of Dutch mathematician Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer (1881-1966) was the subject presented by Professor Ryota Akiyoshi, from the WIAS.

In the lecture Truth and Time in Brouwer's Intuitionism, Akiyoshi analyzed the tension between what is mathematical truth and what is a mind construct. He explained conceptual problems on logic and philosophy, and interdisciplinary aspects.

According to the professor, the object of philosophy can be anything: language, knowledge, mathematics, physics, biology and so on. Mathematics or logic, therefore, have been a central topic in philosophy since Aristotle. With the development of language and, consequently, mathematics, philosophy of mathematics deals essentially with the origin of mathematical objects.

Platonism seeks to address this issue by showing that there is an abstract and immutable world that contains all the mathematical elements. As assumption, all mathematical objects already exist, but not all have been discovered yet. The role of the mathematician would be to find objects that have not been discovered yet in this abstract and unchanging world.

On the other hand, part of the mathematical community did not accept the ideas of Platonism and disagreed with classical mathematics. The antagonism to Plato was called constructivism, the intuitionism being the best known branch of this intellectual tradition. It was believed that a mathematical object exists from the moment when a mathematician can build it in their mind.

Professor Akiyoshi also showed some essential concepts of intuitionistic logic, including the sequence of choices and the notion of creative subject.

Kirill Thompson addresses the perception of time in consciousness.

Daoism, Zen, Time Awareness, and the Reality of Time was the title of the lecture given by Kirill O. Thompson, from the National Taiwan University (NTU), during the Humanities / Social Sciences Workshop of the second phase of the Intercontinental Academia (ICA), on March 10.

An expert on neo-Confucian philosophy and Chinese philosophy, Thompson has examined the perception of time in the human consciousness according to Eastern traditions such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism, and compared this notion to the Western philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).

Taoism and Zen Buddhism are religious philosophical traditions of East Asia intended to reorient the common personal experience to a broader life experience. The consciousness of time is a part of that shift, said Thompson.

For Kant, time is not simply inserted in the experience: time is the very condition of the experience, the pure form of inner intuition. Time summarizes the flow or the pulse of consciousness and thus the mind synchronizes and applies this time to the world's events flow, said Thompson, who is a professor at the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department, and serves as Associate Dean for Humanities at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (IHS) of the NTU.

The German philosopher also conceptualizes the perception of objects as a basic experience that requires "time" to allow the mind to refer to memory and identify the object. Neurologically, this happens in a "self-centered" way because it is molded by mental filters. It is a sensory response that requires "time" to be filtered by personal experience, said Thompson.

The recognition or perception of objects or people is an experiential phenomenon reasoned by the Noumenon, which for Kant is inaccessible. The Noumenon (from the German Ding an sich, meaning "the thing itself") is the sphere of higher reality within the philosophic mind. It can also be understood as the essence of something or that what makes something what it is. The Noumenon exists in itself regardless of the conditions of the common experience phenomena, including time and space. In neurological terms the Noumenon is independent of mental filters of experience, said the professor.

Thus, the common experience is never a raw sensation; it is always conditioned by the forms of intuition and categories of understanding. The object, as a phenomenon, is seen in the context of subjective needs, desires, dislikes, goals or in addition to its own character and relationships.

According to the professor, the social sciences tend to value a self-centered point of view, referring rational interests as the great guide of ideal personal conduct. On the other hand, the Taoist response to existence is the negation of the ego and the dissolution of the mind filters.

Thus, the oldest Taoist text, the Laozi, challenges and refutes the independence and the ultimacy of objects, showing its origin from the non-being (invisible, formless) and mutual codependency. "But how could it be possible to experience that?," asked Thompson.

First, he said, we should note that the common egocentric experience is based on ego as a unified system or a set that brings together the expertise and its categories, and forms of intuition which filter and shape the experience. In this case, linear time is a condition for the exercise of memory, recalling past events and planing the sequence of future events.

In Taoism, the appropriation of time requires a "step back" in the common experience of being, and of its forms and categories of understanding. This involves a change of perspective, a general reorientation so that Laozi and Zen Buddhism can convey their message. The key is to relax and focus the mind through meditation.

One can directly see things as co-emerging and interdependent, according to Thompson. If this mindset - meditation - is successful, the result will be a dissolution of the intuition model, of the understanding categories, of the mind filters simultaneously including the dissolution of the ego, and of course of linear time. Meditation opens the path to be holistic and time gets suspended, said Thompson.

Thompson cited American neurologist James H. Austin, who engaged in holistic trial through Zen Buddhism. Author of Zen and the Brain, Austin seeks to relate the neural activity of the human brain and the practice of meditation. His book was awarded the Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize in 1998.

"Austin underwent Zen Buddhist trial and tracked its impact on the neural processes during meditation. He confirmed that the internal neural metronome turns off in relation to clock time and thus time ceases. Such dissolution of the filters that connect the experience and divide subject and object open the path for a direct and holistic orientation," he said.

The sense of achronia (cessation of time, eternity) accompanies the deep kenshi and the satori experience when a person opens into the void. Thompson defines achronia as the absence of any sense of time during meditative detachment. It is not a sense of timelessness or loss of time.

The horizon of consciousness opens beyond all notions of previous limits. There are neither past nor present. This lack of time enters the nonverbal experience as eternity. Neurologically, this kind of orientation contrasts with the egocentric pattern of the Western experience outlined above.

In the allocentric experience - which has interests and considerations centered on the other, contrary to the egocentric orientation - the being can grasp objects as they really are. Instead of a subjective perception filtered by wants and needs, a person acquires an objective perception to themselves and to others.

When consciousness is freed from rigid categories and mental filters, the path will be open to more flexibility and fluidity in thought and action, which enhances creativity in the arts, in problem solving, in life management and in the field of ideas.

Ultimately, the Zen notion about the nature of Buddha in regard to "empty" and "enlightenment" complements Kant's Noumenon (Ding an sich), said Thompson. The philosopher's ideas are static and logically chained, and posit the object as it is, ie, prior to the intuition of taxes, categories and mental filters that shape the common experience.

In theory, the concept of the Noumenon (Ding an sich) encourages us to see through the phenomena as they primarily appear.

Linear time as pure form of inner intuition is a common experience condition. Given this form of intuition, the internal neural metronome follows the pulse and the flow of the experience from within, which also keeps us in sync with the flow of events in the world.

In contrast, at the deepest level of allocentric experience, when the ego is dissolved and the internal neural metronome stops, time is suspended. Therefore, time such as distance is related to the forms or time measuring systems, said Thompson.

The IEA launched the third e-book produced by the Logic and Theory of Science Research Group in February. The title of the work is "Topics of Intelligent Systems Based on Non-classical Logics". Interested parties can download the file for free (in Portuguese).

The book contains works related with the 2nd Workshop on Intelligent Computational Systems (WICS-2014), held on March 17, 2014. The organizer is Jair Minoro Abe, a professor at the Universidade Paulista (UNIP) and coordinator of the research group.

The authors of the articles are professors and PhD students. The texts address current themes of intelligent computation, a discipline that "has been establishing itself solidly in the field of artificial intelligence and intelligent systems, coupled with non-classical logics, a background to topics of studies," said Abe, who also coordinated the workshop in 2014.

The WICS-2014 took place on a campus of the UNIP, sponsored by the Graduate Program in Production Engineering of that university. The initiative had the institutional support of the Provost for Research and Graduation of UNIP and of the IEA.

Scholars show that Freud did not reduce his invention to a method of healing mental disorders. In his work, he has also focused on important works that addressed fields that were external to medical knowledge. Politics, however, ws included in his work with an indirect treatment, when the author addressed issues such as civilization, law or the libidinal foundations of leadership.

However, the scope of the unconscious theory on political matters has not been overlooked by the following generations. In fact, some schools of thought have been impacted directly by Freud's work, or even by its consequences and reinterpretations, such as those carried out by Jacques Lacan.

The explicit approach between contemporary political theory and psychoanalysis gets its first inspirations from the Frankfurt School: Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, besides Walter Benjamin.

The generation of French intellectuals of the 60s and 70s, among them Félix Guattari, Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault, takes up their essays and criticism in the possibilities of thinking with and against psychoanalysis.

Political thinkers like Cornelius Castoriadis, Ernesto Laclau, Norbert Elias, Slavoj Zizek and Zygmunt Bauman put the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan in the center of his works. Many of these writings would be impossible to be properly understood without the psychoanalytic knowledge.

Important similarities between the two fields have also been pointed out by Alan Badiou, Claude Lefort, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Rancière, among others.

Freud's estate was particularly vast and rich for political thought. Currently, one can say that Freud and psychoanalysis define ways of thinking politics within the political theory.

The panelists will seek to deepen and highlight important implications of these studies. Initially, the focus will be on the production of theorists known for their dialogues with psychoanalysis, including Norbert Elias and Walter Benjamin. This step will be completed by a conference and a round table on the thought of Hannah Arendt stressed at the thought of Freud and Lacan.

As future prospects, this meeting will seek to contribute to research on the psychoanalytic thought and its interface with contemporary political theory.

The organizers of the event are André Oliveira Costa and Gabriela Costardi.

Helen Longino, Clarence Irving Lewis Professor of philosophy at Stanford University, United States, considered one of the exponents of philosophy of science today, will give two conferences at the IEA on October 22-23, at 9.30 am on both days.

The events are part of the program of the IEA-USP's Philosophy, History, and Sociology of Science and Technology Research Group and will be broadcast live over the Internet.

Science and values

Longino brings a breakthrough in the introduction of feminist contributions to the philosophy of science. Her work has had considerable impact on contemporary thinking on science and values ​​and has influenced the development of the model of interaction between science and values ​​(M-SV) by the IEA-USP's research group.

Even agreeing with the model theory in general terms, Longino's view on the issue has important differences. The conferences will be an opportunity for members of the research group to test their ideas with her.

The theme of the first conference will be Critical constructive empiricism: the social character of knowledge, focusing on the critical discursive aspect of objectivity and its consequences for understanding the role of values in the sciences.

Helen characterizes the approach of the conference as social epistemology to science and explains that this position "arises from the consideration of arguments about the indeterminacy of hypotheses by evidence."

She will develop this argument and propose that the challenges it poses to the claims for objectivity "can only be met if we drive ourselves to the thought of knowledge as a range in a social and interactive context." The philosopher suggests that "the observance of certain standards in and by an inquiring community reduces (but does not eliminate) the role of values ​​in science."

In the second conference, Longino will talk about Values, heuristics, and politics: an exploration of the relation between social and methodological values in science. She argues that the so-called cognitive values ​​or virtues traditionally invoked as truth or objectivity may, in certain contexts of use, be the vehicles to intentionally or unintentionally introduce the social and political values ​​in scientific research.

This argument contrasts two sets of values, according to her: the traditional or orthodox set (simplicity, generality, etc.) and an alternative set (heterogeneity, complexity), drawn from feminist practices and opposition. She shows how each one can be used in support of the hypotheses with very different social implications.

At the conference, Helen will present the proposal that both sets of values are considered as heuristic, but that elements of the sets are not independent indicators of the context of truth or objectivity.

Photo: personal archive of Helen Longino

Helen Longino, Clarence Irving Lewis professor of philosophy da Stanford University, Estados Unidos, considerada um dos expoentes da filosofia da ciência na atualidade, faz duas conferências no IEA nos dias 22 e 23 de outubro, às 9h30.

Os eventos integram a programação do Grupo de Pesquisa Filosofia, História e Sociologia da Ciência e da Tecnologia e serão realizados em inglês, com tradução simultânea. Quem não puder comparecer poderá assistir às transmissões ao vivo das conferências pela internet.

As duas conferências terão a participação de três pesquisadores do grupo: Hugh Lacey, do Swarthmore College, EUA, e Marcos Barbosa de Oliveira, da Faculdade de Educação (FE) da USP, serão os debatedores; Pablo Mariconda, da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH) da USP e coordenador do grupo, será o moderador.

Ciência e valores

Helen é uma inovadora na introdução das contribuições feministas à filosofia da ciência. Seu trabalho tem tido impacto considerável no pensamento contemporâneo sobre ciência e valores e tem influenciado o desenvolvimento do modelo de interação entre ciência e valores (M-SV) pelo grupo de pesquisa do IEA.

Mesmo concordando em termos gerais com a tese do modelo, a visão de Helen sobre a questão apresenta diferenças importantes. As conferências serão uma oportunidade para os integrantes do grupo de pesquisa testarem suas ideias com ela.

O tema da primeira conferência (dia 22) será Empirismo Crítico Construtivo: O Caráter Social do Conhecimento, Focando no Aspecto Discursivo Crítico da Objetividade e nas suas Consequências para o Entendimento do Papel dos Valores na Ciência.

Helen caracteriza a abordagem da conferência como epistemologia social para a ciência e explica que essa posição “surge da consideração de argumentos sobre a indeterminação de hipóteses por provas”.

Ela vai desenvolver esse argumento e propor que os desafios que ele coloca para as reivindicações de objetividade "só podem ser cumpridos se nós nos dirigirmos para o pensamento do conhecimento como um alcance em um contexto social e interativo". A filósofa sugere que "a observância de determinadas normas em e por uma comunidade de inquiridores reduz (mas não elimina) o papel dos valores na ciência".

Na segunda conferência (dia 23), Helen falará sobre Valores, Heurística e Política: Uma Exploração da Relação entre Valores Sociais e Metodológicos em Ciências. Ela argumenta que os chamados valores cognitivos ou virtudes tradicionalmente invocados como verdade ou objetividade podem, em certos contextos de utilização, ser os veículos para intencionalmente ou não introduzir os valores sociais e políticos em investigação científica.

Esse argumento contrasta dois conjuntos de valores, segundo ela: o tradicional ou ortodoxo (simplicidade, generalidade etc.) com um conjunto alternativo (heterogeneidade, complexidade), elaborado a partir de práticas feministas e de oposição, e mostra como cada um pode ser utilizado em apoio das hipóteses com implicações sociais muito diferentes.

Na conferência, Helen apresentará a proposta de que ambos os conjuntos de valores sejam considerados como heurísticos, mas que os elementos dos conjuntos não sejam indicadores independentes do contexto da verdade ou objetividade.

Conferências da filósofa da ciência Helen Longino
22 e 23 de outubro, 9h30
Sala de Eventos do IEA, rua Praça do Relógico, 109, bloco K, 5º andar, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo
Eventos em inglês (sem tradução) gratuito e aberto ao público, sem inscrição prévia – Transmissão ao vivo pela web
Informações: Cláudia Regina Tavares (clauregi@usp.br), telefone (11) 3091-1681
Fichas dos eventos: www.iea.usp.br/eventos/critical-constructive-empiricism e www.iea.usp.br/eventos/values-heuristics-and-politics

Foto: arquivo pessoal de Helen Longino

The School of Communications and Arts (ECA), with support from the IEA, will hold on September 23, at 2 pm, a meeting on Expanding the Being’s Sphere of Presence: Reflections on the Work of Teixeira Coelho, which will precede the ceremony to bestow the title of Professor Emeritus to José Teixeira Coelho Netto, professor at ECA’s Department of Library Studies and Documentation, “for his significant work and intellectual career.”

The event will be held in the Auditorium of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC), in USP’s Butantã campus. The ceremony (open only to guests) will take place at 6:30 pm in the same venue.

According to the organizers, the choice of guests “sought to combine intellectual rigor and affection in the broadest sense: people who affected and were affected by meetings, discussions, debates, his vast work, his restless and free thinking.” See program below.

Teixeira Coelho specializes in Cultural Policy. He has a Ph.D. in Literary Theory and Comparative Literature from USP’s School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and completed a post-doctoral program at the University of Maryland (United States). He began his teaching career at ECA-USP in 1973, becoming a full professor in 1989, and has also taught at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Mackenzie Presbyterian University.

Currently, Teixeira Coelho is curator of the Curitiba Biennial, a contributor to the UNESCO Chair of Cultural Policy at the University of Girona (Spain), and consultant to the Cultural Policy Observatory of the Itaú Cultural Institute, where he coordinates the Books of the Observatory collection. He was curator-coordinator of the São Paulo Art Museum (MASP), director of the MAC-USP museum and curator of several exhibitions in both institutions. He has written several books on culture and art, as well as works of fiction. His book História natural da ditatura [Natural history of dictatorship], published in 2006, won the Portugal Telecom award in 2007.

Program

Part 1: Expanding the Being’s Sphere of Presence: Reflections on the Work of Teixeira Coelho

Coordinator: Lúcia Maciel Barbosa de Oliveira (ECA-USP)

2:30 pm          Opening: Luiz Milanesi (ECA-USP)

2:50 pm          Alfons Martinell (University of Girona, Spain)

3:10 pm          Gerardo Caetano (Universidad de La Republica, Uruguay)

3:30 pm          Intervention by José Teixeira Coelho Netto (ECA-USP)

3:50 pm          Break

4:20 pm          Celso Favaretto (School of Education and FFLCH-USP)

4:40 pm          Regina Silveira (ECA-USP)

5:00 pm         Manuel da Costa Pinto (journalist and literary critic)

5:20 pm         Intervention by José Teixeira Coelho Netto (ECA-USP)

5:40 pm         Conclusion: Martin Grossmann (IEA and ECA-USP)

6:00 pm         Break

Part 2: Solemn Session of the Faculty of ECA-USP – Title-Bestowing Ceremony

18:30 pm        Musical presentation

Opening

Opening of the work: Margarida Krohling Kunsch (ECA-USP director)

Salutation: Maria Helena Pires Martins (ECA-USP)

Academic Assistance

Statement by José Teixeira Coelho Netto (ECA-USP)

Statement by Margardia Krohling Kunsch (ECA-USP director)

End of Solemn Session

Photo: Cecília Bastos/Agência USP

“Is there an original theoretical contribution that Brazilian archeology can make to this discipline?” The author of the question is Eduardo Goes Neves, researcher at USP’s Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (MAE) and organizer of the dossier “Aspects of Brazilian Archaeology” that opens the new edition (No. 83) of the Estudos Avançados journal. (The digital edition is available at SciELO.)

In addition to discussing the identity of Brazilian archeology, the dossier also brings articles on Amazonia, the Pantanal region, the ethylic practices of the Tupi-Guarani, early settlement of South America and the cultural landscapes of the southern Brazilian plateau.

History and temporality

In the introductory article, Is There Something We Can Call “Brazilian archeology”?, Neves assesses whether there is a corpus of problems and specific data that are unique to, or at least a prerogative of, Brazilian archeology. Although he does not have a clear answer to the question, he is certain that it involves the concepts of history and temporality of South American indigenous societies.

Neves’ article is discussed by Ulpiano Bezerra de Meneses, professor emeritus at the School of Philosophy, Literature and Human Sciences (FFLCH), and author of the essay The Identity of the Brazilian Archaeology.

For Meneses, the conciliation of history and temporality advocated by Neves is exciting and ethnographically feasible, but archaeologically presents numerous difficulties because “from the point of view of the groups that we studied, we cannot assume the same kind of relationship we have with artifacts.”

With regard to the framework of reference of Brazilian archaeologists, Meneses said it is necessary “to reiterate the warning made by Eduardo Neves: we must look less outside the continent for theoretical references, and conversely, more at the available local evidence.”

The other articles of the dossier are: Agricultural Determinism in Amazonian Archeology, by Claide de Paula Moraes; Archeology and Indigenous History in the Pantanal Region, by Eduardo Bespalez; The Archaeology of Fermented Brews: An Ethylic History of the Tupi-Guarani People, by Fernando Ozorio de Almeida; Early Settlements in South America: Contributions of the Brazilian Milieu, by Lucas Bueno and Adriana Dias; and The Genesis of the Cultural Landscapes of the Southern Brazilian Plateau, by Silvia Moehlecke Copé.

Science and values

In addition to the dossier on Brazilian archeology, issue no. 83 of Estudos Avançados publishes the second part of the dossier “Sciences, Values and Alternatives,” organized by the History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science and Technology research group, which brings the findings of studies made by the group under FAPESP’s thematic project “Genesis and Meaning of Technoscience: The Relationships Between Science, Technology and Values.”

Whereas in the first part (published in issue 82) the texts addressed methodological concerns of researches on the relationship between science and values, this time the articles examine three areas where attention to values is crucially important: agro-ecology, health and biodiversity.

The first topic is discussed by Hugh Lacey in Agroecology: An Illustration of the Fruitfulness of Multi-Strategy Research, and by Rubens Onofre Nodari and Miguel Pedro Guerra in Agroecology: Research Strategies and Values. Lacey was visiting professor at the IEA in 2011 and 2013, and currently heads the Agroecology Workgroup of the IEA-USP’s Philosophy, History, and Sociology of Science and Technology Research Group.

The other two topics are covered by Nicolas Lechopier, visiting professor at the IEA in 2013, who contributes with Four Tensions in Public Health, and by Ana Tereza Reis da Silva, author of The Conservation of Biodiversity Between Traditional Knowledge and Science.

Other articles

The journal also features articles on economics, orthographic changes, and anthropology.

Economist Ladislau Dowbor, professor at PUC-SP, is the author of The Current Financial System Hampers Economic Development, where he analyzes how the system of financial intermediation sterilizes a country’s assets by draining staggering amounts of resources that should be directed to productive and economic development.

In A Serene and Scientific View of the New Orthographic Agreement, philologist Evanildo Bechara, from the Brazilian Academy of Letters, examines criticism of the 1990 Orthographic Agreement.

In the article The Occupation of Congress: What Are the Indigenous People Fighting Against?, anthropologists Artionka Capiberibe, from Unicamp, and Oiara Bonilla, from the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), address the clash between politics and the economic model that underlies the resistance of indigenous peoples to agribusiness and its representatives in Congress.

The edition also includes reviews of the latest books by Nabil Bonduki, Ana Paula Koury, Marco Bobbio, Michael Löwy, Mauro Rosso (as organizer), and an essay by Lorenzo Mammi on the installation “Clara Clara,” by Laura Vinci.

David Gange (University of Birmingham), Nikki Moore (Rice University) and Helder Nakaya (USP), three of the participants, presented the Closing Report to the members of the project's Senior Committee during the last session of the encounter.

Goals of the MOOC

According to them, the MOOC to be produced will be a kind of interactive online guide for students and researchers who want to develop or expand their interest in the concept of time. For now, there are three name options for the course: "On Time", "Thinking with Time" and "What Time Is It?".

The expectation is that the users of the MOOC acquire skills to synthesize arguments from large areas of knowledge, learn to analyze evidence in order to form their own ideas on the raised issues, develop the ability to deal with conceptual materials and think transversely to the disciplines involved.

Students should collaborate in the construction of scientific knowledge at the same time as they develop their framework of knowledge

Course structure

The young researchers have in mind a MOOC with four central themes chosen after a group evaluation on the key subdivisions of the concept of time.

All content will be studied from 14 topics, 13 of them related to at least one of the four core subjects and involving various disciplines, both the sciences and the humanities. The completion of the course will have an additional topic which will focus on the future of the concept of time.

Core subjects

Is time essential or a cognitive phenomenon? Does it require change? What exists in time? Is time an independent entity as suggested by physics and philosophy? Is it absolute or relative? These questions will try to answer the question of the first central theme: "What is time?".

“How is time perceived?” is the question that defines the second central theme. It raises a number of issues to be studied, including the following:

• Can we perceive time?
• Is it possible to make reliable judgments about temporal properties?
• Can one perceive time without change?
• What is the relationship between experienced time and neural time?
• How is it possible to experience events that last in time (movement, change, succession, melodies) as something extended in time?

The functional concept, the mutant concept and the standardization of time, the mental time travel (chronesthesia), the opposition between linear time and cyclical time, and (in anthropology) between deictic time and sequential time will be analyzed in the third central theme: "How is time conceptualised?".

The question that defines the fourth central theme is "How is time used?". The issues to be discussed approach time as something relevant to subjects such as astronomy, biology, chemistry and medicine as well as how narratives use it creating linearity, circularity or even its fractionation. The importance of time in social interaction (time management, punctuality, working and leisure hours), history, traditions and other aspects also deserve attention.

Topics of study

The 14 topics of the course have been established through specific questions which are broken down into sub-questions:

• How is time measured?
• What traces does time leave?
• Is there a relationship between time and causality?
• Is time relative?
• What are temporal illusions and what can we learn from them?
• Does time have a history?
• Why is the present special?
• Can we predict the future?
• How do different rhythms interact?
• What does symbolic representation do for human understanding of time?
• Do non-humans have individual time?
• Is time running out?
• How do we value time?
• What is the future of the time concept?

Means

Each topic will be covered in a class which will feature videotaped speeches, animations, questions and 5-8 films of 7-15 minutes each.

There will be a discussion forum in which the students will be encouraged to provide answers on questions raised by the course and other students.

There are also plans for a multimedia reading list, a kind of database with links and relevant content separated by levels of complexity. The idea is that students can write short comments on the presented material's support itself.

Target audience

The MOOC will be designed at a level of scientific complexity that should be "suitable for intellectually ambitious graduates." However, it will not be necessary that the students have previous specific qualifications as this would not match the diverse academic profile of those responsible for the initiative, who do not have an area of common knowledge to everyone. It would also be incoherent with the general spirit of this type of course.

The introduction of complex ideas will be made from the basic concepts domain, since each student is a beginner in at least some of the subjects comprised in the MOOC.

Additional results

Biologist Helder Nakaya presented the potential additional results that the Intercontinental Academia can provide besides the MOOC.

The first one is to send a "letter to the editor" of some interdisciplinary journal of world prestige. This contribution will address the importance, the key features and the project's results.

Even the contact of the young researchers throughout the project should result in interdisciplinary scientific articles, which might also be possible from the processing of the data to be collected through questionnaires answered by the students of the MOOC.

The production of a video with various multimedia features on all the work being developed in the Intercontinental Academia will be considered.

What is the relationship between discerning the consciousness of self – in the sense of an individual’s apprehension of his own existence – and the perception of time? Psychoanalyst Leopold Nosek devoted his conference on April 25 at the Intercontinental Academia to an analysis of this matter.

He said that, given the fact that consciousness of self includes temporality and that humanization presupposes perception of time, one cannot but wonder how time presents itself to, and is perceived by, human beings.

In his reasoning, Nosek made use of analogies with works by “two writers who addressed the relativity of time from within the rationalist tradition:”  The Magic Mountain (1924) and Doctor Faustus (1947), both by German-born Thomas Mann (1875-1955); and The Leopard (1958), by Italian author Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896-1957).

In the passage from The Magic Mountain quoted by Nosek, Hans Castorp, the main character, has just reached the conclusion that, for the mind, time does not flow uniformly; the mind only assumes it does so to maintain the proper order of things. Therefore, all measurements of time are no more than conventions.

According to Nosek, time and consciousness of self are contemporary themes. He mentioned Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) as one of the landmarks, from the viewpoint of perception, for most texts that discuss Modernity.

He said that in this work by Freud one can see the loss of our naïve trust in the conscious mind and the inexorable breach between the conscious and the unconscious. For Nosek, we could speak of Modernity as the awareness of disruption.

Addressing the emergence of this disruption, Nosek said we must remember how brief the Renaissance actually was, “with its glorious view of the individual as part of circumstances over which he had control.” However, it did not take long for Mannerism to come about, “with its distorted figures, its suffering subjectivity.”

He said that art historian Arnold Hauser (1992-1978) saw Mannerism as the onset of the perception of modern man, “the perception of a shattered unity, of a broken harmony.”

As for The Leopard, Nosek noted that the novel is set in the mid-19^th century, the time of Italy’s reunification and modernization. The main character, Don Fabrizio, prince of Salina, after a dance, realizes that he, unlike others, captures the passage of time, which is accompanied by “progress, destruction of old structures, creation of new wealth and new desolations.”

According to Nosek, “the prince of Salina, in a sudden glimmer of his own skin, grasps his circumstances, his historical destiny and his subjective self; his own place is revealed to him. What more could he obtain?”

For Nosek, grappling one’s circumstances and one’s time blends in with the apprehension of the limits and the space of human existence: “We continue, therefore, within our theme: the interconnection between the consciousness of self, the awareness of one’s ‘proper place,’ and the image of time defined by frustration and limitation.”

In Doctor Faustus, the main character, the musician Adrian Leverkühn, makes a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, giving his soul in exchange for 24 years of genius as a composer. Nosek noted how Mephistopheles warns the musician to pay attention to the hourglass.

For Nosek, Mephistopheles’ warning means Leverkühn should remain aware of life. As a result of the pact, Lerverkühn becomes part of Modernity, “through atonal spaces, the spatial expansion of musical contradiction, accompanied by scientific inquiries and by the theory of uncertainty and chance.”

He finished his presentation with some propositions by psychoanalyst Donald Meltzer (1922-2004) in his book Explorations in Autism (1975), where he organizes the space of life in a “geography of fantasy" that moves along in time.

According to Meltzer, experienced time can be a cloister where events are not available to memory and to thought (as happens in autism); it can be circular, undeveloping, where there is no death; or it can be oscillating, moving from within to outside the object and vice-versa, a continuous operation of omnipotence that makes the differentiation of self from object reversible, and also makes the direction of time itself reversible.

According to Nosek, remaining unidirectional and linear, from birth to death, requires a painful process, never completed, of renouncing the fusion between the self and the object, of struggling against narcissism, of assuaging omnipotence.

Photo: Leonor Calasans/IEA

The first conference of the Intercontinental Academia on the subject of “Time”, on April 21, addressed what is known about the history and the possible future of the universe, as well as the concept of “arrow of time,” which posits only one direction for the flow of time, and considers that past and future are different, a notion closely related to cosmology.

The lecturer was theoretical physicist Matthew Kleban, from NYU, who dedicates himself to the study of string theory and the early history of the universe.

He noted that, contrary to what is assumed by the arrow of time, there are physical laws that posit dual direction, i.e., symmetry between past and future, although he stressed that this idea is still very confusing to physicists.

Entropy

According to Kleban, if this idea is correct, then the difference between past and future must be related “to an ‘environmental’ aspect, to an accident of history, such as the difference between North and South Americas, albeit universal, applicable anywhere and anytime.”

When entropy (“disorder”) is low, it tends to increase and the direction of its increase defines the future, said Kleban. Thus, entropy, which was very slight in the early universe, is the “environmental” factor that distinguishes the past from the future. “However, nothing prevents the arrow of time from having a reverse movement due to some other ‘environmental’ aspect.”

Cosmology

With regard to cosmology, he first defined what this science is: “The branch of astrophysics that studies the structure of the universe in the largest accessible scale; this includes the study of the birth, death (or future) and evolution of the Universe over time.”

However, because the universe is 14 billion years, we can only see a portion of it, although quite vast, corresponding to the distance traveled by light in these 14 billion years, he said. “Looking at the past, we see that the universe was hotter and opaque 14 billion years ago, so we cannot see (at least directly) its birth.”

Continuing with his presentation, Kleban addressed the current contents of the universe. He said there are about 100 billion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars. The Milky Way has nearly 300 billion stars and a colossal black hole exists in the center of the galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, with mass equivalent to 4 million Suns, but with radius (at least in theory) only 17 times the size of the Sun. The solar system also orbits the galactic center, but the orbit lasts 200 million years.

Hubble's Law

The panel on galaxies was used by Kleban to introduce his comments about the expansion of the universe. The central figure here was American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1989-1953), whose telescope in the 1920s was able to observe approximately 50 galaxies (the Hubble Telescope, orbiting the Earth for 25 years, allows us to observe 10,000 galaxies when aimed at each 10/1,000,000 slit of the heavens).

Kleban explained that Edwin Hubble noticed something odd in the galaxies: the farther away they were, the faster they moved away from Earth. This observation led to the so-called Hubble’s Law: v = Hd, where H is a constant with units of 1/time. With this law, it became possible to calculate when the entire content of the universe was bundled together, so to speak: 14 billion years ago.

Kleban then reversed the arrow of time, as if the history of the universe moved backward, from when galaxies were just gas, through the increased warming, the opacity, the nucleosynthesis of protons and neutrons of helium and lithium, the inflation (when the volume of the universe spiked dramatically in a tiny fraction of a second), until reaching what is known as the singularity, “where even mere speculation collapses.”

He pointed out that each of these phases of the universe produced enormous entropy and that, even today, entropy is increasing. “Life can be seen as a process that accelerates the production of entropy, as stars and black holes do even more so.”

Hubble’s observations about the expansion of the universe created a profoundly strange idea, namely, the notion of the Earth as the center from which everything moves away, a kind of resumption of Ptolemy’s geocentrism.

Relativity

Kleban explained that in 1916, ten years before Hubble’s observations, Albert Einstein (1879-1955) developed the General Theory of Relativity, a sequence to the Special Theory of Relativity (1905), which had unified space and time (and energy and momentum). “In Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time is relative, elapsing slower for an object moving at high speed or immersed in a gravitational field. Even in relativity, however, time does not flow in reverse.”

According Kleban, general relativity is a theory of gravity and also a radical reformulation of the nature of space and time that establishes their intimate and dynamic connection. Thus, the apparent force of gravity ceases to be a common force and becomes something like a “pseudoforce” or “fictitious force.”

After detailing some implications of this scenario, including the curvature of space-time, Kleban explained why Hubble’s Law works: “It is because the universe is expanding, and this has implications for the past and for the future.”

With regard to the future, some believe that the expansion will continue infinitely; the speed of expansion will decrease gradually, but will never cease. According to this hypothesis, Kleban explained, stars will eventually consume all their fuel and the universe will become cold and dead, even though this would probably not be the end, which would occur later.

Other researchers think the expansion will reach a maximum level and the universe will then begin to contract. After a finite span of time, density will be infinite, a singularity that is called “Big Crunch” (major collapse).

There are also those who consider that a threshold situation is possible between these two scenarios.

However, Kleban explained, these hypotheses hold two surprises: the first is that over the last billion years the expansion of the universe has accelerated because of dark energy. The second is that the speed of the expansion seems to be very close to the threshold speed. This would mean that the universe will continue to expand forever and will never reach zero degree or undergo an actual “hot death.”

Multiverse

And how about the beginning of everything, the Big Bang? Kleban said, “some well-intentioned additions to the laws of physics can dramatically affect the nature of the Big Bang and remove the singularity without altering any experiment carried out on Earth.”

One of his main interests is the so-called “multiverse” of string theory. “In string theory, the Big Bang was not a singularity or the beginning of time. It was the birth of a ‘bubble’ of a new ‘phase’.” The multiverse could harbor the emergence of numerous such bubbles.

String theory allows us to understand what existed before the Big Bang and what exists “beyond the universe” (or rather, what exists outside the visible bubble where the observable part of the universe is inserted), according to Kleban. However, he cautioned that the theory does not work with regard to “big crunches” (due to the arrow of time, actually) that the theory itself envisages. “Likewise, the theory does not work in low entropy situations.”

In conclusion, Kleban said that, for him, the most attractive idea is an overall timeless universe, where almost all of time in a state of balance with near‑maximum entropy – only rare fluctuations of reduced entropy, which would produce a local arrow of time. However, “this idea does not seem to work, but rather predicts miracles.”

Photo: Sandra Sedini/IEA-USP

IEA-USP's Humanities and the Contemporary World Research Group will hold the seminar Filiation's Crisis: Subjectivity and Suffering on November 28, at 2 pm (this event has been postponed to February, 2015), at USP's Institute of International Relations (IRI). According to the organizers, the event aims to reflect on "the 'time of agression', which once accelerated prevents the formation of the identity experience in its heterogeneous layers, and of bonds of belonging and memory, replaced by successive traumas in the spectacle of pain according to the markets of advertising and politics."

Exhibitors will be Cynthia A. Sarti and Tales Ab'Sáber, both professors at UNIFESP, and Maria Inês Assumpção Fernandes, a professor at USP's Institute of Psychology. Moderation will be in charge of the research group's coordinator Olgária Matos, a professor of USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH).

Sarti will talk about Memory and Forgetfulness, making a reflection on the role of memories in the establishment of a common shared memory on the threshold between narrative, and psychic healing, trauma and resilience of contemporary politicians.

Filiation's Rupture will be the theme of Fernandes. She will examine the sense of loss of psychic transmission and its consequences in the constitution of subjectivity across generations, allowing family, and symbolic and identity belonging narratives.

Ab'Sáber called his exhibition The Music of Infinite Time. He will discuss the uses of time by the young controlled by the rules of drug consumption and the market in its relations with the processes of depersonalization and unfulfillment both in terms of group performances and celebrations, and in their daily lives.