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The Sophia Lectures With Heather Heying - Lecture 3: The Usual Suspects

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Manage episode 516260598 series 2568617
Content provided by Ralston College. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Ralston College or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

In this third lecture, Dr Heather Heying turns to the conditions sufficient for the emergence of sentient consciousness, exploring how life evolves the capacity to perceive, learn, and create. Drawing on the examples of primates, corvids, dolphins, elephants, wolves, and others, she reveals how traits such as long lifespans, extended childhoods, sociality, and play recur in the rare instances where sentience has independently evolved. These convergences, she argues, point to universals in the nature of intelligence itself, from cooperative learning to creative problem-solving. Along the way, Heying connects the biological scaffolding of consciousness to broader questions of culture and discovery, reclaiming science as a pursuit not only of logical proof but also of intuitive insight, where the recognition of pattern is inseparable from the apprehension of beauty.

Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply

Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe

Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode:
  • Thomas Henry Huxley
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins
  • Spiral Staircase: Sagrada Família, Barcelona, Spain
  • Alhambra: Granada, Spain
  • Mattias Desmet
  • Hannah Arendt
  • Henri Poincaré
  • Louis Agassiz
  • Yanagi Soetsu
  continue reading

69 episodes

Artwork
iconShare
 
Manage episode 516260598 series 2568617
Content provided by Ralston College. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Ralston College or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

In this third lecture, Dr Heather Heying turns to the conditions sufficient for the emergence of sentient consciousness, exploring how life evolves the capacity to perceive, learn, and create. Drawing on the examples of primates, corvids, dolphins, elephants, wolves, and others, she reveals how traits such as long lifespans, extended childhoods, sociality, and play recur in the rare instances where sentience has independently evolved. These convergences, she argues, point to universals in the nature of intelligence itself, from cooperative learning to creative problem-solving. Along the way, Heying connects the biological scaffolding of consciousness to broader questions of culture and discovery, reclaiming science as a pursuit not only of logical proof but also of intuitive insight, where the recognition of pattern is inseparable from the apprehension of beauty.

Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities are now open. Learn more and apply today at www.ralston.ac/apply

Subscribe for updates at: www.ralston.ac/subscribe

Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode:
  • Thomas Henry Huxley
  • Gerard Manley Hopkins
  • Spiral Staircase: Sagrada Família, Barcelona, Spain
  • Alhambra: Granada, Spain
  • Mattias Desmet
  • Hannah Arendt
  • Henri Poincaré
  • Louis Agassiz
  • Yanagi Soetsu
  continue reading

69 episodes

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