14th July 2017 |

SALON LONDON: VIVE LE HEDONISTE!

TBC but provisionally scheduled for Friday 14th July 18:00-19:00 in The SpeakEasy Arena

Clean eating and clean living are all very well but are we actually built for lives that strip out pleasure? What is the point of us of our inner hedonism if having one doesn’t give us some advantages in life? Prof Wolfram Schultz is exactly the neuroscientist to ask. Just awarded one of the biggest awards in the world of science for his research into the brain and pleasure – he will explain our conflicted relationship with good times with Salon London’s Helen Bagnall, while author and philosopher Dr Jules Evans will show how history demonstrates that we ignore our need for joy and celebration at our peril as collective joy is fundamental to us flourishing as humans.

 

SALON LONDON: MINDFULNESS – THE HARD SCIENCE

TBC but provisionally scheduled for Saturday 15th July 15:00-16:00 in The Wellcome Trust Arena

Salon London has been waiting a long time to ask the question: ‘Mindfulness, does it actually work?’ They have been waiting in particular for Prof Willem Kuyken to answer the question because his role as Director of the University of Oxford’s Mindfulness Centre means he has the up to the minute scientific evidence to evaluate the benefits of the practise.  Is it the perfect antidote to modern life or do we need to be mindful skeptcis about what it can do for us? Have the benefits been oversold, how can training provide practical tools to improve the brain and the body. Finally find out the facts from the academic who really knows. 

 

SALON LONDON: GENE EDITING – EXCITING OR TERRIFYING?

TBC but provisionally scheduled for Sunday 16th July 12:30-13:45 in The SpeakEasy Arena

At Salon London we’ve been working hard to get our heads round the fact that death is becoming discretionary for a little while now, so we are so pleased to be able to go a little bit deeper to find out how, when, and why? Professor of Molecular Genetics John Joe McFadden who will talk us through the ethics that come with the reality of gene editing, Head of the Pre Clinical Genome editing at the University of Cambridge Dr Alistair Russell explains exactly where we are in eradicating fatal diseases and bringing back the woolly mammoth (in that order, obviously) and we’ll be hearing from UCL’s Dr Cate Pendegrass who leads the UK in fascinating work to merge our flesh with machines.

 

SALON LONDON: FALSE MEMORIES OF TIME AND PLACE

TBC but provisionally scheduled for Saturday 15th July 18:30- 19:30 in The Faraway Forest

Memory is a very strange thing. Our sense of self is intrincically bound up with our memories and yet recent academic research reveals our memories, even our most precious ones are constantly being edited and often contain entirely false elements.  Is this right, and if so what does this mean for our identity?  Leading False Memory scholar Dr Kimberely Wade will explain all to Helen Bagnall while fascinating cultural historian John Higgs will ask us to consider whether the Great British countryside might hold in its geography collective memories of past happenings, ones that we could learn from if we cared to listen in to the landscape.  Join us to explore this alternative narrative of memory with Salon London.