Join us to listen to Professor Scott Kelso, a renowned researcher in complex systems, cognitive science, and neuroscience who will deliver his talk entitled 'A Law of Life, from Coordination to Consciousness'.
The lecture will start at 4pm followed by canapés and light refreshments.
We welcome members of the public, university staff and students. Please register your place if you would like to attend by 12pm (midday) on 26 November.
About this talk
A simple experiment ('the birth of jazz') conducted years ago turns out to contain the seeds of a new science of mind, brain and behaviour called Coordination Dynamics (CD), how the many parts of complex systems work together.
The same mathematical law that governs an involuntary switch from syncopation (irregular rhythms) to synchronisation (coordinated rhythms) also describes large-scale transitions in many other systems including the human brain. This is where the brain self-organises and transitions between states without an external controller ('switching without switches').
The key is the metastable regime of CD. This is where the brain sustains coexisting tendencies rather than settling into fixed states. It is also where new thoughts, insights and perceptions emerge from a range of available possibilities (the 'stream of consciousness'). This talk will explore the path from the syncopated rhythms of brains and behaviour to consciousness itself.
Biography
Professor James Alexander Scott Kelso is an internationally recognised and prominent researcher in the fields of complex systems, cognitive science and neuroscience.
At the heart of Professor Kelso's work is Coordination Dynamics, a theoretical and empirical framework he pioneered in which the principles, methods and tools of informationally coupled self-organising dynamical systems are used to understand the behaviour of living things.
Professor Kelso holds the Glenwood and Martha Creech Eminent Scholar Chair in Science at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and is Professor of Psychology, Biological Sciences and Biomedical Sciences. In 1985, he founded the Centre for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at FAU, an interdisciplinary unit composed of physicists, psychologists, biologists, neuroscientists, applied mathematicians and computer scientists. Professor Kelso oversees a team of researchers in the Centre's Human Brain and Behaviour Laboratory.
Professor Kelso is a recipient of the MERIT, Senior Scientist and Director's Innovation Awards from the US National Institutes of Health. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP) and is an Honorary Member of The Royal Irish Academy (MRIA). His contributions have been recognized through numerous honours and awards including the Bernstein Prize and the Chaire d'Excellence Pierre de Fermat.
