New York City’s Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination is hosting a roundtable entitled “Extraterrestrial Life” on 14 April at 2:30PM. Their write-up for the event says “Many people think of extraterrestrial life as ‘little green men’ from Mars. There are scientists actually looking for a signal for intelligent life (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI). What are the basic requirements for life? Will these requirements provide clues to where life may be found in the Universe? Or will we be limited to the ‘little green men’? This roundtable will examine how human imagination, innovation, and invention can be marshaled to explain, define, and explore the meaning of extraterrestrial life. The panelists will attempt to assess the consequences that such knowledge could have for the integrity of the concept of man that has been maintained for the past 5000 years of recorded history.”
The participants include:
* Stephen J. Dick, who is NASA’s Chief Historian and Director of the NASA History Office
* James P. Ferris (moderator), who is a Research Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Director of the New York Center for Studies on the Origins of Life
* Debra Fischer, who is a Professor of Astronomy at San Francisco State University
* Dave Itzkoff, who is the author of the New York Times Book Review‘s “Across the Universe”
* Avi Loeb, who is a Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University
* David Marusek, who is a science fiction author
The Philoctetes Center for the Multidisciplinary Study of the Imagination was established to promote an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of creativity and the imaginative process. The Center creates and supports projects, public forums, research and information gathering which foster cooperation and dialogue among diverse disciplines, while seeking to create public awareness of these efforts. To achieve its mission, the Center holds roundtable discussions with participants from various fields (neuroscience, psychology, mathematics, psychoanalysis, humanities and art, philosophy and theology), offers a forum for presentation of works in progress, and is developing a data base on imagination with the aim of becoming a clearing house for all available literature on the subject.
The roundtable will be held at The Philoctetes Center, 247 East 82nd Street, 3rd floor (between Second and Third Avenues), New York, NY. Admission is free. For more information, call 646-422-0544.