PUBLIC LECTURE: The Way the Mind Works: how emotion underlies intellect *** LECTURE CANCELLED

The Institute of Advanced Studies regrets to advise the cancellation of the George Ellis lecture "The Way the Mind Works: how emotion underlies intellect" scheduled for Wednesday 27 July, 7pm at the University Club Theatre Auditorium.

Due to the current South African Airways strike, Professor Ellis no longer will be able to travel to Perth as planned. Professor Ellis is very sorry not to be able to present his lecture for the Institute of Advanced Studies, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Abstract: In this lecture, Professor George Ellis discusses shows how emotion underlies intellect. The developmental processes underlying brain development have been characterised by Gerald Edelman as Neural Darwinism. This fits together in a very coherent way with the present increasing understanding of the importance of the emotional or affective dimension in neuroscience. A synthesis of these two features provides an integrative viewpoint relating psychological issues at the macro level to neurobiological processes structuring neuronal connections at the micro level. Professor Ellis will describe this proposal, and then look at the various implications of such an integrative viewpoint relating genetically determined affective systems to higher cortical functions.

Biographical note: George F R Ellis has pursued rigorous scientific research into cosmology with the same doggedness he has brought to social activism, offering him a perspective that has advanced his career as a theoretical cosmologist, thrust him to a position of leadership as a humanitarian, and made him a trusted voice in the science and religion dialogue. A specialist in general relativity theory, an area first broadly investigated by Einstein, Ellis is considered to be among a handful of the world’s leading relativistic cosmologists, including luminaries such as Stephen Hawking and Malcolm MacCallum. His most recent investigations question whether or not there was ever a start to the universe and, indeed, if there is only one universe or many.

Born in 1939 in Johannesburg, George Francis Rayner Ellis attended the University of Cape Town, where he graduated with honours in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics with distinction. He received his Ph.D. in applied maths and theoretical physics from Cambridge University in 1964.

At Cambridge, Ellis served as a research fellow from 1965 to 1967, was assistant lecturer in the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics until 1970, and was then appointed university lecturer, serving until 1974.

Ellis rapidly established himself within academic circles, becoming a visiting professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago in 1970, a lecturer at the Cargese Summer School in Corsica in 1971 and the Erice Summer School in Sicily in 1972, and a visiting H3 professor at the University of Hamburg, also in 1972.

In 1973, Ellis co-wrote The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with Stephen Hawking, debuting at a strategic moment in the development of General Relativity Theory. The following year, Ellis returned to South Africa to accept an appointment as Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town, a position he continues to hold.

Coming home to South Africa also brought Ellis back to the barbarous system of apartheid that created a racially divided populace lorded over by a white minority.

Though his parents were atheists, Ellis grew up immersed in the youth activities of the Anglican Church. By the time he returned to South Africa in 1974, however, the injustice of the political system helped draw Ellis to the Society of Friends.

His activism found an outlet in 1977 when Ellis and three colleagues released The Squatter Problem in the Western Cape, a plea for the rights of homeless people and for a new social policy to help them.

Some years later, Ellis co-wrote Low Income Housing Policy in South Africa, a comprehensive analysis of how to transform the desperate housing situation of the nation's oppressed majority. The book later helped influence a renewed national housing policy.

With a fervour equal to his social work, Ellis also pursued his cosmological inquiries, writing or co-writing Flat and Curved Space Times (1988), The Dynamical Systems Approach to Cosmology (1996), and Is the Universe Open or Closed? The Density of Matter in the Universe (1997). He served as the head of his university department from 1974 to 1982, was the plenary speaker at the 7th and 9th Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics in 1974 and 1978, respectively, and a visiting professor at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in 1978-79, and at the University of Texas at Austin in 1984 and 1989. During those years, Ellis also distinguished himself by moving to bring the forces of science and religion together to the general benefit of both fields.

In 1994 he served as J K Russell Fellow of Science and Religion at the Centre for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, California.

In 1996 he co-wrote, with Nancey Murphy, On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Cosmology, Theology and Ethics, a significant contribution to understanding the ethical underpinnings of the universe, one that specifically holds that the moral basis of ethics is the self-sacrificing love known as kenotics.

His efforts to balance the rationality of evidence-based science with faith and hope have made Ellis a key figure in the discussion at the boundaries of science and theology.

In 2002 he edited The Far-Future Universe, proceedings of a symposium on eschatology held at the Pontifical Academy in the Vatican and wrote The Universe Around Us: An Integrative View of Science and Cosmology, an electronic book comparing the natural and life sciences. He continues to provide an informed, compelling body of work.

He was awarded the 2004 Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities.

ALL WELCOME. NO RESERVATION IS REQUIRED