Big Ideas Video
Big Ideas offers lectures on a variety of thought-provoking topics which range across politics, culture, economics, art history, science.... By nature of its lecture format, pacing and inquisitive approach, it is the antithesis of the prevailing sound-bit
Visit Show Website http://www.tvo.org/bigideas/Recently Aired
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Darin Barney on Citizenship in the Technological Republic
McGill University professor, Darin Barney, delivers the 2007 Hart House ...
McGill University professor, Darin Barney, delivers the 2007 Hart House Lecture entitled One Nation Under Google. His lecture looks at many important issues, including how we are used by technology and how technology challenges citizenship. Barney is the Canada Research Chair in Technology & Citizenship.
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George Dyson on the Origins of the Digital Universe
Science historian and author (Darwin Among the Machines) George Dyson ...
Science historian and author (Darwin Among the Machines) George Dyson on the Origins of the Digital Universe. The talk focuses on the work done at The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton New Jersey by such renowned scientists as John von Neumann and Kurt Godel.
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Alberto Manguel on The Screen of Hal
Alberto Manguel delivers the final lecture in the 2007 Massey ...
Alberto Manguel delivers the final lecture in the 2007 Massey Lecture series, entitled The Screen of Hal.
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John Duffy on the emerging politics of technology
John Duffy, advisor to former Prime Minister Paul Martin and ...
John Duffy, advisor to former Prime Minister Paul Martin and founder of StrategyCorp, tackles the subject of The Emerging Politics of Technology in a lecture produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada. Duffy has spent years pondering the role of technology in our thinking about policy and politics. And he believes that the politics of technology is at the forefront of Canada's public policy debates. But is technology beyond political and democratic control? And if not, how can we ensure that the cost and benefit of new technological developments do not deepen the already growing inequalities in our society?
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Sean Martindale on Playful Interventions: Urban Environments
Toronto-based public-space artist, Sean Martindale on Playful Interventions: Engaging Our ...
Toronto-based public-space artist, Sean Martindale on Playful Interventions: Engaging Our Urban Environments.
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Graham Farmelo on Paul Dirac and Mathematical Beauty
Adjunct Professor of Physics at Northeastern University in Boston, Graham ...
Adjunct Professor of Physics at Northeastern University in Boston, Graham Farmelo, on Paul Dirac and the Religion of Mathematical Beauty. Apart from Einstein, Paul Dirac was probably the greatest theoretical physicist of the 20th century. Dirac, co-inventor of quantum mechanics, is now best known for conceiving of anti-matter and also for his deeply eccentric behavior. For him, the most important attribute of a fundamental theory was its mathematical beauty, an idea that he said was "almost a religion" to him.
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Charles Taylor on Religion and Violence
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Philosophy at McGill University, ...
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Philosophy at McGill University, Charles Taylor, on Religion and Violence.
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Steven Pinker on Thinking About Our Society
Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, ...
Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, delivers a lecture entitled Thinking About Our Society: Why Violence Has Declined.
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Charles Taylor and Jonathan Sacks on The Future of Religion
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Philosophy at McGill University, ...
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Philosophy at McGill University, Charles Taylor and Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Jonathan Sacks discuss The Future of Religion in a Secular Age.
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Robert J. Sawyer on Humanity 2.0
What will it mean to be human in the future? ...
What will it mean to be human in the future? Uploading consciousness into virtual worlds and prolonging life through biotechnology are already being contemplated. Canada's leading science fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer, offers his insights in a lecture entitled Humanity 2.0, produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada.
