Consciousness and how humans see the world will be questioned in an interactive lecture with acclaimed Canadian science communicator Jay Ingram at this year’s TRUSU Common Voices event on Feb. 26.
Ingram hosted Daily Planet on the Discovery Channel between 1995 and 2011. He has also hosted other CBC programming, written science columns for the Toronto Star, and even became a Member of the Order of Canada in 2009.
“Jay Ingram is a renowned science communicator […] known for making complex ideas easy to comprehend,” said TRUSU Entertainment Committee representative Simran Saigal.
“The Common Voices lecture series is an annual event that brings the community together to hear from distinguished speakers on important topics. We try to offer a learning experience to students outside of their classrooms,” Saigal said.
For this lecture, Ingram wants to make guests more conscious of consciousness.
“Consciousness is everything that goes on in your head while you’re awake,” Ingram said. “The difficult thing about consciousness is that it’s very hard to explain.”
Thankfully, the topic is in Ingram’s wheelhouse. He also hosts a podcast called Defy Dementia, where he explores the brain and has written on the topic in various books and articles. As a science communicator, his job is to make complicated subjects more digestible.
“This [event] is for people who may not know [much] about science but are curious. I don’t know anybody that wouldn’t be curious about how their brain works,” Ingram said. “If you’re curious about how your brain works, this is a talk you should come to.”
“There’s been an unhealthy tradition in science to try to talk down to people,” Ingram said. “It’s arrogant and it doesn’t work.”
All community members, including TRU students, are welcome at the event.
Although Ingram couldn’t pinpoint why this topic interests him, he said his own curiosity has fueled his interest in the area for decades.
During the talk, Ingram said he hopes the evening is more of a conversation than a lecture. He said he believes that is the best way to share ideas.
“I’m going to do what I can in my talk to sort of bring the audience along with me so that they’re doing some of these things [related to] consciousness and they’re thinking about consciousness,” Ingram said.
Ingram’s talk, Theatre of the Mind: How Science Shapes Our Understanding of Consciousness, will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 26, in the Campus Activity Centre’s Mountain Room.
Doors open at 6 p.m., and the talk begins at 7 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer period.
No registration or payment is required to attend, although seating attendance will be limited to the first 250 guests.