MBB Distinguished Lectures with Michael Gazzaniga

Harvard Mind, Brain & Behavior will hold its 2010 Distinguished Lecture Series this week, featuring three evening lectures with Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, psychology professor and director of the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California Santa Barbara. All three events look interesting, and the final event has particular relevance to law and mind sciences. All events will be held in Harvard’s Yenching Auditorium, 2 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA.

• Tuesday, April 20, 4 to 6 pm
  Building the Parallel Distributed Brain, How Do We Know?
  From Hebb, Lashley, and Sperry, and through modern research, the basics of brain organization are reviewed at both the cellular and neurological level, including a personal history of split-brain research that all lead up to the view of a parallel and distributed brain. Post-talk commentary by Professor Albert Galaburda (Neurology / HMS).

• Wednesday, April 21, 4 to 6 pm
  Automatic Brains, Interpretive Minds
  With a massively parallel and distributed and automatic brain, how is it we believe we experience a unified conscious life? How does the sense of psychological unity become established and how does it work in the brain? Post-talk commentary by Professor Güven Güzeldere (Philosophy / FAS).

• Thursday, April 22, 4 to 6 pm
  Feeling Free in a Mechanistic World: Where the Brain Meets the Law
  The idea of determinism and mechanism rings out from every quarter of science and society. What does this mean for the concept of personal responsibility and how might ideas on the issue impact our ideas of justice and the law? Post-talk commentary by Professor Joshua Greene (Psychology / FAS).

The Frontline of Citizens United

What are the implications of corporate personhood after the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United? Get the story from behind this term’s most talked-about case from the lawyers who argued in district court and wrote the Supreme Court briefs. How did the FEC develop it’s position? What is at stake? What role do agency lawyers place in a high-profile case? What are the FEC’s next steps in light of the decision?

* * *

David B. Kolker and Kevin A. Deely, Associate General Counsels for the Federal Election Commission, will speak today (04/19/10) at Harvard Law School (12pm-1pm, Austin East).  Lunch will be provided.