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Thursday 14 October 18:00 - 23:30
Darwin Building B40 Lecture Theatre
99-105 Gower Street
London
WC1E 6AA
Tickets Unavailable
"The Neurobiology of Beauty" talk by Professor Semir Zeki
Science & Technology
For the first academic event of the year, Semir Zeki (Prof. of Neuroaesthetics) is giving a talk titled "The Neurobiology of Beauty"
For the abstract of his talk, Professor Zeki says "In one of the most famous definitions of beauty, the Anglo-Irish philosopher and statesman wrote that, “Beauty is, for the greater part, a property of bodies that acts mechanically upon the mind through the intervention of the senses". Of the three pillars of that definition, two are related to the brain (mind and intervention of the senses).
I propose to explore Burke's definition from a neurobiological perspective and, through it, propose a single fundamental and brain-based characteristic to the experience of beauty, one which is independent of source (i.e. whether musical or visual), culture, education and ethnic background. Experiencing something as beautiful naturally involves making a judgment, and I will show that the neural pathways engaged during aesthetic judgments are distinct from those engaged in cognitive judgments".
