Knowledge depends on presuppositions embedded in concepts, ways of thinking and language. This lectures examines the implications of paradigm shifts in the different disciplines of sociology and physics. In the discipline of sociology hermeneutics (the art of interpretation) and phenomenology find a place within a horizon of diverse and contested theories and methodologies, while in physics paradigm shifts meet initially with resistance until a new paradigm becomes dominant. Mosca addresses how the quantum paradigm for physics leads to a fundamentally new paradigm for storing and manipulating information, "quantum computation." Bonner addresses the importance of coming to terms with the limits of knowing and control for humans to find a way of being at home in the world.
Kieran Bonner
Kieran Bonner has a BA from Trinity College Dublin, an MA and PhD on classical and contemporary social theory from York University, Toronto. He is Professor of Sociology at St. Jerome's University. He has been Visiting Fellow in the Humanities at University College Galway, Ireland, and at the Hannah Arendt Centre at Bard College in New York. He was a co-investigator on a SSHRC project The Culture of Cities: Montreal Toronto Berlin Dublin and on the CIHR project City Life and Well-Being: The Grey Zone of Health and Illness. He is author of two books, and has written articles on topics such as the culture of cities (Dublin, Montreal, Toronto), ethnomethodology, hermeneutics, Socrates, Antigone, Hannah Arendt, interdisciplinary dialogue, student motivation.
Michele Mosca
Michele Mosca obtained his doctorate in Mathematics at Oxford. He returned to St. Jerome's and the University of Waterloo (C&O Dept.) in 1999 to found a quantum computing group in the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research. He is co-founder and Deputy Director of the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC), and a founding member of the Perimeter Institute. His work has spanned the foundations, applications and implementations of quantum information processing. Awards and honours include: 2010 Canada's Top 40 Under 40, Fellow of CIFAR, CRC in Quantum Computation (2002-2012), and University Research Chair (2012-present).
St. Jerome's University
University of Waterloo, Faculty of Arts
Mathematics Endowment Fund