Big Ideas (audio)

Marc D. Lewis answers questions following his lecture based on his book Memoirs of an Addicted Brain.

Dr. Marc D. Lewis discusses the story and the science behind his book Memoirs of an Addicted Brain. Lewis is a professor at the Behavioral Science Institute, part of Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Lewis's book documents the years he spent addicted to drugs including morphine and heroin, and links his first-hand drug experiences to his current behavioral science research into the interaction between drugs and brain chemistry.

Lisa Harvey-Smith of CSIRO discusses the mega-telescope known as the Square Kilometre Array. CSIRO, the Australian Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation, is part of the continent-spanning next-generation radio telescope project which is due to be completed in 2019.

Psychiatrist and author, Allen J. Frances, believes that mental illnesses are being over-diagnosed. In his lecture, Diagnostic Inflation: Does Everyone Have a Mental Illness?, Dr. Frances will outline why he thinks the DSM-V will lead to millions of people being mislabeled with mental disorders. His lecture is part of Mental Health Matters, an initiative of TVO in association with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The lecture is followed by a short Q & A.

Renowned British psychiatrist and author, Iain McGilchrist, delivers a lecture entitled Our Mind at War. Drawing from research in his latest book, The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, Dr. McGilchrist explains how an overreliance on ways of looking at the world characteristic of the left hemisphere may be partially responsible for the increase in mental illnesses globally, including depression. His lecture was produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada.

Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and best-selling author, Dr. Norman Doidge, on his book, The Brain that Changes Itself, an examination of the most important breakthrough in neuroscience: the discovery of neuroplasticity. His lecture was delivered at the University of Toronto on March 29th, 2008.

Psychiatrist David Healy with his lecture Gripped by a Python: How Pharmaceutical Companies Control the Medical Marketplace. The lecture was delivered at Bethune College in Toronto on February 27, 2003.

Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison on Understanding Suicide. Her lecture, drawing on research from her book, Night Falls Fast, was delivered at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto in the year 2000. It first aired on Big Ideas on February 3, 2001.

Zach Hall, Dean of Research at the School of Medicine, University of Southern California, on Neuroethics: A Challenge for a New Age. His lecture was delivered at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto on November 12, 2003.

Psychology professor, Marc Fournier, on Domination and Depression. His lecture was delivered at University of Toronto-Scarborough as part of the 2008 Big Ideas Best Lecturer competition.

Graeme Gibson, author of The Bedside Book of Beasts, and recipient of the Order of Canada, explores the ways we humans relate emotionally, imaginatively, and physically to the natural world. Entitled Echoes of a Working Eden, his lecture also addresses the damage done to us by our abandonment of Nature. It was produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada.

Art historian Francis Broun discusses the work of the 17th century painter Artemisia Gentileschi. In this podcast, Broun explores why Artemisia, who was widely respected in her own time, was forgotten and why she has recently been returned to her rightful place as a groundbreaking painter.

Philosopher Ian Hacking delivers the 2011 Ioan Davies Memorial Lecture entitled Who Are You? The Biosocial Being. The lecture took place at York University on November 14, 2011.

Drawing on their vast experiences and first-hand knowledge, distinguished humanitarians Senator Romeo Dallaire and Stephen Lewis, enter into a dialogue about the issues that they have committed their lives to: the eradication of the use of child soldiers and stopping the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. Their discussion, moderated by journalist Anna Maria Tremonti, was organized by PEN Canada.

Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, on The Machinery of the Mind. Kahneman is Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and the winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics.

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.

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.

Alberto Manguel delivers the final lecture in the 2007 Massey Lecture series, entitled The Screen of Hal.

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?

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.