Matthen explores perception and philosophy at TEDxUofT Spectrum
After signing on to deliver a talk at Spectrum, the main 2019 TEDxUofT event, Professor Mohan Matthen, U of T Mississauga’s Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Perception, tested out some ideas on his family during Christmas dinner. “It was astonishingly difficult, but also fun,” he says.
Matthen and 11 other U of T speakers will be front and centre at Spectrum, scheduled for Saturday, March 23 at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.
“Talking to a community audience and having the lecture streamed online are new experiences for me,” says Matthen, who generally addresses classes or colleagues. “I’m looking forward to the challenge and I hope we can establish some communication.
“I’ll have to shed my more academic style and adopt a more public style.”
Matthen’s talk will focus on sense perception, using a historical narrative that begins in 12th-century Muslim Spain and continues until the present.
“It centres around the single experience of putting a finger on a keyboard,” he says. “I feel something, and I see something, but how do I meld these two things together to form a single experience? If you’re looking over my shoulder, you have a different experience than I do; you can’t feel my finger touching the keyboard, though you visually experience something. The question is how those different experiences co-ordinate.
On the other hand, you, too, can touch a keyboard, so there is a level at which we can compare notes.”
Matthen wants to leave his audience with an understanding of three things:
- There are many aspects to the question about how thing match;
- There is a thread of philosophic argument that dovetails with scientific experimentation; and
- How this discussion moves the understanding of sense-perception forward – what novel ideas are being discussed.
“I want the audience to understand ideas about the problem of perception itself, but also how philosophy tackles it,” he says.
UTM student Kimiko Yamaguchi is excited about Matthen’s lecture and the other 11 on the day’s agenda. Yamaguchi, a fifth-year student in UTM’s communications, culture and information technology program, is one of the 18 volunteer members of the TEDxUofT organizing committee.
“Our topics aren’t things you hear about every day,” says Yamaguchi, the event’s social media specialist. “This year, with the Spectrum theme, we have a wide variety of speakers -- unlike last year, when the focus was on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) topics.”
To spread the word about the talks, Yamaguchi has spent the past six months online promoting Matthen and the other speakers, including Anna Lomanowska, an assistant professor of psychology at UTM and director of the Digital Well-Being Lab, along with the day’s other events: three performances, a student art installation and fun things like photo booths. A cadre of 40 student volunteers will assist the organizing team at the event itself.
Matthen has been very impressed by all the work put in by the student organizers to make the day a success.
“These students are on top of things,” Matthen says. “They’re totally out of my league. They’ve organized talks by people from all three campuses, along with a whole day of events.
“I’ve rehearsed my talk with them and it has been really fun. They’ve given me great ideas about how to present the talk so it will succeed both in person and via the live stream. We’ll see what the results will be.”
The TEDxUofT Spectrum even is open to the public. For additional information, visit https://www.tedxuoft.com/events/spectrum.