The Institute of Art and Ideas

The Institute of Art and Ideas Changing how the world thinks. Home to the big ideas and leading thinkers of our time.
(4)

Subscribe here: https://iai.tv/subscribe
Hosts the world’s largest ideas and music festival HowTheLightGetsIn Festival💡 The Institute of Art and Ideas is committed to fostering a progressive and vibrant intellectual culture in the UK. Bringing together world-leading theorists, scientists, politicians, and writers, IAI TV is an online channel where cutting-edge debates and talks are available for everyone to watch and share. Our annual festival, HowTheLightGetsIn, brings together more than 200 of the world's leading thinkers and musicians in talks, debates, and performances to excite the imagination and renew the spirit.

When the West looks at Sudan's war, it sees a humanitarian catastrophe beyond its understanding, despite its astronomica...
09/09/2026

When the West looks at Sudan's war, it sees a humanitarian catastrophe beyond its understanding, despite its astronomical toll.

But historian Matthew Benson-Strohmayer argues this account does not explain how Sudan's warring generals fund their violence: both sides have become commercial empires, commanding gold, trade and foreign patronage beyond any government's control.

Until a peace deal can dismantle this machinery and heed the civilian actors working to take back control, ending the fighting will only reset the conditions for the next war.

Matthew Benson-Strohmayer is a social and economic historian, and is Sudan’s Research Director at LSE's Conflict and Civicness Research Group.

Tap here to read his full article. https://iai.tv/articles/the-truth-behind-the-forgotten-catastrophe-in-sudan-auid-3675

It might seem that economics is an objective, scientific study of markets and rational human behaviour, separate from po...
08/09/2026

It might seem that economics is an objective, scientific study of markets and rational human behaviour, separate from politics.

But mainstream models obscure the structural power dynamics at the core of global inequality.
Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven argues that capitalism has always been an inherently uneven, global system shaped by imperialism, class, and unequal power relations.

Rather than relying on Eurocentric frameworks or domestic institutional fixes, she argues we must work to expose hidden power structures, challenging the global hierarchies that sustain poverty and exploitation.

Tap here to watch the full interview. https://iai.tv/video/economists-dont-understand-the-nature-of-power-with-ingrid-harvold-kvangraven

Can quantum mechanics prove that we live in different realities to one another?We often attribute differences in the way...
08/09/2026

Can quantum mechanics prove that we live in different realities to one another?

We often attribute differences in the way we experience things to differences in perspective.

But according to philosopher and founder of social epistemology, Steve Fuller, this is a radical mistake.

He uses breakthroughs in neuroscience, quantum mechanics, and AI to demonstrate that we inhabit different worlds altogether.

Tap here for Fuller’s full article. https://iai.tv/articles/we-dont-have-different-perspectives-we-inhabit-different-realities-auid-3668

08/09/2026

Can we bring back a fair internet?

Author and digital rights activist Cory Doctorow argues that the actions smaller countries must take to escape the chains of Big Tech are simple in practice; but America’s economic power prevents them from taking these steps.

Tap here to watch Doctorow’s talk “The future of the tech crisis”, where he explains how we got here, and what we can do about it. https://iai.tv/video/the-future-of-the-tech-crisis

The West has become a lonely, narcissistic civilization, argues former President of the UN Security Council Kishore Mahb...
08/09/2026

The West has become a lonely, narcissistic civilization, argues former President of the UN Security Council Kishore Mahbubani.

From the killing of Gaddafi, to silence on Gaza, the West has lost the support and confidence of the majority of the world’s population.

The West must give up this self-deception, or find itself shouting commands at a world that is no longer listening.

Tap here to read Mahbubani’s full article. https://iai.tv/articles/kishore-mahbubani-the-west-has-engineered-its-own-downfall-auid-3674

Kishore Mahbubani will discuss the world's superpowers in a debate alongside Kwasi Kwarteng and Leo Varadkar this 19-20 September at HowTheLightGetsIn Festival. ➡️ https://howthelightgetsin.org/

For decades, Roger Penrose's theory of consciousness has been dismissed as fringe: the idea that human thought relies on...
07/09/2026

For decades, Roger Penrose's theory of consciousness has been dismissed as fringe: the idea that human thought relies on non-computable quantum mechanics.

The standard objection has always been that quantum states collapse into ordinary classical ones far too quickly in a warm, noisy brain to matter for something as complex as cognition.

Neuroscientist Mike Wiest thinks that objection no longer holds.

New evidence shows stable quantum states surviving at much higher temperatures than anyone expected, and consciousness itself has structural features that make quantum mechanics a surprisingly natural place to look for answers.

Read the full article now. https://iai.tv/articles/penroses-theory-of-consciousness-supported-by-new-quantum-evidence-auid-3667

Reality appears full of distinct objects. In such a reality, the Buddhists' claims of the world's "emptiness" are hard t...
07/09/2026

Reality appears full of distinct objects. In such a reality, the Buddhists' claims of the world's "emptiness" are hard to make sense of.

Join Oxford philosopher Jessica Frazier to explore emptiness as relational richness, not nothingness. Things lack fixed essence, yet overflow with interdependence.

Frazier's vision dissolves ego without dissolving meaning. Far from nihilism, emptiness grounds compassion, ethics, and insight.

To see clearly is not to grasp harder, but to let go of what never truly existed in the first place.

Tap to watch Frazier’s talk now. https://iai.tv/video/buddhism-and-the-emptiness-of-reality

Were nature’s constants even slightly different, life wouldn’t exist. Scientists reach for bizarre ideas like an infinit...
07/09/2026

Were nature’s constants even slightly different, life wouldn’t exist.

Scientists reach for bizarre ideas like an infinite multiverse to explain this. But physicist and technologist Jeff Shainline thinks we’ve been missing a crucial clue.

The universe isn’t just fine-tuned for life, but also for the creation of technology; humanity is just one step in this longer evolutionary process.

He uses this observation to build a new case for an overlooked explanation of fine-tuning: Lee Smolin’s proposal that universes reproduce through black holes and, like organisms, evolve across cosmic generations towards fecundity.

Tap here for Shainline’s full article. https://iai.tv/articles/the-universe-is-fine-tuned-for-technology-not-just-life-auid-3673

The standard view of evolution is that it’s a process guided by randomness, and hence its results, as amazing as they ar...
06/09/2026

The standard view of evolution is that it’s a process guided by randomness, and hence its results, as amazing as they are, are meaningless.

But if we think of our genes as a kind of text, then we can understand evolution as a process of interpretation, and reinterpretation. And interpretation implies meaning.

Organisms and their development are guided not by chance, nor by a deterministic genetic code, but by the trickling down of experiences and memories and goals.

This view allows us not only to find meaning in an otherwise meaningless universe but opens up the space for freedom and moral responsibility as the interpretation of the genetic text we’ve been given, argues David Haig.

Tap the link to read more now. https://iai.tv/articles/from-darwin-to-derrida-evolution-as-interpretation-auid-2365

06/09/2026

You can study time for years and still never come close to understanding it, argues physicist Ivette Fuentes.

In this debate, she narrates her fascinating journey through studying time through the lens of quantum physics, which included some unexpected discoveries, but still left her without an answer.

Join her alongside philosophers Hilary Lawson, Wahida Khandker, and Tim Maudlin in “Time’s great mystery”. https://iai.tv/video/times-great-mystery

Address

375 City Road
London
LONDONEC1V1NB

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 9pm
Tuesday 9am - 9pm
Wednesday 9am - 9pm
Thursday 9am - 9pm
Friday 9am - 9pm
Saturday 9am - 9pm
Sunday 9am - 9pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Institute of Art and Ideas posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The School

Send a message to The Institute of Art and Ideas:

Shortcuts

Share