Kyoto Kokoro Initiative's first international symposium explores "Kokoro and Symbiosis" (18 September 2017)

Published on

2017/09/26

On 18 September 2017, Kokoro Research Center (KRC) held an international symposium, "Kokoro and Symbiosis", at the Clock Tower Centennial Hall. It was the third symposium to be held under the Kyoto Kokoro Initiative (KKI), launched in 2015 with support from the Inamori Foundation. The first two events were domestic, and entitled, respectively, "Kokoro and Historicity" and "In and Out of Kokoro". The word kokoro means mind, spirit, soul, or psyche.

With approximately 300 attending from Japan and abroad, KKI's first international symposium opened with remarks from KRC Director Sakiko Yoshikawa, who was introduced by the emcee, Associate Professor Yukiko Uchida, also of KRC.

The program featured four presentations, beginning with "Cognitive/Affective and Neural Obstacles of Human Symbiosis" by Professor Shihui Han, a cultural neuroscientist at Peking University's School of Cognitive Sciences. Based on findings from a pain empathy experiment, he addressed the neural basis of ingroup-outgroup bias, and possible effects of education and experience on reducing such tendencies.

The next speaker was Professor Joseph Cambray, president of Pacifica Graduate Institute and former head of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP). As a Jungian psychoanalyst with a PhD in chemistry, Professor Cambray drew on his broad interdisciplinary knowledge and perspective to discuss "Synchronistic Phenomena and Psychological Symbiosis". The talk showed how Carl G Jung's synchronicity concept can be understood in terms of complexity theory, suggesting a new approach to the science of kokoro.

This was followed by Professor Tesshu Shaku from Soai University's Faculty of Humanities exploring the "Symbiosis of Religious Beliefs". Professor Shaku, who is also a Jodo Shinshu priest, offered insights and suggestions from diverse perspectives as to how religious beliefs, which by nature tend to be absolute and exclusive, can possibly coexist with one another.

The fourth and final lecture was "Sustainable Society, Sustainable Mind" by KRC Professor Yoshinori Hiroi. Reviewing the history of Earth and humanity from a macro perspective, he suggested that the current "period of stabilization", which followed the "Mind’s Big Bang" and "spiritual revolution", is in need of "global/earth ethics", and illustrated this point by citing local initiatives to solve global issues.

The four speakers then took part in a panel discussion, moderated by KRC Professor Toshio Kawai. The session transcended the fields represented by the panelists as it explored the possibilities of symbiosis and psychological connections in the future.

The event closed with remarks from Professor Nagahiro Minato, Kyoto University's executive vice-president for research, planning, and hospital administration. EVP Minato commented on the issue of ingroup-outgroup bias from the perspective of immunology, his field of research, before expressing high expectations for KKI and other KyotoU initiatives in the humanities and social sciences.