facultyexplore advaya’s teachers
Explore advaya's faculty of teachers, scientists, practitioners, philosophers and storytellers, who share multidimensional, local and diverse narratives from across the world.
Bayo Akomolafe
Sophie Strand
Satish Kumar
Vandana Shiva
Veronica Strang
Manda Scott
Beloved Sara Zaltash
David Abram
Dr Andreas Weber
David Whyte
Helena Norberg-Hodge
Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic
Charles Eisenstein
Aisha Paris Smith
Brontë Velez
Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic
Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic is a senior lecturer at Brunel University London with 25 years teaching experience and a bioscientist investigating the cognitive side of the living world.
Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic is a senior lecturer at Brunel University London with 25 years teaching experience and a bioscientist investigating the cognitive side of the living world. Dr. Slijepcevic published numerous research articles and worked on a range of research projects in life sciences. He also publishes popular science and philosophy essays. He is the author of Biocivilisations: A New Look at the Science of Life (Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont USA; London UK, 2023).
article
Into the bacterial universe: reimagining intelligence
An emerging branch of biology opens up a new possibility called biocivilisations. Through this, we may begin to recognise alternative intelligences, challenging the mainstream presented by astrophysicist Carl Sagan and biologist Ernst Mayr. With Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic, we start thinking on an evolutionary scale and turn to what is as old as life itself: bacteria. "The primordial bacterial ‘civilisation’," he says, "became the basis for the entire biosphere, which was gradually enriched by millions of new species and their own ‘civilisations’, all emerging from the bacterial world." What could be more intelligent than that?
article
Flora or Mona Lisa: on symbiotic biology
Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo's vision is a good analogy for understanding the concept of the organism, which has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent decades. Symbiotic biology understands organisms in a similar way to Arcimboldo’s paintings. Absolute individuals do not exist.
article
The secret to our survival
“The Anthropocene, after all, can never replace Gaia as the dominant ecological force on Earth.” Ahead of our upcoming course with Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic, we sit down with the multifaceted bioscientist for an eye-opening conversation about the Gaian mind, bacteria as the primordial civilisation, how our plants and animals engineer their environments in ecological ways, the sentience and consciousness of all living beings, and more.
article
An Autopoietic Gaia: biopoetics, creativity, and meaning-making on Earth
Ahead of advaya’s upcoming online course, Biocivilisations, we speak with two scientists and authors who are weaving together the worlds of biology and philosophy to reinvigorate the science of life, and invite us all to reconsider what we think we know about nature, Earth, and the living world around us. We look towards symbiosis as the rule of life, the inherent creativity in all living beings, and the implications of these on how we see the world. What happens if we understood Gaia as autopoietic, enlivened, making meaning?
film
The secret to our survival
“The Anthropocene, after all, can never replace Gaia as the dominant ecological force on Earth.” Ahead of our upcoming course with Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic, we sit down with the multifaceted bioscientist for an eye-opening conversation about the Gaian mind, bacteria as the primordial civilisation, how our plants and animals engineer their environments in ecological ways, the sentience and consciousness of all living beings, and more.
film
An Autopoietic Gaia: biopoetics, creativity, and meaning-making on Earth
Ahead of advaya’s upcoming online course, Biocivilisations, we speak with two scientists and authors who are weaving together the worlds of biology and philosophy to reinvigorate the science of life, and invite us all to reconsider what we think we know about nature, Earth, and the living world around us. We look towards symbiosis as the rule of life, the inherent creativity in all living beings, and the implications of these on how we see the world. What happens if we understood Gaia as autopoietic, enlivened, making meaning?
film
The world of biosemiotics: communication in nature
Languages have existed in the biosphere for far longer than humans have created it. How much do you know about the myriad forms of communication in nature? In the opening week of Biocivilisations, an online course with Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic, we explore how nature talks.
film
Do cells have cognitive worlds?
Dr. Predrag Slijepcevic argues that "these creatures, the cells that we ignore, actually have very, very rich cognitive worlds." In the second week of Biocivilisations, our online course, we learn about the consciousness and sentience of creatures too small for our eyes to see. Humans were not the first engineers in nature: bacteria were. How did they build colonies, engineer cities, right under our noses? Find out more in this clip.
film
The roots of science are in nature: on naturalised science
In this clip, learn about how Native peoples practiced science, some influential figures in the history of science and philosophy who believed that science is not a human invention, an example of the jumping spiders and 'trial and error' in nature, and how science should move away from dogma, towards creativity, which could perhaps be more aligned with the scientific method.
film
Modern medicine came from nature
Animal species have evolved, over 400 million years, to self-medicate. In this clip, explore a case study of ants as doctors, surgeons: a species that has developed a fascinating ability to take something from its external environment, incorporate that with its own bodily feature, to self-medicate. As it turns out, ants aren't the only ones either.
film
Aesthetics in nature (an autopoietic Gaia)
How do females of some bird and fish species use their sense of beauty and aesthetics to select male partners in the world of procreation? How are aesthetics an integral part of all living processes?