Volume XV – Man, culture, history
The volume includes the lectures and introductions to discussions presented at the Studium Generale seminar in the academic year 2009/2010. The principal themes were the problems considering humans, cultural components related to science and art, and historical events.
The themes concerning man cover his spiritual and bodily concepts. It depicts man’s destiny and position in the world based on the symbolism of art. It focuses on his role, which, as we can notice in history, maybe destructive and negative, or creative and humanitarian. It also discusses recent achievements in the field of medicine and the possibilities it creates.
Another theme is culture as the history of science – how human benefits from learning about the laws that govern the world around us. Examples include “The Ten Equations That Changed the Face of the Earth” and quantum informatics. However, history and modern experience show that scientific discoveries are not always for the good of mankind. Culture also includes works created by nature and man: precious stones, music, poetry, architecture. The common feature of these works is their fractality, fractional dimension, statistical self-similarity, the complexity of structure, and realization of symmetry elements (architecture).
The history is presented in the fate of the Polish intelligentsia on whom the Soviet authorities passed a death sentence, e.g. the execution in Katyn 70 years ago. Historical considerations recalled the postwar reconstruction of some educational institutions in Wrocław and Lusatia.
