Comments from Central Saint Martins students
posted at gidelective.myblog.arts.ac.uk 11/2010
Incredibly informative. After he finished his talk I felt as if my IQ rose by at least ten points.
David Orrell pushes us to find beauty and reason in complexity rather than symmetry, destroying our notion of certainty.
Gladly an afternoon discourse starring David Orrell was like good old headache pill. You just now that if you take one everything is gonna be alright. As a mathematician he was systematic and organized as a speaker he engage ans entertain. If only my science teacher was in half as good I probably would keep one of my list favorite Christmas gifts the abacus.
I found David Orrell's lecture to be very well presented and I appreciated the way he tied in ideas from the beginning of the lecture with the conclusion. It was satisfying as well as informative.
So perfect (in its form of communication), so clear and elegant.
It is a fantastic speech I never heard before. Brilliant, and I would like to search much more his works online later.
David Orrell had an overwhelming lecture, a lecture about predicting the future through aesthetics and trends, with an emphasis on mathematics as a guide to predict. I think what captured me the most, was his thorough research on the subject, leaving little to imagination but at the same time allowing you to come with free interpretations.
During the seminar on Friday, we discussed what is the difference between a good lecture and a bad one. Most of us agreed that the key factor for a lecture to be good is that it has to be interesting and engaging ... It is difficult to describe in 150 words how much this lecture interesting and engaging, but I would certainly say that it was an excellent lecture even though it was backed by science knowledge that I have not always understood.
Orrell's lecture was one of the most fulfilling lectures I've been to. It brought on a new perspective of how I viewed the human psyche and the way to analyse things.
I found that Friday's lectures were definitely the most intense out of the keynotes we've had so far. David Orrell's keynote was also quite hardcore in terms of content. We were lucky to have, what seemed like, a really nice guy who spoke well to his audience and appeared to be well organised, in terms of preparation and presentation, which made a huge difference in digesting all the information he was feeding us. I found it inspiring to hear how he said that we should change our view of the world as a machine to a view of the world as an organism.
Insightful and informative ... It is such an amazing feeling to get excited about new things to learn.
David Orrell's lecture was engaging and very interesting looking at models of predictions from weather to economy and how after all this years of improvements prediction have failed us. The presentation was well prepared and focused. I liked the way it was structured starting with facts and discoveries and going into ethics and how they interact. The reason I enjoyed this lecture the most is because it questioned our reasoning. Why do we always want to frame everything? Why do we always seek to put a label on everything? Why we constantly try to perfectly describe things put them into norms and put models of ourselves and models of the economy? Why do we put so much money and effort into predicting everything and trying to obtain a perfect prediction of everything instead of directing this effort and energy into preparing ourselves.
David Orrell talked of how the faults inherent within the models in which we base our perceptions of the world are becoming more and more obvious, with events such as the Credit Crunch and the change in our world's climate being examples of how measurement models are ineffective. As perhaps depressing as these statements may seem, it opens us up to the whole new realm of Possibility.
Orrells lecture on prediction greatly interested me. I knew a little about the chaos theory previously but found it fascinating when he linked the models used for weather and the economy to the human thought process and the way we perceive our environment.
David's whole idea was so fresh and very critical to me. It was very organised and strong.
Perhaps the fact that none of us disagreed with Orrell's lecture is because the scientific-economical facts he presented to us made total sense.
Very rousing.
Fascinating.
Orrell's talk on prediction, science and aesthesis was a refreshing end to the week of lectures. I found it really interesting to see examples and explanations of how in nearly all cases, the economic and financial future is predicted incorrectly. Orrell gave some excellent examples from history (such as the Vitruvian man) or ways in which logic and maths has provided the answers or part of an answer to a problem in different areas of subject development.
Friday's lecture by David Orrell was a great way to wrap up this week of lectures, introducing new perspectives on specific topics we have been considering for the week.
I think what he showed us and explained were amazing.
All senses sharp and clear you wait to sink in the offered subject. And here it is ... Amazing and glorious, Maths can be talked of for centuries but will never cease to fascinate and puzzle even the greatest of the brains.
David's lecture was very interesting and provoking.
The point that he made about being unable to predict the future captivated me.
David Orrell presents a sound argument about how models and predictions have led us to understand and misunderstand our world. His style of presentation is clear and concise. He goes through the history of predictions in weather, Economics and life science. What I found fascinating was how little we actually understand about all three, even with vast improvements in computers we still cannot predict the weather.
This lecture by David Orrell had to be one of my favorite lectures of the week. The reason is that I like this notion of predictions being unstable, and this whole concept of stability, that David Orrell thoroughly explains throughout his lecture.
Orrell gave us a fascinating talk about the connection between economy and human scientific beliefs and theories.
David Orrell's presentation was ... easy to grasp and well organized. He used extremely universal and appropriate analogies to bring about his points, making sure his audience understood the basics before delving deeper.
Today i have been fascinated by the second lecture really clear and informative about the role of science in our aesthetic and our obsession to predict the future.
I was more fascinated by the second lecture today which was on prediction, science and aesthetics. I think his talk was overall very well presented as he showed a lot of examples to support his thoughts.
I found the talk very interesting and inspiring which got me thinking what would we do if we know what would happen in the future?
David Orrell's lecture was very clear, went from a big image to a small image, to a big image again not missing on way to the point of what he want.
I simply loved the part about the history of predictions, also not to mention that it came with visuals both great and sometimes confusing. I loved the part where the Greeks discovered the relation between geometry and life.
I think the idea of predicting the future is definitely an idea that enthrals the mind of every human on earth, and I find Orrell's point that it is in fact a basic human desire very intriguing.
Dave Orrell's lecture I think was one of the clearest lectures we've had, it had flow and you could link to the other lectures we had.
Something that particularly stood out of his lecture is that of a cosmic harmonies of the world heard by Kepler. It is such a beautiful magical idea that something as complex, bewildering and incomprehensible to mankind as the universe can be explained in something so simple, pure and so accessible as a melody. Isn't that quite touching?
David Orrell's lecture was superbly structured and explained as he demonstrated the links between aesthetics and mathematics and how this were the founding layers for modern western thinking and even the whole economic system ... What was extremely interesting was that he went on to explain all of the irregularities and the flakiness of these systems particularly when trying to predict the weather or the economy.
Comparing the lectures I've been to so far, I was more engaged with David Orrell's lecture ... Even though numbers and figures are not my thing and I totally hate maths it made me think so much about prediction.
David Orrell's lecture was very fascinating. The lecture was very clear and gave me lots of curiosity.
David Orrell's lecture was more clear, but also contained very nuanced and complicated ideas.
I thought David Orrell had a very clear and logical presentation, with great examples, which I very much appreciated ... The historical and mathematical examples he used to define western ways of predicting in general was, I thought, fascinating, especially when it is such a blurry concept, as we lack ability to predict the future with accuracy.
The last lecture, taught by David Orrell, was the most organized and most instructive of the week. The content also went over most of the topics in the previous lectures, such as progress, culture, and predictions. David Orrell did not just present his statements but also questioned critically on every statement he made.
I have got a lot of inspirations from David Orrell's lecture about prediction.
I think that David's lecture was very inspiring.
The second lecture by David Orrell about models, predictions and aesthetics was much more inspiring. It also made me think and ask myself why are humans always trying to predict if the predictions are mainly wrong?
David Orrell's lecture was full of information on the origins of theories we know of today, for example Pythagoras. I enjoyed this lecture because it was well constructed and it was in context.
David Orrell had a very interesting lecture in my opinion. I thought it was very different to hear someone think of predictions, mathematics and economics as something much less predictable.
The second lecturer was actually my favourite one out of all the others. He was the one with the most complex topic, yet managed to sum it up in a way that everybody could understand where he started of and where he got to. Some may not agree on his thoughts, but compared to the other lecturers he was the clearest. ... One thing I liked the most was that, when he was explaining how people started predicting the weather, he went step by step. He emphasized on the fact that it was not done by just one person.
To be honest, I was dreading David Orell's lecture - I'm not much of a maths/science person. However, he managed to make maths and science look a bit more exciting, and it was apparent after his lecture just how important (and perhaps destructive) they are.
Fascinating lecture given by David Orrell speaks about prediction, science and aesthetics.
I really agree with Orrell's talk. There are so many things will happen in a day and we will not know what will happen in the next minutes.
David Orrell's Lecture really inspired me with some ideas regarding about prediction.
His presentation contained science, mathematics and technology, which made the talk really interesting, also he had clearly pointed out with some supportive examples to against his research. And I think this is one my favorite presentation.
I wasn't anticipating being all that impressed with David Orell's lecture, as I heard it was going to be very heavy on math and science ... two subjects I always hated in school. However, I thought he made it interesting by explaining how math equations can be used for predicting things like the economy and weather.
The talk of David Orrell was excellent, both in the content and in the presentation.