Événement

Philosophy Talk at The Marsh Berkeley

Sunday, July 15, 2012 at The Marsh Berkeley

12:00pm - FORBIDDEN WORDS with Chris Hom Some words are forbidden so forbidden that we won't even spell them out here, like n****r, and ch*nk, and k*k*, and c*nt. Decent people don't use these words to refer to others. They are intrinsically disrespectful. But aren't words just strings of sounds or letters? Words have life because they express ideas. But in a free society, how can we prohibit the expression of ideas? How can we forbid words? Where does the strange power of curses, epithets, and scatological terms come from? The Philosophers keep the conversation clean with their guest, Chris Hom from Texas Tech University.

3:00pm - TURBO-CHARGING THE MIND with Anna Salamon The human mind is one of the most amazing products of evolution. But nature's built-in limits have held our minds back for thousands of years. In more recent decades, the rapid advance of computer technology has produced a vast array of intelligent machines that far outstrip us in speed and capacity, but that know far less than we do about almost everything. Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Can we use new technologies to merge the creator and the created, to break down the barrier between man and machine, and create a hybrid intelligence that seamlessly integrates the vast knowledge and skills embedded in our biological brains with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our own creations? John and Ken examine the prospects for transcending our biological limits and turbo-charging the human mind with Anna Salamon of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

Each show is 90 minutes with no intermission.