Logic List Mailing Archive

Summerschool 'Mind and Computation' (fwd)

Pre-Announcement

Vienna International Summer University
SWC Scientific World Conceptions
2002: MIND AND COMPUTATION
Vienna, University Campus, July 15-26, 2002

A two-week high-level summer course on questions about the relation
between mind, brain and computation from an historical and
epistemological point of view, with a special focus on quantum physics.

Main Lecturers: Brian McLaughlin (Rutgers University, New Brunswick,
USA)
Michael Hagner (Max-Planck-Institut f?r Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin,
D)

Assistant Lecturers: t.b.a.

Guest Lecturer: Anton Zeilinger (Department of Experimental Physics,
University of Vienna, A)


Since the nineteenth century, experimental, clinical and anatomical
studies of the brain have vastly determined the brain as an organ, in
which various psychological qualities are located in different regions.
This has resulted in a cerebral topography of man that seeks to decipher
man beyond the mind-matter dualism. Thought in itself, perceptions and
language, previously issues of philosophy, have now become an object of
the life sciences. At the same time, however, models of cognition based
on language of thought have become crucial for the philosophy of mind.

Around the middle of the twentieth century, the brain became
conceptualized as a computer, and this led to numerous fruitful research
enterprises. More recently, however, the equation between brain and
computer has been challenged. One aim of this Summer University is to
discuss various shifts in the relation between mind, brain and
computation from a historical and epistemological point of view.
Moreover, the Summer University will focus on the relation between
physiological and mental processes, for example, the relation between
low-level vision accounts of color perception and their interaction with
theories of visual consciousness.

Topics will include:

- The architecture of the mind: the classicism/connectionism debate.
- The history of the cerebral localization of the mind.
- Minds and machines in the age of cybernetics.
- Metaphors for the brain and its activity.
- Reverse optics and the study of color consciousness.
- Single cells and cerebral architectures: functional units of the brain
in historical perspective.
- Information, observation and consciousness in Quantum Physics.

International Program Committee
Martin Carrier (Bielefeld), Maria Luisa Dalla Chiara (Florence), Maria
Carla Galavotti (Bologna), Malachi Hacohen (Duke), Rudolf Haller (Graz),
Rainer Hegselmann (Bayreuth), Michael Heidelberger (T?bingen), Elisabeth
Leinfellner (Vienna), Paolo Mancosu (Berkeley), Friedrich Stadler
(Vienna), Roger Stuewer (Minneapolis), Thomas Uebel (Manchester), Jan
Wole?ski (Cracow), Anton Zeilinger (Vienna)
Michael St?ltzner (Secretary of the Program Committee, Vienna)

The main Lecturers
Michael Hagner is Senior Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the
History of Science in Berlin. His research interests include the history
of the neurosciences, the history of experimentation, and the relation
between history of science and cultural history.

Hagner is the author of Homo cerebralis. Die Lokalisation der geistigen
Eigenschaften und das moderne Verst?ndnis vom Menschen (1997, English
translation in preparation) and has edited Der ?falsche? Koerper.
Beitr?ge zu einer Geschichte der Monstrosit?ten (1995) and Ecce cortex.
Beitr?ge zur Geschichte des modernen Gehirns (1999). Most recently, he
has edited Ansichten der Wissenschaftsgeschichte (2001)

http://www.bbaw.de

Brian McLaughlin is Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA,
where he has taught since 1995.His research is in the field of cognitive
science, philosophy of mind and analytic philosophy. McLaughlin is
co-editor of Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of
Donald Davidson (1985), Perspectives on Self-Deception (1988), and
editor of  Dretske and His Critics  (1991). He has published many
articles in the forementioned areas of research. Several visiting
professorships in the United States and Germany.

http://www.philosophy.rutgers.edu/


Guest Lecturer

Anton Zeilinger is Professor and Director of the Institute of
Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna. He and his group - one
of the world?s leading experimental quantum physics research groups ?
have realized in experiment many fundamental predictions of quantum
theory. Among his many awards and prizes are the membership of the
German order Pour le M?rite and the Senior Humboldt Fellow Prize.
Zeilinger is author and editor of seminal books and many articles on
Quantum Physics, Quantum Information and Quantum Cryptography.

http://www.quantum.univie.ac.at/zeilinger/



Further informations: http://ivc.philo.at/VISU