Logic List Mailing Archive

"Philosophy of Information" (Amsterdam, March 11, 2005)

Philosophy of Information

  March 11, 2005
  Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  Grote Zaal van Cristofori
  Prinsengracht 583
  13.30 -- 17.30

http://www.klpoll.nl/pages/project.phtml?project=66

If we want to believe Hollywood, the reality we live in can be replaced by
a computer model.  Films and series such as "The Lawnmower Man", "The
Matrix" and "Star Trek"  (the Holodeck) have as their underlying premise
that reality and consciousness are composed solely of information, and
that that information can easily be manipulated using computers. Those
following the rapid development of computer games have to conclude that
the perfecting of interfaces is eroding the difference between game and
reality. Happily (or regretfully) science itself has not quite reached
this stage, but exciting things are happening nevertheless.

At the symposium Philosophy of Information John McCarthy, Keith Devlin,
Pieter Adriaans and Tine Wilde will discuss the current state of affairs.  
Science is achieving new insights by viewing part of reality as a
computational process. Taking this approach to its extremes, this begs the
philisophical question: is it only a metaphore, a useful model, or
something more? Is information going to turn out to be the
science-of-everything?

13.30 Opening
14.00 Pieter Adriaans: The World as a Computer  Will Informatics Be the 
Science of Everything?
14.35 Keith Devlin: Does Information Really Exist?
15.10 Break
15.30 Tine Wilde: Remodelling Reality
16.05 John McCArthy: The Past and Present of the Internet
16.40 Discussion

The symposium is being sponsored by the Institute for Logic. Language and
Computation ILLC, the Human Computer Systems Laboratory HCSL and the
K.L.Poll-Stichting voor Onderwijs, Kunst en Wetenschap OKW, NWO Cognitie,
NWO Exacte Wetenschappen, NWO Geesteswetenschappen, KNAW, de Beth
Stichting en Elsevier.