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Evolution, Computation, and Learning
Felix Sosa, Daniel Czegel
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Jan/14 | Mon | 01:00PM-03:00PM | 46-5193 |
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Jan/16 | Wed | 01:00PM-03:00PM | 46-5193 |
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Jan/18 | Fri | 01:00PM-03:00PM | 46-5193 |
Enrollment: Limited: Advance sign-up required
Limited to 15 participants
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Here, we will explore recent work in evolutionary computation and theoretical biology modeling the processes of evolution. Namely, we will focus on these broad questions:
This course will include readings and ~30 minute lectures introducing general topics of interest such as evolutionary processes in the context of learning theory, what evolution can add to learning theory, evolvability and learning-to-learn, and complexification. The intention is to spark conversation about the role evolution plays in learning, how it can be further characterized or replicated in machines, and whether it is of interest or use to explore potential projects that build or expand on this recent work.
Sponsor(s): Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Contact: Felix Sosa, 305 733-6216, FSOSA@MIT.EDU
Improving your memory from 7 to 50 items in one day: Lessons from a World Memory Champion
Frederico Azevedo, Research Affiliate
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Jan/29 | Tue | 10:00AM-04:00PM | 46-6011 |
Enrollment: Limited: Advance sign-up required
Boris Konrad, one of the world's top memory competitors and a PhD in
Neuroscience, will offer a unique workshop that will transform your memory
in one day. During this five hour workshop, Boris will take you through
classic "Method of Loci" memory training step by step until you have built
up enough mental infrastructure to memorize by yourself fifty random
items. The workshop is free and only requires the attention of the
participants. As you will be asked during various portions of the
workshop to break up into smaller groups for more individualized
instruction.
About the Workshop Leader: Dr. Boris Konrad is a renowned memory expert,
author, trainer, and competitor. He has held several world records for
feats of memorization, including the "name and face" category where he
learned the names associated with 201 faces in 15 minutes. Most recently,
he finished 6th at the World Memory Cahmpionship in Vienna. He obtained
his PhD at Donders University in the Netherlands and is a co-author of a
2017 Neuron paper entitled: "Mnemonic Training Reshapes Brain Networks to
Support Superior Memory".
Sponsor(s): Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Contact: Frederico Azevedo, fazevedo@MIT.EDU
Introduction to Marxism
Rose Lenehan
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Jan/31 | Thu | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 32-D461 |
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
People throw around the words 'capitalism' and 'socialism' a lot, often without having a good sense of what those terms mean. Now right-wing pundits have started using the term 'cultural Marxism' to describe an ideology that has supposedly become prevalent in the academy and among young progressives. In this class I'll introduce some basic concepts from Marxism and explain some features of a Marxist worldview, including the idea that capitalism is necessarily exploitative, that struggle between economic classes is the most basic dynamic of history, and that the widespread ideology of a society is the ideology that best serves the ruling class. I will also provide information about where to find more on these topics and others, including Marxist theories of gender and race.
Sponsor(s): Linguistics and Philosophy
Contact: Rose Lenehan, rlenehan@mit.edu
Invigorating Science: The Newton-Goethe Debate on Vision and the Significance to Contemporary Physics, Art, and Virtual Reality/AI
Bernhardt Trout, Professor of Chemical Engineering
Enrollment: email me ASAP if interested
Sign-up by 11/30
Limited to 6 participants
Attendance:
Prereq: none
Fee: $0.01
for we will provide ~$100 of supplies incl. books
This two day seminar will address contemporary issues in Physics, Art, and Virtual Reality by exploring the debate between Goethe and Newton on vision and color, and its ramifications. Newton’s victory led to the division between the view of vision and color in the physical sciences and that in art (the latter of which retained for the most part Goethe’s view). Quantum mechanics, while making up for the mechanistic failures of the Newtonian approach, did little to change that division. Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence opens up the possibility that a syncretic approach to color from both art and physics may emerge or even that a holistic approach to color might emerge that is consistent with that of both art and physics.
The seminar will require considerable preparatory work, consisting of readings, basic optical experiments and responses to study questions due in advance over the January IAP period followed by a seminar summary due afterwards. Space is extremely limited. Preference to Juniors, Seniors, and starting graduate students. A generous stipend will be provided to students who complete all work. If interested, please email ASAP Bernhardt Trout, Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering: trout@mit.edu.
Contact: Bernhardt Trout, E19-502B, 617 258-5021, TROUT@MIT.EDU
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Jan/30 | Wed | 09:00AM-09:00PM | TBD |
Svetozar Minkov - Professor of Philosophy, Bernhardt Trout - Professor of Chemical Engineering
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Jan/31 | Thu | 09:00AM-06:00PM | Location TBD |
Bernhardt Trout - Professor of Chemical Engineering, Svetozar Minkov - Professor of Philosophy
| Date TBD | Time TBD | Location TBD | ||
Session Leaders TBD
Invitation to Proxima-b
Alex Pentland, Professor
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Jan/10 | Thu | 09:00AM-04:00PM | E15-359 |
Enrollment: Limited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 01/07
Limited to 15 participants
Prereq: none
Many experts think that because of mass limitations the only way for humanity to spread to planets around another star system (e.g., Proxima b) is to send embryos and small robots. This is a one-day seminar discussing what it takes to raise human embryos into a viable human community. The biggest problems seem to be how to transmit unconcious elements of culture, and how to avoid unwanted genetic variation.
Contact: Alex Pentland, E15-387, 617 253-3818, thagen@media.mit.edu
Mini-Symposium on Memory Training and Neuroscience
Robert Ajemian, Research Scientist
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Jan/30 | Wed | 10:30AM-12:30PM | 46-3002 |
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Speakers: Martin Dresler, Boris Konrad, and Jim Karol
Three speakers will discuss the impact of memory training on brain function from a variety of different perspectives. Martin Dresler is an assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Donders Institute in the Netherlands, and further affiliated to the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich. He will speak about changes in functional connectivity that take place in the brains of memory experts and naive individuals who are in the process of learning to employ the techniques. Boris Konrad is the only individual to have been both a world memory record holder and a PhD in neuroscience. He will discuss experiments he has performed on the degree to which enhanced memory function transfers to other cognitive capacities. Finally, the man who arguably possesses the greatest long-term memory in the world, Jim Karol, will speak on some of his personal experiences in transforming his memory from the rudimentary to the phenomenal in the last 15 years of his life. Specific attention will be focused on his emphasis at long-term memory and how memory can be transformed into knowledge.
Sponsor(s): Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Contact: Robert Ajemian, 46-6193, (617) 253-8174, ajemian@mit.edu
MIT Heavy Metal 101
Joe Diaz
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Jan/07 | Mon | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/08 | Tue | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/10 | Thu | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/14 | Mon | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/15 | Tue | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/17 | Thu | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/22 | Tue | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/23 | Wed | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/24 | Thu | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/28 | Mon | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/29 | Tue | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
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Jan/31 | Thu | 06:30PM-08:00PM | 4-153 |
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Not Metallurgy! This veteran crash-course returns this year and will have you head banging, air guitaring, and devil horn raising in no time! We'll watch some video clips, look at metal culture, and listen to some SCREAMING HEAVY METAL! This is guaranteed to be the most BRUTAL class ever offered at MIT!
Anyone is welcome to join, but seating is limited. Learn more about this series at metal.mit.edu.
Contact: Joe Diaz, JDIAZ@MIT.EDU
MITing of the Minds 2019
Haley Schilling, Philosophy Graduate Student
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Prereq: none
This year’s MITing of the Minds is the Fifteenth Annual MIT Philosophy Alumni Conference. The conference will showcase recent work in a variety of areas of contemporary philosophy. Presentations will be accessible to a broad audience.
Sponsor(s): Linguistics and Philosophy
Contact: Christine Graham, 32-D808, 617 253-4653, CGRAHAM@MIT.EDU
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Jan/24 | Thu | 10:30AM-06:00PM | 32-D461 |
Please see website for complete details:http://web.mit.edu/philosophy/mm/
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Jan/25 | Fri | 09:30AM-04:00PM | 32-D461 |
Please see website for complete details:http://web.mit.edu/philosophy/mm/
Narrative, Intelligence, and AI
Andrew Kortina, Rob Cheung
Enrollment: Limited: Advance sign-up required
Sign-up by 01/07
Limited to 20 participants
Attendance: Participants must attend all sessions
Prereq: Short readings before each seminar: url will be posted
This will be a 3 part seminar (roundtable discussion format, not a lecture) led by Andrew Kortina and Rob Cheung.
Advancements in machine learning have achieved results like detecting indicators of diabetic eye disease and cardiovascular health as well as or better than human doctors, composing music, writing poetry, generating art, captioning images, translating between languages, etc.
Although there have been some attempts to generate longer form narrative using ML (see NaNoGenMo, The Infinite Fight Scene, neural-storyteller), it seems we are quite far from generating a cohesive long form narrative that resembles what a human could author.
In this series, we'll explore topics like the history and cultural importance of narrative, attempts at using ML to generate narrative (and their shortcomings), the convergence of human generated written, visual, and literary work towards algorithmic media, the future of narrative form, and VR.
Find the tentative syllabus here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kirISlXcLxCpYzwpulcTF4vHh3b3IAkFzQ0gVUTFDcs/edit
Sponsor(s): Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Contact: Andrew Kortina, andrew.kortina@gmail.com
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Jan/16 | Wed | 10:00AM-11:30AM | 24-307 |
What is its relationship to intelligence? What is its role for the individual and the civilization? History of the modes of mass narrative.
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Jan/17 | Thu | 10:00AM-11:30AM | 24-307 |
To what degree do people choose / create their narratives? To what degree is it imposed on individuals / groups? From the perspective of an individual, what is to be done?
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Jan/18 | Fri | 10:00AM-11:30AM | 24-307 |
Where it might go from here? What sort of steering is useful to consider? What are the significant forces at play?
Neuropsychology of Music Lectures
Peter Cariani, HST Affiliated - Lecturer & Course Director, HST.725
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
In these two lectures we will present a concise overview of the psychology of music.
Lecture 1
Background
Sponsor(s): Health Sciences
Contact: Peter Cariani, cariani@bu.edu
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Jan/17 | Thu | 07:00PM-09:00PM | E25-111, Lecture 1 |
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Jan/31 | Thu | 07:00PM-09:00PM | E25-111, Lecture 2 |
Peter Cariani - HST Affiliated - Lecturer & Course Director, HST.725
Reason for God
Chris Swanson
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
Reason for God is for anyone (the religious, the spiritual, the skeptic, the seeker, atheists, Christians and people of any faith tradition).
Our hope is that each session will be a safe place to explore, ask questions, disagree, and learn. You may have questions or objections that aren't represented in the topics below, but feel free to ask about them.
Each night we will gather together to eat dinner together, hear from a guest speaker, ask questions and discuss some of the big questions and objections that people have when it comes to the existence of God and belief in Christianity. We’ll look at some commone questions people have and maybe some topics maybe you haven’t considered before. Are there rational reasons to believe in God? Can we make sense of God? Come seek, learn, and add your voice to the discussion.
Sponsor(s): Cru
Contact: Chris Swanson, W11-004, CSWANSON@MIT.EDU
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Jan/15 | Tue | 06:30PM-08:00PM | W20,Mezzanine Lounge, Free Dinner Served at 6:30pm |
Does it Matter What you Believe about God? Searching for Truth in a Post-Truth Era.
I have my truth. You have your truth. Does is really matter what a person believes about God? Is the idea of God even worth talking about? We live in a pluralistic world where there are many views on God. Is there actual truth to be found, or is it all subjective? How do we make sense of God?
Kasey Leander - Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics (OCCA)
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Jan/17 | Thu | 06:30PM-08:00PM | W20, Lobdell, Free dinner served at 6:30pm |
Artificial Intelligence and the Human Soul. How A.I. might lead us towards the existence of a Soul.
Artificial Intelligence is on the rise. Will scientific endeavors like this lead us away from God and the idea of a human soul? Or might it point us towards God? Dr. Rosalind Picard, a leading expert in the field of A.I. She will share some of her finding as a scientist as well as her perspective on Science and Faith.
Dr. Rosalind Picard - Professor of Media Arts and Sciences
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Jan/22 | Tue | 06:30PM-08:00PM | W20,Mezzanine Lounge, Free Dinner served at 6:30pm |
Do We Need God to Find Satisfaction and Meaning in Life?
A deep human desire is to find meaning and satisfaction in life. One way we find meaning and purpose is through our achievements. We live in a culture that says you are what you do. But are we more than our achievements? Do our desires to find meaning point to God? Or do we find meaning within ourselves?
Will Tant - Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics (OCCA)
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Jan/24 | Thu | 06:30PM-08:00PM | W20, Lobdell Dining, Free dinner served at 6:30pm |
Doesn't God and Religion Limit Human Freedom and Progress?
Lou Phillips - Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics (OCCA)
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Jan/29 | Tue | 06:30PM-08:00PM | Maseeh Hall Dining, Free Dinner Served at 6:30pm |
Why I Am a Theist: A Physicist's Perspective on Theism and Atheism
What really is theism? How does is compare with Naturalism and Atheism. Tom will discuss various aspects and questions about God as a scientist. Well look at questions like: If God created the universe, what created God? Why not believe in leprechauns or the tooth fairy? Isn't atheism simpler than theism? Why do we need God when we have science?
Dr. Tom Rudelius - POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER, INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES
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Jan/31 | Thu | 06:30PM-08:00PM | W20, Lobdell Dining, Free Dinner served at 6:30pm |
What Would Sherlock Holmes Say about Jesus? Taking a Look at the Hard Evidence that points to God and Christianity
We will investigate and critically examine the most central historical claim in the Christian faiththe resurrection of Jesus? This talk will examine the historical data surrounding the life, death, and supposed resurrection of Jesus and ask the question, What hypothesis can best explain all of this?
Matthew Mittelberg - Oxford Center for Christian Apologetics (OCCA)
Social Choice Theory: Foundations and Greatest Hits
Daniel Munoz, Kelly Gaus
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants welcome at individual sessions
When Kenneth Arrow published his famous "Impossibility Theorem," he inaugurated an interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature and possibility of collective choice. Now it's called Social Choice Theory, and it's been an enormous inspiration for moral, legal, and political philosophers (like Rawls, Kamm, Gibbard, and Dworkin). It is a rigorous way of testing which of our values (fairness, freedom, rationality, utility) can be combined into a method of collective choice -- and which combinations are impossible.
This session is an introduction to Social Choice Theory: its Greatest Hits, technical machinery, and philosophical upshots. No background required: if you're interested, you're welcome! We'll focus on really understanding Arrow's theorem, along with Amartya Sen's paradox of liberalism. We can also go into one or two other major results. Email us if you'd like to request one of the following (or something else!):
Sponsor(s): Linguistics and Philosophy
Contact: Kelly Gaus & Daniel Munoz, klgaus@mit.edu, munozd@mit.edu
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Jan/29 | Tue | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 32-D831 |
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Jan/30 | Wed | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 32-D831 |
We are hoping to have two hour-long sessions spread over two days: the first for technical background and Arrow's theorem, and the second for Sen's paradox and other fun results. If you'd prefer one session one day, let us know!
Structuring Collective Knowledge: Practice & Publication
Samuel Klein
Enrollment: Unlimited: No advance sign-up
Attendance: Participants must attend all sessions
We will review tools + methods for organizing knowledge creation + publishing, designed for discovery, reuse, and parallel research. Participants will share examples + challenges from their field, workshop potential improvements with one another, and discuss the potential for widespread collaborations.
Bring a laptop or notebook. A few readings will be shared on Monday for discussion Wednesday.
Location: 4-146
Sponsor(s): Libraries, MIT Press, Media Lab
Contact: Samuel Klein, sjklein@mit.edu
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Jan/14 | Mon | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 4-146, Bring your laptop |
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Jan/16 | Wed | 02:00PM-04:00PM | 4-146, Bring your laptop |
We will review tools + methods for organizing knowledge creation + publishing, designed for discovery, reuse, and parallel research. Participants will share examples + challenges from their field, workshop potential improvements with one another, and discuss the potential for widespread collaborations.
Bring a laptop or notebook. A few readings will be shared on Monday for discussion Wednesday.
Location: 4-146
Samuel Klein
Contact Information
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