Public Dialogues

YHouse continues its program of lectures, events, and conversations on exciting and provocative topics at a number of venues around New York City.

Consciousness Club NYC

YHouse invites you to the Consciousness Club, a study group to promote broadly transdisciplinary discussions on the neural and computational bases of consciousness, and how these concepts can be applied to other fields of interest. Our weekly meetings are for you if you are into awareness, science, technology, philosophy, art, and design.

For more information and meeting schedule, check out our Facebook page, or tune in to our Twitter updates.

Although the meetings are open to all, we encourage technical and scientific discussions for this series of meetings.

Cognition Lunch Salon

YHouse continues to organize informal Lunch Salon events hosted by the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, N.J., West Building Seminar Room, 2nd floor. The format is an informal chat, followed by longer open-ended discussions among the participants, on the topic of consciousness and cognition. This event is by invitation only. To request an invitation, please email us at info@yhousenyc.org

Part of the series “Chasing Consciousness: From Cells to Societies, Neuroscience to Machine Awareness”

Speakers: Ed Turner (Princeton University) and Caleb Scharf (Columbia University)

The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative (BSI) is an ambitious program to send tiny spacecraft to nearby stars within a few decades, traveling at about 20 percent the speed of light. Starshot will combine advances in micro-electronics, nano-tech and photonics (lasers). Join Ed Turner (BSI Advisory Board/Princeton/YHouse) and Caleb Scharf (Columbia/YHouse) in discussing how Starshot will work, and how these interstellar probes are likely to carry artificial, perhaps sentient intelligences. Will machine based AIs be better for exploring and occupying the Galaxy than biological intelligences? It may turn out that the stars will belong to synthetic awarenesses—our very different descendants.

Friday, October 14, 5 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Art Lounge of the Rubin Museum of Art

Black and white photos credit: Luis Tsukayama Cisneros