Title: Math, Matter, Mind, and Beyond

Presenter: Piet Hut (IAS, Princeton) and Yuko Ishihara (ELSI, Tokyo)

Title: Math, Matter, Mind, and Beyond

A link to the 2006 Paper is:  https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0510188.pdf

Present:  Piet Hut, Yuko Ishihara, Ed Turner, Michael Solomon, Bob McClennan, Kim Cheung, Michael Rassias, Olaf Witkowski

      Piet opened the presentation noting that the paper published 12 years ago was the product of 20 plus years of discussions...

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On Thursdays at noon Yhouse holds a lunch meeting at the Institute of Advanced Study, in Princeton. The format is a 15 minute informal talk by a speaker followed by a longer open-ended discussion among the participants, triggered by, but not necessarily confined to, the topic of the talk.  In order to share I am posting a synopsis of the weekly meetings.

Synopsis of Li Zhaoping’s Yhouse Luncheon talk 11/9/17

Presenter: Zhaoping Li (University College London)

Title: Looking And Seeing In Visual Functions Of The Brain

Abstract: "Vision is a window to the brain, and I will give a short introduction and demonstrate that it can be seen as mainly a problem of "looking and seeing", which are two separable processes in the brain.  Understanding vision requires both experimental and theoretical approaches, and to study the brain using our own brains have its peculiar difficulties."

Present: Piet Hut, Olaf Witkowski, Yuko Ishihara, Arpita Tripathi, Li Zhaoping, Michael Solomon

Li Zhaoping studied physics in China before getting her PhD in Brain Science at Cal Tech and coming to the IAS 27 years ago as a post doc working then on the olfactory system. She currently works at University College London on vision, with an emphasis on computer science and on artificial and natural intelligence. She began with the statement that “The Eyes are the window to the Brain”...

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TITLE:  Is cancer a metabolic disease caused by mitochondrial dysfunction?

ABSTRACT:  For the past 40 years we have thought of cancer as the result of somatic mutations in nuclear DNA that either block tumor suppressor genes or unblock oncogenes resulting in malignant transformation.  But our success in understanding or in treating cancer has been sadly limited. Thomas Seyfried and others have made a strong case that, in fact, cancer results from the loss of the cell’s ability to obtain energy (ATP) via oxidative phosphorylation, resulting in the cancer cell’s reverting to more primitive metabolic pathways and fermenting glucose (and the amino acid glutamine) even in the presence of adequate oxygen (aerobic glycolysis).  This theory was originally suggested by Otto Warburg in the 1940’s, the so-called Warburg effect.  I will offer evidence supporting the possibility that malignant transformation in all cancer is a metabolic disease resulting from mitochondrial dysfunction and is not a genetic disease caused by nuclear DNA changes which occur secondarily.  This leads to alternative management strategies for cancer without toxic radiation or chemotherapy.....

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Abstract:  Information is found all across the domain of physics, seemingly retaining all its properties regardless of the media in which it is instantiated. Substrate-independence and interoperability made possible symbolic representations such as the genetic code, allowing for life to develop upon it. The next transition closed the loop by producing organisms increasingly aware of their environment. This eventually led to human life, capable of learning the underlying principles that created it, with the invention of language and science.
      I focus my research on collective cognition, which one can see as the informational software to life's physical hardware......

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Title: The Psycho-Physical Lab

Ohad is working on a book with this title about the Mind/Body problem in philosophy and links to the practice of Yoga.  This book is not intended as an academic contribution to research but for a broader audience.  His coauthor, Eyal  Shifroni, Has been a yoga teacher for years.  He argues that reflective yoga practice goes beyond health, but offers a way to engage body and mind to train each other.  We use our physical abilities and limitations to train our mental capacities, and vice versa, to improve each.  Reflective practice is essential to development.  He emphasizes practice with less effort and more attention.  This does involve posture and breathing exercises, but to what purpose?  We cannot make sense of mental states without referring to our physical bodies.  Body and Mind are interconnected.  We train the body through reflective processes and improve the whole being......

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In my talk I will present the account of understanding I am developing under the title of 'expectationalism'. The account draws heavily on Jamesian Pragmatism and the thought of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Its central premises are: 1. That the meaning of something is its consequences, and to understand something is to grasp its consequences. and 2. That expectations are not some internal content, but are rather actualized by our bodies. I will link this account with contemporary approaches in cognitive science and philosophy of mind, and suggest that if the account is correct this implies that strong AI is possible and that limited instances of it already exist......

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Abstract: "I will briefly describe two intertwined research programs. The first concerns issues of embodiment, situatedness and dynamics in understanding how an animal's behavior arises from the interaction between its nervous system, its body and its environment. Specifically, we use genetic algorithms to evolve model brain-body-environment systems and then analyze their operation using the tools of dynamical systems theory and information theory. This approach has been applied to a wide variety of behaviors, including locomotion, action-switching, learning, categorization, selective attention, and referential communication. The second concerns the organization of minimal living systems and its consequences. Specifically, we analyze  persistent spatiotemporal entities in cellular automata models from the perspective of autopoiesis and enaction. We identify the local processes that underlie

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Speaker:  Yuko Ishihara
Title:  Consciousness: not a “thing” but a “place”.
We Work, 110 E 28th Street NYC, NY.

Abstract:  Modern western thought has given consciousness a special place in the understanding of human beings. According to Descartes, it is the fact that we are "thinking things" that sets us apart from unconscious things like a desk or a pen. While scientists and philosophers today disagree with Descartes on what constitutes the nature of the thinking thing, most people agree on the basic Cartesian assumption: that consciousness is a kind of "thing."
But can we not question this assumption? Putting aside all theories, our direct experience teaches us that consciousness does not primarily appear as a thing. Rather, it appears more as a ground or "place" wherein our experience occurs. Drawing on insights from twentieth-century philosophers like Martin Heidegger and Nishida Kitaro who developed a philosophy of place, let us think together about what it really means to understand consciousness not as a "thing" but as a "place." Perhaps such ideas can open doors towards a better understanding on the nature of consciousness.
    

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