PubSci is back after the January break, and we start our new season with a topic that is sure to get everyone talking.
On Wednesday 6th February we’re delighted to welcome Dr Yasemin J. Erden, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, with interdisciplinary research interests. In this month’s talk, Yasemin tackles the popular belief that human brains are essentially “wet computers”.
Intel-ligence Inside…? The brain has been likened to a binary computer since the dawn of the digital age – but are we right to do so? (Image courtesy of mporady.pl)
Dr Erden argues that the brain is not a computer, nor even much like one. Drawing on both philosophy and psychology, she demonstrates how metaphor can trick us, and language can seduce us into accepting mechanistic models of the brain. Join us for the first PubSci of 2019 to learn why paying attention to this kind of detail is central to understanding our meaning-centred, meaning-structured brains, and why purely mechanistic accounts inevitably fail.
We look forward to a wide-ranging discussion after her talk.
Dr Yasemin J. Erden. (Image courtesy of SMU, Twickenham)
Yasemin is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at St Mary’s University with interdisciplinary research interests from science and technology to philosophy of language, aesthetics, and ethics. She is Vice Chair of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour (AISB) and a member on the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. In her spare time she is unavoidably committed to watching too many disappointing football games.
Join us upstairs at the Old King’s Head, near London Bridge station. Doors open at 6.30pm for a 7pm start and as usual the event is free, but we will have a whip-round to cover speaker’s expenses
PubSci 