February 26, 2023

A:

• Loneliness. [Sofia and piero] Reading material: simplified version, or if you want more details, John Cacioppo & William Patrick: "Loneliness - Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection" (2009), Sherry Turkle: "Alone Together" (2011), Eric Klinenberg: "Going Solo" (2012), Fay Bound Alberti: "A Biography of Loneliness" (2019), Olivia Laing: "The Lonely City" (2016). If you want something more provocative: Mary Eberstadt: "Primal Screams" (2019) (video) And for historical purposes three old bestsellers: David Riesman: "The Lonely Crowd" (1950), Philip Slater: “The Pursuit of Loneliness” (1970), Robert Putnam: "Bowling Alone" (2000).

T:

• Technology and Connectedness [Riccha].

O:

• Maybe: The Impossibility of Dying [piero]. Reading material: simplified version, or, if you want more details, Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Suicide, Damien Hirst's sculpture The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.

M:

• KeiyaA - Hvnli [Jessica]

I:

• Our friend Pantea Karimi is exhibiting at the Triton Museum of Art. Admission and parking are free and easy. And Santa Clara is likely to be warmer than most of the Bay. There's a little park behind the museum and the City Hall complex. I'm really not familiar with it. Certainly not a real park, but in this season all "real" parks are likely to be muddy. Pantea could do the A of Atomic: her exhibition explores saffron from historic, religious, medicinal, visual and cultural angles. She did it before at UCSF (click here)

C:

• The modern world is a black box -- and people overestimate their understanding of basically everything that regularly impinges on their life. Combine that with the fact that the black boxed-ness has become even more pronounced in the past few decades, along a trampled sense of wonder (i'll share examples of both), and you have a recipe for a unique kind of modern loneliness. Reading material: this paper [Anirudh]

September 25, 2021

A:

• [Piero] Will the human race succumb to overpopulation? See my essay.

T:

• [Arun] Reflection on AI's foundational models and societal response: Reading #1, Reading #2, Reading #3, Reading #4

O:

• [Krishnan] Using Escher's 'Circle Limit IV (Heaven and Hell), the question that I'd like to discuss is 'Are we well suited to judge any situation given that we don't know which is the foreground and the background?'. Image

M:

• [Jessica and Anirudh] Listen: Angolan Song . It's an Angolan song in both Portuguese and Kimbundu. It's about emigrating and lamenting everything that has changed when you return to your country of origin. The lyrics are very specific to Angola's history but really powerful and would definitely resonate with non-Angolans. I don't speak or understand either language but I first came across the song through this video where two Angolans go through it bar by bar. It's a long video but it's really really good! Ani can attest to it, he watched it with me just the other day. That being said, folks don't have to watch the whole thing, we are happy to break down some of the lyrics and use it as a jumping off point for discussion. But I do highly recommend the video! They start to get into it around 2min and they wrap at around 35min, the rest is just them gassing each other up lol. They also play the song in the video so you can hear it as they translate.

I:

• [Anand] Tatyana Tolstaya unearthed a telegram in which Lenin complained, "We're not shooting enough professors." Let's reflect on the history of this quote, the way it has been memefied as well as a related image.

C:

• [Piero] The ARHGAP11B gene is unique to humans and now we know what it does: it makes brains bigger (paper). It appears that about one million years ago an accidental mutation of the gene ARHGAP11A (shared by most mammals) created ARHGAP11B which in turn created the larger neocortex of humans. See also Pasko Rakic: "Evolution of the neocortex: Perspective from developmental biology" (2009).

April 3, 2016

A:

• The interesting and somewhat evil origin story of public relations and how it shapes our outlook today in this information age where perception is what matters. Listen to this podcast [Rohit]

T:

Bitcoin and Blockchain. Read for example this interview with piero [Anand and piero]

O:

• In 1963 Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself to death in a busy Saigon street. Read this or this. Slide presentation. [Anand]

M:

• Listen: Debussy's "Jeux" (and read this excellent analysis" [piero]

I:

• Calligraphy as a form of art. Watch this and Look at this [Anirudh Sankar & Jinxia]

C:

• Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes Read this [Sofia]

May 16, 2015

A: Marriage [Sofia] (Europeans don't divorce as much as US couples, but they don't get married either. US couples divorce frequently, and get married much younger than any other developing country. How are ethnic groups in the USA changing these stats?)

• US Statistics
• Statistics by state
• New York Times Article
• Quick highlights of the article above
• European union stats and context
• And one extra article about cohabitation in the US for those interested

T: Selfies, Surveillance and the Self-made Panopticon [piero]

• Click here for a bibliography
• Click here for the slide presentation (downloadable version)

O:

• The Fermi paradox: If there are billions of Earth-like planets where life is possible, why is it that we never heard from them?. Are we alone? Are we first? Are we last? Is there a fundamental law that always sends back life to pre-intelligence before it can communicate with other lives? Do civilizations get destroyed whenever they try to communicate with others? [piero]

M:

• Listen: Indian music ( (just listen to the first 10 minutes if you don't have time) [Anand]

I:

• View: Petre Velicu [piero]

C: Poetry and Memory [Rohit]

• Read Excerpts from Wendy Doniger's "The Hindus - An Alternative History" (2009)
• Read William Dalrymple's "Homer in India" (New Yorker, 2006)
• Read page 5 of Sarah Price's article on Milman Parry's research

January 18, 2015

A:

• Offending religious feelings: "They Are Not Exactly Charlie" by Matt Taibbi versus "Mourning the Parisian Journalists Yet Noticing the Hypocrisy" by Michael Lerner

T:

• The Sony hacks and the algorithmic society: read this

O:

• Nick Bostrom's "Superintelligence" (2014): read this

M:

• Captain Beefheart : watch this

I:

• Blossfeldt's "Art Forms in the Plant World" : images

C:

• Poetry and Memory : read Excerpts from Wendy Doniger's "The Hindus - An Alternative History" (2009), William Dalrymple's "Homer in India" (New Yorker, 2006) Page 5 of Sarah Price's article on Milman Parry's research

November 16, 2014

A:

• The recent elections, the secular religion of party politics, the secularization of society (e.g. the Supreme Court decision that corporations are persons) [Kelley, Sofia]

T:

• Favorite inventions/discoveries of 2014? piero's: The first malaria vaccine, China's 1200-km long canal from the Yangtze to Beijing, India's Mars mission, the European robot probe Philae that landed on a comet, and Harvard Wyss Institute stored 700 terabytes of data into a single gram of DNA.

O:

• Watch: Christopher Hitchens vs Tony Blair Debate: Is Religion A Force For Good In The World? [Sofia]

M:

• Listen: Hildergard Von Bingen [Sofia}
• Listen: musician and revolutionary Mercedes Sosa singing a religious song [Sofia}

I:

• View: The Ara Pacis in Rome, built to honor the first Roman emperor, Augustus, a civic monument that is special and revolutionary for several reasons. [piero]

C:

• Read: Walter Freeman's mass action [Roman]

April 5, 2014

A:

• "Collectivism versus Individualism in the 21st Century" [Shira]

T:

• RoboEarth (A world wide web for robots to learn from each other) [piero]

O:

• Jeremy England's theory of life [piero]

M:

• Listen: Terry Riley's "Rainbow in Curved Air" [piero]

I:

• View: Al Farrow [piero]

C:

• Lucia Jacobs on the evolution of the brain from the olfactory system

• A= Anthropology: how people live (eg the impact of using Facebook, iPhones, etc)
• T= Technology (nanotech, robots, flying cars, biotech, greentech, etc)
• O= The Omega point (today better known as the Singularity: higher planes of intelligence, but also climate change, Higgs bosons, postmodern science)
• M= Music (mostly classical, not only Western)
• I= Images (it can be a painting, a film, a building, a comic strip... but absolutely no Hollywood films)
• C= Cognitive Science (AI, Neuroscience, Consciousness, etc)

• We get together once or twice a month in nature: a little hike, a forest, a beach...
• We discuss one topic for each of those six categories
• For each topic people are asked to prepare (eg read articles or watch a movie or listen to a piece of music)

However, we feel that the discussion makes sense only if the group if eight people or less. We may split in two groups if we are more than eight.

General rules:
* You don't necessarily have to prepare on all six things
* You can invite anybody to join
* But priority in the discussion should go to those who prepared
* So, for example, if you didn't prepare on "A", you should listen first to the ones who prepared on "A".
("prepare" means "check out the reading material on that page)
* Those who attend decide the topics for next time

February 22, 2014

A: Income Inequality, Greed, the Welfare State [Sofia]

• Is the welfare state dying out?
• The world's richest 85 people have as much wealth as the bottom 50%
• Study Finds Greater Income Inequality in Nation's Thriving Cities (New York Times)
• Income inequality in big US cities (Brookings Institute)
• A Defense of Inequality

T: Net Neutrality [Anand]

• Net Neutrality 101 (Science Progress)
• Larry Downes on Net Neutrality (Forbes)
• FAQ
• FAQ

O: The Reality Created by our Devices [Kelley]

• Was Tipper Gore on to something? From Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" to "Grand Theft Auto" to Spike Jonze's movie "Her", how blurry are the lines between material reality and the psychological realities created by our mechanical devices and the software installed? Are we limiting our intelligent growth to the machine intelligence of the devices we use and the experiences that they provide?
• Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows"
• Researchers are focusing on whether gadgets are changing how our brains work
• Clive Thompson: "Smarter Than You Think"
• Matt Labash: "The Twidiocracy"

M: Meredith Monk's "Traveling" [Monica]

• Listen

I: The Changing Definition of "Film" [piero]

• Watch the short video "Weightless" by Erika Janunger
• Opening scene of Von Trier's "Melancholia"
• Universe scene of Terence Malick's "Tree of Life"
• A scene from Jafar Panahi's "This is not a Film"

C: How much is intelligent behavior due to the way we structure the environment in which a human or a machine operate? [piero]

• Intelligent Behavior and Structured Environments

  

March 10, 2013

A: What do we miss (or gain?) if we don't physically interact with other humans?

• Ray Williams: link
• Joshua Ackerman on embodied cognition: link
• The long story: link
• Varela's "The embodied mind" reviewed by Dennett: link
• For user experience (UX) design: link

T: Biomimicry

• The Biomimicry Institute: link (Click on videos to hear Janine Benyus talk about it)

O: If i replace all the neurons in your brain with chips that perform the exact same function, are you still you? If that brain is not you anymore, is it a person? If yes, is it ethical to perform experiments on "it"?

• Kelly Inglis's presentation: link
• Stephen Law's article "Brain Transplants, Teleportation and the Puzzle of Personal Identity" link
• Dan Weijers's presentation: link

M: Michael Gordon's Timber for six 2x4s

• Listen: link

I: Makoto Aida

• Look: link

C: The Cognitive Development of Pretty Girls

• Sofia suggests this short story: link
• piero suggests "Women's Ways of Knowing" (1986) summarized here: link and Male & Female Cognitive Learning Differences link

April 13, 2013

A: Youth suprematism, the idea that young people know better than old people for A (a 9-yo told our friend Emily who is his teacher "you are old" dismissing what she was trying to teach him )

• One of the intriguing phenomenon representative of Central European Culture in the late 19th and early 20th century, is the emergence of Youth Movements
• The 1960s Youth Movement
• Digital Anthropology: is Web 2.0 an Idiocracy?

T: Sexism in the High-tech Industry

• Monica suggests this New Yorker article and this Amanda Blum comment.

O: The Morality of the Robotic Society

• Machine morality
• The Future of moral machines
• Robot morality and moral machines (video)
• On drones
• On drones

M: Johann-Sebastian Bach, inventor of heavy metal music

• listen

I: Yayoi Kusama

• look

C: Our friend Beth told the story of a little girl who has two very talkative siblings who never let her talk, so she starts screaming "Me talking! Me talking!" as in "let me talk". It seems that the need to talk talk talk is not just of old people, it's already there at birth.

• Monica suggested this video and this article ("The more face-to-face time you spend, the healthier you and your children are")
• piero suggested this video of Alison Gopnik talking at a LASER or this review of her book "The Philosophical Baby"

May 12, 2013

A: Technologically-created Reality

• Anand's email

T: Online Education and Disembodied Growth

• [Stephen] The resources for online education have been available on the internet for decades. Before Coursera videos there was iTunes U videos and youtube. Before the videos there were articles on the internet, providing the same information. Before the articles on the internet, people made grandiose claims about 'educating the world' through television or the radio. I think the new thing is that big fancy universities are willing to seriously invest in producing (and possibly using) online content. Favorite example of how this might be used: The Minerva Project

O: The Morality of Immortality

• "The Moral Consequences of Human Immortality" (only that brief chapter)
• DebateWise's summary
• Ker Than's "The Ethical Dilemmas of Immortality"
• Richard Haigh and Mirko Bagaric's "Immortality and Sentencing Law" (The chapter titled "Ethical Issues")
• Alexander Chisholm's "Immortality isn't unethical"
• Francis Fukuyama's "Transumanism"
• Paul Root Wolpe's "It's time to question bio-engineering" (TED talk)

M: John Cage's 4'33"

• listen

I: Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke

• look

C: Creativity in the Wild

• Roger Malina's "Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings": text (quote: "four days of immersion in nature, and the corresponding disconnection from multi-media and technology, increases performance on a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50% in a group of naive hikers")