Science & Cocktails: Intelligence, Stupidity, Outer-Space, and the Mysteries of the Puzzle

Wednesday 25 October 2023

In Tolhuistuin - Club

Doors: 19:00, Support: 19:30, Main programme: 20:30

The event will be cancelled.
Due to health issues, David Krakauer is no longer able to make it to Science & Cocktails.

Program is half seated, half standing

Science & Cocktails is a series of public talks by scientists with live music and smoky dry-ice chilled cocktails in your hand.

19:45 doors open for cocktails
20:00 Live band (TBA)
20:30 Prof. dr. David Krakauer (talk)
Event in English, semi-seated.

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Why has intelligence evolved on earth? What is the nature of collective intelligence and stupidity? What is the connection between a puzzle, mathematics, and expertise? How is machine intelligence different from human intelligence? How are secret codes and alien signals related?

What do communication with aliens, science, cryptology, and solving puzzles have in common? The answer is an effort to measure intelligence. Over the course of several millennia humanity has obsessed over its own intelligence and, in the process, achieved incredible levels of stupidity. At the core of our understanding of both intelligence and stupidity are the roles of facts, rules, and algorithms. In the last few years, the rise of machine learning, discoveries in the study of collective intelligence, and our understanding of nonhuman life, have led to a revolution in our understanding of cognition and a great divergence in the categories of sentient beings. I shall discuss recent ideas and discoveries in the science of intelligence as a complex system -- from tool use to the Rubik's cube - and report on new grounds for optimism and growing sources of despair.

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Line-up

Club

David Krakauer

David Krakauer is the President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute. His research explores the evolution of intelligence and stupidity on Earth. This includes studying the evolution of genetic, neural, linguistic, social, and cultural mechanisms supporting memory and information processing, and exploring their shared properties.He served as the founding Director of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, the Co-Director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation, and Professor of Mathematical Genetics all at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Krakauer has been a visiting fellow at the Genomics Frontiers Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, a Sage Fellow at the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of Santa Barbara, a long-term Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and visiting Professor of Evolution at Princeton University. He was included in Wired Magazine’s 2012 Smart List as one of fifty people “who will change the world,” and Entrepreneur Magazine’s 2016 list of visionary leaders advancing global research and business.

25 Sep 2023

Science & Cocktails: The technology that divides us

How to get to Tolhuistuin

Tolhuistuin (formerly Paradiso Noord) is located at IJpromenade 2 in Amsterdam North. A free ferry runs from Amsterdam Central Station to Buiksloterweg. From there, turn left and you’ll walk straight into Tolhuistuin. For club nights, the rear entrance (Buiksloterweg 5C) is used. This entrance can be reached via Overhoeksplein

Restaurant
Tolhuistuin also has a restaurant where you can enjoy a meal before the show. We recommend making a reservation in advance via this website.

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