The CEU Department of Cognitive Science cordially invites you to a talk
(as part of its Departmental Colloquium series)
by
Anna Babarczy, Budapest University of Technology and Economics
on
Can the comprehension of abstract language be rooted in sensory
experiences?
Date: Wed, March 14, 2012 - 17:00 - 18:30
Location: Department of Cognitive Science, CEU, Frankel Leó út 30-34.,
Room G15
Can the comprehension of abstract language be rooted in sensory
experiences?
ABSTRACT: The question of learning the meaning of abstract language
(roughly, expressions with no perceptible referents) has been bugging
philosophers for thousands of years. More recently, a number of
experimental paradigms have emerged trying to shed light on this issue.
The basic idea explored in the talk is that people understand abstract
(metaphorical) expressions by linking them to sensory or bodily
experiences. If this is the case, we should be able to show that these
experiences affect people’s interpretation of abstract utterances. The
talk looks at the evidence we have so far (pro and contra).We're looking
forward to see you there (Frankel Leo u. 30-34) !
_______________________________________________
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Tisztelt kollegak!
AZ ELTE Tudomanytortenet es Tudomanyfilozofia Tanszekenek vendegekent ket
eloadast tart a kozeljovoben Budapesten
Hans Radder
tudomany es technikafilozofus
az amszterdami Vrije Universiteit, Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte tanara
http://www.ph.vu.nl/nl/organisatie/medewerkers/medewerkers-m-s/prof-dr-h-ra…
Az eloadasokon minden erdeklodot orommel latunk!
------------------------------
Az elso eloadasra
2012 aprilis 2-án, hetfon delutan 6 orakor
az ELTE TTK Lagymanyosi kampuszanak Deli Tombjeben, a 0.827-es termeben
(Budapest, 1117 Pazmany setany 1/c, foldszint) kerul sor
"Mertonian values, scientific norms, and the commodification of academic
research"
cimmel. Az eloadas kivonata:
Since the 1980s the commodification of academic science has strongly
increased. To be sure, science at large has always included research
primarily carried out for its economic benefit, especially since the
second half of the nineteenth century. Yet, the large-scale
commodification of academic science is a more recent phenomenon. In the
course of the past decade, this phenomenon has been explored and a variety
of studies have become available. Assessments of the rise of
entrepreneurial academia differ sharply. On the one hand, it is welcomed
and sometimes even seen as a necessary step in the history of academic
institutions (e.g., Gibbons et al. 1994; Etzkowitz 2004). On the other
hand, the problematic consequences of commodified academic science are
also widely discussed and increasingly acknowledged (Shulman 1999; Bok
2003; Krimsky 2003; Healy 2006; Resnik 2007; Radder 2010).
In response to these problems, universities, research institutes
and science policy organizations have composed a variety of normative
codes of good scientific conduct (Kourany 2007). Almost invariably, these
codes are based on, or derived from, the social ethos of science
formulated by Robert K. Merton in 1942. The aim of this paper is to find
out to what extent a Mertonian ethos can still be useful in the present
context of a strongly commodified science. The discussion will be focused
on the issue of the patenting of the results of academic research.
The plan of the paper is as follows. First, I briefly review
Merton.s account of the ethos of science. The next section deals with some
STS criticisms of this account and it suggests a reinterpretation in terms
of general Mertonian values and more specific scientific norms. I then
discuss the important issue of the patenting of the results of academic
research and I demonstrate the significance of a .deflationary
neo-Mertonian approach. to this issue. My conclusion is that the recent
practices of public universities stand unjustified. The final section
addresses some questions regarding the scope and implications of this
neo-Mertonian critique of commodified science.
--------------------------
A masodik eloadasra
2012 aprilis 4-en, szerdan delutan 5 orakor
az ELTE BTK "Theoretical Philosophy Forum" kereteben a BTK Trefort kerti
kampuszanak i epuleteben, a 226-os teremben (Budapest, 1088 Muzeum krt.
4/i) kerul sor
"Does the Brain 'Initiate' Freely Willed Processes? A Critique of
Libet-Type Experiments and Their Interpretation"
cimmel. Az eloadas kivonata:
In the extensive, recent debates on free will, the pioneering experiments
by Benjamin Libet continue to play a significant role. The claim that
these experiments demonstrate the illusoriness of freely willed actions is
both strongly endorsed and hotly disputed. In this paper, we provide an
analysis and evaluation of Libet.s experiments from a philosophy of
science perspective, which differs from the usual approaches in philosophy
of mind or moral philosophy. Our analysis focuses on Libet.s central
notion of the .initiation. of freely willed processes by the brain. First,
we use the INUS theory and the manipulability theory of causation to
investigate whether the experiments show any causal relationship between
brain activity, on the one hand, and free decisions or (freely willed)
motor activity, on the other. In addition, we examine three other
interpretations of the notion of initiation (in terms of a necessary
condition, a correlation and a regular succession). We argue that none of
these four interpretations can be supported by the design and results of
Libet.s experiments. Significantly enough, on the basis of these
experiments we cannot even conclude that each free decision, or each
(freely willed) motor action, is always preceded by a readiness potential.
Furthermore, more recent Libet-type experiments cannot solve these
problems either. Our general conclusion is that neither Libet.s nor
Libet-type experiments can justify the claim that the brain initiates
freely willed processes.
Az eloadasokon valo talalkozas remenyeben udvozlettel:
Ropolyi Laszlo
ELTE Tudtort. Tudfil Tsz.
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY FORUM
Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös University
Address: Múzeum krt. 4/i, Budapest
4 April (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226
Hans Radder
Faculty of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam
Does the Brain ‘Initiate’ Freely Willed Processes? A Critique of
Libet-Type Experiments and Their Interpretation
___________________________________
Abstracts and printable program (poster) are available from the web
site of the Forum: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf (Please feel free to post
the program in your institution!)
The Forum is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty
members from all departments and institutes! Format: 60 minute lecture,
coffee break, 60 minute discussion.
The organizer of the Forum: László E. Szabó
(leszabo(a)phil.elte.hu)
--
L a s z l o E. S z a b o
Professor of Philosophy
DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC, INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY
EOTVOS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST
http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo
The next talk in the CDC seminar series will be given by:
Katalin É. Kiss, Mátyás Gerőcs, Tamás Zétényi, Research Institute for
Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy - BME
Date: Wednesday, April 4, 2012, 5 PM
Location: Cognitive Development Center at CEU, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor
PLEASE NOTE: Our seminar room has a limited capacity. Please arrive early
to ensure you get a seat! The talk will begin promptly at 5.
*The linguistic roots of multiplication
*
Abstract: It is a well-established fact, confirmed by various experiments,
that preschoolers, human infants, and even non-human primates can perform
intuitive addition and subtraction. Much less evidence has been put forth
testifying that children are capable of multiplicative operations on sets
before receiving formal training. What makes evidence of intuitive
multiplication hard to obtain is that in the visual and auditive domains
multiplication is usually indistinguishable from repeated addition.
Our talk will claim that multiplication operations are routinely performed
by children prior to schooling; they are encoded by syntactic means in such
doubly quantified sentences as the Hungarian *Három maci is két autóval
játszik *’Three teddy bears (each) are playing with two cars’, and their
English equivalents (cf. Musolino 2009). We will report on three
experiments testing Hungarian preschoolers’ strategies of interpreting such
sentences, and will show that, given certain syntactic and pragmatic clues,
children interpret the two numerically modified expressions as a multiplier
and a multiplicand, and also compute the product of multiplication,
presumably relying on their approximate number system.
Cognitive Science events at CEU: http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events
_______________________________________________
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Dear All,
You are cordially invited to our 4th International Philosophy Graduate
Conference to be held this Friday and Saturday (30-31 March) at the
Philosophy Department of CEU (Room 412, 14 Zrínyi St.)
The conference concerns two rich topics in the philosophy of mind and
moral philosophy: the self and agency. Keynote speaker: Lucy O'Brien
(University College London)
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/philosophy/staff/lob.html
For our detailed programme, see
http://philosophy.ceu.hu/gradconf/program
Find us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/CEUs-4th-International-Philosophy-Graduate-C…
We look forward to seeing you there.
Kind Regards,
The Organisers
We cordially invite you to the next lecture of the BME Cognitive Seminar
Series:
Date & Time: April 2, Monday, 12:00-13:00
Location: BME, XI., Egry József utca 1., T. ép 515.
*Age-related changes in different forms of implicit learning: Is there a
critical period?*
*Ágnes Lukács, Ferenc Kemény*
Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and
Economics
Abstract
It is a general view that skills like playing a musical instrument,
mastering sports or a language are best acquired if learning starts
early in childhood, and some have even proposed the existence of
critical periods for learning such skills. The learning of such complex
motor, cognitive and social skills is generally associated implicit
statistical learning, defined as learning that takes place incidentally,
without conscious intent to learn, and without explicit knowledge of the
acquired representations. The study to be presented focuses on tracking
age-related changes in different forms of implicit learning between 7
and 80 years using 3 paradigms: 1) the Serial Reaction Time Task (SRT)
testing the learning of motor sequences, 2) Artificial Grammar Learning
(AGL) testing the extraction of regularities from auditory sequences 3)
and Probabilistic Category Learning in the Weather prediction task
(PCL-WP), a non-sequential categorization task. Although these three
tasks are standard paradigms of IL that have been extensively used in
typical populations and in neuropsychological studies, systematic
developmental tracking of performance throughout the lifespan are
missing. Revisiting the issue of critical periods, the paper aims to
take a step towards filling this gap.
--
Attila Keresztes
Junior Research Fellow
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Dept. of Cognitive Science,
Egry József u. 1, Budapest
1111, Hungary
Tel: +36 1 4633525
Summer Institute June 29 - July 11 on:
The Evolution and Function of Consciousness
http://www.summer12.isc.uqam.ca/page/renseignement.php?lang_id=2
Among the 54 lecturers: Dennett, Damasio, Searle, Ledoux, Edelman,
Baron-Cohen...)
In Commemoration of the Centenary of the birth of Alan Turing
Theme: When, where, how and why - since the origin of life on Earth
about 4 billion years ago - did organisms' input/output functions
become conscious input/output functions? What is the causal role of
consciousness?
Registration is open
Scholarships are available
Posters submissions are open (and a requirement for scholarships)
Place: Montreal, Canada (Institute of Cognitive Sciences, UQaM)
Dates: June 29 to July 11, 2012 (followed by an optional 2-day
practical workshop on imaging techniques for measuring consciousness
July 10-11)
The Institute is intended for:
Graduate and post-graduate students from the participating
disciplines: cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary biology,
artificial intelligence, robotics, psychology, philosophy
Faculty, scholars, engineers, and professionals from interested
disciplines.
Themes:
Felt Function
Turing Testing Know-how
High-Level Know-How
What's Feeling for?
Feelings and Firing
Doing Things Because You Feel Like It
Consciousness and Causality
Evolutionary Advantages of Felt Functions
Measuring Consciousness
(Satellite Workshop on Measuring Consciousness)
OPENING LECTURES:
DAN DENNETT - A Phenomenal Confusion About Access and Consciousness
ANTONIO DAMASIO - Feelings and Sentience
JACK COPELAND - Alan Turing: Code Breaker and AI Pioneer
MARK MITTON - (Surprise)
CLOSING LECTURE:
JOHN SEARLE - Consciousness and Causality
CAMPBELL, JOHN - What does Visual Experience Have to do with Visual
Science?
JOSEPH LEDOUX - The Perplexing Relationship Between Emotions and
Consciousness
WOLF SINGER - Consciousness: Unity in Time Rather Than Space?
DAVID ROSENTHAL - Does Consciousness Have any Utility?
STEVAN HARNAD - How and Why the Problem of Explaining the Causal Role
of Consciousness is Hard
JORGE ARMONY - Neural Bases of Emotion
INMAN HARVEY - No Hard Feeling Why Would An Evolved Robot Care?
AXEL CLEERMANS - Consciousness and Learning
PATRICK HAGGARD - Volition and Agency: What is it, and What is it For?
ERIK COOK - Are Neural Fluctuations in Cortex Causally Linked to
Visual Perception?
GREGORY DUDEK - Autonomous Robotics
FERNANDO CERVERO - Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Pain
DAVID FREEDMAN - Brain Mechanisms of Visual Categorization and
Decision-Making
BJORN BREMBS - Behavoral Freedom and Decision- Making in Flies:
Evolutionary precursor of "Free Will"?
BJORN MERKER - The Brain's Need for Sensory Consciousness: From
Probabilities to Estimates
SHIMON EDELMAN - Being in Time
DARIO FLOREANO - Evolution of Adaptive Behavior in Autonomous Robots
PHILLIP JACKSON - The Brain Response to the Pain of Others: Fleeing
Versus Caring
JULIO MARTINEZ - Voluntary Attention and Working Memory in The Primate
Bain: Recording from Single Cells
BERNARD BAARS - Psycho-Biological Risks/Benefits of Consciousness
MICHAEL GRAZIANO - Consciousness and the Attention Schema
CHRISTOPHER PACK - Neural Correlates of Consciousness in Primate
Cortex
WAYNE SOSSIN - Aplysia: If we Understand the Cellular Mechanisms
Underlying Sensation and Learning, What Do we Need Consciousness for?
ROY BAUMEISTER - The Why, What and How of Consciousness
KARIM NADER - Fear and Motivational Memory
CATHERINE TALLON-BAUDRY - Is Consciousness an Executive Function?
DAVID EDELMAN - Studying Consciousness in Cephalopods
MICHAEL SHADLEN - Consciousness as a Decision to Engage
BARBARA FINLAY - Continuities/Discontinuities in Vertebrate Brain
Evolution and Cognitive Capacities: Implications for Concsiousness ?
SIMON BARON-COHEN - Mind Reading
ALAIN PTITO - Neural Mechanisms of Blindsight after Hemispherectomy:
Tapping into the Unconscious
ALFRED MELE - Do Conscious Decisions Ever Play a Role in Action
Production
STEFANO MANCUSO - Evolution of Plant Intelligence
GUALTIERO PICCININI - Is Consciousness a Spandrel?
AMIR SHMUEL - Functional Neuro-Imaging: Neuroshysiological Mechanisms
of Hemodynamic
GARY COMSTOCK - Feeling Matters
HAKWAN LAU - Volition and the Function of Consciousness
DAVID JACOBS - Evolution of Sense Organs
LUIZ PESSOA - Cognitive-Emotional Interactions
GILLES PLOURDE - General Anesthetics for the Study Consciousness
EZEQUIEL MORSELLA - The Primary Function of Consciousness in the Brain
MARK BALAGUER - A Scientifically Reputable Version of Indeterministic
Libertarian Free Will
AMIR RAZ - Hypnosis as Experimental Tool to Study Metacognition,
Causality and Volition
MALCOLM MACIVER - Sensory and Motor Spaces and the Emergence of
Multiple Futures
JENNIFER MATHER - Evolutionary Pressures and Cephalopod Consciousness
ADRIAN WARD - The Feeling of Willing
PAUL CISEK - The Vanishing Central Executive: Distributed Neural
Mechanisms for Decision-Making
EVA JABLONKA - Evolutionary Origins of Experiencing
CLOSING LECTURE:
JOHN SEARLE - Consciousness and Causality
OPTIONAL WORKSHOP
July 10th, am: Functional Connectivity
July 10th, pm: Transcranial Stimulation
July 11th, am: Sleep and Dreams
July 11th, pm: Magnetoencephalography
http://www.summer12.isc.uqam.ca/page/intro.php
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY FORUM
Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös University
Address: Múzeum krt. 4/i, Budapest
This is just to remind you that the seminar will be held on THURSDAY
this week!
29 March (Thursday!!!) 6:00 PM Room 226
(Please notice the unusual day and time!)
Markus Gabriel
Institute of Philosophy, University of Bonn
Why the World Does Not Exist
___________________________________
Abstracts and printable program (poster) are available from the web
site of the Forum: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf (Please feel free to post
the program in your institution!)
The Forum is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty
members from all departments and institutes! Format: 60 minute lecture,
coffee break, 60 minute discussion.
The organizer of the Forum: László E. Szabó
(leszabo(a)phil.elte.hu)
--
L a s z l o E. S z a b o
Professor of Philosophy
DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC, INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY
EOTVOS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST
http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo
THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY FORUM
Institute of Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös University
Address: Múzeum krt. 4/i, Budapest
April Program
4 April (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226
Hans Radder
Faculty of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam
Does the Brain ‘Initiate’ Freely Willed Processes? A Critique of
Libet-Type Experiments and Their Interpretation
11 April (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226
Attila Molnár
Institute of Philosophy, Eötvös University, Budapest
Possible Objects and Their Collisions in SpecRel with the Aid of Modal
Logic
18 April (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226
Gergely Kertész
Department of Philosophy and the History of Science
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Miféle dolog egy negatív ok, ha egyáltalán valami? - Avagy azért
száradtak el a virágok, mert a kertész elfelejtette locsolni őket?
(What kind of a thing is a negative cause, if it is something at all? -
Or did the flowers dry out because the gardener forgot to water them?)
25 April (Wednesday) 5:00 PM Room 226
Barry Loewer
Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University
Two Accounts of Laws and Time
___________________________________
Abstracts and printable program (poster) are available from the web
site of the Forum: http://phil.elte.hu/tpf (Please feel free to post
the program in your institution!)
The Forum is open to everyone, including students, visitors, and faculty
members from all departments and institutes! Format: 60 minute lecture,
coffee break, 60 minute discussion.
The organizer of the Forum: László E. Szabó
(leszabo(a)phil.elte.hu)
--
L a s z l o E. S z a b o
Professor of Philosophy
DEPARTMENT OF LOGIC, INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY
EOTVOS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST
http://phil.elte.hu/leszabo
Az MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet szeretettel várja az érdeklődőket az alábbi
programokra:
2012. március 27. kedd 11 óra
Richard Hudson
professor emeritus, University College, London
Word Grammar and its analysis of word order
http://www.nytud.hu/program/absz/hudson110327.html
2012. március 27. kedd 15.00
TINTA könyvbemutató és könyvvásár
http://www.tintakiado.hu/news_view.php?id=245
14.30-tól a TINTA Könyvkiadó könyvei kedvezményesen vásárolhatók meg.
2012. március 29. csütörtök 18 óra
Dan Sperber
The myth of 'scalar implicature'
http://www.nytud.hu/program/absz/sperber120328.html
szervező: Magyar Szemantikusok Asztaltársasága
és MTA-ELTE Elméleti Nyelvészet Kihelyezett Tanszék
A programok helyszíne:
MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet
1068 Budapest, Benczúr u. 33.
földszinti tanácsterem