Each month LAFS at UCLA explores fascinating, useful, and profitable topics in Science, Technology, Business, and Social Change, for the purpose of education, discussion, and networking with other change-oriented and future-interested people. Come join us!

Main Speaker:
Dr. Donald Hoffman (9:00-10:00+pm)

Title: Perception, Evolution, and the Mind-Body Problem

Abstract: Despite substantial efforts by many researchers, we still have no scientific theory of how brain activity can create, or be, conscious experience. This is remarkable, since we have a large body of correlations between brain activity and consciousness, correlations normally assumed to entail that brain activity creates conscious experience. Here I explore a converse solution to the mind-body problem: these correlations arise because consciousness creates brain activity, and indeed creates all objects and properties of the physical world. Conscious realism states that the objective world consists of conscious agents and their experiences; these can be mathematically modeled and empirically explored in the normal scientific manner. I develop these ideas in the context of a wide variety of intriguing visual illusions, and discuss how these ideas might influence the future of research in the cognitive and physical sciences.

Bio: Donald D. Hoffman is a professor of Cognitive Science at UC Irvine, with joint appointments in Philosophy, Logic and Philosophy of Science, and Information and Computer Science. He received his B.A. from UCLA in Quantitative Psychology and his PhD from MIT in Computational Psychology. He has published more than 60 professional articles and is author of the book Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See, 2000. His research received an Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association, and the Troland Research Award from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

More: http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/%7Eddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf. See also Dr. Hoffman's answer to the 2006 Edge.org question: "What is Your Dangerous Idea?" http://edge.org

Demo Speaker:
Dave Blackburn (8:30-9:00pm)

Endorphin 2.5 Demo: Artificially Intelligent Character Animation Software!

Book Review:
Ron Freshman (8:10-8:30pm)
Review and Discussion of The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote
 the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, John Battelle, 2005

Audience ParTICIPATION REQUEST:
As always, please bring your latest web printouts, articles, magazines, books, DVDs, investment tips, resources, and cool gadgets to briefly introduce and circulate around the room during the salon.

Those interested will walk to Noodle Planet in Westwood at 10:30pm for food, drinks, and more discussion.