Sci-Phi: Science & Philosophy Talk Series
Sci-Phi #2: Meaning in the age of the thinking machine.
🎟 €10 general · €5 for Absent members
(Become a member: www.absent.tech/memberships)
Meaning in the age of the thinking machine.
Learning machines abound and are multiplying around us by the second. For the first time in the history of sentient thought on Earth, thinking, remembering and communicating have begun to be outsourced. And with thought itself becoming externalised stimuli, what does it mean to think and what does it take for a thought to be meaningful. Is the knight's quest meaninful if he gets an LLM generated roadmap into the dungeon designed to avoid the dragon and a seduction manual for the maiden?
In this beguilingly unsettling session, join a philosopher and a scientist as they take you through this topic and then you get to ask your burning questions.
Rob Clowes, philosopher at IFILNOVA, Nova Universidade, and inveterate grappler with the hard and soft problems of thought, selfhood and consciousness, will guide us gently through the intellectual minefield that is AI and its repurcussions on the meaning of self and awareness and what it means to be sentient.
Philosophy is the art of asking questions and there will be questions, conundrums, a couple of paradoxes mayhaps but no answers guaranteed. Come if you are willing to be seduced but unsated by the glorious uncertainty of incomplete pursuits.
Suresh Nampuri, scientist and researcher in String Theory and Quantum Physics. Also a researcher at University of Lisboa.
Format:
Phone-free: Phones locked in pouches, take notes by hand
A 30 min talk by Rob Clowes
30 min Q&A between Suresh Nampuri and Rob Clowes
Followed by 10 questions from the audience
After, mingle and stay for curious conversations
About Absent
Absent is a phone-free creative third space and café in Principe Real where time is yours again. The kind you used to waste beautifully.
Every experience at Absent is designed around presence.
What to Expect
Offline, always - Phones go in secure pouches and stay with you.
A beautifully designed space where every color, texture and detail makes presence effortless
Café & Bar - Specialty coffee, freshly boiled chai, Portuguese wines, craft beers, and artisanal sodas, baked goods from local bakeries and rotating food menu from local chefs.
All of the infrastructure, none of the pressure - high quality art supplies, craft materials, books, board games, brain fitness workbooks, introspection kits and more.