At long last, Brooklyn Public Philosophers is back for 2015! Coming up on 2/23 at 7:00 P.M., Geoff Holtzman (NYU Polytechnic Institute) will share his work on why philosophy is so male-dominated, and why it’s important that that changes. Here’s a bit more about the talk, in Geoff’s own words:
Rejecting Beliefs, or Rejecting Believers?
The Troublesome Causes and Effects of Excluding Women in the Philosophy Classroom
Why do so few women major in philosophy, and why are there so few female philosophy professors? Some authors have suggested that the dearth of women in philosophy can be attributed to gender differences in philosophical belief. On this view, college-aged women persistently find their intuitions to be at odds with those of their male classmates and their mostly-male professors, and this leads women to feel out of place and to leave philosophy. I think this suggestion is both false and pernicious, and my first aim in this talk will be to debunk this suggestion with data I have been collecting for the past five years. While there may be gender differences in philosophical belief, the evidence of these differences does not explain the paucity of women in professional philosophy.
I will suggest that, in fact, the nature of philosophical debate enables pre-existing gender biases—similar to those that exist in other fields—to take foot in ways they cannot take foot in many other fields in which women have traditionally been underrepresented. This consideration will segue into the second part of the talk, which will concern the social nature of philosophy. Are philosophical claims only about the ways we see the world, or are they sometimes responses to the ways other people see the world and, as such, partly claims about the ways we see those other people?
As usual, we meet in the Info Commons Lab at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (10 Grand Army Plaza). Events are all 100% free and open to the public, and aimed at a general audience.
See you there, I hope!
Cosmism was originated in Russia more than a hundred years ago. That was an esoteric futuristic philosophy about post-humanity, technological immortality, resurrection and cosmic expansion. Early cosmists proposed the idea of decompaction (lightweighting) of the human body, that eventually wouldn’t need an atmosphere and would be powered directly by solar energy. They call it “radiant humanity” – a perfect society of highly moral and super-conscious beings merging and colonizing the whole Universe.
Modern Cosmism brings to the original doctrine the ontological foundation, a scientific structure and a deeper comprehension of possible technology aims to create in the future a new synthetic reality where the concepts of truth, consciousness, freedom and happiness will be deeply revised.
The conference will review the critical question about a meeting with advanced extraterrestrial civilizations and suggest few hypothesis about their “eerie silence”. We will touch some related problems in cosmology, and astrophysics such as the shape and future of the Universe, black hole information paradox, multidimensional space, dark energy and interpretation of quantum mechanics. Are they a separate arrow of time? Are there exceptions to the principle of causality?
Like no other area of philosophy and technology before, Modern Cosmism raises fundamental questions about the post human nature and how it will be connected to the reality. Is the structure of reality included the consciousness? Is a non biological hardware can support the consciousness? How we can define Cosmic Evolution and what is the role of intelligent life?
The conference will address important philosophical issues that arise with the future design of artificial consciousness, mind uploading and cyber-immortality. How will our concepts of subjectivity, perception, and morality change, if we will live in virtual reality of mega-consciousness environment where individuals can experience multiple presence, personality and have no gender. Will we be able to create super intelligent agents with consciousness and feelings? What are the limits of artificial capacities or functional simulations we should create? Could we enhance our own humanity by genetically redesign our nature?
Our keynote and plenary speakers are well-known international protagonists of Cosmism, Transhumanism and interdisciplinary researchers. Their lectures will discuss the most important current issues of Modern Cosmism from the point of view of philosophy, technology, ethics, robotics, psychology, and anthropology.
Ben Goertzel Ph.D. is the author of “Cosmists Manifesto”. He is Chief Scientist of financial prediction firm Aidyia Holdings; Chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC, which is a privately held software company, and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC, which is a company that provides advanced AI for bioinformatic data analysis (especially microarray and SNP data); Chairman of the Artificial General Intelligence Society and the OpenCog Foundation; Vice Chairman of futurist nonprofit Humanity+; Scientific Advisor of biopharma firm Genescient Corp.; Advisor to the Singularity University; Research Professor in the Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems at Xiamen University, China; and general Chair of the Artificial General Intelligence conference series.
Giulio Prisco is former senior manager in the European Space Agency, Prisco is a physicist and computer scientist. He served as a member on the board of directors of World Transhumanist Association, of which he was temporarily executive director, and continues to serve as a member on the board of directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and of the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti. He is also a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers, and the Turing Church, fledgling organizations which claim that the benefits of a technological singularity, which would come from accelerating change, should or would be viable alternatives to the promises of major religious groups.
James J. Hughes Ph.D. served as the executive director of the World Transhumanist Association (which has since changed its name to Humanity+) from 2004 to 2006, and currently serves as the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which he founded with Nick Bostrom. He also produces the syndicated weekly public affairs radio talk show program Changesurfer Radio and contributed to the Cyborg Democracy blog. Hughes’ book Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future was published by Westview Press in November 2004