Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Lunch Chat (3/10): Science Fiction

Thursday (3/10) at noon in the International Commons (151 Coleman Hall)

Life and Artificial Life: Who's who? Should it matter?
What can Science-Fiction, as a genre of story-telling in various forms tell us about the world — about  the structure of society, what we can know, who we are, how we should behave, and so on? Two weeks ago, the Campus Theatre held a special event around the philosophical and scientific context of Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic film "Blade Runner" — a film that helps us consider many philosophical issues, e.g., about the nature of the self, the possibility of artificial intelligence, "us versus them" thinking, and so on. It's likely that you can think of innumerable other science fiction films and books that raise other challenging questions. . . .

But how is it that fiction can help us answer such questions? After all, fiction represents a departure from reality. What is it about it that we find useful? In this lunch chat, we'll welcome Professor Felipe Perrone from the Computer Science Department (and organizer of the "Blade Runner" event) as our guest to help us think through some of these issues — in particular concerning science fiction connected with artificial intelligence and novel technologies.

Professor Perrone
Professor Perrone is the Robert L. Rooke Chair of the Historical and Societal Context of Engineering and an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Bucknell. He is currently teaching a new new course concerning "interplay between science fiction and computing technologies".

Please join us for what promises to be a lively and informal discussion. As usual, pizza and salad will be served. Hope to see you there.