My students know I have a dim view of meetings in academia. My colleague Tyler Cowen has a different view.
Money quote:
Meetings also confer a sense of control. Attendees feel like insiders who have a real voice in decisions. This boosts their motivation to implement ideas discussed as a group. For this reason it is especially important to listen to the blowhards and the obstructionists, who otherwise would pursue their own agendas rather than support a common plan.
Jim
First, I’ll have my news regarding Decade of the Mind up on Sunday.
Second, I’ll try to get my slides up from my recent talk on the next five years at Krasnow. Also probably over the weekend.
I’ll also link to a couple of faculty job opening advertisements, also probably over the weekend.
Jim
Stay tuned for some important Decade of the Mind updates here. I’ll be announcing some substantive next steps to the May meeting.
Jim
I’ve been preparing a set of slides for a talk I’m giving on Monday about my vision for my second term as institute director. The process got me thinking about “institutes for advanced studies” in general and the one in Princeton in particular. The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study is someone different from the platonic model in that it’s an integral part of a university. But in other aspects, the model is appropriate, I think.
I also gave a guest lecture yesterday for a grad class on the “state of American science”. It’s something I know a bit about–I’m afraid I was a bit too pessimistic for the cohort of first year students–funding for American science is getting squeezed by non-discretionary funding in the Federal Budget, and that’s a structural problem.
Most enjoyable, I got to sit down with my co-author, Lee Zwanziger, on the neuroethics book project that we’re hatching. I think it’s got great potential and we came up with a structure that I think is going to work.
Jim
From the NY Times on-line:
But last week Alex, an African Grey parrot, died, apparently of natural causes, said Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a comparative psychologist at Brandeis University and Harvard who studied and worked with the parrot for most of its life and published reports of his progress in scientific journals. The parrot was 31.
We send our condolences to Irene, Alex was a remarkable animal.
Jim
Mr. Kavli says:
“I decided to support science in three fields – astroscience, nanoscience and neuroscience – from the biggest, to the smallest, to the most complex,” he told reporters.
Sounds good to me.
Jim
This is a really interesting article about new trends in Engineering Schools.
Money quote:
A major thrust of that effort will be mixing courses from the oft-derided “soft sciences” like sociology and economics, as well as law and design, into engineering students’ academic load.
Sounds a lot like Krasnow’s Center for Social Complexity.
Jim
Mark Hallet’s money quote:
This paper has theoretical importance since it identifies a brain region possibly responsible for “free won’t”, the process that Benjamin Libet proposed to allow there to be “free will” even though the brain prepares to make movement prior to a person’s being aware that this is happening.
Cnet covers it all (click the link).
Krasnow has covered this waterfront before. Advisory Board member Bill Nitze sponsored a conference on the ethics and strong AI several years ago.
But, are we close to strong AI? I think I’m a bit skeptical of that.
Jim
I’ll be joining Ron Brachman (VP-Worldwide Research operations at Yahoo) and Ernst Volgenau (Chairman SRA International) to talk about the current applications, latest trends and business opportunities in business intelligence for marketing, risk management, fraud prevention and homeland security at Maggiano’s in Tysons Corner on September 12 from 7:30 to 9:45 a.m.
You can register here.
Jim
