The next Categorically Not! is Sunday 26th March. You may recall my post on the Categorically Not! series of events held at the Santa Monica Art Studios. They’re fantastic, and I strongly encourage you to come to them.
Here is K.C. Cole’s teaser:
To know without knowing how you know; to have a feeling as clear and sharp as a thought; to sense with uncanny confidence—without any obvious reason or prompt. Intuition is a kind of stealth insight, sneaking up on you when you least expect it, telling you what ingredient to add to a recipe—or a painting; it can sniff out dangers or opportunities, distinguish liars from friends, help scientists uncover deep laws of nature. But what does it really mean to understand something “in your bones” or “in your gut”?
Physicists rely on intuition to a surprising extent, and so for our next Categorically Not!, we’re delighted to have physicist Joe Polchinski of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, a new member of the National academy of Sciences. Joe will engage in a conversation with K.C. Cole about how he intuits meaning from math—which was, in essence, how he “discovered” higher dimensional membrane-like objects that may well be the building blocks of the universe. Just how the brain does this is a subject for neuroscience, of course, and so USC neurologist Antonio Damasio (see here and here) will tell us something about what goes on inside our heads when we “intuit” things. Antonio is the author of several wonderful books on the relationship between cognition and emotion, including “The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness” and “Decarte’s Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain”. From an arts perspective, USC filmmaker Jed Dannenbaum will talk about how, in artful movies, the communication between filmmakers behind the camera, actors in front of it, and audiences in the theatre relies primarily on an intuitive sensing of subtle visual and aural cues that we process at the nonconscious level. Jed is the co-author of Creative Filmmaking From the Inside Out, and will teach a new course next fall for non-filmmakers on the creative mind.
As usual, it is held at the Santa Monica Art Studios, come at 6:00pm for drinks, cookies and a look around the space, and there’s a 6:30 start. For more information, visit the Categorically Not! website.
Hope to see some of you there!
-cvj
March 13th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
Do you thnk one might record this event and show it on the website Clifford?
March 14th, 2006 at 1:10 am
One might, but I would not be the one, sadly. However, I am working on a related project that might involve recording and making available such events in the future… If I can get funds… But it won’t be for this one. I think. Sorry.
Cheers,
-cvj
March 14th, 2006 at 2:24 am
this sounds really fascinating. I wish I were in LA. I wish you could record it! At least blog it well =)
March 14th, 2006 at 2:26 am
Yeah, I was supposed to blog the last three or so..I’ve got notes nad pictures and everything…… I’ve been rather bad about that…..
-cvj
March 14th, 2006 at 2:44 am
Wow, that sounds cool. I’ll be back in town by then and hope to make it!
March 14th, 2006 at 6:18 am
What about using “voice recognition” to transfer information into text? Is this posssble?
I know some setting up come comes with each individual, but I think software should have progressed well enough that the nature of voice patterns should have been figured out? Voice feed through your own laptop, for later viewing?
Just thinking out loud.
March 14th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Not to diminish Joe’s key 1995 breakthrough in realizing the importance of D-branes, membranes were “discovered” at least as early as 1986. I don’t know who published the first membrane paper, but I think Brits like Michael Duff were among the early workers in that area.
March 14th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Belizean, NO.
With respect, I must say that you need to read both your history, and what she actually said.
KC’s statement did not say that he discovered membranes. Read it carefully. There are different types of membrane, and yes others had talked about those, but that’s not what is being discussed…. D-branes, and the very specific way they work in the context of string theory, are very important for various brane-world scenarios which are indeed testbed ideas for the building blocks for our universe. So the statement is accurate, since Joe is without doubt one fo the discoveres of D-branes and unquestionably the prime mover in their coming to fruition as a tool in modern physics.
We could get into a silly more refined discussion about who actually discovered D-branes, etc…but it’s been done before…. and it’s, well, silly. Realisation as open String b.c.s *plus* realizing the things are dynamical objects with a geometrical picture as a brane…. Joe’s name is in there on the key papers, and long before your 1995 date..more like 1989… ok…*then* you add in his 1995 realisation of their absolutely essential role in string theory, and I there’s really nothing more to be said. End of story.
What you say is true, just not necessarily in disagreement with what was said.
Cheers,
-cvj
March 14th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Clifford,
No disagreement. KC did not in fact say that Joe invented membranes. [Although I took it that way, hence my quibble.] And her remark could be interpreted as meaning that he essentially discovered D-branes by being the one who first understood their crucial role. Which is, of course, correct.
March 14th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Polchinski Elected Member Of National Academy of Sciences
Maybe they got this wrong?
March 15th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Plato,
The only thing in that article that surprises me is that they call him a “native New Yorker”. I always thought he was from Tucson, Arizona.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:27 pm
quick note — Clifford’s got the date right on this next event, but the CatNot website had it incorrectly listed as March 20th. I just called, It will be on Sunday the 26th.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Jeff,
You’ve mixed up 2005 with 2006 actually. The schedule is correct, I think.
-cvj
March 28th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
[...] So I told several people that I would probably blog about the most recent Categorically Not! event that took place on Sunday night as soon as I got home. It did not happen because somehow I ended up late night dancing at a salsa club in Culver City, and did not get home until well after midnight. (You’ll be pleased to know that I will not show you any pictures of that event.) I had to then get up in time to give a coherent 9:00am class on advanced and retarded potentials in electromagnetism. [...]