Our final, festive, meeting for Michaelmas 2014 attracted a select group of participants who, fuelled by port and stollen, grappled with tricky questions of consciousness, artificial intelligence, neurology, logic, and ethics. Given Stephen Hawking's comments earlier that day, the singularity was a fitting topic with which to close our series of conversations on the brain. Adrian introduced us to Greg Egan and to the more general current scientific and philosophical arguments about the possibilities for artificial entities of increasingly superior intelligence. This is, he revealed, a serious and relevant academic debate, but one in which fiction and philosophy can play a particularly important role. Simon then contributed a typically imaginative presentation of Chalmers' ideas, augmented with charming illustrations (see above). The following discussion took in everything from economic modelling to brain upgrades ('Ambition 2.0'), new forms of evolution, the independent life of mathematical equations, and the molecular mechanism of Star Trek transportation systems.
Overall, it has been a fantastic term of meetings - my thanks to everyone who had participated, and particularly to those who prepared introductions to the readings. We have covered an enormous range of time, genre, and topics, as we have tried to get inside the heads of peoples past, present, and future.
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