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ESI > ESI/IFREE Lectures Economic Science Institute

2009-2010 ESI/IFREE Lectures

All lectures will be from 3:00-4:30 p.m. in Wilkinson Hall room #116.

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Wednesday, Dec. 2nd, Jeffrey Tollaksen, Ph.D. - New Ideas About the Nature of Time - Reception to follow

Abstract: Our everyday experience of time is in dramatic conflict with the world-view described by modern physics. We experience that time has a certain direction: our offices tend to get more disordered - not the other way round. Yet remarkably, time has no such in-built direction in the most successful scientific theory in history - quantum mechanics, a theory which has lead to much of modern technology. Quantum theory works just as well from past to future as from future to past. A related issue concerns the passage of time, a very fundamental human experience. Yet, in the "block universe" of Einstein's relativity, time does not pass or flow, it simply is. There are temporal durations, but no flux of time as such.

In this talk, I will discuss recent quantum breakthroughs made by Aharonov’s group concerning non-locality and the linkages between future and past. These suggest a novel reconciliation of subjective temporal passage and the static, or block time, of orthodox physics.

Dr. Jeffrey Tollaksen (Chair of Chapman’s Department of Physics, Computational Science and Engineering and Associate Professor of Physics) did his PhD with Chapman’s Yakir Aharonov who made many seminal contributions to physics, including the Aharonov-Bohm effect. This effect, along with the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen/Bohm effect, has lead to many developments, including ultra-powerful computers.

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February 2010

Feb. 5th, Kevin McCabe, Ph.D. –Information will be posted at a later date- Reception to follow

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March 2010

Mar. 12th, Deirdre McCloskey, Ph.D. - Information will be posted at a later date

Mar. 19th, Jason Aimone, Ph.D. – Information will be posted at a later date - Reception to follow

April 2010

Apr. 9th, Gregory Waymire, Ph.D. - Information will be posted at a later date

April 23rd, Robert Kurzban Ph.D. - Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind - reception will follow lecture

Robert Kurzban received his Ph.D. at the University of California Santa Barbara at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology, and received postdoctoral training at Caltech in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, UCLA Anthropology, and the University of Arizona’s Economic Science Laboratory with Vernon Smith. He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Psychology. In 2003, he founded PLEEP, the Penn Laboratory for Experimental Evolutionary Psychology. Researchers at PLEEP drawn on theory and methods from evolutionary psychology, experimental economics, and cognitive psychology, with occasional forays into cross-cultural psychology and neuroscience. Research in the lab is focused on the array of specialized cognitive mechanisms designed to navigate a complex social world. In 2008. he won the inaugural Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society. His forthcoming book (Princeton University Press) is entitled Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind. http://www.psych.upenn.edu/PLEEP/