Anvil Discussion Group – Emergence

Anvil Discussion Group – meeting on Emergence

There will be a meeting of Anvil next Friday 28th March 10am to 12 pm in the Function Room of The George coffee shop. Dr Ed Lorch will give a talk in the first session entitled “The Mystery of Emergence”. After the break we will invite members of the audience to state their own views and arguments, in our traditional tolerant and understanding manner. The aim here is to understand divergent views even if we disagree.

Ed has a Ph.D. in Physics and worked as a scientist for Amersham International.
He has provided the following summary of his talk:

An illustrated talk on Emergence – the opposite of Reductionism.
Emergent phenomena happen when simple parts of a living or inanimate system come together to create something more complex, without any single part “knowing” the bigger picture. Examples are individual bees that function as a unit in a beehive, or a blob of slime that discovers and remembers things yet has no brain, or an AI system that seems to understand the world, but its own creators don’t understand how it does so. In short, emergence is when simple things following simple actions create something unexpectedly complex and science doesn’t know how!

Anvil is a discussion group held in Martock. We aim to discuss serious, sometimes controversial, issues of current importance, in the areas of philosophy, science and current affairs; we also aim to be intellectually stimulating and relevant to important issues rather than just entertaining. We meet from 10am to 12noon on the fourth Friday of the month in the Function Room of The George coffee shop. There is no subscription, committee, nor any other type of cumbersome bureaucracy, and our organisation is gender balanced, but we intend to levy a charge of £3 to £5 at each meeting to cover room rental and refreshments, depending on attendance. We aim for understanding and education in its broadest sense, rather than just social interaction.
The format in all cases will be a talk during the first period, followed by a short refreshment break, then a discussion period which should be non-confrontational and aimed at understanding arguments even if you disagree, and expressing your own opinions in a tolerant manner. Our future programme is as follows:
April: no meeting.
May 23rd: “Safari Hunting for Wildlife Conservation.” – John Grainger.
The aim of this talk is to generate debate by offering a conservation perspective for sustainable safari hunting – popularly known as trophy hunting – in Africa. Trophy hunting is the subject of intense debate and polarized positions, with animal rights groups and protectionists on one side, and hunters and pragmatic conservationists on the other. It will be argued that trophy hunting has major value for conservation and local community welfare in many parts of southern Africa. Reporting of hunting in the popular media can be emotive and uninformed, which has led to calls to ban the import of hunting trophies. The implications of such a ban on conservation and livelihoods in parts of Africa will be discussed.
June 27th: Keeping bees without fuss or chemicals – Joe Bleasdale (description based on the principles elucidated in his book).
July 25th: The Philosophy of Ivan Illich. John Baxter. A much-lauded maverick thinker in the seventies, now almost forgotten, may have ideas which are useful for the times we now face.
August: no meeting.
September 26th – Emergent infections: we’ve had COVID, what can we expect next? – Greg Atkins.
October 24th – Artificial Intelligence – Mark Regal.
November 28th – Evolutionary ethics – how do we make our moral judgments? – Greg Atkins.
December: no meeting.

To join, come to a meeting (advertised in Martock Chat on Facebook, the Nextdoor app and Martock Online) or contact Prof Greg Atkins by email (we do not use paper posters):

gatkins@tcd.ie

to be put on the mailing list.

More information regarding past meetings and our current and past programme can be obtained on our website:

http://www.johnbaxter.org/

New members of any age are welcome; if interested contact Prof Greg Atkins at the above email address.