By an amazing coincidence, Giulio Tononi, leading proponent of the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness, is giving a talk at ANU just before the meetup. It is at 4 pm in the Coombs building, seminar room A - you will want to arrive early, because Coombs is known for being rather maze-like. Full description of the talk is here: http://pastebin.com/dshkvZhi
Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra: Intro to Anthropic Reasoning
WHEN: 25 July 2014 06:00:00PM (+1000)
WHERE: 108 North Road, Acton, ACT
I Think Therefore I Am; I Am, Therefore The World Is About To Be Destroyed!
Nick will be talking about anthropic reasoning, a collection of theories about how to handle observation selection biases, or in other words, how to reason about a problem when the fact that you exist gives you relevant information about that problem.
He will introduce and discuss anthropic theories such as the Self-Sampling Assumption, philosophical problems such as The Sleeping Beauty Problem and the Doomsday Argument, and a decision theory specifically designed to get around problems that involve anthropic bias. This will be followed by a group discussion and a game involving anthropic reasoning. As always, vegan snacks will be provided.
General meetup info:
If you use Facebook, please join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lwcanberra/
Structured meetups are held on the second Saturday and fourth Friday of each month from 6 pm until late in the CSIT building, room N101.
There will be LWers at the Computer Science Students Association's weekly board games night, held on Wednesdays from 7 pm in the same location.
Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra: Intro to Anthropic Reasoning