Join Evenings with an Author (online) to discuss
Meeting of the Minds
with psychologist Alison Gopnik, philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith, and journalist Annie Murphy Paul
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In a truly cerebral event, the Library will host three esteemed theorists of the mind: Alison Gopnik, specialist of cognitive psychology, theories of language, and learning, will wield her expertise in the realm of child development and the consciousness of children; Peter Godfrey-Smith, who conducts research in theories of consciousness in relation to underwater creatures, will bring us into the brains and neurologically-complex tentacles of octopuses; While Annie Murphy Paul will discuss her research in the “extra-neural,” making a case for thinking beyond the limits of the human brain.
In their conversation, these three researchers and writers will ask: how can we define, identify, and expand our notions of intelligence? Where can we locate the mind, if not inside the biological brain? How does biology limit cognition, and vice versa? Can we measure consciousness? Does it have an origin? Combining philosophical thought with cutting-edge research in psychology, biology, and neuroscience, the three speakers will confront questions both timeless and urgent for the modern, digital age.
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About the speakers:
Alison Gopnik is a psychologist and professor working in cognitive and language development. Gopnik is the author of five books and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and Science. Gopnik was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013 and received the James McKeen Cattell Lifetime Achievement Award for Applied Research from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) in 2021.
Peter Godfrey-Smith is a philosopher of science working in the philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind as it relates to evolution and animal intelligence. His 2016 book on consciousness and marine biology, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, received the Patrick Suppes Prize for Philosophy of Science from the American Philosophical Society and was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.
Annie Murphy Paul is a science writer and journalist. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, Time magazine, and The Best American Science Writing, among other publications. She is the author of Origins (2010), which was selected by the New York Times Book Review as a Notable Publication. Her most recent work, The Extended Mind (2021) was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Washington Post Best Nonfiction Book of 2021
Registration required. Free and open to the public.
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