Madison Chaos and Complex
Systems Discussion Group
2023 Discussions
With the onset of COVID and ageing of the organizers, the Chaos and
Complex Systems Seminar has morphed into an informal
discussion group following the pattern of recent summers. Each
week, we have an assigned topic, a facilitator, and a web-accessible
reading or video. The reading or video should take no more than 20
minutes, and the facilitator should be prepared to give at most a
5-minute introduction to the topic and lead the ensuing discussion.
All discussions are Tuesday noon at the Memorial Union (on the
Terrace under the big tree in the summer, otherwise indoors as
announced in Today
in the Union posted at the building entrance). Anyone
interested in facilitating a topic should contact Peter
Sobol.
- Jan 10, 2023: The
sad state of men and boys in the USA
- Jan 17, 2023: The
future of education
- Jan 24, 2023: History
of the Wisconsin Idea
- Jan 31, 2023: Impact
of EVs on California's electric grid
- Feb 7, 2023: AI control of magnetic
fusion devices
- Feb 14, 2023: Identification
of alien life
- Feb 21, 2023: Montana's
anti-senate bill to teach only science facts
- Feb 28, 2023: Intellectual
property and the
impact of AI
- Mar 7, 2023: The seductive world of
ChatGPT
- Mar 14, 2023: No meeting (Spring Break)
- Mar 21, 2023: How
trees talk to each other
- Mar 28, 2023: Retrocausality
- Apr 4, 2023: Slave
reparations and why
many oppose it
- April 11, 2023: Therapeutic potential of psilocybin
- April 18, 2023: The
right to privacy
- April 25, 2023: The tenacity of
conspiracy theories
- May 2, 2023: The
problem of Alzheimer's
- May 9, 2023: The
incursion of political correctness into the hard sciences
- May 16, 2023: The
role of consciousness in physical theories
- May 23, 2023: Dumbing
down universities causes brain drain
- May 30, 2023: Pros and
cons of autonomous weapons
- Jun 6, 2023: Stepping
back from technology in higher education
- Jun 13, 2023: The
dangers of conscious AI
- Jun 20, 2023: Why
AI will save the world
- June 27, 2023: Why
there never was a golden age
- July 4, 2023: Are
insects conscious?
- July 11, 2023: The
appeal of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
- July 18, 2023: Is violence ever
justified? Mark
Hatfield and Mark
Twain
- July 25, 2023: Using
supercomputers to model the climate
- Aug 1, 2023: Assessing
intelligence: In
AI systems and in
humans
- Aug 8, 2023: Definitions of
intelligence
- Aug 15, 2023: Cryopreservation
and other death solutions
- Aug 22, 2023: Relationship
between creativity and insanity
- Aug 29, 2023: A
new history of humanity
- Sep 5, 2023: Relationship
of creativity to psychopathology
- Sep 12, 2023: The
problem of procrastination
- Sep 19, 2023: Why
you probably don't have free will
- Sep 26, 2023: Free
will (continued)
- Oct 3, 2023: How
free should free speech be?
- Oct 10, 2023: The
Electoral College
- Oct 17, 2023: How
should the US government handle UFO reports?
- Oct 24, 2023: How
long will humanity survive?
- Oct 31, 2023: Do
non-biological systems evolve?
- Nov 7, 2023: Self-organization:
Nature's intelligent design
- Nov 14, 2023: Foreign
aid
- Nov 21, 2023: Pros
and cons of immigration to the USA
- Nov 28, 2023: The
coming global population decline
- Dec 5, 2023: The eventual
melding of man and machine
- Dec 12, 2023: Trust
in the age of AI & Robot
traders
- Dec 19, 2023: The
European AI Act