IS Reading Group Announcements & Archive
The IS Group is an informal group of scientists and other related individuals that meets periodically in the New Haven, Connecticut area to discuss cutting-edge issues in science, technology, and culture, and to foster innovative research collaborations across multiple institutions.
Next Meeting: Date and location TBA
Topic: Causality and Counterfactuals
Nonfiction Reading
Judea Pearl, The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect
Chiara Marletto, The Science of Can and Can’t: A Physicist’s Journey Through the Land of Counterfactuals
Tanaka et al., Recent Advances in Physical Reservoir Computing: A Review
Fiction Reading
Martha Wells, The Murderbot Diaries
All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries, Vol I
Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries, Vol II
Video
Previous Meetings
6:30PM Friday 13 August 2021, Old Saybrook CT
Topic: Modern Physics
Nonfiction Reading
Frank Wilczek. Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality
Sabine Hossenfelder. Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
Fiction Reading
C. Robert Cargill Sea of Rust
Possible Supplemental Nonfiction
The Science of Can and Can’t: A Physicist’s Journey Through the Land of Counterfactuals
Recent Advances in Physical Reservoir Computing: A Review
Video
6:30PM Friday 18 June 2021, via Zoom
Topic: The Nuclear Age
Nonfiction Reading
6:30PM Friday 29 January 2021, via Zoom
Topic: Ramsey & Wittgenstein
Nonfiction Reading
6PM Wednesday 28 April 2020, via Zoom
Topic: Quantitative Finance
Nonfiction Reading
6PM Friday 23 February 2018, Madison CT
Topic: Cognitive Biases
Nonfiction Reading
Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project
Supplementary Nonfiction
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow
Gerd Gigerenzer, Reasoning the Fast and Frugal Way: Models of Bounded Rationality
Simon’s comment: If you could have a 100% chance of getting $1,000 today, or a 50% chance of $2,000 tomorrow, what are the three largest cities in Paraguay?
Fiction Reading
China Miéville, The Last Days of New Paris
Video
The Room
Wednesday 19 April 2017, Madison CT
Topic: Other Minds
Nonfiction Reading
Peter Godfrey-Smith Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Fiction Reading
Zachary Mason Void Star
Video
Sharktopus
Simon’s (p)review: Inter-sharksonality!
Saturday 18 February 2017, Fairfield, CT
Topic: Deep Learning
Nonfiction Reading
Nikhil Buduma (2015) Fundamentals of Deep Learning . O’Reilly
Supplementary Nonfiction Readings
Understanding LSTM Networks
Vector Symbolic Architectures
Fiction Reading
Roadside Picnic
Video
Stalker
Simon’s review: Three words: This movie f***in’ sucked. Okay, that’s four words, but this movie sucked so bad I can’t even think straight.
Saturday 09 August 2014, Madison, CT
Topic: The Grammar of Action
Nonfiction Reading
Ray Jackendoff (2009) Language, Consciousness, Culture: Essays on Mental Structure (Jean Nicod Lectures) . MIT Press. Elliot suggests focusing on chapter 1, 2, and 4.
Supplementary Nonfiction Readings
Richard Granger (2006) Engines of the Brain AI Magazine, 27, 15-32.
Peter Ford Dominey (2005) Emergence of Grammatical Constructions: Evidence from Simulation and Grounded Agent Experiments Connection Science, 17(3-4) 289-306.
Ross W. Gayler, Simon D. Levy, and Rens Bod (2010) Explanatory Aspirations and the Scandal of Cognitive Neuroscience. Proceedings of Brain-Inspired Cognitive Architectures 2010. ISO Press.
Fiction Reading
Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice. Orbit (2013).
Video
TBD
Food
TBD
Saturday 31 May 2014, Madison, Connecticut
Topic: High Finance
Nonfiction Reading
Michael Lewis, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt . W.W. Norton & Company (2014).
Supplementary Nonfiction Reading
Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. W.W. Norton & Company (2011).
Fiction Reading
Max Barry, Lexicon: A Novel. Penguin Books (2014).
Video
The Machine Girl
Food
Babecue
Saturday 26 October, Fairfield, Connecticut
Topic: Hacking
Nonfiction Reading
Phil Lapsley, Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell . Grove Press (2013).
Supplementary Nonfiction Reading
T.J. O’Connor, Violent Python: A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration Testers and Security Engineers . Syngress (2012).
Fiction Reading
Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others. Small Beer Press (2013).
Video
Cube Taylor Swift
Food
Chinese food from _______, Indian food from __________
Saturday 29 June 2013, Washington, DC
Topic: Signals and Boundaries
Nonfiction Reading
Johh Holland, Signals and Boundaries. MIT Press (2012).
Fiction Reading
Rudy Rucker, Turing and Burroughs: A Beatnick SF Novel. Transreal Books (2012).
Food
Great Wall of Szechuan.
Video
John Dies at the End
Saturday 15 December 2012, Washington, DC
Topic: Wild Wild Life
Nonfiction Reading
Carl Zimmer, A Planet of Viruses. University of Chicago Press (2012).
Rob Dunn, The Wild Life of Our Bodies. Harper (2011)
Supplementary Nonfiction
Daniel Chamovitz, What a Plant Knows. Scientific American (2012)
Fiction Reading
David Mitchell, Clound Atlas. Random House (2004).
Food
Lalibela Ethiopean Restaurant.
Video
The Raid: Redemption
Saturday 03 September 2011, New Haven, CT
Topic: Information
Nonfiction Reading
James Gleick, The Information: A History, a Theory, A Flood. Pantheon (2011).
Leonard Mlodinow, The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. Vintage (2009).
Supplementary Nonfiction
Nigel Stepp and Michael T. Turvey, On strong anticipation. Cognitive Systems Research 11 (2010), 148-164.
Fiction Reading
China Miéville, The City & the City. Del Rey (2007).
Food
Take-out from Great Wall of China.
Video
Hobo with a Shotgun (2011)
Sunday, 17 April 2011, New Haven, CT
Topic: Evo-Devo
Nonfiction Reading
Neil Shubin, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body . Vintage Paperback (2009).
Supplementary Nonfiction
Sean B. Carroll, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo. W.W. Norton & Co. (2006).
Fiction Reading
Paolo Bacigalupi, The Windup Girl. Night Shade Books (2010).
Food
Take-out from Great Wall of China. Special kudos to Elliot Saltzman for bringing a unique, and previously never seen, Hostess® CupCakes variant.
Video
Death Proof (2007)
Saturday 23 October 2010, Madison, CT
Topic: Modern Warfare and Terrorism
Readings
John Robb, Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. Wiley (2008).
Supplementary Reading
Misha Glenny, McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld. Vintage Paperback (2009).
Fiction Reading
Ian McDonald, The Dervish House. Pyr (2010).
Video
Grindhouse (2007).
Sunday, 27 June 2010, Madison, CT
Topic: The Embodied, Extended Mind
Readings
Andy Clark, Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. Oxford (2009).
Supplementary Reading
Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers: a novel. Pamela Dorman Books (2010).
Video
Drag Me to Hell (2009).
Saturday 12 April 2010, Guilford, CT
Topic: Moral Machines
Readings
Wendel Wallach.   Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong. Oxford University Press, 2008, 288 pages. We were honored by a visit from the author.
Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou. Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. Bloomsbury Press, 2009, 352 pages.
Video
<!a href=”http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1336006/”><!The Revenant>
Saturday 17 October 2009, Guilford, CT
Topic: Music and Mind
Readings
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition , by Oliver Sacks.
This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession , by Daniel J. Levitin.
Video
Tokyo Gore Police (2008).
Saturday 13 June 2009, Guilford, CT
Topic: Life, the Universe, and Everything
The meeting was a tribute to Vince Gulisano, because he suggested both of the books that we will be reading and for many other reasons.
Readings
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of our Ancestors, by Nicholas Wade.
Decoding the Universe: How the New Science of Information is Explaining Everything in the Cosmos, from Our Brains to Black Holes, by Charles Seife.
Video
Los cronocrímenes (2007).
Saturday 04 October 2008, Guilford, CT
Topic: Collapse of Civilization
Readings
- Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus . Vintage (2006).
- Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed . Vintage (2005).
Video
-
Fido (2007).
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Saturday 26 April 26 2008, 6PM, Fairfield, CT
Topic: Systems Biology
Main reading:
Uri Alon, An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits. Chapman & Hall, 2006.
Video:
Cabin Fever
17 November 2007, Madison, CT
Theme: Again with the Recursion!
Readings:
Suggested readings include:
- Marc D. Hauser, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch. The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did it Evolve? Science, 22 November 2002, Vol. 298, no. 5598, pp. 1569-1579.
- Steven Pinker and Ray Jackendoff (2005). The Faculty of Language: What’s Special about it? Cognition, 95(2), 201-236.
- W. Tecumseh Fitch, Marc D. Hauser and Noam Chomsky. (2005). The evolution of the language faculty: Clarifications and implications. Cognition, 97, 179-210.
- An additional unpublished appendix : N. Chomsky, M. D. Hauser and W. T. Fitch. Appendix: The Minimalist Program
Other possibilities include
- A recent paper by Michael Corballis, The Uniqueness of Human Recursive Thinking (subscription required), American Scientist, Volume 95, No. 3, May-June 2007, 240-248.
- A draft manuscript by Simon Levy on modeling recursion in cognitive neuroscience. Please contact Simon if you’d like a copy.
Supplementary Readings:
Mark Tiede suggested taking a look at The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher.
Video:
Tears of the Black Tiger and Hot Fuzz.
Food:
Pizza
23 July 2007, Haskins Laboratories , New Haven, CT
Theme: The Pirahã Controversy
Main Readings:
Everett, D.L. (2005). Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Pirahã: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language. Current Anthropology, August-October, 2005.
Nevins, A., D. Pesetsky and C. Rodrigues (2007). Piraha Exceptionality: a Reassessment. lingBuzz.
Everett, D.L. (2007). Cultural Constraints on Grammar in Pirahã: A Reply to Nevins, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues. lingBuzz.
Supplemental Readings:
The Pirahã Language. Wikipedia.
Language Log: Parataxis in Pirahã
RECURSION AND HUMAN THOUGHT: WHY THE PIRAHÃ DON’T HAVE NUMBERS     A Talk With Daniel L. Everett (TheEdge.org)
Colapinto, J. (2007) The Interpreter: Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language? New Yorker magazine, 16 April 2007.
Levy. S.D. (2007) Becoming Recursive. Presented at the Recursion in Human Languages Conference (RECHUL) , Illinois State University, 27 April 2007.
Fiction Reading:
Ian Watson, The Embedding. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1973).
Video:
Masters of Horror: Imprint, by Takashi Miike
Food:
Pizza from Bar Night Club
14 Apr 2007, Home of Philip Rubin, Fairfield, CT
Theme: Power Laws
Non-fiction main readings:
M. E. J. Newman. Power laws, Pareto distributions, and Zip’s law. Contemporary Physics, 46, 323-351 (2005).
Cosma Shalizi. Power Law Distributions, 1/F Noise, Long-Memory Time Series. Sep. 12, 2006.
Michel L. Goldstein, Steven A. Morris, and Gary G. Yen. Problems with Fitting to the Power-law Distribution. EPJ manuscript.
Supplemental non-fiction readings:
Deborah J. Aks. 1/F Dynamic in Complex Visual Search: Evidence for Self-Organized Criticality in Human Perception. In M. A. Riley and G. C. Van Orden, eds., Tutorials in Contemporary Methods for the Behavioral Sciences
Van Orden, G. C., Holden, J. G., & Turvey, M. T. (2003). Self-organization of Cognitive Performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 132, 331-350.
Researchers Map the Sexual Network of an Entire High School (article)   Network Diagram
Fiction reading:
Will Self, The Book of Dave. Bloomsbury USA (2006)
Video:
Idiocracy (2006)
06 Aug 2006, Home of Mark Tiede, Madison, CT
Theme: The Physics of Society
Non-fiction:
Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another, by Philip Ball
Fiction:
Rainbows End, by Verner Vinge
21 Dec 2005, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT
Theme: Our Surveillance Society
Non-fiction:
No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of our Emerging Surveillance Society, by Robert O’Harrow
Selections from Beyond Fear and Crypto-Gram, by Bruce Schneier
10 Jun 2005, Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT
Theme: Religion and its Discontents
Non-fiction:
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by John Krakauer
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, by Sam Harris
How to Defend Society Against Science, by Paul Feyerabend
Fiction:
“A Study in Scarlet”, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
18 Dec 2004, Home of Philip Rubin, Fairfield, CT
Theme: The Fates of Human Societies
Non-fiction:
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond
23 Nov 2003, Home of Mark Tiede, Madison, CT
Theme: Metropoles
Non-fiction:
Edge City: Life on the New Frontier, by Joel Garreau
The Death and Life and Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs
City: Urbanism and its End, by Douglas Rae
Fiction:
Transmetropolitan: Vol 1-3, by Warren Ellis
Film:
Cannibal: The Musical, Trey Parker
13 Dec 2001, Home of Mark Tiede, Madison, CT
Theme: More Philosophy of Science
Non-fiction:
For and Against Method: Including Lakatos’s Lectures on Scientific Method and the Lakatos-Feyerabend Correspondence, by Imre Lakatos and Paul Feyerabend
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, by Thomas Kuhn
Wittgenstein’s Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers, by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
09 Nov 2001, Home of Mark Tiede, Madison, CT
Theme: Philosophy of Math and Science
Non-fiction:
Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery, by Imre Lakatos
Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerband, by Paul Feyerabend
13 Jul 2001, Home of Mark Tiede, Madison, CT
Theme: Digital Security
Non-fiction:
Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World, by Bruce Schneier
Quantum Computing with Molecules, by Neil Gershenfeld and Isaac L. Chuang
A Simple Quantum Computer, by Isaac L. Chuang and Yoshihisa Yamamoto
Fiction:
Written in Blood, by Chris Lawson
15 Mar 2001, Home of Simon Levy, Waltham, MA
Theme: Combinatorial Grammar
Non-fiction:
The Syntactic Process, by Mark Steedman
Surface Structure and Interpretation, by Mark Steedman