Distinguished Lecture Series in Computer Science

"Computing versus Human Thinking" by Peter Naur, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen

The lecture will be an overview of the author's contributions to the theme "Computing versus human thinking" from a period of 50 year. These contributions concern: description as the core issue of science and scholarship; programming language, computer and computer program description; forms of description of human mental life; the defect of philosophical notions of knowledge as forms of mental representation; in relation to the human/computer interface, the rejection of the classical psychological description of mental life.

The most recent contribution is the synapse-state theory: a description of mental life in terms of a network of neurons, synapses, and nodes in which the neurons meet. The central issue of the theory is the embodiment of habits in the plastic states of the sunapses, each state determining the way that synapse transmits neural excitations.

Time: Friday November 3, 2006, 14:30 to 15:30

Place: IT Huset, Store Auditorium