The Switzerland Philosophy Salon Festival

The Switzerland Philosophy
Salon Festival
“Frontiers in Nature and Technology”
Maloja Palace, April 8 - ­10, 2016
The Public Sphere, Ltd.
www.philosophysalons.com
Friday April 8
Saturday April 9
Sunday April 10
9:00-15:00
8:00-9:00
8:00-9:00
Arrival at Maloja Palace, Check-in
Breakfast
Reception desk
Dining Room
13:00-14:00
9:00-10:00
Dining Room
A quick bite available for those arriving early
Ballroom
15:00-16:00
Keynote Salon III.
Informal Lunch
Music Salon I.
Ballroom
16:00-18:00
Small Salon Session I. “Philosophical Questions”
Ballroom
Small Salons 1-8. Participants choose which salon to attend
10:00-11:00
Ballroom
11:00-13:00
Nature Walk
Reception
Bring hiking shoes
13:00-14:00
Breakfast
9:00-11:00
Small Salon Session III. “The Future”
Salons 16-22. Participants choose which salon to attend
11:00-11:30
Break
11:30-13:00
Keynote Salon V.
Ballroom
13:00-14:00
Lunch
Dining Room
18:00-19:00
Break
Lunch
14:00-onwards
19:00-20:00
14:00-16:00
Hotel Reception
Two hour walk to the Nietzsche House on a scenic
mountain route passing the beautiful lake Sils. Tour of
the house. Return to the Palace. Those who do not wish
to walk may also take the bus to/from the Nietzsche
house. The tour costs CHF 8,- per person, please bring
cash.
Keynote Salon I
Ballroom
Schedule & Map
Keynote Salon II.
1
20:00-22:00
Dinner
Dining Room
Small Salon Session II. “Policy”
Ballroom
Small Salons 9-15. Participants choose which salon to
attend
Dining Room
Optional “Conversation Menu” of questions from Keynote Salon I to
discuss with table
16:00-16:30
Break
22:00-onwards
Keynote Salon IV.
Ballroom
Bring your ideas to the soapbox. Enjoy drinks at the bar and meet new
salon friends.
17:30-18:15
Break. Change for dinner. Black tie encouraged
The Soapbox & Drinks
16:30-17:30
Ballroom
18:15-20:00
Music Salon II
Ballroom
20:00-22:00
Formal Dinner
Dining Room
Black tie dinner. Optional “Conversation Menu” of
questions from Keynote Salons II-IV. to discuss with
table
22:00-onwards
Ball & Drinks
Ballroom
Waltz, Tango and Salsa Classes: location TBA
Those not attending the dance classes may go directly
to the ballroom for dancing and drinks. Those attending the dance classes join the rest later in the ballroom.
Departure for those who must go
Nature Walk to Nietzsche House and Tour of the House
2
About the Public Sphere
The Public Sphere strengthens community by revitalizing the art of conversation,
fostering the exchange of ideas and meaningful social interaction in physical
space. In the spirit of the ancient Greek Agora and the Enlightenment Salons,
we organize events to actively engage citizens in critical issues shaping society,
culture, art and politics.
The Public Sphere’s mission is to create stimulating intellectual environments
and poetic experiences that re-enchant the world and advance principles of
participatory democracy through sustained discourse and new encounters in the
collective pursuit of knowledge and fellowship.
The Public Sphere hosts philosophy salon festivals in beautiful locations around
the world. They serve as retreats that reconnect participants to nature, stimulate
the intellect and catalyze new friendships. We combine thoughtful travel and
adventure with intellectual salons, music, dancing, nature walks, performances
and art events.
For more information about all our activities, visit: www.philosophysalons.com
Why Salons?
“In the 17th and 18th century a culture of intellectual salons flourished in Europe.
Salons were social gatherings in which individuals came together to engage in
the art of conversation in pursuit of knowledge and fellowship. These spaces for
discourse created a culture of politeness and sociability, in which the individual
cultivated his intellectual, moral, and aesthetic faculties in a society committed
to humanistic ideas and collective enlightenment. Salons were far more than
pleasant social gatherings, they were serious spaces for intellectual projects and
advanced ambitious utopian ideals.
In a fast-paced world of social media and the Internet, people are arguably more
connected than ever before but also lonelier than ever before. Young generations
yearn for real human interactions and meaningful conversations. We believe
that by reviving salon culture we can advance the art of conversation, promote
individual happiness in collective exchange, and further principles of deliberative
democracy. Perhaps now, more than ever before, we need a strong salon culture to
combat ignorance and advance a more tolerant, just and enlightened society. We
invite you to join us in this endeavor.”
Justine Kolata,The Public Sphere, Founder
Table of Contents
Schedule & Map 1
Welcome to the
Switzerland Philosophy Salon 4
Stay Involved 5
The Swiss Salon Festival Discussion Platform 5
Attend other Salons
5
Contribute & Subscribe to the Periodical
6
Donate6
Volunteer6
Maloja Palace & the Surrounding Area 7
Travel Information 8
Overview of Salon Events 10
Keynote Salons 10
Small Salons 10
Music Salons 10
The Soapbox (an experiment)
10
Nature Walk
11
The Ball 11
Nietzsche House 11
Keynote Salons 12
Small Salons 18
First Small Salon Session - “Philosophical Questions” (Friday, April 8)
18
Second Small Salon Session - “Policy” (Saturday, April 9)
18
Third Small Salon Session - “The Future” (Sunday, April 10)
19
Music Salons 38
Sponsors & Partners 40
4
Welcome to the
Switzerland Philosophy Salon
W
e warmly welcome all participants of the festival. We look forward to getting to
know you and to sharing a poetic weekend filled with salons, good conversation,
new ideas, music, nature walks, and many other inspiring activities in the sublime Swiss
alps.
If at any point you have questions or comments throughout the salon, do not hesitate to
talk with us. We would love to have a conversation with each of you!
We hope that you enjoy the weekend, make new friends, take pleasure in the beauty of
human interaction and experience the enchantment of the natural environment of the
Swiss alps.
Our Salon Festival Topic
The Switzerland Salon festival topic is “Frontiers in Nature and Technology”.
Questions we will consider include: What is our relationship with the natural environment
in the 21st Century? How has technology influenced the way we interact with our
environment? What is the future of the natural environment and society – and is there
anything like a “natural” environment at all?
In a world of rapid environmental and technological development, it is difficult to
sufficiently reflect on the dramatic changes we are experiencing as a society on a global
level. This festival will challenge us to consider critical developments in regards to the
way we live our lives, interact with others, function politically, and address the future of
humanity.
As with all salons, we hope that the festival challenges unexplored assumptions, inspires
new ideas, furthers our collective pursuit of knowledge, and catalyzes friendships and
projects.
Should you encounter any problems or get lost prior to arrival or during the event, do not
hesitate to contact us.
Yours truly, the organizing team:
Justine Kolata
[email protected]
+44 7821 448632
Michael Lerch
[email protected]
+41 79 587 62 17
+31 61 845 96 79
Hans Christian
Siller
5
Thank you
We are deeply grateful to Maloja Palace for providing such a beautiful venue for the
festival. We would like to especially thank Amedeo Clavarino, the owner of the palace,
for his kindness in opening his extraordinary establishment to this event, Christian
Wolfensberger for his great help in putting us in touch with Amedeo, and Amin Karama
for working with us to realize the festival at this venue.
We would like to profusely thank the Swiss Study Foundation, Collegium Helveticum, ETH
Zürich - Critical Thinking Initiative, and The Dr. Wilhelm-Jerg-Legat of the University
of Zurich for their generous intellectual and financial support in realizing this event, as
well as our partners reatch - research and technology in switzerland, The Zurich Salon,
and the Nietzsche House.
We would also like to thank our keynote speakers Dr. Anders Sandberg, Dr. Michael
Hampe, Dr. Mario Carpo, Dr. Jill Scott, and Joachim Jung for their meaningful
intellectual contributions to the festival, as well as our talented and inspiring musicians
Louis Schwizgebel, Xiao Xiao Zhu, and Miklós Veszprémi, and our many small salon
presenters, who as participants eager to contribute their ideas, revived the true, interactive
spirit of salon culture.
Stay Involved
There are a number of ways to get and stay involved before and after the Swiss Salon
Festival.
The Swiss Salon Festival Discussion Platform
We seek to experiment with different media to further stimulate discussion and generate
new ideas. We have developed an online platform to complement the salons that take place
in physical space, so that participants can stay in touch, continue to share thoughts, and to
discuss ideas through comments, mind maps and shared text fragments.
Join us at: http://collaborate.philosophysalons.com
Attend other Salons
[email protected]
+49 178 13 45 800
We host a monthly philosophy salon and a literature salon. Most of our monthly events
are at the Public Sphere headquarters in London. We will soon be expanding to other
European cities. Our salon festivals take place across Europe.
Servan Grüninger
You can view all upcoming events by visiting our website:
http://www.philosophysalons.com/events
[email protected]
+41 77 468 25 46
If you are Swiss based, you can also attend the salons of our partner organization
Zurich Salon: http://www.zurichsalon.org
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7
Contribute & Subscribe to the Periodical
Our periodical In Pursuit of the Beautiful Soul explores the poetry of living and
the pursuit of meaning in the 21st century. Inspired by the periodicals of The Republic of
Letters in the age of Enlightenment, it promotes a shared commitment to intellectual
enlightenment, moral cultivation, aesthetic sensibility and human community.
In Pursuit of the Beautiful Soul publishes reflections on the topics and ideas
debated at the Salons of The Public Sphere, including original essays and opinion pieces
by prominent academics, artists, intellectuals, and politicians, among others. We invite
readers to contribute responses to the written work for publication in subsequent issues in
order to foster continued dialogue and sustained engagement with ideas amongst a critical
public.
We are continuously looking for original articles on the topics of the salons or letters in
response to other ideas written in the periodical. If you would like to contribute an original
piece please email us at [email protected].
If you would like to subscribe to the periodical you can do so by visiting our website:
www.philosophysalons.com
Donate
We are a nonprofit organization. We depend on your donations to keep the organization
running, to grow, and to realize our mission of reviving the art of conversation and
furthering principles of participatory democracy. We deeply appreciate your generous
support.
You can donate by visiting our website at www.philosophysalons.com. If you would like to
support a specific project or have any questions regarding donations, get in touch with us at
[email protected].
Volunteer
We depend on volunteers to realize our activities. If you are interested in volunteering, get
in touch with us and we can tailor a volunteer experience to your interests:
[email protected].
Maloja Palace & the Surrounding Area
M
aloja palace is located on top of a mountain pass connecting the beautiful
Graubünden canton in Switzerland with Italy and is a few kilometers from the town
of St. Moritz. The palace was built in 1884 by Count De Renesse in a Neo-Renaissance style.
The location could not be more suited to a philosophy salon with its strong intellectual
history. It is a close walk from the Nietzsche house, where Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Thus
Spoke Zarathustra and was home to a number of other notable European intellectuals and
artists including Herman Hesse, Thomas, Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Proust, Marc
Chagall, Otto Dix, Richard Strauss, Paul Celan, and Sigmund Freud, among others.
It is no wonder that great ideas were birthed in this area with its magnificent views of the
Swiss Alps and the clouds of Sils Maria and majestic hiking paths.
Find out more here:
http://www.malojapalace.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maloja_Palace
http://www.bregaglia.ch
8
9
Travel Information
By Car
Hotel Maloja Palace is about 20 minutes outside St Moritz, Switzerland. Zurich is around
3hrs away, and Milano around 2h30. [Driving directions]
Parking is available at the hotel.
By Public Transport
Use www.rome2rio.com to find the best route for you.
1.
Getting into Switzerland: The best airport to fly into is Zurich, thanks to a good
train connection to St. Moritz.
Milano/Bergamo and Lugano airports are closer, but harder to reach, and flights tend
to be more expensive. You will need to either rent a car, or use a 5 hrs bus connection
(see rome2rio.com for details).
You can also use a long-distance bus (e.g. Meinfernbus.de from Berlin via Munich to
Chur), and then travel onwards to St. Moritz by train.
2. Getting to St. Moritz: Take the train to St Moritz SBB [train schedule www.sbb.ch]
3.
Getting to Maloja Palace: From St. Moritz SBB station, take local Bus Line 4
(Direction Chiavenna) to Maloja Capolago [Bus schedule www.engadinbus.ch]. Ask
the driver to drop you off at the stop Maloja Capolago, which is right across from the
Hotel Maloja Palace.
Or take an expensive taxi [List of cab companies at www.engadin.stmoritz.ch].
For cheap rail tickets, check the Swiss railways offers first [schedule/tickets, Group tickets,
Supersaver tickets]. A swiss rail ticket will include the bus St. Moritz - Maloja if you buy a
ticket to Maloja Capolago. We will coordinate group ticket purchases from Zurich.
Another great option is to buy a Switzerland Special ticket from the German railways,
starting already at €19. The trip on your ticket needs to originate in Germany close to the
border, but you can use e.g. only the leg Zurich-St Moritz.
To book, visit the German Railway website www.bahn.de and search for a connection
from e.g. Freiburg Breisgau Hbf via Zurich to St Moritz SBB. More information on the
German Switzerland Special ticket at http://www.bahn.de/p_en/view/offers/international/
europaspezial/switzerland.shtml
Note: double-check the itinerary to make sure it actually goes via Zurich! Also, when
booking on the German rail website, don’t enter Maloja Capolago bus stop as destination,
or the special price won’t be available - use St Moritz SBB station instead.
10
11
Overview of Salon Events
Keynote Salons
Keynote salons are talks given by notable academics, intellectuals, artists, politicians,
and practitioners on subjects related to the festival theme which serve as the intellectual
foundation of the weekend. All festival participants attend these events. Speakers present a
topic for 30-45 minutes followed by questions from the audience. “Conversation Menus”
with questions related to the talk are included in this festival packet and may be discussed
at the dinner table.
passionate about in front of the salon audience on any topic from politics, to religion,
to culture and art. Bring poems, speeches, monologues, scenes from plays, etc. You may
prepare for the soapbox or speak spontaneously on the day.
This is the first time we will try the soapbox at a salon so it is a bit of an experiment. We
look forward to seeing what happens!
Nature Walk
For detailed descriptions of all keynote salons, see page 12 ff.
We will take a two hour nature walk on the beautiful mountain trails around the palace.
More information on our route will be made available on the day. The hike is for all levels.
Small Salons
The Ball
Small salons are participant driven events. Selected participants, who submitted promising
proposals for salons prior to the festival, host a salon, presenting on their topic for 15-20
minutes. Thereafter they loosely moderate small group discussion on the topic assisted by a
“Conversation Menu” of questions prepared in advance.
On Saturday night we encourage participants to dress in black tie for dinner as we are
staying in a palace after all! Post dinner,
you can join our beginner dance classes.
Elegant and enjoyable music will be played
in the ballroom. We hope that everyone
dances until they can dance no more!
Small salons occur simultaneously so participants may choose the topic that they prefer.
The size of the salons is approximately 10-20 people to ensure interactive and meaningful
conversation.
Dance classes before the Ball:
For detailed descriptions of all small salons, see page 18 ff.
“Waltz for beginners”
Servan Grüninger
Music Salons
“Introduction to Salsa”
Michael Lerch
The music salons are concerts by world class concert
pianists. The pianists briefly discuss the pieces on the
program which was inspired by the history of salons,
the festival theme, or the location. Thereafter, we enjoy
their music together.
“Fundamentals of improvised partner
dancing - From Tango to Blues”
Maren Lorenz, Hans Christian Siller
See page 38 for details.
Nietzsche House
The Soapbox (an experiment)
On Sunday, those staying an extra night will take a two hour walk to the Nietzsche
House on a scenic mountain route passing the beautiful lake Sils. We will get a tour of the
house where Nietzsche lived and worked and now serves as a museum and institution for
Nietzsche scholars. We will return to the Palace by bus or walking.
The soapbox revives the Hyde Park tradition of
theatrical public discourse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soapbox
The soapbox is a time to express ideas that you are
*Note: The tour costs 8 CHF per person. Please bring cash. Those who do not wish to walk
may take a bus which runs every 30 minutes.
http://nietzschehaus.ch/
12
13
Keynote Salons
I. “How Humans Make Technology Part of Themselves”
Dr. Anders Sandberg
II. “The Second Digital Turn”
Dr. Mario Carpo
James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Sandberg
Professor of Architectural History and Theory at University College, London
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Carpo
H
I
Conversation Menu
Conversation Menu
1.
What is a tool? Does it have to be physical, or do economics or ideas count too?
1.
2.
How do different human groups make tool parts of the group, or even the reason for
it?
What is the technical logic of digital mass-customization? In what way is it different
from industrial mass-production?
2.
3.
How do we judge tools as good or bad? Just by usefulness or morality, or are there
other forms of value?
Do we really need to mass-produce customized (personalized, “bespoke”) objects?
What’s wrong with many standard objects of daily use?
3.
4.
When we learn how to use technology we change: is there really any original person?
Or are these changes too small to truly matter?
Why should there be one (or more) digital styles in architecture? Are computers not
versatile machines, which we can use to design and fabricate whatever we like?
4.
5.
When we make technology part of ourselves, how do we ensure it benefits us? How
can we know?
6.
Is technology part of human nature? Of human dignity?
What is specific to the “new kind of science” that today’s computation suggests or
favors? Do computers really “think” differently from the way we do? How does this
new “scientific method” affect today’s technology, design, but also our culture in
general, or even daily life?
7.
Can we determine the future course of technology? Should we?
umans are not the only species to use tools, or even to teach their young to do it, but
we are unique in how well we invent, use, transmit and reuse tools. This is part of the
reason why our species is so numerous, found in every ecological niche, transforming the
planet for good and ill. Tools not only change the outside world, but also literally how we
think. We integrate often used tools into our thinking, perception, and body images. We
also change ourselves through our tools, whether they are shoes or brain implants. This
talk will discuss how we are mixing ourselves with technology, asking what we should wish
to become in the future.
n the early 1990s the design professions invented the first digital turn. Well ahead of any
other trade, discipline, and profession, they discovered and interpreted a new cultural
and technical paradigm; they were also remarkably successful in creating a visual style that
defined an epoch and shaped technological change. The same may be happening again
now. Just like the digital revolution of the 1990s (new machines, same old science) begot a
new way of making, today’s computational revolution (same machines, but a brand new
science) is begetting a new way of thinking. Now, like then, digitally intelligent designers
are finding and testing capital new ideas: just like in the 1990s, well ahead of anyone else.
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15
III. “Experiment Building: Re-composing Creativity”
Dr. Jill Scott
Artist with creative explorations in performance art, video art and new media
http://www.jillscott.org/homepage.html
Conversation Menu
1.
Can creative experiment building generate knowledge or simply aim to provide
others with food for thought? Can we let go a little of the outcomes, let them fail or
be useless and offer various layers of meaning for interpretation?
reative experiment building can generate knowledge or simply aim to provide
others with food for thought! However, the spatial and social experience of making
experiments is paramount to the creative process. I claim that experiences that place artists
into scientific environments and treat scientists as an audience for art are essential for
comparative empirical studies on research into creativity. Using the notion of empiricismknowledge that is attained by the senses, I use some case studies: from environmental
science and art, and from neuroscience and art, to explore and outline the motivations,
processes and outcomes behind experiment building.
2.
When art tries to raise awareness about the state of the environment and encourage
discourses about environmental stewardship- can art be a “useful,” “appropriate,”
and “effective” activity, rather than be simply a contribution to any particular
aesthetic or conceptual style or can it be both?
3.
What is the effect on society and on art of the “democratization” of technology
with “open source” computer software, “fab-labs” and “maker” groups? Can it lead
to deeper interaction with community groups and in some cases even empower them
with a “voice”?
While examples from the first category are related to communication with international
or local communities to raise awareness, the examples in the second, experiment more with
the sensory perception of audience. All artists have been working with scientists in labs,
in order to be creatively inspired and take their experiments out of the lab and into the
public. Using theories from cognitive science and social science, I am especially interested
to address the notion of creativity and the sharing of research about embodied perception.
4.
What attracts artists to science –Is it the “hands on” access to the solid raw materials,
pertinent debates and scientific tools in the science lab itself ? What happens when
artists actually wish to create experiments from a lateral and critical perspective
rather a deductive and inductive one?
5.
How is cultural anchorage and social negotiation mostly perpetrated by “hands
on” experimentation.? Micheal Polanyi calls “Tacit knowledge”: the belief that
creative acts (especially acts of discovery) are charged with strong personal feelings
and commitments resulting in visions or ideas that explore the tangible and the
experiment as an intervention for interaction
6.
What happens when artist and environmental scientists share those grand objectives
like: to help to point humanity towards new ways of thinking about itself and it
comparative position now compared to its future?
7.
These environmental problems of our time need have to be given different spaces and
scales for a different mindset. How do we learn to think differently about “nature”
or “redesign it”?
8.
Lets talk about new metaphors for collaboration on environmental issues between
social scientists, artists and scientists, based on incubators, salons or workshops and
creative commons!
C
While neuro-scientists build experiments in to order to understand neural networks and
cognitive behaviour, neuro-artists often design them to promote post-reflection through
bodily experience and facilitate more creative approaches to humanize knowledge transfer.
I argue for the necessity to create new inter-spatial zones of experience, by setting up
collaborative facilitation programs, where trans-disciplinary teams can explore deeper
levels communication, problem solving and alternative interpretations.
16
17
IV. “The Future of Enlightenment”
Dr. Michael Hampe
V. “Nietzsche in Sils Maria ”
Joachim Jung
Professor of Philosophy at ETH-Zürich
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hampe_(Philosoph)
http://nietzschehaus.ch
T
he idea of an enlightened form of life arose among Socrates and his pupils. One could
call it the idea of a form of life of autonomous persons. It is an idea of a community
of people who decide collectively but independently what to think about the world and
how to act. Religious authorities and political and moral experts are only relevant insofar
as they are able to justify their views and actions in the community. The presupposition of
such a community is the existence of persons who have the courage and the imagination
to think in a autonomous way, i.e. to discuss the meanings of the terms with which they
describe the world and plan and evaluate their actions. These meanings and evaluations
depend on how the world is, but not entirely. The world does not say what we should think
about it and how we should act. Therefore there is a scope for us how we can organise our
lives. Never in history did a community of such people really exist. Perhaps it was only
a dream of Plato. Today this idea is threatened by both religious fundamentalists and
scientific experts. What are the chances that it will stay alive?
Conversation Menu
1.
What kinds of autonomy can you think of?
2.
How do you assess or weigh these different kinds of autonomy?
3.
Do you believe there can be experts about your life?
4.
How should an education look like that helps people to form an enlightened
community?
5.
Have you ever met an autonomous person and how did you recognize her or him?
A presentation on Nietzsche’s life and work close to Maloja Palace and an intellectual
history of the area.
18
19
Small Salons
There are three sessions of small salons over the course of the weekend. During each
session, several different salons will happen at the same time slot and participants can
choose which salon they prefer to attend.
First Small Salon Session - “Philosophical Questions” (Friday,
April 8)
Third Small Salon Session - “The Future” (Sunday, April 10)
16.
“The Future of Medical Diagnostics” Andreas Frutiger, page 31
1.
“Meeting the Robot - Limits and Possibilities in Designing Human-RobotInteraction” Marin Aeschbach, Fabienne Forster, Stephan Graf, Lisa Schurrer, Kaj
Spaeth, page 20
17.
“The Consequences of a Functioning Brain Simulation”
Johannes Fankhauser, Pietro Snider, page 32
2.
“False Utopia: Or the Limits to Technological Salvation” Alan Kolata, page 21
18.
“When Novels Help Us Think- Considering Possible Futures Through
(Houellebecq’s) Fiction” Alice Bottarelli, page 33
3.
“Rationality and Ethics” Kaspar Etter, page 21
19.
“Quasi-Objects” Luca Thanei, page 34
4.
“Light, Matter and the Duality of Human Experience” Lisa Poulikakos, page 22
20. “Cultural Intelligence in a Changing World” Christina Kwok, page 34
5.
“In the Treadmill of Digitalization: How Technologies Affect Ourselves and Our
Social Relationships” Janina Bühler, page 23
21.
“Life Coding: A New Social Reality” Nicoletta Iacobacci, page 35
6.
“Plant Ethics” Emily Sigman, page 23
22.
“Singing Workshop” Reyhan Zetler, page 36
7.
“Questions of Life” Winnie So, page 24
8.
“The Rhetoric of Popular Science Books (Past and Present)” Lukas Etter, page 24
Second Small Salon Session - “Policy” (Saturday, April 9)
9.
“Property Rights in the 21st Century”
Juliane Mendelsohn, Wolf-Fabian Hungerland, page 26
10.
“Modern Food Safety and Changing Tastebuds” Oskar Jönsson, page 27
11.
“Technological Influences in Politics and Policy” Nicolas Zahn, page 27
12.
“The Design Paradox of Decentralization in Digital Societies”
Evangelos Pournaras, page 28
13.
“The Role of Philosophical Disagreement in Daily Political Decisions”
Michaela Egli, page 28
14.
“Healthcare: Between Altruism and Profit” Tarun Mehra M.D., page 29
15.
“Statistics is Interpretation: Philosophical Challenges When Applying Statistics to
Scientific and Societal Problems.” Servan Grüninger, page 30
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21
Small Salon Abstracts & Conversation Menus
1. Meeting the Robot - Limits and
Possibilities in Designing HumanRobot-Interaction
Marin Aeschbach, Fabienne Forster,
Stephan Graf, Lisa Schurrer, Kaj
Spaeth
New trans-disciplinary solutions are needed for the current research in science and
technology to be productive for philosophy, and vice versa. To this end we will
present the first results of a collaboration
between members of both the robotics and
philosophy institutes of the ETH Zurich.
How can philosophers contribute to robotic development and what new philosophical insights could an engineer’s perspective
provide? Could researchers of both fields
work in a joint laboratory? At this salon we
will explore how such a cooperation works
and what knowledge can be gained from
it.
Conversation Menu
1. What moral reasons are there to design
robots so that they communicate their
intentions (in the sense of what they
are going to be doing next)?
Hypothesis: It is to be assumed that robots will
be more (and more deeply) involved in
our communicative systems. Therefore, they need to have communicative
abilities parallelling their other (e.g.
perceptual) abilities. Just like we expect
a human to be able to tell us where he
will be going, a robot has to be able to
communicate his way in order for our
interactions to be successful.
2. What is the relationship between the
anthropomorphisation of robots and
the moral expectations we have towards
them?
Hypothesis: What abilities we
as laymen anticipate in a robot is substantially dependent on its appearance.
When robots are built to resemble
humans (i. e. anthropormorphic), we
ascribe human abilities to them, which
in turn act as a base for our moral
expectations.
3. Can the simulation of instinctive
(human-like) reactions in robots open
new moral opportunities? Hypothesis:
In the trolley problem, the simulation
of instinctive reactions may be a way
out of implementing a principle in the
moral agent (here: the autonomous
car) to harm a human to the benefit of
another person.
4. What moral design possibilities are
there in the first place? Which of these
should or may be used? Do developers
as producers have a responsibility that
goes beyond the responsibility of uninvolved citizens?
Hypothesis A: The privileged position
of developers accounts for their special
responsibility.
Hypothesis B: Moral norms have to be
decided by all affected parties equally.
5. What limits have to beset when it
comes to humans adapting to robots?
6. Reflecting our own methods: How
can philosophers contribute to robotic
development and what new philosophical insights can an engineer’s perspective provide? Can researchers of both
fields work in a joint laboratory? What
should such an environment look like?
7. How can transdisciplinary work be
embedded in research and education at
the university?
2. False Utopia: Or the Limits to
Technological Salvation Alan
Kolata
Humans increasing imagine technology
as a vehicle for salvation from the crisis
of environmental degradation and resource scarcity. Many of us, most especially
high-tech entrepreneurs, dream of a world
seamlessly encased in a web of clever technological support systems that will readily
overcome the accelerating loss of natural resources and the existential threats
of global environmental contamination
and climate change. By exploring the case
of rapid environmental change in the Mekong River Basin driven by region-wide
hydropower development, this conversation will probe the limits to technological
salvation and pose the fundamental question of what risks humankind runs when
we rely exclusively on current and imagined future technologies for sustaining
human life.
Conversation Menu
1. Do technological solutions to environmental problems always generate
unintended consequences? If so, why?
Is this simply a matter of scale and the
irreducible complexity of socio-natural
systems? Or can we design long-term
technological solutions to environmental problems (e.g. geo-engineering
of the atmosphere) confident of their
efficacy? If not, on what grounds do we
act, what trade-offs must we make and
who is responsible for making those
decisions?
2. Can global environmental problems
(e.g. climate change, regional groundwater contamination, ocean acidification, topsoil erosion) ever be resolved
through technological solutions, or
are such solutions simply short term
adaptive responses driven by economic
and political exigencies?
3. Will technological solutions to largescale environmental problems inevitability exacerbate existing economic and
social inequalities, and generate new
inequalities? If so, do we choose to implement them in any case, and on what
grounds can we make that decision?
4. Will the current societal emphasis on
technology as salvation undermine
more radical attempts to identify and
resolve underlying social causes of environmental change and degradation?
5. Is the current world order even capable
of deploying technological solutions in
the service of a global common good?
If not, will technological solutions, in
the end, proffer only a false utopia?
3. Rationality and Ethics Kaspar
Etter
Can we do good better? How can we update
our beliefs and accomplish our goals in this
complex world more effectively? Our decisions are actually the only thing that we
can improve and so this salon is dedicated
to the art and science of decision making.
Conversation Menu
1. We all know that we can and often do
err descriptively, but can we also err
normatively?
2. Which things in the universe are
intrinsically valuable, which are just
instrumentally valuable?
3. Given a better understanding of what
we value, why do we – both as individuals and as a society – often not act
accordingly?
4. There has been considerable moral
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progress over the last centuries, but given our increasingly powerful technologies, is our moral progress fast enough?
5. Is there such a thing as moral truth or
objective morality and if not, how can
we handle disagreements?
4. Light, Matter and the Duality of
Human Experience Lisa Poulikakos
• The concept of wave-particle duality
of light in comparison to philosophical theories of dualism dating back to
Plato and Aristotle
• Light-Matter-Interactions
• Optics: the concept probing matter
with light to observe nature’s underlying physical phenomena
• Schrödinger’s cat: a brief introduction
to the principle of quantum mechanical observation
• Light in art and literature: how light
and “enlightenment” are used as literary and artistic tools to describe human
experience (examples include T.S. Eliot,
Vladimir Nabokov, Ingeborg Bachmann, Caspar David Friedrich, Vincent
Van
Gogh)
• Light and Life: Optogenetics: A specific
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example in modern research, where
light is used to control the activity of
living cells. Specifically this has been
used in neuroscience, where light can
probe neurons selectively in order to
better understand the function of the
brain, one of nature’s great, unsolved
mysteries.
Conversation Menu
1. By studying the concept of light
through the lens of art and science, we
find remarkable parallels between the
two fields. Discuss how such parallels
can come about.
2. Discuss how our understanding of a
complex subject matter such as light
can be enriched, by studying it from
the perspective of different fields. Begin
by juxtaposing the artwork discussed
(Impressionism, Pointillism, Fauvism)
with related physical theories.
3. The concept of duality is not unique to
light. Dualities can also be found in the
concept of space (discrete and continuous) and time (cyclic and linear). Discuss how these dualities are expressed in
both art and science.
4. Discuss the duality of human experience. What examples can be found in
both art and science?
5. Discuss light in your personal experience. Is light most frequently a bright
ray, a rainbow, a discrete packet of
color or all at once?
6. The emerging field of “optogenetics”
made it possible to directly manipulate
neurons with light. What does this
direct invasion of light into our consciousness mean? How would this new
level of connecting light to human
experience be expressed in art?
5. In the Treadmill of
Digitalization: How Technologies
Affect Ourselves and Our Social
Relationships Janina Bühler
We live in an ever changing and developing world. Technologies influence our
daily life, iPhones are omnipresent and
virtual social networks have become one of
the most prominent ways to interact with
other people. Formerly, it was promised
that technologies and social media would
enhance our social bonds. Nowadays, however, the digitalization might steer us in
the opposite direction. We become isolated
and lonesome in front of mobile and computer screens, while real interactions seem
more and more superfluous. What do technologies mean for our social life and our
close relationships? What does the presence of iPhones mean for our personality,
namely for our capacity of self-control and
delayed gratification? In this salon, we will
discuss the development of relevant technologies, consider their influence on and
consequences for our social relationships,
and examine personal and social strategies
for how to cope with this acceleration of
digitalization.
Conversation Menu
1. How do technologies and digitalization influence your daily life? What
impact do they have on your behavior,
feelings, and thoughts?
2. What do you expect from the technologies that you use?
3. Has digital usage changed your capacity
of self-control and delay of gratification? Does this capacity also affect
other domains of your life?
4. Do technologies, such as smartphones,
bring people closer together or further
away from each other?
5. If you could choose: would you prefer
to live in a world without smartphones?
Why? Why not?
6. Plant Ethics Emily Sigman
New technologies and research methods in
ecology have revealed staggering new findings about plants and fungi. From mother
Cedar trees that care for their young, to
mats of fungi that behave with nearly unquestionable similarity to a human brain,
many ecologists are turning their attention away from traditional botany and instead exploring the burgeoning and controversial field of plant behavior. As plant
behavior increasingly reveals emotions, attachments, and even decision-making capacities in taxa once considered non-sentient, what implications might emerge for
human behavior? Vegans and vegetarians
beware, the conclusions of this salon could
have you thinking twice about that Portobello…
Conversation Menu
1. What constitutes sentience?
2. What do we gain or lose in distinguishing between sentience and non-sentience? 3. Is sentience necessarily good/ better
than non-sentience?
4. Is there a hierarchy of sentience, and if
so, why place human sentience at the
top?
5. Must sentience reside in individuals,
or does sentience also manifest within
groups or systems?
6. What are our obligations to other (sentient) beings and systems?
7. What implications might affirmations
of plant/fungal sentience have for:
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Vegan/vegetarian ethics? Environmental ethics? Agricultural pragmatism?
Spirituality? Fundamental science?
7. Questions of Life Winnie So
What are our “gut” moralities about what
constitutes “life”, and how life can be created, enhanced or extended? What are the
ethical considerations for commercialization, even commoditization, of life
producing/enhancing components, procedures and technologies? Do we and should
we have different ethical considerations
and standards for human versus other life?
Conversation Menu
What is it to think about life?
1. Why do we ask questions like, what is
life? What are we trying to get at?
2. What are our gut moralities when it
comes to certain questions? [Participants will be presented with a list of
questions and invited to give their
spontaneous moral reaction.]
3. What emotions come up when we ask
questions like: How is human life different from other life? When does life
begin? Who has the power to create,
manipulate, extend or end life? What
happens after life? If we keep replacing
parts of a body with man-made parts,
at what point does the human life
become a machine? As we think about
questions of life, what fears and anxieties do we grapple with?
What is life?
4. Is life simply a process of protein synthesis according to a particular code
(genome)? Is an embryo a life?
5. If someone is constituted of synthetic
DNA, is s/he still a life?
6. Given that the technology to create
and manipulate life exists, how should
we use it?
The value of life
7. How do we value a life? How do we
view/value the building blocks of life:
genome, egg, sperm, stem cell, etc. The
processes of creating a life? How much
is a designer baby worth? Who can
own/profit from such discoveries?
8. With our knowledge and power to
manipulate and even create new life,
how should we live our lives as individuals and in society? Should we aim
to create children/populations without
vulnerabilities to diseases? Enhanced
capabilities? Ideal beauty? Would this
be a privilege for those who could
afford the technology or should it be a
right? Would we then want the right to
be “organic” humans?
9. With our knowledge and power to
extend life, how should we approach
death? Are all lives to be extended as
long as technology allows whatever the
cost?
8. The Rhetoric of Popular Science
Books (Past and Present) Lukas
Etter
The activity of writing popular science
books looks back on several long strands
of traditions all the while frequently found
among scientists of various fields in the 21st
century. Many historical examples of the
Early Modern period in Europe appeared in
the form of a fictitious dialogue, in which
a more knowledgeable person instructs a
less seasoned one about a particular field
of inquiry. Examples include Bernard de
Fontanelle’s Entretiens sur la pluralité des
mondes from the late 17th century, Jane
Marcet’s Conversations on Natural Philosophy (1805/1819), and countless others.
This salon will start with a brief input on
popular science books in a specific historical period, namely, the second third of the
19th century – the one period in which the
“popular enthusiasm” for science / ‘natural philosophy’ (Deborah Warner) reached
a first peak in both Europe and North
America. This will be followed by a forum
for studying and discussing the rhetoric of
such popular science writing from the 19th
and 20th centuries and connecting them
with more recent developments of authors
who have attempted to explain natural
phenomena during the first few years of
the 21st century. A leitmotif for the discussion will be the tradition of the fictitious
dialogue and the question whether remnants of this form, which necessarily walks
a thin red line between explanation and
patronization, can still be found in 21st
century popular science books.
Conversation Menu
1. Can we usefully define what, if anything, is popular in popular science
books? How about the aspect of science?
2. Can we make general statements about
the point at which simplification becomes over-simplification?
3. In major Western European languages,
there are notable traditions of popularizing the sciences (or ‘natural philosophy’) by means of publishing fictitious
‘conversations’ about a particular topic.
Bernard de Fontanelle’s Entretiens sur
la pluralité des mondes (1686) and Jane
Marcet’s Conversations on Natural
Philosophy (1805/1819) are just two of
countless examples. Are there remnants
of this quite specific form of Socratic
dialogue in 20th-/21st-century popular
science books?
4. Early forms of popular science (e.g.
the ‘conversations’ in the early 19th
century) have – irrespective of their aspirations – excluded certain individuals
on the basis of such aspects as gender,
race, class, nationality, etc. In the 21st
century, what types of popular science
books foster accessibility? And which
ones are more likely to cement a status
quo (even if not necessarily intentionally so)?
5. Authors of popular science books do
not ‘just’ describe things, they do so
with specific rhetorical strategies and
methodologies. Under what circumstances is there a danger that complex
philosophical and interdisciplinary
scholarship on such strategies and
methodologies (e.g., scholarship on
dismantling the ‘autonomous genius,’
on choosing a postcolonial angle to
the history of science, etc.) is entirely
overlooked? How is this danger best
addressed?
6. Describe a popular science book you
have recently read. What adjectives
(informative, modest, megalomaniac, inaccessible, simplistic, visually
enticing etc.) would best describe its
rhetoric, and why?
7. To what end and with what effect are
algebraic formulae used in popular science books (past and present) vis-à-vis
prose text? In other words, what is – so
to speak – the symbolic value of the
symbolic signs?
8. What does a book have on offer that
other medial forms (TED talk, podcast,
etc.) do not have? Does it have a future?
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9. Property Rights in the 21st
Century Juliane Mendelsohn, WolfFabian Hungerland
In the approaching a Post-Anthropocene
world where “there are not true externalities, because there is not outside to put
them” (Bratton, 2015) human survival will
be entirely dependent on cooperation, a
reflection of the self and technological
advancement. This requires a better understanding of human nature, a more optimal and sustainable allocation of rights
and resources and an analysis of the current
lock-in effects of capitalism itself. In this
context, this salon critiques the prescriptively normative nature of assumptions in
law and economics on which the creation
and the defense of property rights is based.
Both the exaggerated assumption of the
scarcity of virtually any good (and its relevance in the short run) as well the truism
of the inevitability of the tragedy of the
commons, can be used to map the success
of property rights in the 20th century. The
dominance of these narratives have shaped
both the extension of property rights into
the realm of ideas, thoughts and immaterial goods, where they have been refined by
Hegelian ideals of personality and defended by the Lockeanian theory of labour, but
have also strongly shaped the discourse of
other rights, even human rights (Badiou
2001; E. Posner 2014). In conclusion and
discussion, this salon proposes to search for
alternative narratives to capture the human
incentives invested in progress (Benkler
2006; Lessing) and alternative approaches
to the virtue of socio-economic rights.
Conversation Menu
1. Do you agree with the following statements?
Aristotle: “For that which is common
to the greatest number has the least
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care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks
chiefly of his own, hardly at all of
common interest, and only when he is
himself concerned as an individual”
Milton Friedmann: “Nobody spends
somebody else’s money as carefully as
he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he
uses his own. So if you want efficiency
and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have
to do it through the means of private
property.
2. In terms of human nature, do you
believe profit and ownership are key
incentives that drive creativity and the
spirit of innovation?
3. To what extent are property rights suitable in a time of substantial technological change?
4. Do you believe the process by which
property rights and the access to resources are allocated is fair or justifiable?
5. What would our consumption-driven
world look like with less stringent
property rights?
6. Thinking about the concept of “ours”
at the Gezi Park demonstrations in
Turkey or the underlying message of
Occupy Wall Street, do you think a new
notion of the “we” is emerging and
what is it tackling?
7. Do you think the predominance of
“property” and “ownership” narratives
have influenced our thinking and our
relationship to the world, others and
ourselves?
10. Modern Food Safety and
Changing Tastebuds Oskar Jönsson
11. Technological Influences in
Politics and Policy Nicolas Zahn
Tomatoes all year round in the supermarket, sugar-free soft drinks, fish that doesn’t
smell like fish and cultured beef. The foods
we eat today come with various contradictions and pitfalls. But as long as it is cheap,
the consumer happily accepts this. Besides
caring for the price we want the food to be
tasty, of equal quality every time we buy it
and it should be safe to eat. Some of these
requirements come naturally, others are
assumptions. In this salon we will discuss
how these dogmas have changed the way
our food smells and tastes in the past and
how this could change in the future. The
main questions are: How has the smell/
taste of our food been affected by modern
food safety laws? In what way is the food
industry influencing what we like to eat?
Is the feeling of disgust concerning food
more widespread nowadays than it was in
the past?
Conversation Menu
1. What are nice smells or tastes? And
how are these related to food items?
2. How has the smell/taste of food been
affected by modern food safety laws?
Have we lost a sense for what is still
edible and what is not?
3. Has the variety of foods we eat decreased over time because we now
rather just eat what we like than what
is available?
4. Does food nowadays taste better than
in the past due to the intense research
about our taste preferences?
5. Are we nowadays disgusted by smells or
tastes that were considered as alright or
even nice in the past?
In this salon I would like to first go back
in time and see how certain political milestones were connected to technologies and
then debate scenarios for the near-term
future, e.g. if algorithms could help create
policy and what philosophical questions
they raise, e.g. the tension between efficiency and democratic legitimacy.
Conversation Menu
1. How can politicians ensure that technologies are used in a way that benefits
society? How can we find a balance
between innovation and regulation?
What is driving technological advancements? Is technological process
controllable? If so, who should control
it and on what authority?
2. Are there certain rules that should always apply to the use and development
of new technologies? If so, what are
they and who should decide what they
are? Are those rules universal?
3. Technologies are invented to solve
problems. Couldn’t we use them to
create better policies than humans
could? If so, what would such policies
look like? If not, why not? Are we
headed towards technocracies? What is
the relation between technologies and
democracies? Are different political
systems affected differently by technological progress?
4. Technological progress has created and
shaped political agendas in the past.
What will be on the political agenda for the coming fourth industrial
revolution? How could we address these
issues?
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12. The Design Paradox of
Decentralization in Digital
Societies Evangelos Pournaras
Digital societies come with a design paradox: On the one hand, technologies, such
as Internet of Things, pervasive and ubiquitous systems, allow a distributed local intelligence in interconnected devices of our
everyday life such as smart phones, smart
thermostats, self-driving cars, etc. On the
other hand, Big Data collection and storage is managed in a highly centralized
fashion, resulting in privacy-intrusion,
surveillance actions, discriminatory and
segregation social phenomena. What is
the difference between a distributed and a
decentralized system design? How “decentralized” is the processing of our data nowadays? Does centralized design undermine
autonomy? Can the level of decentralization in the implemented technologies influence ethical and social dimensions, such
as social justice? Can decentralization convey sustainability? Are there parallelisms
between the decentralization of digital
technology and the decentralization of urban development?
Conversation Menu
1. What makes data `Big’? Which data
are ‘Small’? Are data `Big’ or `Small’
nowadays?
2. How privacy-preserving are decisions
about privacy-preservation?
3. How can Big Data practices undermine
citizen’s autonomy?
4. How can `fair-trade’ data be institutionalized?
5. Can Big Data practices justify environmental sustainability? Does design have
an environmental footprint?
6. Does loss of citizens’ control over information meaning and interpretation
renders self-instituting digital societies
infeasible?
7. Can decentralization claim self-instituting democratic digital societies?
13. The Role of Philosophical
Disagreement in Daily Political
Decisions Michaela Egli
There is one thing for sure at the frontiers
of nature and technology: disagreement.
Nevertheless, questions about the practical
impact of technology and scientific investigations are on the daily political agenda.
What is the nature of human beings? What
is our relation to science and technology?
What is our relation to nature itself? In order to judge whether some new technology
is a risk or a chance for our society, we already answered all these questions implicitly.
Surely, there is scant time for philosophy
in politics. So, what happens to the philosophical disagreement in politics? How
does it influence political negotiations
about science? Should there be more room
to “talk philosophy” in politics? Or is the
well-working consent in politics evidence
that, at the end, philosophy doesn’t really
matter? In this small salon I would like to
address these questions, by discussing different theses about philosophical disagreement and analyze concrete examples of
political negotiations with philosophical
convictions at stake.
Conversation Menu
1. What makes seemingly simple questions, such as: “Does vaccination reduce
harm?” Or, “Does animal testing result
in scientific progress?” so difficult to
resolve in political discourse?
2. What is the role of philosophical
convictions in these questions? For example, convictions about what nature
or mankind is, or how technology and
human nature relate to each other.
3. Why has the phrase: “because it is natural” such a justifying force?
4. Can we resolve philosophical disagreement in political discourse and how?
5. Do we need more room to “talk philosophy” in politics?
14. Healthcare: Between Altruism
and Profit Tarun Mehra M.D
“We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those
[virtues] because we have acted rightly.“Aristotle
An aging society as well as highly visible
gradients in welfare between different geographic regions accentuate the urgency of
addressing the challenge of answering the
very difficult question of what amount of
health care should be provided a) within
our own society and b) also on a worldwide scale. According to the WHO definition, health is „ […] a state of complete
physical, mental and social well-being and
not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.“
Generally speaking, I believe it can be assumed that the prime aim of health care is
the improvement of health
This policy perspective is mirrored by the
ethics of the medical profession, as defined
in the Declaration of Geneva in 1948: „[…]
The health of my patient will be my first
consideration. […]“
However, due to the dynamics of an aging population as well as a stark increase
in competition for financial resources of
governmental social spending, amidst
economic downturn, monetary instability and a surge in immigration due to
global political instability, we, as a society, are increasingly confronted with the
very uncomfortable question of how we
are to continue to sustainably fund the actions which are enticed by our moral values, specifically in the area of health care.
Especially, how are we to decide if we are
confronted with the decision of funding a
further expensive, life-extending therapy
which would benefit the population 70+
but which would in return constrict our
financial maneuverability in the financing
of pre-school education? And is it morally
acceptable to fund a treatment in our geographic sphere which would extend the
life expectancy of cancer patients by a couple of months as long as 99% of maternal
deaths, usually of young, otherwise healthy
women, occur in developing countries? Indeed, not only does the growing pressure
on our own health care systems confront
us with ethical dilemmas, but furthermore
the visible discrepancies of developmental
inequalities pose an additional challenge.
These are especially visible in the discussion concerning the licensing of patents of
HIV medications.
Indeed, a majority of HIV positive patients
world-wide live in developing nations
which are too poor to be able to afford
the market price of anti-retroviral therapies. Hence, we, the industrial nations, are
confronted with a double ethical dilemma
of how to a) fund the increasing demand
for health care in an aging population and
b) assure a just distribution of health care
resources on a world-wide scale. However,
a majority of stakeholders active in the
health care sector are profit-driven. How
shall we resolve this conundrum?
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Conversation Menu
1. With an average life expectancy of X
in developed nations, does sustained
health care still have a purpose in our
society?
2. How much should a year of life cost?
3. Is health a universal human right?
4. Patents in health care: good or evil?
5. Is there room for profit in health care?
6. Where and to what extent should the
regulatory bodies intervene?
7. Can financial incentives foster wider
altruistic behaviour?
15. Statistics is Interpretation:
Philosophical Challenges When
Applying Statistics to Scientific
and Societal Problems Servan
Grüninger
Without statistics, hardly any of the many
recent scientific breakthroughs would have
been possible: The decoding of the human
genome depended as much on statisticians
as on geneticists, molecular biologists and
biochemists. Confirming the existence of
the Higgs-Boson required not only the
construction billion-dollar ring accelerator under the surface of Geneva – it
also took sophisticated statistical models
to make sense out of the huge amount of
experimental data produced by CERN’s
Large Hadron Collider. And many of the
computational tools that allowed machines to defeat humans in chess, poker
and – most recently – Go are in many cases
just statistics in disguise.
Hence, statistical methods have greatly
enhanced our knowledge of the world and
our technological capabilities. We should
be aware, however, that those methods are
always associated with an entire framework of philosophical ideas and assumptions. Therefore, statistical methods do
not allow us to see the world as it is, but as
we interpret it. Given that modern society increasingly depends on the evaluation
and interpretation of data, it is important
to stress that statistics does not help us to
interpret data. It is interpretation.
Conversation Menu
Personal experiences
Statistical data seem to be notoriously difficult for many people to interpret in an
intuitive way. One reason for this might
be the fact, that statistics is often seen as
nothing more than a tool to test a hypothesis. However, each test is associated with
a host of assumptions which often render
the test useless if they are not met. If you
use statistical tools yourself, how do you use
them and how much do you know about
the underlying statistical theory behind
these tools? If you do not use them yourself:
How do you interpret statistical models or
data when presented to you? How do you
incorporate them into your knowledge?
Where do you encounter statistics in your
daily life (be it professional or personal)?
How does statistics influence your personal
perception of a specific matter?
Lies, damn lies, and statistics
Statistical representation of data is often
presented in a distorted and even fraudulent way in order to promote a specific message. Nevertheless, even the most
prudent statistician must take normative
decisions, namely: “What is important to
show and what not?” How and where can
we draw the line between fraudulent omissions and necessary simplifications?
The way science goes
The «standard way» of the scientific method is usually depicted as follow:
A scientists comes up with a specific hypothesis, gathers data and then tests his
hypothesis against this data. However, in
a constantly more data-driven scientific world, this procedure has the tendency
to revert itself: The data is gathered first,
while drawing up the hypothesis follows suit. What problems and challenges could emerge from this approach for:
- Science? - Our interpretation of scientific
facts? - Societal decisions?
A false sense of certainty
Statistical models are almost never certain.
They only provide us with descriptions and
interpretations of data that are valid under
specific assumption and with specific probabilities. Nevertheless, the presentation of
statistical data and information is usually
considered to have a higher validity than
other means of describing the world. People tend to trust statistical interpretations
– regardless of how absurd certain assumptions might be. How can we increase the
awareness that statistical models are always
associated with specific underlying assumptions of varying certainty and plausibility?
How to keep experiments alive
Ronald A. Fisher, one of the founding fathers of modern statistics, once said: “To
consult the statistician after an experiment is finished is often merely to ask him
to conduct a post mortem examination.
He can perhaps say what the experiment
died of.” Keeping in mind the discussion
revolving around the previous four questions: In which regard is it crucial to think
about statistics from the very beginning
of an experiment? What are the biggest
threats when handling statistical models?
In which regard could a better knowledge
of philosophy help to improve scientific research based on statistics?
16. The Future of Medical
Diagnostics Andreas Frutiger
Point of care medicine – the monitoring
of biomarkers at home – is an emerging
field and expected to be a multibillion
dollar market by 2020. Our abilities to
assess the welfare and status of our body
are expanding at an exponential pace and
companies like Theranos and 23andme
are already offering extensive testing and
genome sequencing products. Also big
IT-players (i.e. Google, Samsung, IBM)
are heavily investing into biotech and first
products like Watson Cancer service have
appeared on the market. In this salon we
will briefly summarize the capabilities of
the most important diagnostics tools and
discuss their implications on the future of
medicine and society.
Conversation Menu
1. What is the purpose of medical diagnostics?
2. When is assessing the state of an individual useful/Are there cases where it
is not desirable “to know”? Or what
diagnostic tests make sense?
3. To what extent and which areas of
medial diagnostics should be regulated
by law? For instance, should unborn
children be screened on a regular basis?
4. Like widespread fitness trackers,
diagnostic devices of the future will
assess your health status continuously
with unimaginable detail. What if this
device, instead of “you should exercise”, tells you, you have just developed
MLS (an untreatable condition of the
motor nerves) and on average, you have
5 more years to live? What if this device
tells you that you are about to develop
pancreatic cancer and you should start
treatment immediately, saving your
life? (Nowadays, PC is diagnosed only
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at a late stage, leading to an average life
expectancy of 2 years). Would you buy
this device?
5. There are efforts to build up huge
genomic databases linked to health
records. Obviously, such databases
provide a wealth of new insights into
medical conditions and hint new diagnostic markers. What are the Pros and
Cons of a centralized medical database
in Switzerland, where everyone is automatically part of it, with the option to
rescind?
6. Would it be unethical to deny access
to someone who refuses to share his/
her medical data from the knowledge
gained from such a database?
7. What is the role of the medical doctor
in the future?
8. Will we be diagnosed by machines
skimming through enormous amounts
of medical data and guiding our personalized treatment? (Watson IBM)
17. The Consequences of a
Functioning Brain Simulation
Johannes Fankhauser, Pietro Snider
Technology allows humans to virtually
simulate a great number of natural events
and processes. A major contemporary scientific challenge in this domain consists
in simulating the functioning of the entire human brain. This raises a number
of technical and philosophical questions.
What does it mean to simulate the brain?
Is it even possible to simulate a brain? What
exactly is simulated? How far are we in successfully doing so (Blue Brain Project, etc.)?
What would be the practical utility of such
a simulation? Furthermore, could a brain
simulation be sufficient to trigger all those
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properties that are instantiated in human
brains, including phenomenally conscious
properties of feelings, emotions, and so on?
What are the ethical implications linked
to such an enterprise and its potential success?
Conversation Menu
1. Technology allows humans to virtually simulate a great number of
natural events and processes. A major
contemporary scientific challenge in
this domain consists in simulating the
functioning of the entire human brain.
This raises a number of technical and
philosophical questions:
2. What does it mean to simulate the
brain? Is it enough to only consider
mathematical models and the biophysics of the neurons, or do we have to
understand the brain as a network?
3. Is it even possible to simulate a brain?
What do we have to simulate and why
have major projects like the Human
Brain Project not succeeded yet in
doing so?
4. What would be the practical utility of
such a simulation?
5. First there was Stephen Hawking, then
Elon Musk, and most recently Bill
Gates. All of these smart people have
suggested that artificial intelligence
is something to be watched carefully,
lest it develops to a point of existential
threat. Is a computer simulation of the
brain dangerous?
6. Could a brain simulation be sufficient
to trigger all those properties that are
instantiated in human brains, including phenomenally conscious properties
of feelings, emotions, and so on?
7. What are the ethical implications
linked to such an enterprise and its
potential success?
18. When Novels Help Us ThinkConsidering Possible Futures
Through (Houellebecq’s) Fiction
Alice Bottarelli
“For humans of the ancient race, our world
seems a paradise.” This is how Michel
Houellebecq’s second novel, The Elementary Particles, ends. Humanity has been
smoothly replaced by a species of “neohumans”, genetically modified, deprived of
sexual distinctions, and immortal. In this
novel, science (through cloning) provides
the solution to the main problems humans
had to face so far – the everlasting search
for pleasure, recognition, domination,
eternity. But is this solution truly viable?
desirable? What would be the consequences
of such a huge shift for human nature, and
for our natural environment? How would
it change our role and place in the universe,
the relationship with our surroundings?
Fascinated by Comte, Schopenhauer and,
surprisingly, Buddhism, Houellebecq uses
the fictional space to explore diverse theories and their global implications. How,
then, can fiction constitute a tool, a field,
a stage, where hypotheses can be examined
and tested? What conclusions, opinions,
precisions, can we draw from our reading
or discussing of novels?
Conversation Menu
1. As we will see, Houellebecq suggests in
his novels that there could be a “technical solution” to human suffering,
through cloning (a specific sort of
cloning through which sex differences
and physical desires are eliminated).
Whatever this solution may be (of
course, it remains quite unrealistic in
the novels), to what extent would you
consider science to be able to solve
certain social problems that humans
have to face?
2. Fiction, and especially science fiction,
is not only a critical reflection of the
world we live in, but can also present
alternative possibilities and outcomes
that invite us to modify our behaviour
and influence our present. Do you agree
with this statement? Or do you think
fiction has only very little impact on
reality (in which case, what endeavour
would have a larger influence)? Can
you think of certain fictions (whether
literary or not) that have had a strong
significance in your own existence,
your own actions, your perspective on
life? Or, more globally, that have influenced people’s ways of thinking? How
could fictions shape our relationships
with nature or technology?
3. In The Possibility of an Island, Houellebecq shows a world where neo-humans live separated from their natural
environment and from each other, in
isolated cells, connected only through
virtual devices. Do you think that we
(will) tend to become more and more
distant and secluded, avoiding all
contact with nature and our bodies? Is
technology alienating us from our
bodily experiences and from nature, or
can we find a compromise that enables
us to use technology not against but in
agreement with nature?
4. Houellebecq highlights the importance
of religion as a means to link people
together and to give them answers to
overcome their fear of death. Do you
think that a religious, or at least a
spiritual base is necessary for the wellbeing of human relations, and that we
should consider this dimension when
we think about the way we would like
to build the future? Or do you think
religion will tend to become rather superfluous in the future, especially if we
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gain more and more knowledge of the
world through scientific progress? Do
you think our relationship with nature
would benefit from a religious or
spiritual consciousness, or that we will
reach, as Auguste Comte predicted it, a
“positive stage” in which we don’t ask
ourselves questions that we know have
no answers?
5. For a broader perspective: What can
really change the world? Technology? Religious movements and beliefs?
Political actions? Can a book change
the world?
19. Quasi-Objects Luca Thanei
In his widely known essay “We have never
been modern“ (1991) the French sociologist
and philosopher of science Bruno Latour
takes a very unique stance on the relationship between the two realms of “society”
and “nature”. Latour introduces a notion
of so called Quasi-Objects in order to question the strict separation, which is commonly drawn between those realms. A separation, which assumes an entity to either
be naturally given (as an object) or collectively constructed by a society (as a fact)
– tertium non datur. Latours newly introduced Quasi-Objects aim to offer a third
entity, which combine the two realms of
“nature” and “society”.
A hybrid so to speak: ‘Quasi-objects are in
between and below the two poles [of nature and society]. Quasi-objects are much
more social, much more fabricated, much
more collective than the “hard” parts of
nature, but they are in no way the arbitrary
receptacles of a full-fledged society. On the
other hand they are much more real, nonhuman and objective than those shapeless
screens [in nature] on which society – for
unknown reasons – needed to be ‘projected’. In a fast growing blend of technology,
science and everyday life the question of
their ontological interlockings and dependencies seems quite fruitful. Therefore
we shall take time together to discuss Latours notion of Quasi-objects, reflect about
where such can be encountered and ask
ourselves how Quasi-objects can be made
visible to the philosopher’s eye.
Conversation Menu
1. Case Study QO 1: Dji Inspire 1 Drone
www.dji.com
2. Case Study QO 2: Soylent www.soylent.
com
3. Case Study QO 3: Ultimaker 2 go www.
ultimaker.com
4. Case Study QO 4: Graphicons www.
facebook.com
5. Reading Passage: Aramis or the Love of
Technology
20. Cultural Intelligence in a
Changing World Christina Kwok
We live in an age where the world is getting smaller and more interconnected but
much more complex. Our external environment is changing rapidly and all
the challenges we see today will require international collaboration to solve. But how
well do we understand the cultures around
the world that we need to work with to
bring international projects to fruition?
Many of us see global problems which are
often the result of a failure to communicate, misinterpretation and misunderstanding, particularly across cultures (national, regional, ethnic, organizational,
religious, generational etc). There needs to
be a desire and willingness to do things dif-
ferently. Leaders must manage this complexity and be prepared to articulate issues
in a way that brings people together.
I will sensitize participants to the critical
cultural differences that exist around the
world (10 of them) that would hamper
effective international cooperation if not
taken into account. In the process, I would
help participants look at their own culture
as a starting point, do interactive exercises to discover their own core values and
ability to flex this core when crossing cultures. The constantly shifting interplay of
the boundary between core and flex is what
constitutes cultural intelligence (more
than IQ or EQ),. We will talk about how
this boundary shifts through intercultural
encounters over time as we grow our cultural intelligence, tighten our core values
and develop flexibility in adapting to cultural differences.
Conversation Menu
Personal:
1. List what you believe to be in your own
Core and Flex. Think about values, behaviors, skills, beliefs and identity. List
them quickly without any particular
order.
Core: I would always... I would never...
Flex: I don’t mind …
2. What is the danger of being all Core
and nothing but Core?
3. What is the consequence of being all
Flex and very little Core?
4. Can you identify something that has
moved from Core to Flex or from Flex
to Core in each decade of your life?
General:
5. Is globalization making the world
smaller and cultural differences less
significant? Think Starbucks, CocaCola, Facebook etc.
6. Deciphering non-verbal communication: Speaking without words
“He didn’t look at me once. I know
he’s guilty. Never trust a person who
doesn’t look you in the eye.”
–American Police Officer–
“Americans smile at strangers. I don’t
know what to think of that.”
–Russian Engineer–
“Americans seem cold. They seem
to get upset when you stand close to
them.”
–Jordanian Teacher–
21. Life Coding: A New Social Reality
Nicoletta Iacobacci
• Forcast 2026 (10 years of exponentially
growing technologies)
• Gene editing tools: so powerful that
will have immense implications for the
environment and humanity.
• Mixed Reality / Hyper Reality (MR/
HR): a technological capability like
nanotechnology, human cloning and
artificial intelligence, where human intelligence meets artificial intelligence.
• The impact of VR on the natural environment
Conversation Menu
1. What are the immense implications of
gene editing tools for the environment
and for humanity?
2. What are the consequences of a persistent human intervention in evolution,
and can we do it responsibly?
3. To what extent should we use technology to try to create better human
beings?
4. Who will control the outcome of this
progress?
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5. Are we designing babies in the search
of perfection?
6. Is reprogenetics—the use of reproductive and genetic technologies to select
and genetically modify embryos—the
new eugenics?
7. Can we avoid death? If yes, what will be
the effects of immortality on society?
8. Will our future be a “human future”?
22. Singing Workshop Reyhan Zetler
How do our natural voices sound? We
will discover it in this workshop by doing
breathing exercises and a vocal warm-up.
Afterwards, we will rehearse an a-cappella
song about nature. All levels are welcome.
Notes and Thoughts
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Music Salons
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Saturday Music Salon
Louis Schwizgebel
Concert pianist - http://www.louisschwizgebelpiano.com
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) - Ballade n. 2
Franz Schubert (1797-1828), trans. Franz Liszt - Lieder
Ständchen
Auf dem Wasser zu singen
Du bist die Ruh
Friday Music Salon
Erlkonig
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Miklós Veszprémi
Concert pianist - http://www.miklosveszpremi.com
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) - Italian Concerto in F major, BWV 971 (1735)
Vallée d’Oberman
Les cloches de Geneve
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) - Ballade n. 3
I [Allegro]
II Andante
III Presto
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) - Sonata no. 18 in D major, KV 576 (1789)
I Allegro
II Adagio
Xiao Xiao Zhu
Johann Sebastian Bach, Ferruccio Busoni - Organ Choral Transcriptions
III Allegretto
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) - La Communion De La Vierge
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) - Sonata no. 3 in B minor, op. 58 (1844)
I Allegro maestoso
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)- Rhapsody no. 2
II Scherzo. Molto vivace
III Largo
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) - Violin Sonata No. 1 (with Stephanie Oestreich)
IV Finale. Presto non tanto – Agitato
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) - Lieder (with Pavel Achter)
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Sponsors & Partners
COLLEGIUM
HELVETICUM
The Collegium Helveticum considers itself as a
laboratory for transdisciplinary research. Founded in 1997, its central purpose and vision is to promote knowledge exchange between the natural
sciences, the humanities, art, technology and
medicine. As a joint initiative of the University
of Zurich and the ETH Zurich, the Collegium
is in a unique position to exploit the potential of
two of Zurich's
most renowned
From knowledge and ideas to reacademic instisponsible action: one purpose of the
tutions. It seeks
ETH Zurich's “Critical Thinking Initiato establish a
tive” is to motivate students to work both
framework for
independently and in interdisciplinary and
knowledge exintercultural teams. They will be trained
change in transto communicate confidently in several
disciplinary prolanguages and interact with different inject partnerships
terest groups. ETH Zurich aims to instill
and to demonintellectual agility, critical thinking and
strate how acaa responsible approach to taking action in
demic dialogue
its graduates and to give them the tools to
can lead to the
address socially relevant and ethical aspects
development of
and the principles of sustainable developnew interdisciment as part of their activities.
plinary concepts
and processes.
The Wilhelm Jerg
Legat at the University of Zurich was
established thanks
to an endowment
by Miss Ida Jerg
with the purpose of
advancing societal life by supporting
cultural, musical and interdisciplinary
events and research.
reatch aims to establish a public culture that exploits the
full potential of science and research in order to support
the interests and goals of society as a whole. In order to
achieve this, we encourage an open and transparent debate about the benefits and risks of scientific and technological achievements. A debate, which separates facts
from fiction and which allows scientific knowledge as well
as philosophical arguments to enter the public discourse.
www.reatch.ch
Since 1991, the Swiss Study Foundation has been supporting excellent students and postgraduates at universities and
technical colleges who due to their personality, creativity
and intellectual skills are in a position to contribute to science, business, culture and politics. The Foundation’s mission is to promote young people who are willing and capable of assuming leading positions in all sectors of society.
http://www.studyfoundation.ch
The Zurich Salon advocates freedom of expression and rational discussion
in the Enlightenment tradition. It promotes open-ended debate in an
atmosphere of mutual respect. The Zurich Salon’s objective is to push the
boundaries of public discussion and to widen our horizons. It exists to create
a public space to explore contemporary issues critically and constructively.
http://www.zurichsalon.org
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