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Quantum mechanics is arguably the most puzzling physical theory we have ever had. On the one hand, it makes excellent empirical predictions; on the other, we know that it cannot be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Trying to understand quantum mechanics while keeping its predictive success has led to alternative formulations of the theory. One of the most suggestive of these, Hugh Everett III’s pure wave mechanics, describes a quantum universe constantly evolving into many parallel,…

On Saturday, the 5^th of May, the second „Konstanzer Geistes Slam“ was a great success. For one hour within the “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaft” five young scientists from varying institutions presented their subjects. Although the well established PowerPoint presentation was a useful help, this event was stamped by the motto: anything goes, as long as it serves a better understanding. The participants had eight minutes time to bring across their message, afterwards presenter Mario Müller („Theater…

What are "altruism" and "selfishness" in human action, and do they exclude each other? Which role do they play in economics? What's the point of accusing someone of being "selfish", and is the pleasure of feeling morally superior not "selfish" in its own way?

Let's continue exploring philosophy and its borders in a conversation between Christoph Fehige, Professor of Practical Philosophy at Saarland University in Saarbrücken and Senior Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg, and Urs Fischbacher, Professor…

Tuesday, 8^th of May, 2012

At 8 p.m.

Café Voglhaus, Wessenbergstraße 8

In comfortable ambience of the Café Voglhaus neurobiologist and director of the Zukunftskolleg Prof. Giovanni Galizia will be talking about scents, how contiguous they are to our emotions, and how important they are for the bees. This scientifical diaolog takes place within the framework of the series of events “Angesprochen: Wissenschaft” which is being organized and held by Südkurier, the University of Konstanz, and the…

Im Rahmen der „Langen Nacht der Wissenschaften“, die von der Universität Konstanz gemeinsam mit der Hochschule Konstanz Technik, Wirtschaft und Gestaltung (HTWG), der Stadt Konstanz, der Insel Mainau und der Pädagogischen Hochschule Thurgau (PHTG) durchgeführt wird, präsentieren das Zukunftskolleg und die Geisteswissenschaftliche Sektion der Universität Konstanz den Zweiten Konstanzer Geistes Slam.

An dem vom Philosophen und Schauspieler Mario Müller (Theater mit beschränkter Hoffnung)…

On Monday, 30th April 2012, another workshop of the Department of Philosophy will take place from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in V 1001. All Members of the Zukunftskolleg are invited to join this workshop. Among others Jeffrey A. Barrett will discuss about "Logic".

Program

The Zukunftskolleg would like to thank Helen Gunter for her work as an Executive Committee member and would like to greet Martin Bruder, a new Executive Committee member. The elections took place during the first Jour Fixe of the Summer Term 2012 (19.04.2012) with total of 9 candidates. We congratulate Martin Bruder and wish him good luck!

Dienstag, den 24. April 2012

20 bis 22 Uhr

Kulturzentrum am Münster

(Wolkensteinsaal, Wessenbergstraße 39)

Im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe "Karrierewege in der Wissenschaft“  findet  in Kooperation mit der Konstanzer ArbeiterKind.de-Gruppe eine Diskussion zwischen der Autorin von “Ausgebremst: Warum das Recht auf Bildung nicht für alle gilt“ (2011) Katja Urbatsch und ihren Leserinnen und Lesern Eva Blome (Postdoc im Exzellenzcluster/ Literaturwissenschaftlerin), Anne Pajarinen (Career Service…

Senior fellow of the Zukunftskolleg Wilson Poon will give three two-hour lectures on "The Physics of Active Colloids".

Friday 20^th April 2012 at 10:00-11:30, room P712

Thursday, 26^th April 2012 at 13:30, room P602

Friday, 27^th April 2012 at 10:00, room P712

Wilson is a physicist who has made outstanding contributions to the physics of colloidal dispersions and colloid-polymer mixtures in the past. He has moved on to study bacteria, some work he will discuss in detail in his lectures. He has…

Senior Fellow Prof. Gregory Miller arrived in Konstanz yesterday and will be staying at the Zukunftskolleg till 4^th of April. We warmly welcome Prof. Miller at the Zukunftskolleg and will be happy to have him here again  from 26^th of May to 9^th of June.

Academic philosophy is closely associated with the individual sciences in that as ascience theory, it contributes to the analysis of hypothesis formulation and theory development. Viewed formerly as a universal, today as a basic science, the question arises as to how philosophy can be positioned within the spectrum of university research, and how other disciplines can enter into a fruitful discourse with it. The Zukunftskolleg – a unique, interdisciplinary organization for the promotion of…

Professor Adam Berg will give a lecture titled “What happens to science and art in the age of transcoding?” on 22^nd of March 2012 in Y 311 from 11:45 till 13:30 (the abstract is available here).

Professor Berg is an adjunct associate professor in the Liberal Arts and Sciences department at Otis College of Art and Design and also teaches at the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). He studied art at the Academia delle Belle Arti, Rome, Architecture at the…

Yoram Carmeli, Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Haifa, Israel, arrived last week in Konstanz. He has already visited the Zukunftskolleg before and this time he will stay till 31.05.2012. The Zukunftskolleg is glad to have Professor Carmeli here again!

Franz Huber, Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg, accepted a tenure-stream position in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada, downtown campus (St. Georg), at the rank of Assistant Professor, starting 1st January 2013. The Zukunftskolleg congratulates Franz Huber on the new position!

On Monday, 19th March 2012, a workshop of the Department of Philosophy will take place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in V 1001. All Members of the Zukunftskolleg are invited to join the workshop with Jeffrey A. Barrett dealing with "Philosophy of Science".

Program

David Leep was elected to a member of the Executive Committee in February and he gladly accepted the new offer. The Zukunftskolleg congratulates Prof. Leep and wishes good luck!

Prof. Iris-Tatjana Kolassa, Alumna of the Zukunftskolleg, received Janet Taylor Spence Award For Transformative Early Career Contributions To Psychological Science from the Association for Psychological Science. This prize distinguishes special creative approach to the research, which motivates re-thinking in the area of Psychology. Iris-Tatjana Kolassa is head of the Department of Clinical and Biological Psychology at the University of Ulm since 2010. In 2006 she became a member of the…

The research results of the joint work of Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg, Simon Hanslmayr with Prof. Mikael Johansson and with Dr. Gerd Waldhauser (University of Lund, Sweden) showed for the first time that retrieval of associated memory contents inhibits interfering contents which leads to the forgetting of the latter. A distinction between the patterns of contents which have to be recalled and of interfering contents was achieved by means of EEG.  This method provides direct evidence for the…

Gunhild Berg, Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg, edited a book "Collegium über Naturlehre und Astronomie bei Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Göttingen 1796/1797; ein Skizzenbuch der Experimentalphysik“ which was recently published. In this book the author, Jakob Friedrich Dyckerhoff collected sketches and notes of the lectures of G. C. Lichtenberg. He also described there Lichtenberg’s principle of trusting in nature as in a teacher.

More information about the book and also the abstract are available h…

Academic philosophy is closely associated with the individual sciences in that as a science theory, it contributes to the analysis of hypothesis formulation and theory development. Viewed formerly as a universal, today as a basic science, the question arises as to how philosophy can be positioned within the spectrum of university research, and how other disciplines can enter into a fruitful discourse with it. The Zukunftskolleg would…

January 26, 2012/ A 703/ 6 p.m.

As in the Summer Term 2011, the Zukunftskolleg would like to distinguish two Senior Fellows Prof. Dr. Sabine von Heusinger (University of Cologne) und Prof. Dr. Klaus von Heusinger (University of Stuttgart) who contributed massively to the interdisciplinary environment of the excellent researchers of the University of Konstanz.

In their common lecture (in English) they will deal with the meaning and function of the names from a linguistic and historical point…

Yaron Matras, distinguished linguist from the University of Manchester, arrived today in Konstanz. He was nominated by Eleanor Coghill. He will work on the project titled “Neo-Aramaic morphosyntax in its areal-linguistic context” till 15.5.2012. Welcome to the Zukunftskolleg!

The Zukunftskolleg is happy to greet Senior Fellows Christoph Fehige (University of Saarbrücken) and Dimitri Ginev (University of Sofia) who both arrived at the University of Konstanz on 09.01.2012. Christoph Fehige (nominated by Atilla Tanyi) deals with the topics of Practical Philosophy and his current project at the University of Konstanz is titled "Peace and Tolerance in Consequentialist Ethics". The focus of Dimitri Ginev (nominated by Jeff Kochan) is on Hermeneutics. His…

Chemist and Zukunftskolleg Alumnus Jörg Hartig receives a Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities Award for Chemistry for “his innovative and trend-setting works in area of Chemical Biology of nucleic acids”.

The Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities awards its research prizes “for outstanding scientific works published by young researchers in international magazines”. This award was donated by the Dyneon GmbH and by the Chemical Industry Fund.

Further information is available in…

On Monday December 12^th, 2011, Jeffrey A. Barrett will chair a first workshop taking place 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in room V 1001. Following topics are intended:

15:00-16:00: Jeff Barrettt (UC Irvine/Senior Fellow): Pure Wave Mechanics and the Very Idea of Empirical Adequacy

16:15-17:15: Mathias Frisch (Maryland/Munich): Incantations of Causation and Other Philosophical Sins

17:30-18:30: Carl Hoefer (Barcelona): A Humean Looks at Quantum Probability

18:45-19:45: Charlotte Werndl (London School of…

The Zukunftskolleg welcomes Prof. Jeffrey Alan Barrett who arrived in Konstanz today. He will stay as Senior Fellow at the Zukunftskolleg until July 31^st, 2012. Jeffrey A. Barrett comes from the University of California in Irvine (USA) where he is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the School of Social Sciences. He was nominated by the Fellow of the Zukunftskolleg Franz Huber. During his stay he will work on the project „Modeling the coevolution of descriptive language and physical…

On Monday, 28^th of November, 2011 in auditorium A 703, Zukunftskolleg Alumnus Prof. Sven Reichardt will hold his inaugural lecture titled "Konsens und Gewalt im Faschismus".

In this article, by means of simultaneous measuring of brainwaves (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance tomography (MRT), it is shown which neuronal synchronization patterns are at the bottom of the formation of new memory contents.

The article from "The Journal of Neuroscience" is available here.

The nation-wide premiere of a “Geistes Slam” inspired about 200 visitors at the University of Konstanz. The auditorium was bursting at the seams on Saturday, November 19th, 2011 as five brave young researchers from the Faculty of Humanities and from the Zukunftskolleg introduced themselves to the audience. With maximum eight-minutes long talk, the protagonists showed Immanuel Kant’s understanding of human’s freedom not only as the one of a spatula (Philosopher Federica Basaglia) and also how a…