Whitehead Lectures: Amie L. Thomasson (Dartmouth College)

Date:

Thursday, April 29, 2021, 3:00pm to 5:00pm

Location:

Zoom Webinar

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55th Annual Whitehead Lectures: Amie L. Thomasson (Dartmouth College)

April 29th & 30th, 3pm - 5pm EDT

Please join the Harvard University Department of Philosophy as we present the 55th Annual Whitehead Lectures. Our guest lecturer this year is Prof. Amie L. Thomasson (Dartmouth College).

Both lectures are from 3pm - 5pm EDT.

April 29th:
Lecture 1: "Misdirections in Metaphysics"

April 30th:
Lecture 2: "Redirecting Metaphysics"

https://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/event/whitehead-lectures-amie-thomasson-dartmouth-tba-0

https://philosophy.fas.harvard.edu/calendar/upcoming/department-events/whitehead-lectures

I asked the last questions in the Q&A on Friday, April 30, 2021 - to Amie Thomasson:

Here are my questions, which I’ll ask in voice, if there’s time, and for preliminary reflections:

Thanks so much for your excellent Harvard philosophy talks, Amie! You've mentioned the terms 'world,' and 'language' and 'conceptual engineering' a number of times, regarding redirecting metaphysics. In an out of the box way, - and in seeking to examine multi-functional language - if we were to operationalize or engineer your talk in a single realistic virtual earth for everything (think Google Street View with time slider, Maps, Earth, TensorFlow AI, Translate - with Text-in-the-Sidebar, and at the cellular and atomic levels, and conversational artificial humans aka Samsung Neons), and even with a #film-to-3D App, which could be used to bring philosophers talks into 3D for subsequent conversational interactivity with the said philosopher in avatar bot form, how would modals, for example, work? In what ways could we far-preachingly explore "Redirecting Metaphysics" in the ways you argue? In what ways could the new connections or links between the text in the sidebar and the world serve to help further create a single realistic virtual earth for philosophy and metaphysics (epistemology and ethics too)? This would potentially engage the ideational, interpersonal, and textual approaches you heralded as well.

I'm not a professional philosopher and you may not be familiar with these potential virtual world digital directions for philosophy, so I hope this will be an open-ended freeing question you freely 'riff' with. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All the best,

Scott MacLeod (sgkmacleod@worlduniversityandschool.org)

* * *

Dear Larry, Ed, Jim, David Ross, Walter, Donn, All,

Am glad and surprised that the head of MIT Libraries' Chris Bourg (he or she????) - https://twitter.com/mchris4duke - retweeted my MIT OpenMic Tweet regarding the 3 poems I read yesterday evening from some of 5 of the recent books that the Academic Press at WUaS has published since 2016. This could also bode very well for the WUaS planning major online universities' libraries for 7,139 known living languages - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Library_Resources re Languages - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Languages - AND in a #RealisticVirtualEarthForLibraries - https://twitter.com/hashtag/RealisticVirtualEarthForLibraries?src=hashtag_click (where one could scroll back to the Library of Congress building in a single realistic virtual earth, to 1810, for example, and pick a copy of the Declaration of Independence off of its historic virtual shelf, and read it there in PDF form:) ...

Here's the Tweet the MIT Libraries' head retweeted (or perhaps it was the MIT Libraries' convener, Steph Kohler) -

https://twitter.com/sgkmacleod/status/1387925070442500100?s=20 :

'Thanks to @mitlibraries for this #MITOpenMic: Glad to have just read a few poems from 5 books, in a new poetry press @WUaSPress @WorldUnivAndSch.
'Scott MacLeod, MIT Open Mic poems, Th., April 29, 2021' https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2021/04/pagosa-hot-springs-southern-colorado.html ~ http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.htm ~ http://amazon.com/author/scottmacleodworlduniversity ~'

Thanks to @mitlibraries for this #MITOpenMic: Glad to have just read a few poems from 5 books, in a new poetry press @WUaSPress @WorldUnivAndSch.
'Scott MacLeod, MIT Open Mic poems, Th., April 29, 2021' https://t.co/p4kHHXPwnx ~ https://t.co/whv5dDhfX1 ~ https://t.co/7KL0INJl4j ~ https://t.co/tV50YbW1xP
— Languages-World Univ (@sgkmacleod) April 30, 2021

https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1387924667751567364?s=20
https://twitter.com/sgkmacleod/status/1387925070442500100?s=20

Am currently seeking to add pictures of the covers of all 5 books to this blog entry too - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2021/04/pagosa-hot-springs-southern-colorado.html - which also has the poems I read / planned to read (including one about consciousness, philosophically - with a Harvard Medical School / MIT Professor Genetics' George Church in it).

Thoughts about connecting further with edX CEO Anant, MIT President Rafael (Reif), MIT VP of Open Learning, Sanjay Sarma and former Stanford President for 16 years' and Alphabet Chairman John Hennessey? I think it would be great if we could explore somehow turning the 'ship' of edX in a California and World Univ & Sch 'big ship' heading. What do you think?

Sincerely,

Scott

On Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 4:35 AM Scott MacLeod <sgkmacleod@worlduniversityandschool.org> wrote:

Dear Larry, Ed, Jim, David Ross, Walter, Donn, All,

No further word back yet regarding my "EdX-WUaS Impasse?" Email - from Anant Agarwal, or WUaS's edX representative Matthew, regarding his writing that edX is standing by, after reaching out to edX CEO Anant, MIT President Rafael (Reif), MIT VP of Open Learning, Sanjay Sarma and former Stanford President for 16 years' and Alphabet Chairman John Hennessey.

Following up with EdX before 5/10/21, and also, brainstorming-wise, exploring WUaS engaging graduate students in Quaker circles, for ex., to teach to CC-4 MIT OpenCourseWare such as newly Cara Curtis (a Haverford and Harvard Alumna), studying for her PhD at Emory Univ, who's enjoying teaching, and perhaps her spouse too, (an Anthropology PhD student), beginning 9/1/21 (albeit not STEM subjects for our 4 current prospective PhD students) ... And re Stanford EPIC CONFERENCE on 5/22 ... seem to have potential.

David Ross, as a Bryn Mawr College Research Professor Emeritus, Donn Weinholtz, Walter Sullivan, can you see ways to engage the Friends Association for Higher Education (FAHE)? Would there be a way to find now graduate students of Quaker faculty who could teach ONLINE to MIT OCW Cognitive Science (for Prasanth in India), Electrical Engineering (Chinmay in India), Statistics (Aviv in Indonesia) and Computer Science (for Imad in Morocco)?

Scott

Thank you!

Minutes from WUaS Monthly Business Meeting 4/17/21
- https://worlduniversityandschool.blogspot.com/2021/04/41721-minutes-for-wuas-open-monthly.html

- https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2021/04/hyacinth-macaw.html

* * *

MacLeod cover for "Winding Road Rainbow: Harbin, Wandering & the Poetry of Loving Bliss" (2018)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/V6FYAWwQFpftRmew7

In the poetry and academic press at @WorldUnivAndSch ~ @WUaSPress ~

http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.html ~

http://amazon.com/author/scottmacleodworlduniversity ~ @HarbinBook~ #RealisticVirtualHarbin ~

MacLeod cover for "Winding Road Rainbow: Harbin, Wandering & the Poetry of Loving Bliss" (2018)https://t.co/05WnvYl07l
In the poetry and academic press at @WorldUnivAndSch ~ @WUaSPress ~https://t.co/lXdSBzZisL ~https://t.co/nQF9Iok4F9 ~ @HarbinBook~ #RealisticVirtualHarbin ~
— Scott_GK_MacLeod_WUaS_worlduniversityandschool.org (@scottmacleod) April 30, 2021