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20 -- Getting Smarter about Intelligence
THURSDAY, April 17, 2008: MORNING
Kathryn Denning
York University
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lori Marino
Emory University
Atlanta, GA, USA
Description
By its very nature, astrobiological research necessitates questioning long-held assumptions about life. By using the "Earth as a natural laboratory" model - and then, importantly, going beyond it - astrobiologists have had to think carefully about how to fully understand what is, and freely imagine what might be. For example, "The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems" (2007) argues for an expanded search for "weird life" that does not conform to our assumptions or previous knowledge. So, the model of astrobiology is one of relentlessly identifying, modifying, and discarding terracentric assumptions about life, by combining Earth-based knowledge with creative theorizing.The same approach can and, we argue, should be adopted when extending the astrobiological question to intelligence and complex behaviors. The study of possible intelligent extraterrestrial life requires not only research into intelligent forms of life on Earth, but also the simultaneous casting aside of anthropocentric ideas about limits on the forms intelligence might take.
This session will address the latter, fundamental task of identifying and transcending anthropocentric ideas about the evolution and nature of intelligence and complex behavior. We, therefore, solicit papers which extend astrobiology's successful strategies for challenging terracentrism in the microbiological domain, to the realm of intelligence and complex behavior. We also welcome papers which discuss, for example, the avoidance of such notions as centrality, teleology, and progression, or which propose new ways of thinking about non-anthropomorphic forms of intelligence and complex behavior. We seek to include speakers from a range of disciplines that, like astrobiology, also require a de-centering of the observer's perspective, and could therefore provide useful and exciting strategies for researching intelligence in the context of astrobiology.
ORAL SESSION
9:45 20-10-O. Transcending Anthropocentrism in Astrobiology L. Marino
9:55 20-02-O. "Universal" Grammar: Is a Universal "Babelfish" Translator Possible?
[invited] T. Deacon
10:15 20-05-O. The Role of Basal Animals in Expanding Conceptions of Intelligence
D. Gold and D. Jacobs
10:30 20-04-O. Strange Life: Microbial Metabolism, Opportunistic Behavior, and
Implications for Extraterrestrial Organisms [invited] T. Friend
10:50 BREAK
11:00 20-07-O. Recognizing Emergent and Universal Features in Interspecies
Interaction: Insights from 20 years Working with Wild Dolphins D. Herzing
11:15 20-09-O. The Planet of the Apes Hypothesis and Why Human-like Intelligence is
Not a Convergent Feature of Evolution C. Lineweaver
11:30 20-11-O. Technology as a Manifestation of Intelligence: Does Shared Technology
Imply Shared Science and Mathematics? [invited] D. Vakoch
11:45 20-03-O. Confronting Strangeness: Anthropological Strategies for Astrobiology
K. Denning
POSTERS
20-06-P. Weird Intelligence Stefan Helmreich
20-08-P. Inferences from the Independent, Infrequent, and Underutilized Evolution of
Intelligence on Earth L. Irwin and D. Schulze-Makuch