Navigate with Waze 
Archive seminars
Spring semester 2023
Dr. Osvaldo Ottaviani, Technion
Title: What role do plants (and living beings) play in the philosophy of Leibniz?
Abstract:
Without being directly involved in botanical research, Leibniz has always had a strong interest in this subject, as well as all in many investigations about the nature of living beings. In some passages, he also claims that the inquiries of modern investigators (microscopists, anatomists, etc.) on the generation of plants and animals provided new insights not only on the structure of living beings and the universe, but also on the nature and the constitution of souls and incorporeal substances. In my talk, I will try to answer the following question: in which sense Leibniz could say that the nature and structure of living beings is of the utmost importance to the establishment of his theory of simple substances or monads? I will move from some recently edited texts where Leibniz is concerned with the nature of some climbing plants, and the rejection of the theory of the spontaneous generation of plants and insects. In both cases, Leibniz defends the universality of the sexual reproduction of living beings (stressing the analogy between plants and animals), while, at the same time, maintaining that living beings are never generated mechanically by something which is not already organic. Leibniz’s account of life wants to keep together the following claims: 1) the rejection of spontaneous generation (because nothing organized can be generated from chaos or inorganic matter); 2) the thesis of preformation of all organisms; and 3) their status of ‘machines’ endowed with an infinity of organs. Thus, Leibniz employs the research and observations of the moderns on the generation of insects, plants, and animals as an empirical confirmation of his metaphysical thesis on the infinite complexity of the machines of nature. From the metaphysical point of view, the infinite composition of natural machines explains the sense in which each soul is able to express an infinite universe (like a living mirror of the universe, as Leibniz says).
Dr. Assaf Marom, Technion
Title: Anatomy education in the age of digital reproduction
Abstract:
Anatomy is a core subject among the basic sciences of medicine, which has been studied in medical schools through dissection ever since anatomy was established as a science several centuries ago. However, since the last quarter of the previous century anatomical education has been undergoing a process of transformation, mainly fueled by the development of medical imaging technology. Consequently, many medical schools have been modifying their courses to an imaging-based education, relying on computer software, medical images, and holograms, among others. While both traditional and imaging-based approaches to anatomical education have advantages and disadvantages, here I discuss the drawbacks of the new approach, arguing that the technological advances we witness provoke scientific, pedagogic, and ethical challenges that should be addressed before rushing to implement them.
Dr. Daniel Kunzelmann (University of Basel)
Title: Doing fieldwork with(in) surveillance architectures: methodological and ethical implications for digital researchers.
Abstract:
Social media create seemingly transparent contexts of information. Comments, attitudes and attributions become (often) easily accessible to researchers. Not least for qualitative approaches, this provides an empirical treasure of data offering valuable insights into sometimes very intimate spheres of life.
We might understand the virtual spaces in which such data are generated as architectures of surveillance that establish a specific regime of (in)visibility. This conceptual reframing raises some fundamental methodological and research ethics questions anew: Who is allowed to see (and know) for what purpose? And how may this knowledge be generated and disseminated?
Using ethnographic material this lecture reflects on some of the challenges that scientists face while conducting research via social media. The main focus will be on the tension between the actors’ wish (or need) for anonymity and a scientific standard that demands the disclosure and traceability of empirical material. A “case-based approach” is presented that makes it possible to uphold established research ethical standards and, at the same time, benefit from the potential of easily accessible material on social media
Title: What Use was Science to Philosophy—and What Use is Philosophy’s History to Science?
Abstract:
It is widely, though not universally believed that philosophy from certain periods is best understood by studying it in the context of the scientific discoveries and hypotheses that preoccupied its authors. I will give a few examples of how to read and misread classical texts in the history of philosophy –Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant, who were essentially philosophers of nature– by taking their scientific context into account. It is also widely, though not universally believed that scientists do not benefit from studying the history of philosophy. I would next like to challenge this view. After professional philosophy (inevitably) detached itself from professional science, many scientists lost the ethical orientation that had guided their predecessors. This orientation must be recovered if we are not to enter a scientific-technological dystopia.
Title: Music Technology – Bottom Up
Abstract:
Can electric guitars, synthesizers and Spotify really be the focus of serious academic research? Yes! In this talk we will take a bottom-up look on the academic discipline of music technology. We’ll start with an overview of Lior Arbel’s work – the invention and research of several musical instruments, software and hardware. We’ll see how music technology research blends engineering, computer science, human-computer interaction and social sciences. We’ll go on to describe the international music technology discipline and glance at its current state in Israel, or lack thereof.
Yoav Beirach | Department of Humanities and Arts
Title
Pitch, Tone, System: Explaining the Disappearance of the ‘Science of Music’ in Late 17th Century Europe
Abstract
It is a remarkable fact that almost every important figure of the scientific revolution – including Galileo, Bacon, Kepler, Gassendi, Descartes, Mersenne, Huygens, Newton, and Leibniz – had devoted intense research, debate, and publication, to the mathematical study of music, and yet that this field of research virtually disappeared off the face of the earth after 150 years. How come all mathematical research on the nature of music in Europe ended almost abruptly by the end of the 17th century? My talk will present a few different answers to this puzzle, and will discuss how they relate to each other. It begins by clarifying what does it mean at all to practice a mathematical science of music, and what could it have meant in 16th and 17th Century Europe. This brings to the front how the relationship between practice and theory in music is far more intricate and alluding than one might expect. I will argue that the canonization of the equalized 12-tone system during the 18th century relates to the newly forming science of acoustics, and will show how both could have taken part in forming an idea and practice that condition and govern our most fundamental conceptions and perceptions of music and tonality to this day.
Winter semester 2023
Dr. Jonathan Najenson, Technion
Title
Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) Revisited: Reconsidering the Explanatory Power of Synaptic Efficacy
Abstract:
Changes in synaptic strength are described as a unifying hypothesis for memory formation and storage, leading philosophers to consider the “synaptic efficacy hypothesis” as a paradigmatic explanation in neuroscience. However, in Craver’s mosaic view, while synaptic efficacy plays a unifying role by integrating diverse fields within a hierarchical mechanism, it does not have explanatory power across distinct memory types. In this talk, I will show how the mechanistic approach can accommodate the explanatory power of this hypothesis by examining its role across different mechanistic hierarchies, which in turn supports the idea of unification.
Dr. Oren Bader, Technion; Heidelberg University Hospital.
Title:
Neurophenomenology as a research program – Bridging the gap between philosophy and neuroscience (Abstract below).
Abstract:
Francisco Varela coined the term Neurophenomenology (NP) to suggest a research area that combines phenomenology – the philosophical study of the structures of subjective experiences with scientific investigations into their underlying neurocognitive mechanisms. Although Varela introduced the concept of NP over 20 years ago, only a few attempts were made to implement this unique approach in concrete studies. In this talk, I’ll discuss the benefits and limitations of an integrated philosophical and scientific research program for studying subjective experiences by reviewing results from a recent NP study on intergroup empathy. Specifically, I’ll ask can naturalizing phenomenology help bridge the gap between empirical investigations and philosophical approaches and what can be achieved when designing hybrid research.
Prof. Emmanuel Farjoun Hebrew University
Title:
Exponential economic growth: Causes and Costs (Abstract below).
The talk is based on his recently published book “How Labour powers the global economy – a labor theory of capitalism” (coauthored by M. Machover and D. Zachariah).
Abstract: In this talk, the basic drive of the Capitalist economy to grow will be reduced to basic labor consideration, conservation and measures. The limits of this growth will be explained: Both lower and upper bounds are explored.
Real monetary prices do not faithfully reflect social-economic causes and costs. A deeper analysis is needed. Its main tool is a probabilistic reduction of the apparent, easy-to-observe money costs, capital costs, and natural resources cost to labor inputs. These are measured simply by hours of work and are somewhat harder to trace. Labor inputs, in turn, reflect much deeper social-economic realities. The implications, under the present system, to the ecological and the human-social future are shown to be grave. Ways to overcome these grave and inevitable implications will be discussed.
Prof. Elay Shech
Title:
Scientific Understanding, Modal Reasoning, and (Infinite) Idealization
Abstract:
One of the main goals of science is to provide understanding. Yet, the use of idealizations and abstraction in science, which are falsehoods of sorts, is ubiquitous. How can science afford understanding in light of idealizations? How can falsity allow us to understand that truth? In this talk, I attempt to make some headway in answering such questions.
Specifically, by appealing to resources found in the scientific understanding literature, I identify in what senses idealizations afford understanding in the context of the (magnetic) Aharonov-Bohm effect. Using this example, which appeals to infinite idealizations, I will suggest that idealizations facilitate modal reasoning in a manner that is essential for understanding both scientific theory and what some phenomenon is supposed to be in the first place.
Prof . Aviram Rosochotsky (Tel Aviv University)
Title
Relationism in Shape Dynamics
Abstract:
Relationism is a philosophical view according to which motion consists solely in changes to position relations between material bodies. Consequently, it rules out absolute motions – those that take place with respect to space and time which (supposedly) exist independently of matter. In my talk I’ll show how Barbour and Bertotti (1982) were able to create a modification of Newton’s theory of gravity which is compatible with the relationist view of motion using a theoretical device called best-matching. I will then review the treatment of motion in Shape Dynamics, which is the generalization of Barbour and Bertotti’s approach in a relativistic context. The comparison between the revisions of Newtonian gravity and General Relativity will show interesting differences.
Winter + Spring semester 2022
Prof. Omer Einav (Molad).
Title
Defending the Goal: Football and the Relations between Jews and Arab in Mandatory Palestine, 1917-1948
Abstract:
My research uses the periodization of the Mandate in analyzing relations between the Zionist and Palestinian national movements, in the socio-cultural context. As a research tool, that context with its diverse aspects has been used in recent years as a field for exploring the dynamic created in Mandatory Palestine, between the two societies that lived there, and as a reflection of nationalist aspects at the heart of existing historiography. The focus is the game of football, through which a distinctive angle an attempt is made to examine the development and traits of relations between Jews and Arabs
Dr. Lotem Elber-Dorozko (Technion) and Arnon Levy (Hebrew University).
Title
What is so good about being optimal? On appeals to optimality in the cognitive sciences
Abstract:
Models in cognitive science often describe people’s behavior as optimal. What are the motivations for such descriptions? We discuss three – empirical, methodological, and conceptual. The first involves a claim about the power of natural selection, namely that it can be expected to lead many cognitive capacities to be performed optimally, in the sense that they maximize fitness. On this view, appeals to optimality have explanatory value in virtue of background assumptions about evolution. However, we present several interrelated reasons to question the claim that cognitive capacities maximize fitness.
Alternatively, optimal models may serve as a good first approximation for the behavior. We suggest that it is more accurate to consider optimal models as idealizations, because ‘approximation’ suggests that the model can be brought closer (often, arbitrarily closer) to reality, and this does not hold for most cognitive models. It is an open question what can be learned from optimality-based models, construed as idealizations.
Finally, we consider a conceptual motivation for viewing people as optimal. Here, the idea is that optimality is part of an attempt to “make sense of the organism”, to rationalize its behavior. We accept that such a perspective is important, perhaps indispensable in studying minds. But we urge caution about tying it to the notion of optimality or to strong notions of rationality.
Dr. Sharon Bassan
Title
A Proportionality-Based Framework for Government Regulation of Digital Tracing Apps in Times of Emergency
Abstract:
Times of emergency present an inherent conflict between the public interest and the preservation of individual rights. Such times require granting emergency powers to the government on behalf of the public interest and relaxing safeguards against government actions that infringe rights. The lack of theoretical framework to assess governmental decisions in times of emergency leads to a polarized and politicized discourse about potential policies, and often, to public distrust and lack of compliance.
Such a discourse was evident regarding Digital Tracing Apps (“DTAs”), which are apps installed on cellular phones to alert users that they were exposed to people who tested positive for COVID-19. DTAs collect the most sensitive types of information, such as health-related and location or proximity information, which violates the right to privacy and the right to be free of surveillance. This sensitive information is normally legally protected. But in emergencies there are no legal restrictions limiting the collection of such data. The common privacy-law approach supports DTA implementation under the condition that the technology preserves the privacy of users. But this Article suggests that the privacy approach focuses on micro considerations and under-addresses the implications of DTA-based policy. Instead, this Article suggests rethinking DTA implementation during COVID-19 through the doctrine of proportionality. Often used by European Union courts in areas where decisions entail meaningful implications to individual rights, the doctrine offers a clear and workable normative evaluation of tradeoffs in a more nuanced, explicable, and transparent way. Highlighting macro considerations, the doctrine of proportionality suggests that 1) DTA-based policy is less proportionate compared to traditional contact-tracing methods; 2) policies created while relying on smartphones are inequitable and biased; and 3) the sharing of sensitive personal information with private companies will have irreversible social surveillance implications. Additionally, the proportionality method not only provides a flexible methodological tool to evaluate government decisions in times of emergency but also offers an opportunity to examine how governments achieve and justify the acceptance and assimilation of new technological policy measures, which may take societies in new directions.
Dr. Paula Reichert (LMU München)
Title
Why does time have a direction?
Abstract
This talk discusses the physical origin of time directionality. In nature we observe irreversible (i.e. time-directed) processes, like the breaking of an egg, diffusion through cell membranes, and so on, despite the fact that all the fundamental laws of physics are time-symmetric. How can this apparent paradox be resolved? We discuss how macroscopic time asymmetry can be grounded on time-symmetric microscopic laws by means of a typicality argument based on special initial conditions. This demand for a special initial condition thrusts the origin of time asymmetry back in time towards the beginning of the universe. In this context, we discuss how modern cosmology seeks to explain the origin of time directionality via a time-symmetric one past – two futures scenario where the Big Bang provides merely a special instant, a Janus point, in an otherwise eternal universe.
Professor Omri Barak (Technion)
Title
Understanding the brain with models we don’t understand
Abstract
I will present the common manner in which computational models are used in neuroscience, and then an alternative that combines machine learning, reverse engineering and dynamical systems. The talk will touch upon questions such as “What defines a good model?”, “How should we compare models to data?” and more.
Dr. Alik Pelman (Technion), Dr.Alon Shepon (TAU), Dr.Jerke de Vries (Van Hall Larenstein), Dr.Sigal Teper (Tel-Hai)
Title
What is the Most Environmental (Healthy) Nutrition? Comparing a case study of self-sufficient farming to common industrial alternatives
Abstract
Providing food security to feed a growing population with reduced environmental impacts and resilient to climate change is an ongoing challenge. Here, we detail a low-input subsistence Mediterranean agroforestry system that is based on traditional annual crop rotation and perennial shrubs and trees and provides adequate nutritional supply with limited labor and using reduced land and on-site water resources. Our records span a 9 year time period in which 0.1 of hectare provided a balanced diet to the producing farmer, in effect closing a full farm-table-farm cycle, with no synthetic fertilizers or herbicides and with zero waste. Situated within a semi-arid region that is a climate change ‘hotspot’ this food system serves as a case study to further examine food production systems that provide healthy diets with lower environmental impacts and greater agrobiodiversity and resilience than conventional industrial farming practices and even organic ones.