Date/Time
Date(s) - October 21, 2014
4:00 pm - 5:30 pm
Location
Woodward (IRC) Building, Room 5
Categories No Categories
Can Physical Systems be Creative?
Tuesday, October 21 at 4:00 p.m.
Woodward (IRC) Room 5 (UBC Gate One)
Abstract
Biography
Dr. Richard Johns was born in the UK, and did his undergraduate training in mathematics and engineering before switching to logic and philosophy of science in graduate school. He moved to Vancouver, B.C. to finish his PhD in philosophy at UBC. Since then he taught philosophy courses at UBC and SFU before accepting a permanent position at Langara College. His main research interest concerns the objective meaning of “probability”, as used in physical theories, which is the topic of his book, A Theory of Physical Probability (U. of T. Press, 2002). He is also interested in the limits of self-organisation in physics, the question of whether material systems can have understanding, the possibility of free will in a material universe, and the recent emergence of “safety” as an overriding moral imperative.