Symbolic Systems Distinguished Speakers
Since 1991, the Symbolic Systems Program has annually hosted special lectures by speakers who have made distinguished contributions to the theory or applications of symbolic systems.
Previous Distinguished Speakers have been:
| 1991 | Daniel Dennett | "Time and the Brain: Escape from the Theater of Consciousness" |
| 1992 | Douglas Hofstadter | "Errors as Clues to the Nature of Symbols in the Head" |
| 1993 | Patricia Churchland | "Exploring the Neurobiology of Consciousness" |
| 1994 | Donald Norman | "Applying Cognitive Science" |
| 1995 | Rodney A. Brooks | "Non-Symbolic Approaches to Intelligence" |
| 1996 | John Searle | "Consciousness and Cognitive Science" |
| 1997 | Jaron Lanier | "Post-Symbolic Systems" |
| 1998 | Steven Pinker | "Words and Rules" |
| 1999 | Michael Tanenhaus | "Using Eye Movements to Study Real-Time Spoken Language Comprehension" |
| 2000 | Doug Engelbart and Steven Johnson | "Augmenting the Human Intellect" (delivered Nov. 1999) |
| 2001 | Daniel Dennett | "Are We Explaining Consciousness Yet?" |
| 2002 | Stephen Wolfram | "A New Kind of Science" (delivered Feb. 2003) |
| 2003 | Ray Jackendoff | "Conscious and Unconscious Aspects of Language Structure" |
| 2004 | Daniel Kahneman | "Perception, Intuition, and Reason" |
| 2005 | Michael Gazzaniga | "Distributed Systems and Conscious Unity" |
| 2006 | Nick Bostrom | "Are You Living in a Simulation?" |
| 2007 | Elizabeth Loftus | "What's the Matter with Memory?" |
| 2008 | Ben Shneiderman | "Information Visualization for Insight and Communication" |
| 2009 | Margaret Boden | "Creativity and Computers" |
| 2010 | Geoffrey Nunberg | "How the Language of Politics is Different" |
| 2011 | Vilayanur S. Ramachandran | "From Molecules to Metaphor: What Neurology Can Tell Us of Human Nature" |
| 2012 | Marvin Minsky |
"The Challenges of Artificial Intelligence" (in conversation with Ken Taylor) |
| 2013 | Alison Gopnik |
"Why children are better (or at least more open-minded) scientists than adults are: Causation, computation and learning" |
| 2014 | Douglas Hofstadter | "The Nature of Categories and Concepts" |
| 2015 | Edward Snowden |
"The Ethics of Whistleblowing in the Age of Information" |
| 2016 | Eliezer Yudkowsky | "The AI Alignment Problem: Why it's hard, and where to start" |
| 2017 | David Chalmers | "The Virtual and the Real: Philosophical Issues about Virtual Reality" |
| 2019 | Maryanne Wolf | "The Reading Brain, Critical Thought, and Empathy in a Digital Culture" |
| 2019 | Daniel Ellsberg | "The Doomsday Doctrine": A Live Philosophy Talk Event (with Ken Taylor and John Perry) |
| 2020 | Ted Chiang | "Magic Versus Imaginary Science" |
| 2021 | Lera Boroditsky | "How Language Shapes Thinking" |
| 2022 | Nancy Kanwisher | "Functional Imaging of the Human Brain: A Window into the Architecture of the Mind" |