106 KAM Mathematical Colloquium
Christos Papadimitriou
Columbia University
A COMPUTER SCIENTIST THINKS ABOUT THE BRAIN
Monday June 11, 2018, 14:00
room S3, 3rd floor
MFF UK, Malostranské nám. 25, Praha 1
Abstract
How does the Brain beget the Mind? How do neurons and synapses, molecules and
genes, evolution and development, give rise to behavior and cognition, language
and intelligence? Despite lightning progress in recording and molecular
technology and a deluge of experimental data, we do not seem to get closer to
an answer. This is a talk about admiring and appreciating the problem, and
proposing a new approach to one of its parts, based on a recognized but little
studied intermediate level of Brain computation carried out by the synchronous
firing of large and highly interconnected sets of neurons called assemblies.
We show that assemblies give rise to a novel computational system, and we
speculate that they may instrument higher cognitive functions, such as language
and math.
O přednášejícím
Christos Papadimitriou studoval na Universite v Atenach, Ph.D. ziskal na
Princetonske universite. Posleze byl cinny na dalsich prednich universitach
(chronologicky v poradi: Harvard, Berkeley, MIT, Ateny, Stanford, San Diego,
Berkeley, New York-Columbia). Bez nadsazky je mozno rici, ze v kratke historii
informatiky patri k zakladatelum v celosvetovem meritku. S jeho jmenem jsou
spojeny jak klasicke pojmy (napr. slozitostnich trid), tak klasicke vysledky v podstate ve vsech oblastech informatiky (napr. slozitost kombinatorickych a optimalizacnich algoritmu, databaze, diskretni geometrie, teorie her) vcetne
aplikaci v teorii her, biologii a ekonomii. Je autorem vice nez 175 vedeckych
praci (vcetne clanku s W. Gatesem) a vice nez 225 prispevku ve sbornicich
konferenci. Je autorem 6 mezinarodne znamych (a na MFF pouzivanych) ucebnic a rovnez dvou romanu a jednoho komiksu. Byl skolitelem 33 doktorandu. Je clenem
nekolika americkych akademii (American Academy of Arts and Letters, Narodni
akademie ved a Narodni akademie inzenyrskych ved). Z mnoha oceneni vyberme
Knuthovu cenu, Godelovu cenu a von Neumanovu medaili od IEEE.