106. 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.


About the speaker

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.