MTS is the department’s Mind, Technology, and Society speaker series. It is hosted by a different faculty member each semester. Founded by a generous gift from Professors Robert Glushko and Pamela Samuelson, MTS brings researchers and industry professionals from across the globe to present a variety of interdisciplinary work in cognitive science. See our UCMerced CogSci youtube channel for videos of past MTS talks!
CIS graduate students, faculty, and staff, and all who are interested are invited! Members of other departments at UC Merced as well as the general public are encouraged to attend. (Note: current CIS Ph.D. students are required to attend MTS each semester in residence, to fulfill their COGS 250 course requirement).
Dr. Tyler Marghetis's talk "The Revolutionary Species" will be from 2-3:30pm in SSM 104
Abstract: Toolmaker. Storyteller. Rational animal. Each label has tried to capture what makes humans unique. I propose a different answer: humans are revolutionary — not just rebellious, but defined by a tension between two fundamental capacities. We stabilize shared patterns of thought and behavior into traditions. Yet we also periodically reconfigure those patterns in rapid, radical transformations. This dynamic recurs across domains as diverse as musical improvisation, mathematical insight, artistic innovation, philosophical debate, and social upheaval. It unfolds across astonishing timescales, from milliseconds to millennia. I argue that this is no accident. What unites these cases is the complex networks through which humans connect ideas to ideas and people to people. These networks allow traditions to accumulate and stabilize, but they also allow small perturbations to cascade into radical transformations. To be human is to live on the edge of revolution.
Bio:Tyler Marghetis is an Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at the University of California, Merced. Trained first in mathematics at Concordia University (Canada), he went on to earn his PhD in Cognitive Science at the University of California San Diego, followed by postdoctoral research at Indiana University Bloomington and the Santa Fe Institute. Before he found his calling as a scientist, he was a detective, a magician, and a national-team wrestler.
For more information or to sign up for email announcements, please contact the talk series organizer: cis-mts-lead@lists.ucmerced.edu.
