May 31 to June 3, 2003 on the Island of Elba, Italy

Organizers: Ernst Pöppel, Albrecht von Müller

In the seventh Parmenides Workshop we started to grapple with the question how thinking could be reconstructed on the neuronal level. The search for neural correlates of thinking (or NCTs) is one of the cornerstones in the recent research at the Parmenides Center (see research projects NCT). This activity raises a number of difficult conceptual and foundational issues, e.g. What do we mean by 'neural correlate of thinking'? How can we find the neural correlate(s) of thinking? What will a neural correlate of thinking explain?

• William Calvin theoretical neurobiologist, University of Washington, Seattle; US
• Sean Cleary, development economics, global corporate strategy, Cape Town, SA
• Britta Glatzeder, philosophy, Human Science Center, University of Munich, DE
• Michael Hoffmann, mathematics, philosophy, University of Bielefeld, DE
• Chris Langton, artificial life, complexity theory, Parmenides Center, US
• Ernst Pöppel, neuroscience, Institute of Medical Psychology, University of Munich and Parmenides Center, DE
• Helge Ritter, Neuroinformatics, University of Bielefeld, DE
• Eva Ruhnau, physics, Human Science Center, University of Munich, DE
• Albrecht von Müller, philosophy, Parmenides Center, DE

• The evolution of structured thought (William Calvin)
• Cerebral Circuits for Creativity: Bootstrapping Coherence using a Darwin Machine (William Calvin)
• Systematic Failure – Complex Interconnectivity vs. Imposed Order (Sean Cleary)
• Thinking with Tools (Michael Hoffmann)
• Emergence of Complexity (Chris Langton)
• Principles of the Way Brains Work (Ernst Pöppel)
• Thinking With Both Legs (Helge Ritter)
• Neural Structure Formation (Albrecht von Müller)