Jan van Leeuwen
(Utrecht University in The Netherlands)
You are invited to meet a professor of computer science,
whose research interests cover all aspects of computer science
that involve formal modeling, algorithm design and analysis, and computational complexity theory,
at the student research conference IIT.SRC 2015
April 23, 2015 at 8:45 am
in Alan Turing lecture hall
(room -1.58) FIIT STU in Bratislava, Ilkovičova 2
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Abstrakt Many years ago, computation was synonymous to calculation. Now computation is what computers do, and it has become the engine of science. Ever more powerful machines push the limits of what is practically computable. Intelligent systems compete with humans and win. Robots such as CHAPPiE make us believe that feelings, emotions and consciousness are computational. Even natural systems like cells or the brain are occasionally viewed as substrates that perform computation. Can this be? Is it still consistent with Turing's ground-breaking insights from the 1930s that gave us a universal model of computation and that shaped our understanding of computation to date? Is there a notion of computation that is more fundamental? This challenging question is only one of many in the modern philosophy of computation. What does computation actually do for us? Why do we compute? Is it plausible that cognition is computational as a process? Is there some systematic theory dealing with computation, applicable to whatever use of whatever sort of computer or computational system, that explains it all? Are machines essential for it? Can a new theory of computation be devised? We consider possible answers that may radically change your view of computation and of all phenomena that are deemed to be computational. |
Jan van Leeuwen is a professor of computer science (emeritus) at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. His research interests cover all aspects of computer science that involve formal modeling, algorithm design and analysis, and computational complexity theory. He founded the Department of Computer Science at Utrecht in 1977, was department chair for many years, and later became the first Vice-Dean for Natural Sciences of the Faculty of Science at Utrecht University. He served on many boards and committees in Informatics, nationally and internationally, and was a long-time editor of the well-known series Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Springer). In 2013, Barry Cooper and he published the new, commented edition of Turing's collected works entitled: Alan Turing - His Work and Impact (Elsevier). Much of his recent research in the philosophy of computation is joint work with Jiri Wiedermann (Prague). Jan van Leeuwen is a member of the Royal Netherlands Society of Sciences and Humanities and the Academia Europaea, and he holds an honorary doctorate from RWTH Aachen University. Last year he received the ACM Distinguished Service Award. See also >>>
