In this presentation, the physical and cognitive experience of speed in music is explored. Organic to all cultures, music is not only an emergent property of the timing mechanisms of the brain (Craig, 2009) but also a manifestation of who we are, how we think and how we feel. The engagement of brain and body with sound reflects the temporal functions of physical, cultural and personal identities. Thus, much can be learned about another by simply listening to their music.

Organic to music is time; without time, there is no music. Nonetheless, the phenomenon of time with its broad implications in the sciences tells little about our experiences. The concept of speed, though, is full of enlightening character. Take some common terms to describe tempo in music: largo (broadly), adagio (slow and stately), allegro (fast, quickly and bright), vivacissimo (very fast and lively). Speed is relational and reveals aspects of how we think and feel. It is innately human.

Michael Dummett has a variety of arguments for why we should favour intuitionistic over classical logic. Most of his arguments attack the complete realism one needs to believe in bivalence, but there is one argument concerning mathematics specifically, based on a phenomenon he calls indefinite extensibility. We see what this phenomenon is and why it matters for the foundation of mathematics.

Now, most of us think that getting rid of naive comprehension got us out of the biggest problems of naive set theory. With this we abandon the possibility of forming a set of all sets and dodge all kinds of paradoxes. According to Dummett, though, this is not enough. We got rid of a symptom, but there still exists an underlying problem. He argues that the only sensible thing to do is to adopt intuitionistic logic. But is this actually the case? And is it really sensible to claim that unrestricted quantification should be possible?

We will look into a different solution: the potential hierarchy of sets, as formulated by Linnebo. This view of sets gives an explanation of why unrestricted quantification is not possible, instead of merely restricting it. This account of the hierarchy of sets also sheds new light on the abandonment of naive set theory.

We are happy to announce the second Amsterdam SMART Cognitive Science Conference on the theme of ‘SMART Animals’. The conference will take place in Amsterdam, from December 6th-8th. The conference will consist of three plenary evening lectures and debates, and three successive workshops devoted to the topics of animal cognition in the broad sense (i.e., including humans).

The conference is free of charge. Due to space limitations, however, you will need to formally register to be allowed in the workshop or lecture rooms. We therefore encourage you to register as soon as possible. The deadline for registration is November 15th. You can find the link to the registration form here.

The field of computational linguistics has made much progress in developing models of syntactic and semantic parsing. With current models we can compute with great accuracy and speed the constituency and dependency structure of sentences, predict semantic roles and sentiment, or derive representations that allow us to retrieve and infer facts, summarize text and translate into other languages. However, do these technological advances also yield a better understanding of how language is learned and processed by humans? In this workshop we discuss recent developments in using parsing models for analyzing empirical data from psycholinguistics and brain imaging, developments in rich parsing models that do justice to intricate structural properties of natural languages and unsolved challenges from these domains.

We are happy to announce the second Amsterdam SMART Cognitive Science Conference on the theme of ‘SMART Animals’. The conference will take place in Amsterdam, from December 6th-8th. The conference will consist of three plenary evening lectures and debates, and three successive workshops devoted to the topics of animal cognition in the broad sense (i.e., including humans).

The conference is free of charge. Due to space limitations, however, you will need to formally register to be allowed in the workshop or lecture rooms. We therefore encourage you to register as soon as possible. The deadline for registration is November 15th. You can find the link to the registration form here.

Remko Scha (1945-2015) was professor of computational linguistics at the UvA’s Institute for Logic, Language and Computation. During his career, he made significant scientific and artistic contributions to areas as diverse as question answering, discourse analysis, the semantics of plurals, Data-Oriented Parsing, aleatoric music, algorithmic art, and theories and models of visual perception and creativity. In this workshop we celebrate these contributions with talks on current developments in many of the areas he was interested in.

Unfortunately, today's LIRa seminar scheduled speaker, Jana Wagemaker, is ill. Fortunately, next week's speaker, Malvin Gattinger, has accepted to give his talk today. Thus today's seminar will run as usual, only with a different speaker.

We are happy to announce the second Amsterdam SMART Cognitive Science Conference on the theme of ‘SMART Animals’. The conference will take place in Amsterdam, from December 6th-8th. The conference will consist of three plenary evening lectures and debates, and three successive workshops devoted to the topics of animal cognition in the broad sense (i.e., including humans).

The conference is free of charge. Due to space limitations, however, you will need to formally register to be allowed in the workshop or lecture rooms. We therefore encourage you to register as soon as possible. The deadline for registration is November 15th. You can find the link to the registration form here.

This talk will introduce the basic concepts of type-1 and type-2 fuzzy logic control and showcase various successful applications of fuzzy logic control with real time settings such as in Computer Games, UAVs, Mobile Robotics, Pursuit-Evasion Games and Process Control.

Insights into the history of logic in the Western Middle Ages

From the beginning of the 11th century to the last sparks of scholasticism in the 16th, logic had a central role in the Western educational scene. Seen as a necessary foundation for any theoretical research, logical studies were also undertaken for themselves, as the meeting point of philosophical exploration into meaning and reasoning, and formal inquiry into the underlying structures of language. As such, medieval logics cover a variety of topics, going from elaborating a theory of Aristotelian syllogism to reflecting on the structure of modalities and tenses, accounting for fallacies and paradoxes, and even exploring the ontological structure underlying reference.

How did medieval logics evolve, moving between formal accounts and philosophical insights? What can they teach us? Come on Friday, December 15th to find out!

Hannes Leitgeb will give a special Logic of Conceivability seminar in which he will talk of his own system of hyperintensional logic: HYPE.

The Amsterdam Colloquia aim at bringing together linguists, philosophers, logicians, cognitive scientists and computer scientists who share an interest in the formal study of the semantics and pragmatics of natural and formal languages. The 21st Amsterdam Colloquium will feature two workshops on Causality and Semantics and on Formal and Distributional Perspectives on Meaning; and one evening lecture, jointly organized with the E.W. Beth Foundation.

This year's E. W. Beth Lecture will be given by Stewart Shapiro (Ohio State University, Columbus), well known
for his work on the Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophical Logic, and Philosophy of Language.

The purpose of this talk is to articulate and evaluate Waismann's notion of open-texture. We contrast this notion with the more well-known accounts of analyticity articulated by the logical positivists, Rudolf Carnap in particular, the rejection of analyticity by W. V. O. Quine, and its subsequent defense by Grice and Strawson. One underlying theme is how far open-texture reaches. Do we follow Waismann and restrict it to empirical predicates, or is the phenomenon more general, applying even in science and mathematics? Our goal is to explore the extent to which the Waismannian insights bear on the enterprise of natural language semantics and of the model-theoretic notion of logical consequence. Does the fact that contemporary model theory, and
many of the models for lexical semantics, allow no room for open-texture tell against those enterprises, as they are currently practiced?

The E.W. Beth lecture is part of the Amsterdam Colloquium 2017. Drinks will be served after the lecture in Kapitein Zeppos.

The Amsterdam Colloquia aim at bringing together linguists, philosophers, logicians, cognitive scientists and computer scientists who share an interest in the formal study of the semantics and pragmatics of natural and formal languages. The 21st Amsterdam Colloquium will feature two workshops on Causality and Semantics and on Formal and Distributional Perspectives on Meaning; and one evening lecture, jointly organized with the E.W. Beth Foundation.

The Amsterdam Colloquia aim at bringing together linguists, philosophers, logicians, cognitive scientists and computer scientists who share an interest in the formal study of the semantics and pragmatics of natural and formal languages. The 21st Amsterdam Colloquium will feature two workshops on Causality and Semantics and on Formal and Distributional Perspectives on Meaning; and one evening lecture, jointly organized with the E.W. Beth Foundation.