Trying to Think Electronic "Thinking"

Professor Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University

For the "Humanities," i.e. the cluster of academic disciplines traditionally trusted with thinking about thinking, the electronic age implies the provocation [or is it a humiliation?] of a new type of thinking  emerging from outside their field of competence. At the same time, this different type of thinking is beginning to have a transformative impact on the classical forms of "human" thinking and their arrays. Therefore, a central challenge for the "Humanities" today lies in an attempt to describe and perhaps even to understand this transformative impact. But is it possible to live up to this task if the other thinking, the thinking processed by machines, remains out of reach?

Venue: Room: 27.0.17

Programme: May 6, 2015

15.15-15.30:  Introduction, Professor Matthias Christandl, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen: "Do electrons think?"

15.30-16.15 Professor Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht, Stanford University: "Trying to think electronic 'thinking'"

16.15-17 Discussion and wine reception

Registration: kristinv@hum.ku.dk

Organized by: “Uncertain Archives: Adapting Cultural Theories of the Archive to Understand the Risks and Potentials of Big Data” (YDUN) at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Copenhagen and Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen