Macy Conferences - Conference Topics

Conference Topics

This is a sampling of the topics discussed each year.

1946, March (NYC)
  • Self-regulating and teleological mechanisms
  • Simulated neural networks emulating the calculus of propositional logic
  • Anthropology and how computers might learn how to learn
  • Object perception's feedback mechanisms
  • Perceptual differences due to brain damage
  • Deriving ethics from science
  • Compulsive repetitive behavior
1946, October (NYC)
  • Teleological mechanisms in society
  • Concepts from Gestalt psychology
  • Tactile and chemical communications among ant soldieres
1947, March (NYC)
  • Child psychology
1947, October (NYC)
  • The field perspective on psychology
  • Analog vs. digital approaches to psychological models
1948, Spring (NYC)
  • Formation of "I" in language
  • Formal modeling applied to chicken pecking order formation
1949, March (NYC)
  • Are the number of neurons and their connections sufficient to account for human capacities?
  • Memory
  • An appeal for collaboration between physics and psychology
1950, March (NYC)
  • Analog vs. digital interpretations of the mind
  • Language and Shannon's information theory
  • Language, symbols and neurosis
  • Intelligibility in speech communications
  • A formal analysis of semantic redundancy in printed English
1951, March (NYC)
  • Information as semantic
  • Can automatons engage in deductive logic?
  • Decision theory
  • Small group dynamics and group communications
  • The applicability of game theory to psychic motivations
  • The type of language needed to analyze language
  • Mere behavior vs. true communication
  • Is psychiatry scientific?
  • Can a mental event that creates a memory ever be unconscious?
1952, March (NYC)
  • The relation of neurophysiological details to broad issues in philosophy and epistemology
  • The relation of cybernetics at the microlevel to biochemical and cellular processes
  • The complexity of organisms as a function of information
  • Humor, communication, and paradox
  • Do chess playing automatons need randomness to defeat humans?
  • Homeostasis and learning
1953, April (Princeton)
  • How neural mechanisms can recognize shapes and musical chords
  • What consensus, if any, the Macy Conferences have arrived at

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