Millican Colloquium: Can Zombies Do Math? OR Humanism as a Philosophy of Mathematics--Gizem Karaali (Pomona College) | Department of Mathematics

Millican Colloquium: Can Zombies Do Math? OR Humanism as a Philosophy of Mathematics--Gizem Karaali (Pomona College)

Event Information
Event Location: 
GAB 461 (Refreshments at 2:30 in 472)
Event Date: 
Monday, February 12, 2018 - 4:00pm

Skimming through recent book and movie titles, one might imagine that we are headed for a zombie apocalypse. Many have written about what this would entail for our civilization, for our culture, and even for our consumerist tendencies. In this talk we will look at yet another facet of this phenomenon: What would happen to our mathematics? Guided by the history and the philosophy of mathematics, we will pose and search for answers to fundamental questions about the nature of mathematics and how it relates to our humanity. It is this speaker's main goal that by the end of the talk, the audience will be able to answer the question on the title, along with a few other, possibly more respectable, philosophical questions, such as "What is 3?"