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How might thinking about non-human Others generate productive ways to enrich, diversify, and broaden SETI science? 

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ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

For the second year, the Making Contact workshop will be hosted by Breakthrough Listen at UC Berkeley in California. This year's theme is Multispecies Ethics and Epistemology. The Workshop will feature lectures and interactive activities from philosophers, anthropologists, animal studies specialists, and historians of science who will elucidate questions like: What are humans' responsibilities to non-human animals? How can humans ever know what it's like to think like an extraterrestrial?

ABOUT
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LOGISTICS

 

WHEN:     10 a.m. — 5 p.m. Monday August 12th

                 10 a.m. — 5 p.m. Tuesday August 13th

                   Breakfast and lunch are catered.

                   Dinner hosted by Breakthrough Listen @ Gather, 6 p.m. Monday. 

WHERE:   Campbell Hall, U.C. Berkeley, 6th Floor 

WHAT:     Titles + Abstracts Here 

LOGISTICS
STRUCTURE

STRUCTURE

 

Making Contact 2019 seeks to drill down on insights from the first workshop that featured Indigenous studies scholars, feminist epistemologists, futurists, historians, policy makers, and storytellers. This year, we focus on a narrower topic: how humans and non-human Others interact as a way to imagine extraterrestrials. The workshop will be more small scale, informal, and in-person. The end goal is to start to form a future-facing ethical statement that contends with radical ways of knowledge-making and being. 

Read the Workshop Proposal here. 

Contact Claire Isabel Webb clairewebb@berkeley.edu for details about viewing remotely.. 

PARTICIPANTS

PARTICIPANTS

SCIENTISTS

Radio technology, technosignatures, extraterrestrial intelligence, machine learning, AI technology, instrumentation

MODERATOR

multispecies ethnography, feminist epistemology, history of science, anthropology of the Other

PHILOSOPHER

Values, Metaethics, Epistemic Justification, Moral Considerability, Interspecies Ethics

ANTHROPOLOGIST

Multispecies Ethnography; Anthropology; Science and Technology Studies

COGNITIVE SCIENTIST

Language, linguistic reference, symbolic cognition, social aspects of language

R GUSTAV STEINHARDT

ANTHROPOLOGIST

ethics, cognition, social cooperation

HISTORY

theory of evolution, minds of humans and non-human animals, history of science

LITERATURE

Image and agency of Non-human nature in North American; ecocriticism; eco-phenomenology, science studies

PHILOSOPHER

Epistemology, Philosophy, Other Minds

HISTORY

artificial intelligence, automated vehicles, machine ethics, software development

BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN

Astrobiology, science communication, SETI, METI

PLEASE EMAIL CLAIREWEBB@BERKELEY.EDU IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ATTEND

DAY 1: MONDAY AUGUST 12

 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM

OPENING REMARKS

Claire Isabel Webb + Dr. Andrew Siemion

 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM

SETI SCIENCE

Dr. Steve Croft, Breakthrough Listen

 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

MULTISPECIES ETHNOGRAPHY + INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD 

Claire Isabel Webb 

 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

SEEKING SHARED VALUES WHILE WE SEARCH FOR INTELLIGENT LIFE

Dr. Chelsea Haramia

 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

LUNCH

CAMPBELL HALL, 6TH FLOOR

 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

IMAGINING EXTRATERRESTRIALS: INSIGHTS FROM DARWIN

Greg Priest

 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM

COFFE BREAK

 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM

MUSEUM TOUR

DAY 1

 4:00 PM - 4:15 PM

BREAK

TBD

 4:30 PM - 5:00 PM

WRAP UP + REFLECTIONS

Breakthrough Listen, Claire,

Group

 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

PAUSE

GROUP

 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM

DINNER

GATHER RESTAURANT

2200 Oxford Street @ Allston
Berkeley, CA 94704 

DAY 2

DAY 2: TUESDAY AUGUST 13

 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM

RECAP, PLAN

Claire Isabel Webb

 10:30 AM - 11:00 AM

SOCIAL COOPERATION AND MORAL COGNITION

R. Gustav Steinhardt

 11:00 AM - 11:30 PM

HOW THEY MIGHT APPEAR: CODIFYING THE ETHICS OF NON-HUMAN ENCOUNTERS

Annie O'Connor

 11:30 AM - 12:00 PM

TROLLEY PROBLEMS AS ACOUSTICAL ILLUSION: THE PARADOX OF MACHINE ETHICS

Thomas Krendl Gilbert

 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM

LUNCH

CAMPBELL HALL, 6TH FLOOR

 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

WORKSHOP:  JOY, PLAY, AND MORAL SPACE

Dr. Chelsea Haramia

 2:00 PM - 2:30 PM

WHAT AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL OCEAN OF PLASMA [PROBABLY] DOES NOT HAVE

 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM

DISCUSSION

 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM

COFFEE BREAK

TBD

 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM

MUSEUM TOUR

 4:30 PM - 5:00 PM

END: REFLECTIONS

Claire + Breakthrough Listen

 5:00 PM - ?

Drinks?

Contact the Organizer

Claire Isabel Webb, Ph.D. Candidate

clairewebb@berkeley.edu

History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

NASA 2019–20 Fellow in Aerospace History

Breakthrough Listen Research Associate

Thanks for submitting!

CONTACT
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