Intelligence is Everywhere
How did cognition, mind, and intelligence go from replicating unicellulars, through multicellular complexity, to the dazzling array of minded animals we see today? ‘The Major Transitions in the Evolution of Cognition’ is a new project, generously funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation, that seeks to answer this question by positing a set of ‘major transitions’ through which life and mind traversed to arrive at the cognitive complexity we witness all around us . Our project aims to better understand the processes on Earth that led to this complexity, and potentially explore avenues artificial intelligence research can follow to make more complex, adaptive, and responsive systems.
‘Major Transitions in the Evolution of Cognition’ is a three year project based at the University of Cambridge, Macquarie University in Sydney, and the Australian Nation University. We are an interdisciplinary team across philosophy, the life and mind sciences, and computer science that aims to better conceptualise, understand, and study the evolution of diverse minds.
Kinds of Minds: The Major Transitions in the Evolution of Cognition Workshop, 2023
Between March 6th and March 10th, 2023, our Major Transitions in the Evolution Cognition (MTEC) team were able to explore the project in a highly international and interdisciplinary setting at both Macquarie University, Sydney, and Australian National University (ANU), Canberra—two of the host institutes for the project. While at Macquarie University, we hosted a range of innovative, transdisciplinary, and original thinkers to present their work and research as it pertains to the project topic. Presentations represented experimental work in neurobiology and ethology; philosophy of science and mind; and theoretical biology. Jointly, we were able to bring many minds together to explore the promises of the MTEC project as well as ways in which to hone its theoretical contribution further. Our speakers included team members Andrew Barron, Colin Klein, David Harrison, and Marie Genevieve-Guiraud and invited speakers Rachel Brown, Ken Cheng, Kim Sterelny, Paul Griffiths, Karin Nordstrom, Maureen O’Malley, Peter Godfrey Smith, Brett Calcott, Bruno v. Swinderen, Chris Reid, and Patrick McGivern.
The Major Transitions Team also had the opportunity to present at the Diverse Intelligences Annual Summit, where members of the team gathered to present on the progress, prospects, and promises of the project—both as achieved in the previous year, and the horizons we will be exploring in the future. The Summit gave us an opportunity to better understand the Diverse Intelligences Landscape and see how we fit into this wider and exciting landscape.
Upcoming Events
April 3rd - 5th 2024, Australian National University: We will be hosting our third international workshop on Major Transitions in the Evolution of Cognition at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Watch this space for more information as it comes out.
Major Transitions Reading Group (Weekly, Zoom). Project member Arsham Nejad Kourki has been hosting a weekly reading group dedicated to understanding the Major Transitions literature writ large: from biological and cognitive evolution, to cultural evolution and the potential this literature has for better understanding digital minds. Interested persons can email David Harrison at djh253.@cam.ac.uk to be added to the mailing list.
