Research Division Seminar
Cognitive Astrophysics: A View from Nowhere

Abstract

Cognitive Astrophysics brings together tools, techniques and lessons learned from fields apparently as far apart as linguistics, philosophy and cognitive psychology, and merges them with modes and methods of understanding and discovery in modern cosmology, galaxy evolution and astrophysics. I will present an illustrated overview of the field from a variety of perspectives, and close with a discussion of "Pentessence" as an example of a globally organizing concept describing self-gravitating systems known to be operating on vastly different physical scales and in apparently disparate astrophysical circumstances.