Global General Gathering of Triple Nine Society Berkeley, California, September 3-6, 2010 Registration and hotel info: http://triplenine.org/ggg999/registration.asp Early registration for $70 ends 7/31. Contact: Kevin Langdon, 510-524-0345, 2010@ggg999.org

Rita Charles
Bioethics: Who Owns Life?
Bioethical issues centered around the problem of ownership and control over the products of biological processes—both our own biological processes and those occurring elsewhere in the natural world. What is life? What is natural? This lecture will bring together thought-provoking voices and perspectives on the issues of “owning life,” including legal, scientific, ethical, and economic. From the patenting of genes and organisms to the ownership of our bodies and bodily tissues, these are among the most compelling moral and social issues facing our society today and will form the critical foundation of discussions for years to come.

Rita Charles holds degrees in Microbiology, Anthropology, Molecular Biology and Law. Dr. Charles authored American Indian Medicine and founded Lawgene. She has lectured extensively on genetics, gene therapy, stem cells and DNA.

Lynn McLeod
Finding Lost Minds: Recovering the Enormous Potential of Highly Intelligent People.
Our society does little to make use of the skills, intelligence, and creativity of the highly intelligent. Efforts have been made to identify and assist highly intelligent children in the school system, but once they get to college, they're limited to their own resources. While those who do succeed make enormous contributions to all areas of life, there are many who do not achieve even a fraction of their vast potential. We will explore some of the reasons for this loss of a valuable resource, and present possible solutions.

Lynn McLeod has been a member of TNS for about 8 years, and has been the Financial Officer since July 2008. She has worked for many years with profoundly intelligent children and adults in academic and professional settings. Lynn is committed to helping the highly intelligent to find and fulfill their full potential.

Tom Parrish
Roundtable Discussion: The Anthropic Principle
The anthropic principle—the idea that our very existence as intelligent beings may have a real effect on our perspective on the universe, and even on the universe itself—has been the subject of widely ranging interpretation and debate. Tom Parrish will provide an overview of the anthropic principle, including its origins and variants as well as some personal insights, as a framework for the discussion, but please come with your own ideas and opinions (we know you have them!). Discussion topics will include:

· Does the anthropic principle have any place in the "real" sciences of physics and cosmology?
· Anthropic selection effects, including the "doomsday paradox".
· How the anthropic principle relates to our notions of causality, probability, and random events.
· The “strong” anthropic principle and more speculative ideas.

Tom Parrish, structural engineer by day and science junkie by night, created and facilitated the Grok Exchange series of facilitated discussions for the local Mensa chapter.

David Seaborg
Basics of Evolutionary Theory
[No write-up received as yet.]

Leonard Talmy
Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science, University of Buffalo, State University of New York
How Language Structures Concepts
As a fundamental design feature, language has two subsystems, the open-class (lexical) and the closed-class (grammatical). These subsystems perform complementary functions. In the total meaning expressed by any portion of discourse, the open-class forms contribute most of the conceptual content, while the closed-class forms determine most of the conceptual structure. Across languages, further, all closed-class forms are under strong semantic constraints governed by certain general principles. They thus represent only certain concepts, but not others. Closed-class meanings accordingly constitute an approximately closed inventory of concepts that serve a structuring function. This inventory is universally available, and each individual language draws elements in some proportion and distribution from it for its own closed-class representations. The closed-class inventory is further semantically constrained in that the concepts in it fall into certain conceptual categories, but not others, and these categories in turn fall into a certain set of extensive “schematic systems” for structuring conception. Five of these schematic systems are configurational structure, location of perspective point, distribution of attention, force dynamics, and cognitive state (the talk will address the first, and further as time permits). The closed-class subsystem emerges as perhaps the most fundamental conceptual structuring system of language.

Leonard Talmy is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and former Director of the Center for Cognitive Science at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and now a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a co-founder of the field of cognitive linguistics.

Kevin Langdon
A Hike in Tilden Park
Tilden Park, in the hills above Berkeley, is a beautiful nature area, part of the extensive East Bay Regional Park District. Kevin Langdon will lead a moderately strenuous hike on some of the Tilden trails.

Gary Sockut
Games
We will break up into subgroups and play several “party” or “communication” games, including Charades, facilitated by Gary Sockut, several new games facilitated by Kevin Langdon, and whatever other games attendees may be interested in playing. If you are interested in facilitating a game during this session please contact us.

Got Talent?
To participate in a possible talent segment, contact Ed Schreiber, 303-692-8535, ed@schreiber.org.

More to come

Registration and hotel info: http://triplenine.org/ggg999/registration.asp