How we think and how we do

How does the brain control what we do? Evolution has given us a number of different strategies - behaviours we are born with, behaviours we can learn, and complex behaviours that rely on understanding the world about us. Tim will show some of these behaviours and talk about how they are generated by our brains. Recently, some of these algorithms that are used in our brains have been used to make computers perform impressive feats of intelligence, but there is a long way to go.

What does it mean to "think"? This question has eluded philosophers for thousands of years, and continues to perplex psychologists and neuroscientists. Chris will talk about how we have come to think again about thinking in the light of new advances in artificial intelligence research. He will talk about what researchers in AI have learned from studying biology, and what are the open questions for building thinking machines today.