The

“I’m Not Sure” Talks

What is beauty? what is knowledge? are there limits to human understanding? can a machine create moving poetry?

By bringing together insights from different fields, the I’m Not Sure talks explore the fluid and permeable pillars of the space of possibilities and create the room for unexpected answers to emerge.

Here at b21, we are interested in the difficult questions that lie at the frontiers of the event horizon.

One of those is art.

Is art the exclusive domain of humanity? We thought so much for thousands of years, since prehistoric art. But computers, AI, machine language, software like GPT 3 have forced us to think about that question again.

Who wrote these poems? Human or AI?

GPT3 is capable of producing beautiful texts. But what does it mean?

Is a poem or an artwork’s deep relationship with us only its results? What does it mean if it’s beautiful but has no intention?

If it’s only pattern recognition without any desire, will, behind it? If an infinite number of monkeys typing randomly for an infinite amount of time are capable of eventually producing Hamlet, is the play still an artwork?

Listen to the Podcast :

What is Creativity?

 most of us can point to someone and call them a friend. but what does that mean? is a friend someone who makes us happy, in whom we can confide, whom we trust? if so, what is the difference between a friend and a partner? are there varying levels of friendship?

here’s what people around mcgill’s campus had to say:

and what about enemies? what makes someone an enemy, rather than simply a person we dislike? can people have enemies, or is “enemyhood” the privilege (if one can call it that) of states?

the word “capitalism” is used a lot today. the advantages and disadvantages are debated ferociously by students, politicians, employers and employees… but what is it, exactly? what lies at its root, its core? are there elements worth salvaging or destroying completely? can we change the system without dismantling everything that came before?

here’s what some of the b21 scholars thought:

what would you do if something or someone completely different from anything you’ve ever known came up to you and offered some seemingly good advice? would you take it? refuse it? take it but cautiously?

throughout human history, people have reacted with caution, anger, violence, and suspicion to others, to “aliens,” because that seems to be how many of us enact fear. but this is not always the case; there are accounts of people acting generously and trustingly towards people or animals they have no connection to.

what makes us react in one way or the other? do we need to feel some kind of connection with another in order to trust them? does this connection need to be spiritual, physical, visual, or something else entirely?

can we trust what is unknown?

what’s your favourite colour? your favourite food? your favourite number?

for children, these are often essential questions, and favourites tend to stick with us for a long time.

but why?

what does it mean that we sometimes identify ourselves based on what we like or don’t like? why do we feel sympathy towards someone who shares our favourite colour, or displeasure when someone we don’t like enjoys the same music as we do?

in part this has to do with memories, with recollections of times past. a favourite food was made by a beloved relative long ago, a favourite smell was first sensed during a moment of comfort.

in part it has to do with how we want others to perceive us. your favourite movie being a dark scandinavian film from the 1960s says something different about you than liking a marvel movie.

and in part it is something we cannot explain.

we live in a patriarchal society and know what that looks like.

what would a matriarchal society look like?

would there be less physical aggression and more psychological aggression? would medicine and design be biased towards women?

would the world be any better or worse than it is now?

on every measure — health, education, child mortality, poverty or hunger — the improvement in the last 30, 50, 100 years has been dramatic.

is our society a worthier one than it was 100 years ago?

how have people changed since then?

are we becoming better, wiser, more tolerant and compassionate beings?

we use language every day. we read, we write, we talk, we learn — so much of what we do surrounds or is surrounded by language. and yet defining language, in a way that everyone can agree on, that encompasses both its poetry and its practicality, its simplicity and its complexity, is not an easy thing to do. is it any wonder that we have so many questions about it?

questions like: how can we speak the same language and still misunderstand each other?

what is the difference between animal communication and human language?

do we think in language?

how does language influence the self?

listen to the podcast:

what is language?