A link for each seminar is to be posted here shortly before it begins.

Rohit Parikh

Department of Computer Science
Brooklyn College (CUNY)

Discussion. Chapter 8, "Algorithmic Randomness," from Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms' Ten Great Ideas about Chance

Arthur Paul Pedersen

Department of Computer Science
City College of the City University of New York (CUNY)

Discussion. Chapter 6, "Inverse Inference: From Bayes and Laplace to Modern Statistics," from Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms' Ten Great Ideas about Chance

Cailin O'Connor

Department of Logic & Philosophy of Science
University of California, Irvine

Abstract. Standard accounts of convention include notions of arbitrariness. But many have conceived of conventionality as an all or nothing affair. In this paper, I develop a framework for thinking of conventions as coming in degrees of arbitrariness. In doing so, I introduce an information theoretic measure intended to capture the degree to which a solution to a certain social problem could have been otherwise. As the paper argues, this framework can help improve explanation aimed at the cultural evolution of social traits. Good evolutionary explanations recognize that most functional traits are also conventional, at least to some degree, and vice versa.

Paul Krasucki

Security
Accenture (Fortune Global 500 Company)

Discussion. Chapter 5, "Mathematics," from Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms' Ten Great Ideas about Chance

Jayant Shah

Department of Mathematics
Northeastern University

Discussion. Chapter 4, "Frequency," from Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms' Ten Great Ideas about Chance

Ada Coronado

Department of Philosophy
The Graduate Center, CUNY

Discussion. Chapter 3, "Psychology," from Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms' Ten Great Ideas about Chance

Todd Stambaugh

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
John Jay College, CUNY

Coincidence of Bargaining Solution ‖Slides

Abstract. In 1950, a month before his dissertation on non-coorperative games was accepted at Princeton and 3 months after his famous solution concept was announced to the world in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, John Nash had published "The Bargaining Problem," in which he proposed the titular problem and gave the first solution. In the years after, several other solutions were developed, notably those by Kalai and Smorodinsky, Kalai, and Harsanyi. In this talk I will outline the problem itself, present four different solutions, and describe the precise conditions under which various sets of these solutions coincide.

Larry Moss

Department of Mathematics
Indiana University

Discussion. Chapter 2, "Judgment," from Persi Diaconis and Brian Skyrms' Ten Great Ideas about Chance

José Luis Bermúdez

Department of Philosophy
Texas A&M University

Rational Frames?