Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Nightmares and Creativity,” on the relationship between frightening dreams and real creative achievements, with Bernard Welt, emeritus professor of arts and humanities at George Washington University, former member of the board of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, and contributing editor of DreamTime.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-nightmares-and-creativity.]

Nightmares are associated with creativity—but how, exactly? Why do so many famous accounts of genius in the arts and sciences originate with a frightening dream?

Explore such questions with the help of Bernard Welt, who has taught courses on recalling dreams and dream journaling and written extensively on the relationship between dreaming and the arts.

Using excerpts from texts, illustrations of artworks, and clips from classic films derived from nightmares, Professor Welt will look at the relationship between bad dreams and celebrated innovations and creative accomplishments.

You’ll learn why psychologists consider the nightmare to be a key to understanding the creative power of the unconscious mind. We’ll consider sleep scientists’ definitions of the nightmare, asking why it still remains controversial, and explore contemporary theories about the relationship between nightmares and creativity from psychoanalysis, Jungian archetypal theory, evolutionary psychology, and other sources.

Though dreams have special authority in many cultures, in the western world it’s only among the nineteenth-century Romantics that we began to see personal accounts of creativity inspired by dreams—curiously, preponderantly bad ones. We’ll look at how Frankenstein arose from Mary Shelley’s famous dream of a scientist confronted by his own fearful creation, and how art’s Surrealist movement taught us to value our nightmares.

You’ll learn how dreams of all kinds can result in sudden inspiration because they relax inhibitions, transcend habitual trains of thought, and permit ideas that would be rejected by the thought processes of waking life. You’ll even come to see why we may welcome our nightmares as opportunities to expand our vision and our understanding. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From Francisco Goya’s 1799 etching “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” (public domain).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “When Washington Burned,” a detailed look at the devastating 1814 British attack on the Capitol, with Denver Brunsman, associate professor of history at George Washington University, lecturer at Mount Vernon, and scholar of the American revolution and early American republic.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-when-washington-burned .]

You’ve probably toured several of Washington’s landmarks, but have you considered those that went up in smoke more than 200 years ago?

Learn about one of our nation’s greatest scares from historian Denver Brunsman, a favorite of Profs and Pints audiences and expert on the War of 1812, which led to the infamous 1814 attack. He’ll tell the riveting tale of how British troops torched the Capitol and White House and burned down nearly all of Washington’s public buildings.

He’ll frame his talk of such mayhem by discussing the origins and significance of the conflict that caused it, the War of 1812. In addition to helping to cement America’s independence, the War of 1812 helped give rise to a sense of nationalism among the people of Canada. It rallied boosters of the city of Washington—among them, First Lady Dolley Madison—to advocate for keeping it as the nation’s capital. With the war’s end, America was free to embark on two centuries of growth.

You’ll leave with a much greater appreciation of how our nation has withstood tests in the past and how much of Washington D.C. has been built upon the ruins of previous losses. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Illustration from the 1816 book The History of England, from the Earliest Periods, Volume 1 by Paul M. Rapin de Thoyras.

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “The Physics of Baseball,” with Scott Paulson, professor of physics and interdisciplinary liberal studies at James Madison University.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-physics-of-baseball .]

Profs and Pints is offering baseball fans an even bigger treat than Cracker Jack, an exploration of the physics underlying their beloved sport.

Professor Scott Paulson, who regularly teaches introductory physics classes that make the physics behind real-world phenomena accessible to all, will discuss the forces and phenomena that come into play in baseball during pitching, batting, and fielding. He’ll toss you basic physics concepts that help explain how baseball’s routine plays got to be that way, and he’ll explain what’s going on in some situations where the laws of physics seem to be violated by what’s happening on the field.

Ever wondered why curveballs curve or knuckleballs behave so strangely? You’ll learn how Newton’s laws and the Magnus force explain how pitchers get drastically different results from subtle differences in their releases.

Curious about what exactly the “sweet spot” of the bat is? Ever wondered how big an advantage batters get from the thin air of Mile High Stadium? We’ll explore the physics of the batted ball, examining the phenomena of waves and analyzing the interaction of ball, bat and batter with the help of high-speed video.

During one of the more exciting scenarios in a baseball game—the close play at the plate—fans often see outfielders throw to an infielder rather than directly to home. We’ll look at the pros and cons of this relay play, known as a “cut-off,” in the context of the physics of projectile motion.

Finally, we will also look into high-profile cheating scandals involving corked bats and doctored balls. Dr. Paulson will present models to explain how these alterations to the equipment can benefit the batter and pitcher respectively, and he’ll discuss how much these models are backed up by data.

These few hours in a brewpub will forever enhance your enjoyment of time at the ballpark. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Photo by Tage Olsin / Wikimedia Commons

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “How AI Alters Thinking,” on dealing with artificial intelligence’s capacity to change and undermine our thought processes, with Eli Alshanetsky, assistant professor of philosophy at Temple University, principal investigator at its Cognitive Integrity Lab, and author of an upcoming book on AI and freedom of thought.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-how-ai-alters .]

Doctors who give bad advice can be sued for malpractice. Teachers belong to a profession with set standards. When artificial intelligence guides you, however, that guidance comes with a disclaimer: Use at your own risk.

Every day millions of people take that risk, and usually AI seems genuinely helpful. But even if AI gives us good answers, might its use over time do bad things to how we think?

Explore the relationship between AI and our own minds with Eli Alshanetsky, whose Cognitive Integrity Lab studies how artificial intelligence changes how we think, learn, and build trust. Author of Articulating a Thought and the upcoming book Freedom of Thought in the Age of AI, he’s on the cutting edge of efforts to answer AI-related questions such as: How can we tell when work is truly our own? How can technology support rather than replace authorship and reflection? What does trust mean when AI mediates our relationships with others and with our own thoughts?

To set up his discussion of potential consequences of AI, he’ll describe how social media’s impact on society serves as a preview.

Social media didn’t just give people what they wanted to click on, it actually changed what they regarded as click-worthy. It broke attention spans and fueled radicalization across millions of very different people. It left us with people who doom-scroll for hours, who can’t focus, who don’t know what to trust anymore.

If you’d shown people this version of themselves ten years ago, would they have chosen it?

Artificial intelligence is making a similar deal with us, but the stakes are higher. It isn’t chasing clicks. It’s optimized for giving you the most satisfying response to whatever is on your mind right now.

The risk over time isn’t just that you’ll get lazy. More profoundly, even when you think hard, your sense of what counts as good thinking—as well as what sounds like you—will shift to match what AI has been feeding you.

We’ll consider what kind of person this produces and whether this is someone we want to be or want children to become. Professor Alshanetsky will lay out a practical framework, which he calls “the interaction layer,” for using AI without letting it replace the thinking it’s supposed to support. He’ll also talk about what AI-related concerns should be the focus of parents and educators. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Illustration by David S. Soriano / Creative Commons.