The Emmy Network

Professor Ivette Fuentes, Emmy Network Fellow; Melanie Bautista Cruz, Oxford-Emmy Graduate Scholar (2024 DPhil Atomic and Laser Physics); Professor Christopher Foot, Professor of Physics; Sir Roger Penrose, Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics; Alex Sheppard, Emmy Network Executive Director

Alex Sheppard, Emmy Network Executive Director, writes:

The Emmy Network, based at Keble, is a growing community dedicated to education, research, and real-world impact, especially in computationally adjacent areas of science and philosophy. At its core, Emmy fosters interdisciplinary collaboration to generate deep insights and meaningful connections across fields. Our mission is clear: to bring minds together, spark new ideas, and help those ideas make a difference.

This Trinity Term, Emmy hosted an engaging, interactive seminar for a group of students in Keble, exploring definitions of intelligence. Our Extraordinary Fellow Sir Roger Penrose joined Keble Fellows by Special Election Joël Ouaknine and Ivette Fuentes in person, alongside a diverse cast of luminaries dialling in for a guided discussion. Highlights included a thought-provoking talk by Emmy Fellow Joseph Almog on problems with the Turing Test, spanning Gödel and Putnam, and innovative new work led by our founder and Scientific Director, Jussi Westergren.

Building on this, May saw the Emmy Network’s flagship symposium at Kankas Castle in Finland, titled: Intelligence – Natural and Artificial – and its relation to Infinity and Reality. Over two days, participants explored foundational questions first posed by Alan Turing, What is intelligence? What is thinking?, and extended them into deeper philosophical, mathematical, and scientific territory.

Speakers included Joseph Almog, Hugh Woodin, Hans Kamp, Roger Penrose, and many others, covering topics from infinity, set theory and computation to cellular decision-making and AI. The event was livestreamed globally, with recordings available online via Emmy Network’s YouTube channel.

Far from a traditional academic programme, Emmy is a facilitator of creative collisions, where researchers step outside their silos to think together about the most fundamental and impactful questions. Plans are underway for a follow-up symposium next year, timed with the release of Emmy founder Jussi Westergren’s forthcoming book.

We invite all members of the Keble community to reach out if interested to engage with us.