2019 Intelligence in the Physical World
The Intelligence in the Physical World program is part of a science strategic partnership between the Fetzer Franklin Fund of the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust and FQXi. This partnership funds work on Agency, Intelligence, and Consciousness. This is the second RFP supported by this partnership.
The PIs listed were selected by a grant review panel and then recommended for funding through a donor-advised fund at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Awardee ![]() ![]() |
Institution | Value ![]() ![]() |
Project Title |
Ian Durham / Johannes Kleiner / Yakov Kremnitzer / Jonathan Mason | Saint Anselm College / Leibniz University of Hanover / University of Oxford / University of Oxford | $48,522 | Models of Consciousness: A Conference Series on Formal Approaches to the Mind-Matter Relation |
Jayne Thompson / Mile Gu | National University of Singapore, Centre for Quantum Technologies | $56,350 | Are quantum agents more energetically efficient at making predictions? |
Larissa Albantakis | University of Wisconsin, Madison | $58,895 | Distinguishing intrinsic intelligence from automatic behavior |
Felix Binder / Simon Milz | IQOQI Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences | $74,953 | Predictive Quantum Intelligence under Physical Constraints |
Samuel Craig Fletcher | Regents of the University of Minnesota | $89,448 | Agential Abstraction/Representation Theory |
James P. Crutchfield | Art and Science Laboratory | $92,923 | Function and Intelligence in Thermodynamic Agents: Mutually Incompatible Realities |
Gerardo Adesso / Paul Knott / Ludovico Lami | University of Nottingham | $100,000 | The ultimate brain: Hallmarks and limitations of intelligence in general probabilistic theories |
Edi Barkai | University of Haifa | $100,000 | Biophysical mechanisms underlying epigenetic inheritance of enhanced complex learning capabilities |
Jenann Ismael | Columbia University | $103,076 | The Emergence of Intelligence: from Nature through Culture |
Adrian Kent | University of Cambridge | $114,748 | Connecting Experiential Aspects of Intelligence and Fundamental Physics |
David Wolpert | Santa Fe Institute | $118,100 | The role of constraints in the thermodynamics of intelligence |
Cristhiano Andre Gamarano Duarte Carneiro Silva | Chapman University | $130,853 | Reasoning in a Quantum World |
Christopher John Watkins / Susanne Still / Lee Altenberg | Royal Holloway, University of London / University of Hawai'i at Mānoa / University of Hawai'i at Mānoa | $193,186 | Intelligence in Context |
Daniele Oriti / Stephan Hartmann | LMU-Munich | $199,100 | The Epistemic Nature of Physical Laws: From Intelligent Agents to Quantum Gravity and Cosmology |
TOTAL | $1,480,154 |
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