⚠ what this page is about, and what it is not
In the winter of 2013-14 Jeffrey Epstein’s office organised a weekend gathering of four scientists, under the e-mail subject line “deception”. The organiser wrote that “Jeff’s goal is understanding deception”. ⚠⚠ No document read for this page says where the weekend was to be held, or whether it took place. No allegation against any participant was found anywhere in the release, and none is made here.
| What | A weekend gathering canvassed for 22-23 February 2014, under the recurring e-mail subject “deception”1 |
| Convened by | Jeffrey Epstein, with logistics run by his assistant Lesley Groff1 |
| Organised by | Neil Gershenfeld, who set the agenda and chased the dates1 |
| Invited | Sebastian Seung, Judith Donath and Ed Boyden, all of whom replied on availability1 |
| ⭐ The line | ”If Jeff’s goal is understanding deception, and mine is brain-building as a test case for aligning the representations of hardware and software, Ed/Judith/Sebastian, what are your one-liner goals?”1 |
| ⚠ Where | Not stated in any document read for this page. The correspondence says only “getting to/from there” and “fly out”2 |
This is not a conference in a hotel. It is a small, private, invitation-only weekend, scheduled by a convicted sex offender’s personal assistant, for four scientists, under a one-word subject line.
The thread
Dates were canvassed from December 2013. On 31 December 2013 Ed Boyden wrote “Feb 8,9 ok for me. Also Feb 23 fine for me”, and Sebastian Seung asked “Is this a weekend or a long weekend? I.e. would we fly out on Fri or Sat?”. On 12 January 2014 Judith Donath wrote “I can no longer do Feb 8,9. Feb 22,23; march 8,9 and April 12,13 are still clear.”1
On 27 January Gershenfeld wrote, back “from the fog of Davos”:
Let’s re-confirm conflicts, is Feb 22,23 OK for everyone? … Plan I expect will be to travel down evening 21st, return evening 23rd. Jeff, how will travel work? To firm up focus, around the broad build-a-brain direction let’s each come bearing a direction that can’t be tackled more conventionally.
The next day he settled it:
Sounds like we do have a quorum for Feb 22,23, let’s protect that weekend while we settle. Jeff/Lesley, what are the logistics of getting to/from there? If we invite others, what’s a good total number to shoot for?
If Jeff’s goal is understanding deception, and mine is brain-building as a test case for aligning the representations of hardware and software, Ed/Judith/Sebastian, what are your one-liner goals? Intent is to focus prep on what could be done collectively that doesn’t fit individually.
Donath replied “That weekend still works for me also.” Boyden: “I should be able to make most of 2/22-2/23, although as noted I’ll be a little late.” Seung: “I might have a conflict on Feb 22-23 but I can head that off if we decide on that date very soon.”1
What this establishes, and what it does not
⚠⚠ “Jeff’s goal is understanding deception” is Neil Gershenfeld’s characterisation of Epstein’s purpose, written to the group. It is not Epstein’s own words, and no document read for this page records Epstein stating his goal himself. That distinction is the whole of the finding’s weight and the page will not blur it.
What is documented: the subject line, the participants, the dates canvassed, the organiser’s framing, and that Epstein’s own assistant was asked to handle travel logistics.
What is not: ⚠ where the weekend was to be held; whether it happened; who else was invited; what “understanding deception” meant to Epstein; and whether any participant knew anything of his conduct. ⚠ A reader should note that “deception” in this thread sits beside “build-a-brain”, computational architecture and a cited Edge essay, which is the ordinary subject matter of the people involved.3
The participants
All four are academic scientists, named in the clear on the sheets, writing in their professional capacities about scheduling and research directions. ⚠ Nothing in the documents read for this page attributes anything improper to any of them, and the page names them because they are named and because a private weekend convened by Epstein is a matter of record, not because attendance implies anything.
What this page does not say
⚠⚠ IT DOES NOT SAY THE WEEKEND HAPPENED. The last document read for this page is a scheduling message. No document read confirms the gathering, its venue, its attendance or its content.
⚠ It does not place anyone at Little Saint James or at the New Mexico ranch. The words in the thread are “there”, “travel down” and “fly out”, and the desk declines to complete them, because guessing a location from a preposition is exactly the inference this wiki has been wrong about before.2
Related
- Lesley Groff
- Epstein’s early associates
Footnotes
Footnotes
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The “deception” thread. EFTA01941074 p.1, read at the image at 700 dpi: Neil Gershenfeld to Jeffrey Epstein, Lesley Groff, Sebastian Seung, judith donath and Ed Boyden, headed
Tue 1/28/2014 4:04:35 PM, subjectRe: deception, carrying beneath it Donath atJan 28, 2014 at 9:52 AM, Boyden at8:06 AMand Seung atJan 27, 2014 at 2:04 PM. The earlier scheduling round, including Gershenfeld’s “fog of Davos” message ofMon 1/27/2014 5:08:23 PMand the December 2013 replies from Boyden and Seung, is EFTA01939223 p.1, text layer; Lesley Groff’s forward asking “Did I need to put Neil’s office in touch with Cecile re the symposium and logistics?” is EFTA01940279 p.1, text layer. ⚠ Header times and quoted times are in different zones and are printed as each sheet prints them; the same Gershenfeld message appears as4:04:35 PMon one copy and11:04:35 AM ESTon another. ⚠ No e-mail address from any of these sheets is reproduced here. ⚠ “Cecile” is a forename only and is not identified here. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 -
On the location. ⚠⚠ No document read for this page names it. What the thread contains is “the logistics of getting to/from there”, “travel down evening 21st, return evening 23rd” and “would we fly out on Fri or Sat?” Those words are consistent with several destinations and the desk completes none of them. ⚠ The desk did not run a location sweep for this draft and states that rather than implying the absence is a finding. ↩ ↩2
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The surrounding subject matter. Gershenfeld’s own stated goal on the sheet is “brain-building as a test case for aligning the representations of hardware and software”, he describes the group’s focus as “the broad build-a-brain direction”, and he points the others to an Edge annual-question response and a computing manifesto. ⚠ A separate message in the population carries the subject “Drazen Prelec on lying and self-deception”, which is the title of work by a behavioural economist and is ordinary academic material. The page records this so that “deception” is not read as a euphemism it has no evidence of being. ↩