Will consciousness ever be explained by neuroscientists?
What is the latest philosophical and scientific thinking in explaining how the wet stuff in our heads creates the world we experience?
An expert panel consisting of Dr. Anil Seth, Professor Barry Smith and Professor Chris Frith discuss these questions and more.
This event was held at the Royal Institution on Wednesday 7 March 2012 and forms part of a series curated for the Royal Institution of Great Briatin by Alok Jha.
Seth is co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex. His research crosses the fields of computational neuroscience, consciousness science and neurorobotics. In addition to contributing new insights into the mechanisms of action selection, he has developed new ways to link brain activity to conscious experience and he is an authority on the statistical analysis of causality. He is also chair of the upcoming annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, which will take place in July.
Smith is director of the Institute of Philosophy where the aim is to promote and facilitate high quality research in philosophy, making it available to the widest possible audience both inside and outside the academic community. According to Smith, "Consciousness creates, in each of us, an inner life where we think and feel; a realm where we experience the sights, sounds, feels, tastes and smells that inform us of the world around us."
Frith is professor emeritus at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
Source: 33rd Square | Consciousness: The Hard Problem
Alok Jha: Consciousness: the hard problem? - Discussion
Showing posts with label Consciousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Consciousness. Show all posts
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Consciousness: Searching for the Mind
With the help of a hammer-wielding scientist, Jennifer Aniston and a general anaesthetic, Professor Marcus du Sautoy goes in search of answers to one of science's greatest mysteries: how do we know who we are? While the thoughts that make us feel as though we know ourselves are easy to experience, they are notoriously difficult to explain. So, in order to find out where they come from, Marcus subjects himself to a series of probing experiments.
He learns at what age our self-awareness emerges and whether other species share this trait. Next, he has his mind scrambled by a cutting-edge experiment in anaesthesia. Having survived that ordeal, Marcus is given an out-of-body experience in a bid to locate his true self. And in Hollywood, he learns how celebrities are helping scientists understand the microscopic activities of our brain. Finally, he takes part in a mind-reading experiment that both helps explain and radically alters his understanding of who he is.
Consciousness: Searching for the Mind
He learns at what age our self-awareness emerges and whether other species share this trait. Next, he has his mind scrambled by a cutting-edge experiment in anaesthesia. Having survived that ordeal, Marcus is given an out-of-body experience in a bid to locate his true self. And in Hollywood, he learns how celebrities are helping scientists understand the microscopic activities of our brain. Finally, he takes part in a mind-reading experiment that both helps explain and radically alters his understanding of who he is.
Consciousness: Searching for the Mind
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview Documentary
*Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview* is a documentary exploring the depths of the current human condition and the emergence of a worldview that is recreating our world from the inside out.
Weaving together insights and findings from biology, psychology, network science, systems science, business, culture and media, the film reveals the inner workings of the human experience in the 21st century, urging viewers to step out of the box and challenge their own assumptions about who we really are, and why we do what we do.
*Crossroads* places evolutionary context to today's escalating social unrest, natural disasters, and economic failures. It illuminates the footsteps of an integrated worldview, penetrating its way through the power of social networks to the forefront of our personal and collective awareness.
A refreshing reality check for all viewers and a clarion call for those who carry the seeds of the emerging worldview.
Scientists and thinkers featured in *Crossroads* include: Amit Goswami, Neale Donald Walsch, Elisabet Sahtouris, Bruce Lipton, Peter Joseph, Caroline A. Miller, Nicholas Christakis, James Fowler, Michael Laitman, Ervin Laszlo, Dean Radin, Dave Sherman, Annie Leonard, Jairon G. Cuesta, and John St. Augustine.
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview
Weaving together insights and findings from biology, psychology, network science, systems science, business, culture and media, the film reveals the inner workings of the human experience in the 21st century, urging viewers to step out of the box and challenge their own assumptions about who we really are, and why we do what we do.
*Crossroads* places evolutionary context to today's escalating social unrest, natural disasters, and economic failures. It illuminates the footsteps of an integrated worldview, penetrating its way through the power of social networks to the forefront of our personal and collective awareness.
A refreshing reality check for all viewers and a clarion call for those who carry the seeds of the emerging worldview.
Scientists and thinkers featured in *Crossroads* include: Amit Goswami, Neale Donald Walsch, Elisabet Sahtouris, Bruce Lipton, Peter Joseph, Caroline A. Miller, Nicholas Christakis, James Fowler, Michael Laitman, Ervin Laszlo, Dean Radin, Dave Sherman, Annie Leonard, Jairon G. Cuesta, and John St. Augustine.
Crossroads: Labor Pains of a New Worldview
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed | Ray Kurzweil
How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed
About the book:
In How to Create a Mind, The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, the bold futurist and author of The New York Times bestseller The Singularity Is Near explores the limitless potential of reverse engineering the human brain. Ray Kurzweil is arguably today's most influential—and often controversial—futurist. In How to Create a Mind, Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization—reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines. Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence in addressing the world's problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional and moral intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical possibilities of our merging with the intelligent technology we are creating. Certain to be one of the most widely discussed and debated science books of the year, How to Create a Mind is sure to take its place alongside Kurzweil's previous classics.
Early praise for the book:
It is rare to find a book that offers unique and inspiring content on
every page. How To Create A Mind achieves that and more. Ray has a
way of tackling seemingly overwhelming challenges with any army of
reason, in the end convincing the reader that it is within our reach
to create non-biological intelligence that will soar past our own.
This is a visionary work that is also accessible and entertaining.
-Rafael Reif, President of MIT
Kurzweil's new book on the mind is magnificent, timely, and solidly
argued!! His best so far!
-Marvin Minsky, Co-founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
One of the eminent AI pioneers, Ray Kurzweil, has created a new book
to explain the true nature of intelligence, both biological and
non-biological. The book describes the human brain as a machine that
can understand hierarchical concepts ranging from the form of a chair
to the nature of humor. His important insights emphasize the key role
of learning both in the brain and AI. He provides a credible roadmap
for achieving the goal of super human intelligence which will be
necessary to solve the grand challenges of humanity.
-Raj Reddy, founder, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon
University
If you have ever wondered about how your mind works, read this book.
Kurzweil's insights reveal key secrets underlying human thought and
our ability to recreate it. This is an eloquent and thought-provoking
work.
-Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST
About the Author
Ray Kurzweil has been described as "the restless genius" by the Wall
Street Journal, and "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes. Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States, calling him the "rightful heir to Thomas Edison," and PBS included Ray as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America," along with other inventors of the past two centuries.
As one of the leading inventors of our time, Kurzweil was the
principal developer of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary
speech recognition. His website Kurzweil AI.net has more than one
million readers.
Among Kurzweil's many honors, he is the recipient of the $500,000 MIT-Lemelson Prize, the world's largest for innovation. In 1999, he received the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. And in 2002, he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, established by the US Patent Office. He has received 19 honorary Doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents. Kurzweil is the author of five books, four of which have been national best sellers.
The Age of Spiritual Machines has been translated into nine languages. His last book, The Singularity is Near, was a New York Times-best seller and has been translated into eight languages.
This talk was hosted by Boris Debic on behalf of Authors at Google.
Ray Kurzweil "How to Create a Mind", Authors at Google
About the book:
In How to Create a Mind, The Secret of Human Thought Revealed, the bold futurist and author of The New York Times bestseller The Singularity Is Near explores the limitless potential of reverse engineering the human brain. Ray Kurzweil is arguably today's most influential—and often controversial—futurist. In How to Create a Mind, Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization—reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines. Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence in addressing the world's problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional and moral intelligence and the origins of consciousness and envisions the radical possibilities of our merging with the intelligent technology we are creating. Certain to be one of the most widely discussed and debated science books of the year, How to Create a Mind is sure to take its place alongside Kurzweil's previous classics.
Early praise for the book:
It is rare to find a book that offers unique and inspiring content on
every page. How To Create A Mind achieves that and more. Ray has a
way of tackling seemingly overwhelming challenges with any army of
reason, in the end convincing the reader that it is within our reach
to create non-biological intelligence that will soar past our own.
This is a visionary work that is also accessible and entertaining.
-Rafael Reif, President of MIT
Kurzweil's new book on the mind is magnificent, timely, and solidly
argued!! His best so far!
-Marvin Minsky, Co-founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
One of the eminent AI pioneers, Ray Kurzweil, has created a new book
to explain the true nature of intelligence, both biological and
non-biological. The book describes the human brain as a machine that
can understand hierarchical concepts ranging from the form of a chair
to the nature of humor. His important insights emphasize the key role
of learning both in the brain and AI. He provides a credible roadmap
for achieving the goal of super human intelligence which will be
necessary to solve the grand challenges of humanity.
-Raj Reddy, founder, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon
University
If you have ever wondered about how your mind works, read this book.
Kurzweil's insights reveal key secrets underlying human thought and
our ability to recreate it. This is an eloquent and thought-provoking
work.
-Dean Kamen, founder of FIRST
About the Author
Ray Kurzweil has been described as "the restless genius" by the Wall
Street Journal, and "the ultimate thinking machine" by Forbes. Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States, calling him the "rightful heir to Thomas Edison," and PBS included Ray as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America," along with other inventors of the past two centuries.
As one of the leading inventors of our time, Kurzweil was the
principal developer of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary
speech recognition. His website Kurzweil AI.net has more than one
million readers.
Among Kurzweil's many honors, he is the recipient of the $500,000 MIT-Lemelson Prize, the world's largest for innovation. In 1999, he received the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. And in 2002, he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, established by the US Patent Office. He has received 19 honorary Doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents. Kurzweil is the author of five books, four of which have been national best sellers.
The Age of Spiritual Machines has been translated into nine languages. His last book, The Singularity is Near, was a New York Times-best seller and has been translated into eight languages.
This talk was hosted by Boris Debic on behalf of Authors at Google.
Ray Kurzweil "How to Create a Mind", Authors at Google
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Constructing the World | David Chalmers
What is the minimal vocabulary that Laplace's demon would need in order to know all truths about the world?
Lecture given during The Shalem Center's Psycho-ontology Conference, December, 2011.
David Chalmers is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University and also Visiting Professor of Philosophy at New York University.
David Chalmers - Constructing the World
Lecture given during The Shalem Center's Psycho-ontology Conference, December, 2011.
David Chalmers is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University and also Visiting Professor of Philosophy at New York University.
David Chalmers - Constructing the World
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Consciousness and Causality | John Searle
Searle's talk at the Evolution and Function of Consciousness Summer School ("Turing Consciousness 2012") held at the University of Montreal as part of Alan Turing Year.
John Searle -Consciousness and Causality
John Searle -Consciousness and Causality
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
A Phenomenal Confusion About Access and Consciousness | Daniel Dennett
Dennett's talk at the Evolution and Function of Consciousness conference ("Turing Consciousness 2012") held at the University of Montreal as part of Alan Turing Year.
Daniel Dennett -"A Phenomenal Confusion About Access and Consciousness"
Daniel Dennett -"A Phenomenal Confusion About Access and Consciousness"
Monday, June 25, 2012
Out-of Body Experiences, Consciousness, and Cognitive Neuroprosthetics | Olaf Blanke [TEDx]
What is a conscious self ? What exactly makes an experience a subjective phenomenon ?
Starting with the neurology of out-of-body experiences and the breakdown of bodily mechanisms of self-consciousness, this talk presents novel neuroscience data on selfconsciousness and subjectivity in healthy subjects using techniques from cognitive neuroscience and engineering-based technologies such as virtual reality and robotics. It translates these research findings to the bedside and show how control over the brain mechanisms of our daily "inside--body experience" can join forces with neuro-engineering and thus impact treatments for patients with amputation and spinal cord injury.
Olaf Blanke is director of the Center for Neuroprosthetics at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), holds the Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics, and is consultant neurologist at the Department of Neurology (Geneva University Hospital). He received his MD and PhD in neurophysiology from the Free University of Berlin. Blanke's research targets the brain mechanisms of body perception, corporeal awareness and selfconsciousness, applying paradigms from cognitive science, neuroscience, neuroimaging, robotics, and virtual reality in healthy subjects and neurological patients. His two main goals are to understand and control neural own body representations to develop a neurobiological model of self-consciousness and to apply these findings in the emerging field of cognitive and systems neuroprosthetics. His work has received wide press coverage; he is recipient of numerous awards.
TEDxCHUV - Olaf Blanke - Out-of Body Experiences, Consciousness, and Cognitive Neuroprosthetics
Starting with the neurology of out-of-body experiences and the breakdown of bodily mechanisms of self-consciousness, this talk presents novel neuroscience data on selfconsciousness and subjectivity in healthy subjects using techniques from cognitive neuroscience and engineering-based technologies such as virtual reality and robotics. It translates these research findings to the bedside and show how control over the brain mechanisms of our daily "inside--body experience" can join forces with neuro-engineering and thus impact treatments for patients with amputation and spinal cord injury.
Olaf Blanke is director of the Center for Neuroprosthetics at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), holds the Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics, and is consultant neurologist at the Department of Neurology (Geneva University Hospital). He received his MD and PhD in neurophysiology from the Free University of Berlin. Blanke's research targets the brain mechanisms of body perception, corporeal awareness and selfconsciousness, applying paradigms from cognitive science, neuroscience, neuroimaging, robotics, and virtual reality in healthy subjects and neurological patients. His two main goals are to understand and control neural own body representations to develop a neurobiological model of self-consciousness and to apply these findings in the emerging field of cognitive and systems neuroprosthetics. His work has received wide press coverage; he is recipient of numerous awards.
TEDxCHUV - Olaf Blanke - Out-of Body Experiences, Consciousness, and Cognitive Neuroprosthetics
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