Yearly Archives: 2018

The year of consciousness research: Washington, New York, Barcelona, and Krakow

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In the year past, there have been several interesting events related to consciousness research.

Washington – Society for Neuroscience
A symposium titled «Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Progress and Problems» was organized at the annual conference for the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). Melanie Boly, Marcello Massimini, Cyriel Pennartz, and Melanie Wilke presented different experimental approaches and theoretical frameworks relevant for consciousness research, and the themes of the symposium were presented in a conference paper in the Journal of Neuroscience. As this was the first major symposium covering consciousness research specifically in the 47 year histort of the Society for Neuroscience, it can bee seen  as a milestone for the maturity of the field. The symposium was chaired by Johan Storm, and was supported by the Human Brain Project.

New York – Animal Consciousness Conference
The Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness (in conjunction with the Center for Bioethics and Animal Studies) at New York University hosted a conference on Animal consciousness, with  series of distinguished speakers presenting and discussing  the latest results and ideas from this field, including ethology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind.   More information about the conference, along with program, abstracts, attendance, and videos of talks can be found at the following website.

Barcelona – HBP Understanding Consciousness, a Quest for the 21st Century.
Consciousness research entered sunny Barcelona in late June. In two packed days there was talks by eminent neuroscience researchers and philosophers such as David Chalmers, Ned Block, Karl Friston, Jean-Pierre Changeux,  Wolf Singer, Emery Brown, Olaf Blanke, Marcello Massimini, Rodolfo Llinas, Larissa Albantakis, Nico Schiff, Melanie Wilke, and many other excellent speakers. For an overview of speakers, talks, abstracts, and more, go to the website.
This was the first in a series of large  Human Brain Project conferences, and was organized by Johan Storm  together with other HPB members.

Krakow – Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness
A short week after the Human Brain Project conference on consciousness in Barcelona, the ASSC opened the doors in beautiful Krakow. For almost a week, attendees got their fair share of talks, posters, workshops, and symposiums, on various topics within the interdisciplinary field of consciousness research. Summarizing everything that happened in a few sentences wouldn’t do it justice, so make sure you check out the web site or their Facebook page.

We hope to publish more information about these events and others like them in the time to come.​

3 weeks until the unique event in Barcelona – Understanding Consciousness

Filosofi, Nevrofysiologi, Nevrovitenskap, Psykologi

Human Brain Project (HBP) invites scientists, physicians, philosophers and students to join project’s first large international conference devoted to the understanding of consciousness.

The conference will focus on fundamentals and theory, experimental studies, computational models, and clinical-societal implications of consciousness research. This is the first in a series of large, HBP international conference.

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How does our subjective experience emerge from the brain? How does consciousness relate to the physical world? These age-old, deep questions are now at last being addressed directly and broadly by neuroscience and will become crucial in the decades to come.

Where does consciousness arise? Where is the boundary between insentient matter and a spark of subjectivity? The spectrum of consciousness-related conundrums is rapidly expanding: we are saving islands of human brain from devastating injuries, growing cerebral organoids in a vat, and building intelligent machines that perform faster and better than any healthy subject.

Society needs to be scientifically and culturally prepared to face these emerging questions. To do so, an approach with the broadest scope is needed: diverse theoretical frameworks, brain anatomy, physiology, and chemistry across scales and species, detailed and large-scale computer simulations, deep learning, neuromorphic computing, robotics, clinical neurology, anaesthesiology, psychology, behavioural, computational, and philosophical analysis must interact and blend on a single infrastructure.

In the European Human Brain Project, a number of teams work together on consciousness and related questions, connecting neuroscience, philosophy, and technology. At the conference this research will be presented and discussed, along with presentations by world-leading scholars from outside the project, like Karl Friston,  and David Chalmers, Ned Block, Rodolfo Llinas, Wolf Singer, Emery Brown, Olaf Blanke.

Programme and Further Information

 

UNDERSTANDING CONSCIOUSNESS – a scientific quest for the 21st century.

Filosofi, Nevrofysiologi, Nevrovitenskap

Option 1

The Human Brain Project is inviting scientists, physicians, and students to join HBP’s first large international conference, which is devoted to the understanding consciousness. The conference is open to all who are interested in this topic.

This is the first in a series of large, HBP international conferences and will take place in central Barcelona on two full days in June 21-22, 2018. This conference will focus on fundamentals and theory, computational models, and clinical-societal implications of consciousness research. For program and registration please see below.

Scientific program

Registration page

Abstract submission and full website would be available soon.