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Public Lecture: Prof. Björn Merker – Cracks in the cortical consensus: Recent empirical findings that bear on consciousness theory

Event Start Date:
26. September 2024
Event End Date:
26. September 2024
Event Venue:

On 26th of September 2024, Prof. Björn Merker will hold a public lecture in our forum:

An overwhelming consensus regarding the locus of consciousness assigns it to cortical mechanisms. Besides the intuitive appeal of assigning what is presumed to be a sophisticated function to an organ that is exceptionally developed in ourselves, a number of empirical findings have been taken to support this identification. One is the claim that severing the commissures that connect the two sides of the cerebral cortex leaves the patient with two separate and independent consciousnesses. Another is the claim that loss of the primary visual cortex leaves the patient able to respond to stimuli in the affected part of the visual field but bereft of all phenomenal visual experience in the same (so called blind sight). A third is empirical evidence that activation of two parts of cortical circuitry, the so called feed-forward and feed-back components of cortical counter-current organization, must converge and interact for a given stimulus event to be consciously perceived. There are, however, rather recently accrued empirical findings on each of these issues that compromise their support for a cortical locus of consciousness. I will review these challenges to the cortical consensus, and relate them to more general characteristics of cortical organization that militate against its filling the role of “organ of consciousness”.

Björn Merker is a neuroscientist in retirement. He has longstanding interests in systems neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and brain mechanisms of consciousness. He obtained his doctorate from the Department of Psychology and Brain Science at M.I.T. in 1980 for work on the mammalian superior colliculus. Since then he has worked on oculomotor physiology in cats, on the primary visual cortex in macaques, on song development and mirror self-recognition in gibbons, and on the evolutionary and developmental background to human music and language. In retirement he has continued theoretical work related to both the latter topics as well as consciousness.

This page will be updated with more specific information about the time and place of the event.

Public Lecture: Dr. Jaan Aru – Science of consciousness in the age of artificial intelligence

Event Start Date:
15. May 2024
Event End Date:
15. May 2024
Event Venue:
Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the UiO main library), Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

On May 15th, 2024, Dr. Jaan Aru, Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu.

will give a lecture in our forum:

Science of consciousness in the age of artificial intelligence

Time: May 15th, 2024,  16.00 – 18.00

Venue: Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the UiO main library),Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the UiO main library),  Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

Jaan Aru is an associate professor at the Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu. He did his PhD in the Max Planck Institute of Brain Research and obtained a Marie-Curie fellowship to do a post-doc with Matthew Larkum in Berlin. He has written three books in Estonian and has twice received the national science communication prize in Estonia for his efforts in popularizing science. In 2019, he received the Young Scientist Prize from the President of Estonia.

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and the current debate on conscious machines provide a golden opportunity to reassess fundamental assumptions about consciousness. For instance, the rise of the capabilities of AI systems has led to the question of whether these systems might soon be conscious. However, that debate has revealed that we might have underestimated the complexity neurobiological mechanisms underlying consciousness. in this talk, Aru will mainly focus on two issues: First, the architectures of present-day AI algorithms are missing key features of the thalamocortical system that have been linked to conscious awareness in mammals. Second, the evolutionary and developmental trajectories that led to the emergence of living conscious organisms arguably have no parallels in artificial systems as envisioned today. The existence of living organisms depends on their actions and their survival is intricately linked to multi-level cellular, inter-cellular, and organismal processes culminating in agency and consciousness.

Recent articles by Jaan Aru

Aru, J., Drüke, M., Pikamäe, J., & Larkum, M. E. (2023). Mental navigation and the neural mechanisms of insightTrends in Neurosciences

Aru, J., & Rozgonjuk, D. (2022). The effect of smartphone use on mental effort, learning, and creativityTrends in Cognitive Sciences

Gidon, A., Aru, J., & Larkum, M. E. (2022). Does brain activity cause consciousness? A thought experimentPlos Biology, 20(6), e3001651. 

Aru, J., Labash, A., Corcoll, O., & Vicente, R. (2023). Mind the gap: Challenges of deep learning approaches to Theory of MindArtificial Intelligence Review

Tulver, K., Kaup, K. K., Laukkonen, R., & Aru, J. (2023). Restructuring insight: An integrative review of insight in problem-solving, meditation, psychotherapy, delusions and psychedelicsConsciousness and Cognition. 

Aru, J., Suzuki, M., & Larkum, M. E. (2020). Cellular Mechanisms of Conscious Processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Public Lecture: Prof. Mark Solms – The cortical fallacy and the hard problem of consciousness

Event Start Date:
25. September 2024
Event End Date:
25. September 2024
Event Venue:
Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the UiO main library), Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

Prof. Mark Solms, PhD, University of Cape Town

will give a lecture in our forum:

The cortical fallacy and the hard problem of consciousness

Time: September 25, 2024  15.00-17.00

Venue: Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the UiO main library), Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

Professor Mark Solms is Director of Neuropsychology at the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town. He is also Honorary Lecturer in Neurosurgery at the St Bartholomew’s & Royal London Hospital School of Medicine and an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists. He is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and the American and South African Psychoanalytic Associations. He has published 350 scientific papers, and eight books, the latest being The Hidden Spring (Norton, 2021).

 

 

 

 

 

Public Lecture: Prof. Lucia Melloni – An adversarial collaboration to critically evaluate theories of consciousness

Event Start Date:
1. September 2024
Event End Date:
1. September 2024
Event Venue:
Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the main library), Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

 

In Septemer, 2024 (date to be decided)

Prof. Lucia Melloni, PhD, Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt

will give a lecture in our forum:

An adversarial collaboration to critically evaluate theories of consciousness

Time: September, 2024 (date and time to be decided)

Venue: Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the main library), Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

Dr. Lucia Melloni is a leader of the ongoing, large-scale, international adversarial collaboration to critically evaluate leading theories of consciousness, involving 11 partners, funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

The first experimental results were announced in June 2013 at the 26th meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) in New York City.

Dr. Melloni has been investigating the neural underpinnings of perception (vision), how and why we experience (consciousness) and how those experiences get imprinted in our brain (learning and memory). She has used multiple methods, ranging from invasive and non-invasive electrophysiological and neuroimaging, behavioral techniques, and online surveys. The most recent one focus is on laminar electrophysiology in humans. Finally, she is committed to team-science and open science practices and she is leading a large-scale adversarial collaboration, involving 11 international collaborators to learn more about the footprints of consciousness.

 

Some articles by Lucia Melloni

Melloni L, Mudrik L, Pitts M, Bentz K, Ferrante O, Gorska U, Hirschhorn R, Khalaf A, Kozma C, Lepauvre A, Ling L, Mazumder D, Richter D, Zhou H, Blumenfeld H, Boly M, Chalmers D, Devore S, Fallon F, de Lange FP, Jensen O, Kreiman G, Luo H, Panagiotaropoulos TI, Dehaene S, Koch C, Tononi G. (2023). An adversarial collaboration protocol for testing contrasting predictions of global neuronal workspace and integrated information theory. PLoS ONE

Alasfour A, Gabriel P, Jiang X, Shamie I, Melloni L, Thesen T, Dugan P, Friedman D, Doyle W, Devinsky O, Gonda D, Sattar S, Wang S, Halgren E, Gilja V (2022). Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Human High Gamma Discriminate Naturalistic Behavioral States. PLOS COMPUT. BIOL. 18(8): e1010401. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010401

Xu C, Gao J, Gao J, He F, Yu J, Ling Y, Li H, Li J, Melloni L, Luo B, Ding N (2022). Statistical learning in patients in the minimally conscious state. CEREB. CORTEX. bhac222, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhac222. medRxiv 2022.01.04.22268656; doi: doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.04.22268656

Yaron I, Melloni L, Pitts M, Mudrik L (2022). The Consciousness Theories Studies (ConTraSt) database: analyzing and comparing empirical studies of consciousness theories. NAT. HUM. BEHAV. Feb 21. doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01284-5. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35190711.

Pu Y, Kong X, Ranganath C, Melloni L (2022). Event boundaries shape temporal organization of memory by resetting temporal context. NAT COMMUN Feb 2;13(1):622. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28216-9. PMID: 35110527; PMCID: PMC8810807.

Lepauvre A & Melloni L (2021). The search for the Neuronal Correlates of Consciousness: Progress and Challenges. PHIMISCI, 2. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2021.87

Vilas M, Auksztulewicz R, Melloni L (2021). Active Inference as a Computational Framework for Consciousness. REV.PHIL.PSYCH. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-021-00579-w

Melloni L, Mudrik L, Pitts M, Koch C (2021). Making the hard problem of consciousness easier. SCIENCE, 372 (6545), 911-912, doi: 10.1126/science.abj3259

Public lecture: Dr. Claire Sergent – Investigating the neural mechanisms of conscious processing in humans

Event Start Date:
15. April 2024
Event End Date:
15. April 2024
Event Venue:
Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the main library), Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

 

On April 15, 2024, Dr. Claire Sergent, CNRS, University of Paris,

will give a lecture in our forum:

Investigating the neural mechanisms of conscious processing in humans

Time: April 15, 2024,  15.00 – 17.00

Venue: Auditorium 1, Sverdrups hus (the main library), Blindern Campus, University of Oslo

Dr. Claire Sergent is an outstanding consciousness researcher with more than 20 years of experience from the forefront of consciousness research. She worked on the early development of the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory of consciousness research (GNWT), together with the pioneers Jean-Pierre Changeux, Stanislas Dehaene and Lionel Naccache. With her group in Paris, she recently published a study that significantly changed the implications of the GNW theory  (“Bifurcation in brain dynamics reveals a signature of conscious processing independent of reportNature Communications, 2021)

 

Recent articles by Claire Sergent

Derrien D, Garric C, Sergent C, Chokron S. The nature of blindsight: implications for current theories of consciousness. Neurosci Conscious, 2022, 2022 (1), pp.niab043.

Sergent C, Corazzol M, Labouret G, Stockart F, Wexler M, King JR, Meyniel F, Pressnitzer D. Bifurcation in brain dynamics reveals a signature of conscious processing independent of report. Nat Commun, 2021, 12 (1), pp.1149.

Garric C, Sebaa A, Caetta F, Perez C, Savatovsky J, Sergent C, Chokron S. Dissociation between objective and subjective perceptual experiences in a population of hemianopic patients: A new form of blindsight?. Cortex, 2019, 117, pp.299-310.

Jacquet PO, Wyart V, Desantis A, Hsu YF, Granjon L, Sergent C, Waszak F. Human susceptibility to social influence and its neural correlates are related to perceived vulnerability to extrinsic morbidity risks. Sci Rep, 2018, 8 (1), pp.13347.

Sergent C, Faugeras, Rohaut, Perrin, Valente, Tallon-Braudry, Cohen, Naccache L. Multidimensional cognitive evaluation of patients with disorders of consciousness using EEG: a proof of concept study. Neuroimage, 2016. (PDF)

Some earlier articles by Claire Sergent

Sergent C, Dehaene S. Neural processes underlying conscious perception: experimental findings and a global neuronal workspace framework. J Physiol Paris, 2005, 98 (4-6), pp.374-84.

Sergent C, Dehaene S. Is consciousness a gradual phenomenon? Evidence for an all-or-none bifurcation during the attentional blink. Psychol Sci, 2004, 15 (11), pp.720-8.

Dehaene S, Sergent C, Changeux JP. A neuronal network model linking subjective reports and objective physiological data during conscious perception. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 2003, 100 (14), pp.8520-5.

Dr Sergent Bifurcation in brain dynamics reveals a signature of conscious processing independent of report

Integrative Neuroscience and Cognition Center – CNRS UMR 8002
CNRS, Université de Paris
45 Rue des Saints Pères
75270 Paris Cedex 06
France

Animal Consciousness – Public lecture and panel discussion with Marian Stamp Dawkins and Jonathan Birch

Event Start Date:
15. February 2023
Event End Date:
15. February 2023
Event Venue:
Online

Are animals conscious and how can we test it?

Many animals engage in complex behaviors like building nests, using tools to hunt for food, play, or socialize. Some animals can even learn complex tasks like pulling levers for rewards, navigating cities, or even rudimentary sign language in the case of great apes.

Illustration event.

As more evidence accumulates, the case that animals are conscious seems to be strengthened. But how can we test whether they experience the world in rich detail like we do? Whether they have a sense of self or a notion of the future or past? Do they feel pain when hurt the same way we do?

We have invited Marian Stamp Dawkins, a famous British biologist and professor of ethology at the University of Oxford, to hold a lecture on

“Which animals are conscious? What we know and what still don’t know”

(see below for a short description)

In addition, Professor Jonathan Birch at the London School of Economics and Political Science will subsequently join Marian Stamp Dawkins in a panel and to discuss the topic, along with questions from the audience, and moderated by Professor Johan Storm at the University of Oslo.

The event will be online, with Marian Stamp Dawkins holding her lecture from 19.00 to 20.00, followed by a panel discussion and Q&A.

More information on how to participate will be published here. If you want updates on this event, and similar future events, please subscribe to our email list at the forum for consciousness research, here.

***

Despite the increasing use of ‘sentience’ in animal welfare legislation around the world,  there are still serious scientific obstacles to knowing which animals have conscious experiences. Consciousness remains one of the greatest in mysteries in biology and I shall argue that if we genuinely want to understand it, we have first to face up to what we do not know and why it is so difficult to study. Only then will we be able to make a scientific judgement about its existence in other species.

Marian Stamp Dawkins CBE FRS is Professor of Animal Behavior in the Department of Zoology and Emeritus Fellow in Biological Sciences at Somerville College, University of Oxford. She and is the author of numerous research papers and books on animal welfare,  behavior and consciousness including Through Our Eyes Only? The Search for Animal Consciousness (1993),  Why Animals Matter: Animal Consciousness, Animal Welfare and Human Well-being (2012) and most recently The Science of Animal Welfare: Understanding What Animals Want (2021).

Jonathan Birch is an Associate Professor in LSE’s Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, specializing in  the philosophy of the biological sciences. He is working on evolution of social behavior, the evolution of norms, animal sentience, and the relation between sentience and welfare.

Organizer

Forum For Consciousness ResearchThe convergence environment ConsciousBrainConcepts and UiO:Life Science

Public Lecture: Georg Northoff – What do brain and mind share, the temporo-spatial theory of consciousness

Event Start Date:
3. November 2022
Event End Date:
3. November 2022
Event Venue:
Oslo

Georg Northoff

PUBLIC LECTURE November 3rd, 2022:

Prof. Georg NORTHOFF
University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research

(IMHR), Ottawa, Canada

What do brain and mind share?

Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC)

Abstract. Consciousness and its relation to the brain is one of the major mysterious and unresolved
scientific puzzles of our time. Various neuroscientific (and philosophical) theories of consciousness have
been proposed. However, despite major progress, the missing link connecting brain and mind, neural and
mental states, remains yet unclear. They key claim of the Temporo-spatial Theory of
Consciousness (TTC) is that that missing link consists in the spatial and temporal pattern or
structure, i.e. their topography and dynamic, which are shared by both neural and mental activity
as their “common currency”. Consciousness and its relation to the brain can then be explain in
temporo-spatial terms. The lecture will present the theoretical framework and various lines of empirical
support for the TTC. I conclude with a philosophical outlook how the TTC can resolve (rather than solve)
the famous hard problem of consciousness, that is, the seemingly unbridgeable gap of brain and mind.
.

Thursday, November 3rd, 16.05-17.40**

Venue: Auditorium 1, Georg Sverdrups Hus / Universitesbiblioteket, Blindern,
Moltke Moes vei 39 by Blindernveien, Oslo 0317
16.05: Welcome by J.F. Storm, University of Oslo
16.10: Georg NORTHOFF’s lecture: What do brain and mind share?
17.10-17.45: Discussion and questions from the audience

** Earlier during the day, professor Northoff will hold a more technical seminar on his theory (12.45 – 14.45) at Room L200, Domus Medica (Sognsvannsveien 9, Oslo). If you are interested in participating, please send an email to j.f.storm@medisin.uio.no.

Bio: Georg NORTHOFF is a German-born philosopher, neuroscientist and psychiatrist,
holding degrees in all three disciplines. He is now working in Ottawa/Canada investigating the
relationship between the brain and mind in its various facets, focusing on the question: why
and how can our brain construct subjective phenomena like self, consciousness, emotions?
He has developed the Temporo-spatial theory of consciousness (TTC) and published many
articles and books.

PUBLIC LECTURE by Dr. Yaïr Pinto: Does a split brain imply a split mind?

Event Start Date:
19. May 2022
Event End Date:
19. May 2022
Event Venue:
Yair Pinto is an assistant Professor in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam with a background in Physics (MSc) and Cognitive Psychology (PhD). He has received several high-profile grants both European (a Dutch Rubicon grant, a European Marie-Curie grant) and American (a large Templeton grant). He has published his work in many prestigious journals, among them Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and Brain. His main interests are visual perception, consciousness, split-brain patients and free will
The Forum for Consciousness Research is proud to announce our next event:
Prof Yaïr Pinto will present his research on split-brain patients and the challenges it presents to the modern computational theory of mind at Runde auditorium (Domus Medica, University of Oslo) on Thursday, May 19th, between 15:30 and 16:45.
The event is free an open to the public. Hope to see you all there!

Continue reading PUBLIC LECTURE by Dr. Yaïr Pinto: Does a split brain imply a split mind?

Open Lecture – Victor Lamme: WHAT CAN BRAIN SCIENCE TEACH US ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS THAT WE DON’T KNOW ALREADY?

Event Start Date:
6. April 2022
Event End Date:
6. April 2022
Event Venue:

The recording of the lecture is now available on Youtube:

About the event: 

Forum for Consciousness Research and The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters invite you to a public lecture: 

Victor Lamme: WHAT CAN BRAIN SCIENCE TEACH US ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS THAT WE DON’T KNOW ALREADY?

Bilde av Victor Lamme som holder brillene sine foran seg

Victor A.F. Lamme, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC), The Netherlands, victorlamme@gmail.com 

Time

Wednesday, April 6th , 19.30-21.00

Venue

Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi/ The Norwegain Academy of Science and Letters,   Drammensveien 78,    0271 Oslo.

See also: https://dnva.no/detskjer/2022/03/what-can-brain-science-teach-us-about-consciousness-we-dont-know-already 

Programme

19.30:  Welcome and introduction by Johan F. Storm, Neurophysiology, University of Oslo

19.35: Victor Lamme: The Recurrent Processing Theory of Consciousness

20.35:  Coffee break

20.45:  Discussion and questions from the audience         z

 

ABSTRACT

Once a topic largely confined to philosophy, consciousness has evolved to a mainstream research topic in psychology, neuroscience, AI, and other fields. This has generated a huge number of data, as well as many ideas and theories on consciousness. Where has this taken us? It is getting increasingly clear that consciousness is not what we always thought it was. Inspired by empirical data we are now moving away from the idea that the gold standard of consciousness is what people know, think or report about it. Instead, consciousness seems a much more fundamental property of brain function, more closely tied to binding and integration than to higher order cognitive functioning. I will present an overview of all the arguments that support such a conclusion, touching on topics such as the (mildly) hard problem, where the ‘magic’ of consciousness happens (and why this is not all that magical after all), why missing gorillas does not imply not seeing them (and why that gorilla is conscious of you), and first and foremost why neuroscience is a better judge of what you’re conscious of than you are yourself.

 

Victor Lamme is a full professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Amsterdam. He has worked on visual perception, attention, and memory, only to converge on the topic he is truly obsessed with: consciousness.  He studies consciousness using a variety of techniques, ranging from single unit electrophysiology in monkeys to EEG, fMRI, TMS, and pharmacological interventions in humans. His aim is to provide a new definition of consciousness, moving away from our introspective intuition of it.     

                      

All are welcome!

 

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FUTURE EVENTS:

 

Thursday, May 19, 2022, at University of Oslo:

 

Lecture by Yair Pinto, Amsterdam: Consciousness in split brain patients

 

(More details later…)