We are pleased to announce the following talk, jointly organised by the Forum for Consciousness Studies, the CBC project, and the Oslo Mind Group (OMG). Everyone is welcome!

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Friday the 17th of September, 14.00-15.30pm (GMT+2), we will host Andrew Lee, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, affiliated with the ConsciousBrainConcepts project. His research is on philosophical questions about conscious experiences. He’s particularly interested in questions about (1) how conscious experiences are structured and how to formally model that structure, and (2) the ethical significance of consciousness. In addition to philosophizing about consciousness, Andrew sometimes even has some conscious experiences of his own.

The event will take place online, via zoom (details below).

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Does consciousness come in degrees?

If the answer is ‘yes’, then some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. If the answer is ‘no’, then such claims are either false or incoherent. In this talk, I’ll (1) argue that the most prominent philosophical objection to degrees of consciousness doesn’t work, (2) develop an analysis of what it is for consciousness to come in degrees, and (3) apply the analysis to various theories of consciousness. I’ll argue that most theories yield the result that consciousness comes in degrees, though what exactly degrees of consciousness are varies across different theories. This means that claims about degrees of consciousness should be treated as substantive hypotheses open to confirmation and falsification, rather than as obvious truths or conceptual confusions.

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Time plan:
14.00 – Introduction
14.10 – Does Consciousness Come In Degrees?
14.50 – Q&A
15.30 – Tentative end

How to attend:
Link: https://uio.zoom.us/s/66886805387
Meeting ID:  668 8680 5387
Passcode: 878347