Info: this online course is available in English & Portuguese, open to the general public.
Nota: este curso online será dado em inglês & português (ver horários diferentes abaixo).
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COURSE NR. 8 - "CONSCIOUSNESS"
 
Description: Human consciousness is one of the last unexplained mysteries. There have been other great mysteries in the past: the mystery of the origin of the universe, the mystery of life and reproduction, time, space and gravity; all these mysteries have in common the non-existence of a final answer but, despite this, we managed to reflect on them – the mysteries did not disappear, but they were understood, because we knew how to ask the right questions. However, in relation to consciousness, apparently, we have not reached this point: there is a terrible confusion, an intense struggle of arguments and counter-arguments and different theories to explain the same phenomenon. What is, then, the mystery of consciousness? We all have subjective experiences: perceptions, sensations, pains and ideas. But how can living physical bodies in a physical world produce such a phenomenon? If we are walking near the beach on a beautiful summer day, listening to Beethoven, we can ask ourselves: how does my conscious thought - the pleasure I get from seeing the bright sun, listening to Beethoven's violins and the pleasure I got from thinking about these things later – could be something physical happening in my brain? How do any combinations of electrochemical events in my brain give me the feeling of pleasure? Problems connected with consciousness make it one of the most exceptional and important problems of the Contemporary Era. Everything we do and feel is, in some way, part of it. We can then be concerned: how do we know so little about something that is part of our human nature? Does contemporary science fail to explain it satisfactorily? Is there a robust enough Theory of Consciousness that can explain all the phenomena of the conscious mind? 

The goal of this Online Course nr. 8 is to discuss with the general public (and academics interested in the subject) three relevant topics of the Contemporary Science of Consciousness. The course in English will be given in several sessions.
The First Session will discuss Orch-OR (orchestrated objective reduction) Theory of Consciousness, dubbed by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. This theory argues that consciousness is the result of quantum gravity effects in microtubules inside the neurons, rather than the conventional view that argues that consciousness may be a product of connections between neurons instead (this session will have the participation of the physicist Sir Roger Penrose) [session 1]. The Second Session we will introduce the "hard problem of consciousness" and the concept of "philosophical zombies". Further, we will discuss if simulated brains can be conscious or not and how consciousness is related with virtual reality (this session will have the participation of the philosopher David Chalmers) [session 2].  Finally, in the Third and Final Session, we will discuss the Neural Correlates of Consciousnesss (NCC) and its relationship with the Integrated Information Theory which argues that consciousness is identical to a certain kind of information, the realization of which requires physical, not merely functional, integration, and which can be measured mathematically according to the Φ metric (this session will have the participation of the neurocientist Christof Koch) [session 3].


Professor: Steven S. Gouveia holds a PhD (FCT Research) in Philosophy of the Mind/Neurophilosophy from the University of Minho (Portugal) and was a visiting researcher at the Mind, Brain Imaging and Neuroethics Unit of the Royal Institute of Mental Health, University of Ottawa (Canada), where he is currently a PostDoc Research Fellow. He is the author and editor of 11 academic books, with the collaboration of several philosophers of mind such as Dan Dennett, Thomas Metzinger, Anil Seth, Karl Friston, Georg Northoff, among others. He co-edited the book "Philosophy of Mind: Contemporary Perspectives" (2017), "Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics" (2019) & "The Philosophy an Science of Predictive Processing" (2020). As an author, is just published is third authored book titled "Philosophy and Neuroscience: a Methodological Anaylsis" with Palgrave Macmilliam (Nature). He has lectured around the world on topics related to Neurophilosophy, Brain and Mind (e.g. Italy, Malta, Switzerland). More information: www.stevensgouveia.weebly.com


Invited Professors:

  • Roger Penrose is a Mathematician and Philosopher of Science who in the 1960s calculated many of the basic features of black holes. In 1969, with Stephen Hawking, Penrose proved that all matter within a black hole collapses to a singularity. He has received several prizes and awards, including the 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems. For his work on black holes, he was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics. Penrose became interested in the problem of defining consciousness and wrote three books in which he argued that quantum mechanics is needed to explain the conscious mind - The Emperor’s New Mind (1989), Shadows of the Mind (1994) and The Large, the Small and the Human Mind (1997). He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and an honorary fellow of St John's College, Cambridge and University College London and was knighted for his services to science in 1994.
 
  • David Chalmers  is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science, and Co-Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. He is also Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. He studied mathematics as an undergraduate then did his Ph.D. in philosophy and cognitive science at Indiana University, working in Douglas Hofstadter’s artificial intelligence research group. He is best known for his work on consciousness, including his formulation of the "hard problem" of consciousness. Also well-known is his work on "the extended mind," the idea that the technology we use (e.g., smartphones and the internet) can literally become part of our minds. His work on language, metaphysics, computation, and artificial intelligence has also attracted much interest.vHe is co-founder and past president of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and is co-director of the PhilPapers Foundation. He is the author of Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy (2022), The Conscious Mind (1997), The Character of Consciousness (2010), and Constructing the World (2014).
 

Structure:

  • Session 1: Orch-OR Theory and Consciousness (with Roger Penrose); 
  • Session 2: Virtual Reality and Consciousness (with David Chalmers); 
  • Session 3: Integrated Information Theory and Consciousness (with Christof Koch);

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To Register:

Send First and Last Name to stevensequeira92 at gmail.com, indicating your address and phone contact. The payment details will be sent after confirmation of receipt of the registration.
 
Registrations are open to have access to the recordings of the course (asynchronously) and an official certificate of participation (and book offer).
 
 
Online course recorded via Zoom. 
© Steven S. Gouveia