Summer Institute June 29 - July 11 on:
The Evolution and Function of Consciousness
http://www.summer12.isc.uqam.ca/page/renseignement.php?lang_id=2
Among the 54 lecturers: Dennett, Damasio, Searle, Ledoux, Edelman,
Baron-Cohen...)
In Commemoration of the Centenary of the birth of Alan Turing
Theme: When, where, how and why - since the origin of life on Earth
about 4 billion years ago - did organisms' input/output functions
become conscious input/output functions? What is the causal role of
consciousness?
Registration is open
Scholarships are available
Posters submissions are open (and a requirement for scholarships)
Place: Montreal, Canada (Institute of Cognitive Sciences, UQaM)
Dates: June 29 to July 11, 2012 (followed by an optional 2-day
practical workshop on imaging techniques for measuring consciousness
July 10-11)
The Institute is intended for:
Graduate and post-graduate students from the participating
disciplines: cognitive science, neuroscience, evolutionary biology,
artificial intelligence, robotics, psychology, philosophy
Faculty, scholars, engineers, and professionals from interested
disciplines.
Themes:
Felt Function
Turing Testing Know-how
High-Level Know-How
What's Feeling for?
Feelings and Firing
Doing Things Because You Feel Like It
Consciousness and Causality
Evolutionary Advantages of Felt Functions
Measuring Consciousness
(Satellite Workshop on Measuring Consciousness)
OPENING LECTURES:
DAN DENNETT - A Phenomenal Confusion About Access and Consciousness
ANTONIO DAMASIO - Feelings and Sentience
JACK COPELAND - Alan Turing: Code Breaker and AI Pioneer
MARK MITTON - (Surprise)
CLOSING LECTURE:
JOHN SEARLE - Consciousness and Causality
CAMPBELL, JOHN - What does Visual Experience Have to do with Visual
Science?
JOSEPH LEDOUX - The Perplexing Relationship Between Emotions and
Consciousness
WOLF SINGER - Consciousness: Unity in Time Rather Than Space?
DAVID ROSENTHAL - Does Consciousness Have any Utility?
STEVAN HARNAD - How and Why the Problem of Explaining the Causal Role
of Consciousness is Hard
JORGE ARMONY - Neural Bases of Emotion
INMAN HARVEY - No Hard Feeling Why Would An Evolved Robot Care?
AXEL CLEERMANS - Consciousness and Learning
PATRICK HAGGARD - Volition and Agency: What is it, and What is it For?
ERIK COOK - Are Neural Fluctuations in Cortex Causally Linked to
Visual Perception?
GREGORY DUDEK - Autonomous Robotics
FERNANDO CERVERO - Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Pain
DAVID FREEDMAN - Brain Mechanisms of Visual Categorization and
Decision-Making
BJORN BREMBS - Behavoral Freedom and Decision- Making in Flies:
Evolutionary precursor of "Free Will"?
BJORN MERKER - The Brain's Need for Sensory Consciousness: From
Probabilities to Estimates
SHIMON EDELMAN - Being in Time
DARIO FLOREANO - Evolution of Adaptive Behavior in Autonomous Robots
PHILLIP JACKSON - The Brain Response to the Pain of Others: Fleeing
Versus Caring
JULIO MARTINEZ - Voluntary Attention and Working Memory in The Primate
Bain: Recording from Single Cells
BERNARD BAARS - Psycho-Biological Risks/Benefits of Consciousness
MICHAEL GRAZIANO - Consciousness and the Attention Schema
CHRISTOPHER PACK - Neural Correlates of Consciousness in Primate
Cortex
WAYNE SOSSIN - Aplysia: If we Understand the Cellular Mechanisms
Underlying Sensation and Learning, What Do we Need Consciousness for?
ROY BAUMEISTER - The Why, What and How of Consciousness
KARIM NADER - Fear and Motivational Memory
CATHERINE TALLON-BAUDRY - Is Consciousness an Executive Function?
DAVID EDELMAN - Studying Consciousness in Cephalopods
MICHAEL SHADLEN - Consciousness as a Decision to Engage
BARBARA FINLAY - Continuities/Discontinuities in Vertebrate Brain
Evolution and Cognitive Capacities: Implications for Concsiousness ?
SIMON BARON-COHEN - Mind Reading
ALAIN PTITO - Neural Mechanisms of Blindsight after Hemispherectomy:
Tapping into the Unconscious
ALFRED MELE - Do Conscious Decisions Ever Play a Role in Action
Production
STEFANO MANCUSO - Evolution of Plant Intelligence
GUALTIERO PICCININI - Is Consciousness a Spandrel?
AMIR SHMUEL - Functional Neuro-Imaging: Neuroshysiological Mechanisms
of Hemodynamic
GARY COMSTOCK - Feeling Matters
HAKWAN LAU - Volition and the Function of Consciousness
DAVID JACOBS - Evolution of Sense Organs
LUIZ PESSOA - Cognitive-Emotional Interactions
GILLES PLOURDE - General Anesthetics for the Study Consciousness
EZEQUIEL MORSELLA - The Primary Function of Consciousness in the Brain
MARK BALAGUER - A Scientifically Reputable Version of Indeterministic
Libertarian Free Will
AMIR RAZ - Hypnosis as Experimental Tool to Study Metacognition,
Causality and Volition
MALCOLM MACIVER - Sensory and Motor Spaces and the Emergence of
Multiple Futures
JENNIFER MATHER - Evolutionary Pressures and Cephalopod Consciousness
ADRIAN WARD - The Feeling of Willing
PAUL CISEK - The Vanishing Central Executive: Distributed Neural
Mechanisms for Decision-Making
EVA JABLONKA - Evolutionary Origins of Experiencing
CLOSING LECTURE:
JOHN SEARLE - Consciousness and Causality
OPTIONAL WORKSHOP
July 10th, am: Functional Connectivity
July 10th, pm: Transcranial Stimulation
July 11th, am: Sleep and Dreams
July 11th, pm: Magnetoencephalography
http://www.summer12.isc.uqam.ca/page/intro.php