Begin forwarded message:
From: Agnes Bendik <BendikAg(a)ceu.edu>
Subject: Invitation - Katalin Balog: Consciousness, Illusion, and Value - 30 October,
12:30 p.m.
Date: 21 October 2024 at 13:22:30 GMT+2
The Institute for Advanced Study at CEU is pleased to invite you to the next lecture in
the Institute`s Wednesday Seminars
Katalin Balog
Senior Core Fellow at IAS CEU
Consciousness, Illusion, and Value
Wednesday, 30 October, 12:30 p.m.
Nádor u. 15, Room 103 (Tiered Room) and online
The belief that we are conscious is the last remnant of the premodern concept of the mind.
Not so long ago, most people in the West thought of the body as mortal flesh commanded by
the soul. They thought of the soul as immortal, free in its action, and exempt from the
laws of nature. Creativity and intelligence were believed to be traits of the soul that no
mere mechanism could replicate. But over the course of the last couple of hundred years,
and especially in the 20th century, it has become common understanding that all of our
behavior has a purely physical explanation and, as the principle of the causal
completeness of physics became mainstream among philosophers and scientists, it also
became common understanding that all of our behavior has a purely physical explanation.
There is not much about the premodern conception that survived these changes except the
view that we are conscious, i.e., that there is something it is like to be us, of which we
can be directly aware. It is precisely this view that has come under attack lately by a
movement that their adherents in philosophy, neuroscience, and AI call ‘illusionism’.
According to illusionism, the qualitative character of our experience that we seem to be
directly aware of is a mere illusion. It appears to be an innocent theoretical claim;
however, I argue that it has potent practical consequences regarding what we value and how
we relate to human beings that demand consideration.
[image001.jpg]
Image: Digital Asset Library, Rutgers University
Katalin Balog is a philosopher of mind interested in the self, consciousness,
subjectivity, and value, as well as the history of these concepts. She writes scholarly
articles and essays for a general audience. Her public-facing work has appeared in The New
York Times and in the magazine 3 Quarks Daily. Currently she is working on a book called
What is left of the mind. She has come to the US to study philosophy from her native
Budapest in 1989. Katalin Balog got her PhD at Rutgers, New Brunswick, she has been
teaching at Rutgers University–Newark since 2010, before that, she taught at Yale for 10
years.
RSVP Agnes Bendik at bendikag@ceu.edu<mailto:bendikag@ceu.edu>
AGNES BENDIK
Senior Administrative Officer
[image002.png]
[image003.png]
OFFICE ADDRESS: Nador u.13., Fourth floor, Room 403 | 1051 Budapest, Hungary
MAILING ADDRESS: IAS CEU, Nádor u. 9. | 1051 Budapest, Hungary
PHONE: +36 1 327 3000/2596 | bendikag@ceu.edu<mailto:bendikag@ceu.edu>
www.ias.ceu.edu<http://www.ias.ceu.edu/> |
www.facebook.com/iasceu/<http://www.facebook.com/iasceu/>