Consciousness: from philosophy to neuroscience
 
Seminar organized by Daniel Kiper & Guests

   Fall semester 2022

Location: Y35 F 32

    Schedule: Thursday, 5.15-7.00pm

This course is intended for all students interested in the topic of consciousness and the NCC, i.e. the Neural Correlate of Consciousness.

The course's main language is english, but discussions and questions in german are also possible.

Some, but maybe not all, lectures will be recorded and the podcasts will be posted here. Since the course is supposed to be highly interactive, we strongly encourage

physical attendance.

Requirements:

Most topics will be covered in articles and notes available on this web site, or that will be distributed during the course.

Here is a useful book "Philosophy of mind: a beginner's guide" by I. Ravenscroft that has been cleaned up and is searchable. In German, and in English

Successful completion of the course yields three credits, the details of the evaluation modalities will be posted here.

Syllabus:

22.9: Introduction, general concepts.
Here is the first recording.

29.9 Visual experiments
Here is the recording
Here area few papers we discussed.
Moutoussis et al
Leopold et Logothetis
Heeger : Binoc. Rivalry
Heeger: MIB


6.10
Electrical stimulation and various patients
Here is the recording

13.10 Patients (same slides as last week).
And here is the link to Jan Hohenheim's piece on theories of consciousness. The text also describes famous thought experiments that we might
address in the course. I strongly recommend to read it. Thank you Jan!!
Here is the lecture's recording

20.10
IMPORTANT: Here is the topic of the first essay:
"Blindsight patients seem to see without conscious awareness of it. What does this tell you about the role of V1 in visual awareness?
And how does it relate, in your opinion, to other visual experiments that yielded data on the role of V1 in conscious vision?"
The essay should have a maximum length of 300 words (longer ones won't count).
You should send this essay to me, in PDF form, with the format: "Firstname_Lastname_essay1.pdf", attached to an email with "consciousness essay" in the subject field.
Deadline: Friday Oct. 28, 5pm.
Today's (short) topic: free will. Here is the recording.

27.10 Baar's global workspace
Here is the recording.

3.11 Information theory
Here is the recording

10.11 Technical problem, no recording, sorry about that!

17.11 Integr. Inf. Theory continued, here is the recording

24.11 IIT continued
Here is the recording (only the first hour, for some reason the recording didn't work after the break).
Here are the slides Xander used.
 
IMPORTANT: Here is the topic of the second essay:
"In your own words, list and explain one strength of IIT, and one weakness". Do not use any reference, try to give your own thoughts.
The essay should have a maximum length of 200 words (longer ones won't count).
You should send this essay to me (kiper@ini.uzh.ch), in PDF form, with the format: "Firstname_Lastname_essay2.pdf", attached to an email with "consciousness essay" in the subject field.
Deadline: Wednesday 7.12, 5pm.

1.12. PCI / Quantum theories / Strange loops
Here is the recording.
And here are the slides.

8.12 Free energy and more...
Here is the recording

15.12 Open discussion (no recording).

Here is the theme for the third and last essay:
"An AI with human level intelligence has been created. It passes the Turing test, and it claims to be conscious. You are given the opportunity to interact with it. When it asks you what its general purpose and first tasks should be, what will you answer?"
The essay should have a maximum length of 200 words (longer ones won't count).
You should send this essay to me (kiper@ini.uzh.ch) in PDF form, with the format: "Firstname_Lastname_essay3.pdf", attached to an email with "consciousness essay" in the subject field.
Please do not send it to my lifescience.ch address.

Deadline: Friday 23.12, 5pm. Have fun!