ASSC conference

The 12th annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) will be held for the first time in Asia during the 19 - 22 June 2008, in Taipei, Taiwan. The conference will take place in the heart of Taipei city at the National Tiawan University. The ASSC conference is one of the worlds largest events on the science of consciousness. For more information please visit the dedicated conference website.

Posted by Michael Hill

The vagus nerve: a window on consciousness and disease

Dr Chris Pomfrett
The Royal Institution
Friday 11 April 2008
8.00pm-9.00pm - Good availability

The vagus nerve connects our brainstem to the body, facilitating monitoring and control of many automatic functions. The vagus electrically links our gut, lungs and heart to the base of the brain in an evolutionarily-ancient circuit, similar between mammals and also seen in birds, reptiles, and amphibians. In many ways the vagus can be compared to the USB or Firewire connection of your computer. By monitoring changes in the level of control exerted by the vagus, apparent as beat by beat changes of heart rate, it is possible to indirectly view the effect of pharmaceuticals and disease on brainstem function and neural processes underlying consciousness.

Tickets are free to Ri Full Members, £6 Associate Members and £9 non-members


Posted by: Michael Hill

Toward a Science of Consciousness 2008

Toward a Science of Consciousness 2008
April 8-12, 2008 - Tucson Convention Center - Tucson Arizona

The eighth biennial Tucson conference continues an interdisciplinary tradition of intense, far-ranging and rigorous discussions on all approaches to the fundamental issue of how the brain produces conscious experience.

This is probably the biggest event on consciousness research in the world and well worth checking out! Their program is is very impressive indeed!

Posted by Michael Hill

Conference on Qualia

Qualia: Thinking the Senses Conference
28-30 March 2008
St John's College, Durham University

"Aims
The aim of this interdisciplinary conference, and the research project associated with it, is to explore the ways in which different disciplines theorise the qualitative dimension of experience and integrate the sensual into their working-models of a range of phenomena. It will explore sensory perception in different times and places, in its multiple relations to the literary and the artistic as well as to the political and social. It will create a forum for an exchange of points of view between researchers in the fields of literary theory, history, art history, philosophy, anthropology, psychoanalysis, geography, cognitive science and other areas still. It will also involve practising artists and writers."

For informal enquiries and further information please contact Dr Boris Wiseman (boris.wiseman@durham.ac.uk)

Posted by: Nat

Galen Strawson

The Jowett Philosophical Society presents Galen Strawson (University of Reading), who will deliver a talk entitled "Unity and Self: Subjects as Objects".

Week 9 Fri, 4.30pm (14th Mar).

The Lecture Theatre in the Faculty of Philosophy, 10 Merton Street. Admission is free and open to all.

Posted by Christian Beenfeldt.

Consciousness in the Persistent Vegetative State

Workshop on Consciousness in the Persistent Vegetative State:
Philosophical and Methodological Issues

Saturday 8th March 2008: 10.30-6

speakers:
STEVEN LAUREYS (Liège) FNRS Senior Research Associate and Neurologist at the Cyclotron Research Centre and a pioneer of the use of brain imaging to investigate brain activity in PVS and related states. ADRIAN OWEN (Cambridge) Senior Scientist, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and lead author of pathbreaking investigation of preserved consciousness in a PVS patient. NICHOLAS SCHIFF (Weill Cornell) Director, Laboratory of Cognitive Neuromodulation and expert on brain imaging of states of impaired consciousness as well as a pioneer of therapeutic deep brain stimulation. MARTIN DAVIES (Oxford) Wilde Professor of Mental Philosophy and author of numerous articles on consciousness.
Commentators: NEIL LEVY (Melbourne/Oxford); NICHOLAS SHEA (Oxford); ADAM ZEMAN (Peninsula Medical School)

All talks will take place in the Lecture Room, Philosophy Faculty, 10 Merton St, Oxford.
Registration is free but places are limited to Oxford University Members only. To register, please email neil(dot)levy(at)philosophy(dot)ox(dot)ac(dot)uk with your name and affiliation. Registration will be confirmed by email by 27 February 2008.


Posted by Michael Hill

Insight meeting

The Oxford Society for the Science of Consciousness and the Philosophy of Mind (hosting this website) will be meeting at the University Club on Mansfiled Road on Friday 07.03.08, 7.00 - 8.30.
We will be welcoming our new members, looking ahead to events which we would like to organize next term and have a short discussion on what the positions in the current science of consciousness and philosophy of mind are.
All members of Oxford University are welcome to join us. If you are not a member of the university but would still like to participate, please send us an email.


We look forward to seeing you there!

The Insight committee, Michael, Nat and Christian

Quassim Cassam

The Jowett Philosophical Society presents Quassim Cassam (University of Cambridge).
He will deliver a talk entitled "The Basis of Self-Knowledge".

Week 8 Fri, 4.30pm (7th Mar).

The Lecture Theatre in the Faculty of Philosophy, 10 Merton Street. Admission is free and open to all.

Posted by Christian Beenfeldt.

Shadow Play

22 February 2008 | Watershed, Bristol | 10 – 4pm

This conference will bring together industry professionals and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), to launch Shadowplay, a collaborative research project created by Andrew J King, Senior Lecturer in Critical Theory, School of Design at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth (AIB) and Piers Bizony, media producer in the field of Public Understanding of Science. The aim is to build an animatronically simulated humanoid robot, representing a model that might exist in, say, 20 years’ time. This robot is essentially a physical illusion, operated by human performers using remote control. It will enable project participants to role-play the experience of interacting with an apparently intelligent, socially competent machine.

For more info visit their website

Posted by: Michael Hill

The unbearable lightness of seeing

Prof Colin Blakemore will be giving a talk at the Royal Institution asking the fundamental question why do we need ot be conscious of anything. For more information onProf. Blakemore click here.

Royal Institution
Friday 15 February 2008
8.00pm-9.00pm

Mammalian evolution was dominated by the engineering of vision - not through radical changes in the design of the eye, but through the gradual discovery by the brain of new ways of interpreting the retinal image to gain ever more comprehensive knowledge of the nature of the world. Surely human vision is the pinnacle of this process. But growing evidence is revealing that vision is largely ‘sleight-of-brain' - an extraordinary conjuring trick that creates the reassuring sense of reality out of almost nothing. Most of what we do with the information from our eyes - controlling our hands, guiding our posture, deciding what to look at - happens without awareness. One deep question arises: if we are genuinely aware of such a small fraction of what we see, why do need to be conscious of anything?

Tickets are free to Ri Full Members, £6 Associate Members and £9 non-members.


Posted by: Michael Hill