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Events

Winter 2024 - Radway Workshops

  • Jenny Hung
    Division of Humanities
    Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
    Wellbeing in Early Buddhism: Zombies, Experience, and the Value of Consciousness
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [Abstract]
  • Michaela Hulstyn
    Stanford University
    Autrement: Thinking and Feeling Disalienation in Francophone Fiction
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [Abstract]

    Fall 2022 - Models of Consciousness 2022

  • MOC 2022
    Mathematical Approaches to Consciousness
    Stanford University
  • Arrillaga Alumni Center, Stanford
    Conference Booklet with Schedule, Speakers, and Abstracts: MOC3

    Winter 2020 - Radway Workshops

  • Jeffrey Barrett
    Philosophy
    University of California Irvine
    "Quantum Records and Experience"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Albert Newen
    Philosophy
    Ruhr-Universität Bochum
    "How to Ascribe Belief to Animals"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Spring 2019 - Radway Workshops

  • Craig Callender
    Philosophy
    University of California San Diego
    "How to Explain the Flow of Time"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Fall 2018 - Conference on the Nature of Time

    Speakers include Dean Buonomono, Jenann Ismael, David Eagleman, Craig Callender, Richard Muller, Jim Hartle, Ronald Gruber, John Perry, Roger Shepard and Paul Skokowski


    * * Advance Registration is Required * * due to limited seating.

    To Register, contact: ronaldpgruber@gmail.com or paulsko@stanford.edu
    [View Poster]

    We are grateful to the Friedken Foundation, the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, the Claire and John Radway Foundation, the Stanford Humanities Center, and CSLI for their generous support in sponsoring this conference.

    Past Events

    Spring 2018 - Radway Workshops

  • Carl Hewitt
    Emeritus, EECS
    MIT
    "Logic will take you by the throat"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    We are grateful to CSLI, the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, and the Claire and John Radway Foundation for their generous support in sponsoring this talk.

    [View Abstract]

    Spring 2018 - Quantum Mechanics and Mind

    A Special CEC and SFSU Event: "International Conference on Quanta and Mind"

    Events Room at the J. Paul Leonard Library (LIB 121), San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, California
    Speakers: [View Schedule]     [Conference details]     [Organizers]

    We are grateful to the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, the School of Humanities and Liberal Studies and the Department of Philosophy, San Francisco State University, the Center for the Study of Language and Information, and the Claire and John Radway Foundation for their generous support of this conference.

    Fall 2017 - Radway Workshops

  • Carlos Montemayor
    Philosophy
    San Francisco State University
    "Types of Attention: Intelligence and Phenomenality"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Jose Acacio de Barros
    Liberal Arts
    San Francisco State University
    "The Consciousness Causes Collapse Hypothesis in Quantum Mechanics"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Winter 2017 - Radway Workshops

  • Leslie Burton
    Psychology
    University of Connecticut
    "Metacognition and the Frontal Lobes”
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Fall/Summer 2016 - Radway Workshops

  • Stuart Hameroff
    Anesthesiology and Center for Consciousness Studies
    University of Arizona
    "The Orch OR Theory of Consciousness as Quantum Computation in Brain Microtubules: Status and Update After 20 Years"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Spring 2016 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consciousness

  • Matthew Smith
    DLCL
    Stanford
    "The Rise of the Neural Subject"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Ezequiel Morsella
    Psychology, SFSU
    Neurology, UCSF
    "The Function of Consciousness in the Nervous System: Passive Frame Theory"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Natalie Deam
    French & DLCL
    Stanford
    "Paul Valéry’s Fantastic Consciousness: Nature and the Self"
  • Bldg 50, Room 52H
    [View Abstract]

    Winter 2016 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consciousness

  • Alison Gopnik
    Psychology
    UC Berkeley
    "Consciousness Without Control"
  • Lane History Corner - Building 200, Room 205
    [View Abstract]
  • John Campbell
    Philosophy
    UC Berkeley
    Alex Reben
    Stochastic Labs
    "Social Robots"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • Eric Schwitzgebel
    Philosophy
    UC Riverside
    "Crazyism about Consciousness and Morality"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Fall 2015 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consciousness

  • John Searle
    Philosophy
    UC Berkeley
    "Consciousness"
  • Littlefield 107
  • Michael Tye
    Philosophy
    University of Texas at Austin
    "A New Solution to the Mind-Body Problem"
  • Bldg 200, Rm 205, History Corner
  • Kimford Meador
    Neurology
    Stanford
    "Clinical & Physiological Insights Into Conscious Awareness"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Spring 2015 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consciousness

    A Special Radway Workshop: "Information and Mind"
    A Conference in Honor of Fred Dretske

    Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    Speakers: [View Schedule]     [View Poster]

    We are grateful to the Stanford Philosophy Department, the Stanford Humanities Dean’s Office, The Stanford Office of the Provost, The Center for the Study of Language and Information, the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, and the Stanford Humanities Center for their generous support of this conference on the life and work of Fred Dretske.

    IAC Workshop: "Self and Un-Self"

    Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    Speakers:
    • Michaela Hulstyn
      Ph.D. Candidate
      French & DLCL, Stanford
      "Narrative Models for Unselfing"
    • Gerhard Kreuch
      Ph.D. Candidate
      Philosophy, Vienna
      "Self Feeling"
    [View Michaela's Abstract] [View Gerhard's Abstract]

    Winter 2015 - Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consciousness

    Winter Term Talks are co-sponsored by the Stanford Neurosciences Institute
  • John Bickle
    Philosophy
    Mississippi State University
    "Molecules, Mechanisms, and (Aspects of) P-Consciousness"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Michael Gazzaniga
    Director, SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind
    UC Santa Barbara
    "Tales from Both Sides of the Brain"
  • Levinthal Hall, Stanford Humanities Center
  • Hakwan Lau
    Psychology
    UCLA
    "An Epistemological Argument for a Higher-Order Theory of Conscious Perception"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Wayne Wu
    Associate Director, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
    Carnegie Mellon
    "Explaining the Sense of Agency"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Fall 2014 - Geballe Mini-Series on Proust & Consciousness

    [View Poster]
  • Joshua Landy
    Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French
    DLCL, Stanford University
    "Proust and Consciousness: Discussion of Excerpts from Philosophy as Fiction"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract] [Reading 1] [Reading 2]
  • Suzanne Guerlac
    Department of French
    UC Berkeley
    "Proust and Photography: Albertine and Memory Production"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Geballe Workshop:
    Albert Newen
    Philosophy
    Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
    "Varieties of cognitive penetration in visual perception"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]

    Spring 2014

  • Masataka Watanabe
    Engineering, University of Tokyo
    Logothetis Lab, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany
    "A Turing Test for Visual Qualia and the Chaotic Spatiotemporal Fluctuation Hypothesis"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • David Rosenthal
    Philosophy
    CUNY Graduate Center
    "Two Concepts of Mental Quality"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Abstract]
  • Martin Davies
    Wilde Professor of Mental Philosophy
    Oxford University
    "The Silence of Psychology and the Consistency Fallacy"
  • Levinthal Hall, Stanford Humanities Center
    [View Abstract]
  • Anne Aimola Davies
    Research School of Psychology
    The Australian National University
    "Disambiguating Viewer-, Stimulus-, and Object-Centred Neglect."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Winter 2014

  • Hans Gumbrecht
    Albert Guerard Professor
    DLCL, Stanford University
    "Consciousness as Self-Observation: Historical Junctures"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • Work-in-Progress Talk:
    Neil van Leeuwen
    Philosophy
    Georgia State University
    "Is Thoroughgoing Skepticism Psychologically Possible?"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Spring 2013

  • Laura Wittman
    DLCL & Department of French & Italian
    Stanford University
    "Consciousness and the Visionary Mind in Near-Death Experiences."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Abstract: The association of near-death with "the tunnel and the light" and visions of the afterlife has become so canonical that at least one literary character laments "being cheated" because she has to turn back before achieving a the visionary state. But in real life and in fiction, near-death visions are not as predictable as this canonical view leads us to believe. This talk discusses instances of "resistance to vision," that is, cases where people actively contest the visionary mind, and especially its cultural priming, at times during the near-death experience itself. Two central questions are: (1) who or what "resists vision" in this instance? can we still speak of a singular consciousness here?, and (2) what are the purposes of such resistance, and what kind of truth or authenticity is sought here?

  • Frank Jackson
    Philosophy
    Australian National University and Princeton University
    "The Knowledge Argument for Representationalists."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Abstract: I will talk about what the many philosophers of mind who classify themselves as physicalists sympathetic to representationalist accounts of perceptual experiences have to say in response to the knowledge argument.

    Winter 2013

  • Pawan Sinha
    Brain and Cognitive Sciences
    MIT
    "Learning to See Late in Life."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Photos]

    Abstract: The hope inherent in pursuing basic research is that sometime in the future the work will prove beneficial to society. This fruition can often take many years. However, in some instances, even the conduct of basic research can yield tangible societal benefits. I shall describe an effort that perhaps fits in this category. Named 'Project Prakash', this initiative provides sight to blind children on the one hand and helps address questions regarding brain plasticity and learning on the other. Through a combination of behavioral and brain-imaging studies, the effort has provided evidence of visual learning late in childhood and has illuminated some of the processes that might underlie such learning.

  • David Chalmers
    Philosophy
    Australian National University and NYU
    "Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Photos]
  • Steven Schlozman
    Harvard Medical School
    Massachusetts General Hospital
    "Is it OK to shoot that Zombie if it isn't Consciously Human? Is it OK to shoot that Zombie if it isn't Humanly Conscious? And How Can I tell the Difference?"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Photos]

    Abstract: In this presentation, we will discuss the construct of the cinema zombie as means by which we can address fundamental issues of how we view what is permissable among humans, among conscious humans, and ultimately among things that we consider living or not living. The cinema zombie presents an ideal substrate for these thorny ethical issues, and, given new developments in neuroscience, we can use what we scientifically understand about the experiences of self and other to desconstruct the rules and natural history that appear to govern the modern trope.

    Fall 2012

  • Ned Block
    Philosophy
    New York University
    "Conscious, Unconscious, Preconscious."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [Paper 1] [Paper 2] [View Flyer]
  • Harriet Murav
    Slavic Languages & Literature
    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
    "Consciousness as Hesitation: Henri Bergson and David Bergelson."
  • Levinthal Hall, Stanford Humanities Center
  • Robert Harrison
    DLCL, Stanford
    "The Albino Gorilla."
  • The Board Room, Stanford Humanities Center
    [View Photo] [View Flyer]

    Spring 2012

  • Brian Wandell
    Psychology
    Stanford
    "How Wavelength Becomes Color: An Introduction to Color Science."
  • The Board Room, Stanford Humanities Center
    Levinthal Hall, Stanford Humanities Center
    Speakers:
    • David Hilbert
      Philosophy
      University of Illinois at Chicago
      "Constancy, Content and Inference."
    • Steven Palmer
      Psychology and Cognitive Science
      UC Berkeley
      "Human Color Preferences: An Ecological Approach."
  • Hank Greely
    Stanford Law School\
    "Neural Implants: Legal and Ethical Issues."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • Josef Parvizi
    Neurology
    Stanford University
    "Studying Human Conscious Perception By Electrical Stimulation of the Brain."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Winter 2012

  • Mark Johnston
    Philosophy
    Princeton
    "Why Qualia are not Mental."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • David Papineau
    Philosophy
    King's College London
    "Kripke, the Hard Problem, and Intuitive Dualism."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    [View Photos]

    Abstract: Many philosophers take the final section of Naming and Necessity to be arguing that the mere conceivability of mind-body separation leaves materialism with an intractably 'hard problem'. I shall show that this could not possibly have been Kripke's intention. However there is a different reading of his argument which helps us to see how the so-called hard problem stems from the intuitive incredibility of physicalism.

    Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    Speakers:
    • John Searle
      Philosophy
      UC Berkeley
      "Problems and Successes in Giving a Neurobiological Explanation of Consciousness."
    • Donovan Wishon
      Philosophy
      Stanford
      "Russellian Acquaintance and the Phenomenal Concepts Strategy."
    [View Photos]
  • Paul Churchland
    Philosophy
    UC San Diego
    "Chimerical Colors: Some Phenomenological Predictions from Cognitive Neuroscience."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Abstract: The Hurvich-Jameson (H-J) opponent-process network offers a familiar account of the empirical structure of the phenomenological Color Space for humans, an account with a number of predictive and explanatory virtues. Its successes here form the bulk of the existing reasons for suggesting a strict identity between our various color sensations on the one hand, and our various coding vectors across the color-opponent neurons in our primary visual pathways on the other. But antireductionists standardly complain that the systematic parallels discovered by the H-J network are just mere empirical 'correspondences', constructed post facto, with no predictive or explanatory purchase on the intrinsic qualitative characters of conscious sensations proper. My talk will dispute that complaint, by illustrating that the H-J model yields a rich variety of novel and unappreciated predictions, and some novel and unappreciated explanations, concerning the subjective qualitative characters of a considerable variety of color sensations possible for human experience, including color sensations that normal people have almost certainly never had before, color sensations whose accurate descriptions in ordinary language appear semantically ill-formed or even self-contradictory. Specifically, these 'impossible' color sensations are activation-vectors (across our opponent-process neurons) that lie inside the space of neuronally possible activation vectors, but outside the central and familiar 'color spindle' that confines the familiar range of sensations for the possible colors of external objects. These extra-spindle chimerical-color-sensations correspond to no color that you will ever see objectively displayed on a physical object. But the H-J model both predicts their existence and explains their decidedly anomalous qualitative characters in some detail. It also suggests how to produce these sensations by a simple procedure to be described in the later stages of the talk. The relevant color plates will allow you to savor these weird sensations for yourself, the better to evaluate the neural explanations sustained by the H-J model.

    Fall 2011

    SHC Geballe Workshop on Pain Experience:

    Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    Speakers:
    • Patricia Churchland
      Philosophy
      UC San Diego
      "Research on Consciousness: the Anterior Insula, Small-world Organization, and Rhythms."
    • Sean Mackey
      Neurology
      Stanford
      "The Strain in Pain Lies Mainly in the Brain: Lessons Learned from Neuroimaging."
  • Michel Bitbol
    CNRS, Paris
    "A Neurophenomenological Approach to Consciousness"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    SHC Geballe Workshop on Pain Experience:

    Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
    Speakers:
    • Michael Tye
      Philosophy
      U Texas at Austin
      "The Painfulness of Pain"
    • Howard Fields
      Neurology
      UCSF
      "What is Pain and What is it For?"
    [View Photos]
  • Michael Tye
    University of Texas at Austin
    "Of Corporations, China-Body Systems, and Silicon Chips: The Importance of History to Phenomenology."
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Spring 2011: Brain and Mind Forum

  • Patrick Suppes
    Philosophy
    Stanford University
    "What physical mechanisms of computation does the brain use?"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • Owen Flanagan
    Philosophy
    Duke University
    "Consciousness and the Self"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Winter 2011: Brain and Mind Forum

  • Mohan Matthen
    Philosophy
    University of Toronto
    "Sensory Exploration and Empirical Certainty"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • Anna Franklin
    Psychology
    University of Surrey
    "Color Categories in Language and Thought"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Abstract: Although the color spectrum is physically continuous, color categories are present in both language (i.e., color terms) and thought (e.g., categorical perception of color). In this talk, I will outline a series of developmental studies that investigate the origin of colour categories. I will present converging behavioural and electrophysiological evidence that infants respond categorically to color. I will also present evidence that color categories are lateralized to the right hemisphere of the infant brain, and appear to switch to the left hemisphere when color terms are learnt. The findings will be related to fundamental issues in the cognitive sciences such as: i) how and when categories form; ii) the relationship between categories in language and thought; and iii) how categories are expressed in the brain.

  • Jeff Hawkins
    Numenta Corporation
    "Recent Advances in Modeling Neocortex"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Abstract: Coaxing computers to perform acts of perception, language, and robotics has been difficult. Our belief is that to solve many problems of machine intelligence we first need to understand the principles by which the brain works and then build machines that work on those principles. To this end, Numenta has developed models of the neocortex and is applying them to practical problems.The neocortex is structured as a hierarchy of memory regions with each region implementing nearly identical learning algorithms. We model this hierarchy and posit that each region in the hierarchy learns common sequences of patterns in its input. Sequence memory forms the basis of inference, prediction, novelty detection, and motor behavior. Numenta has experimented with different approaches to sequence learning, or more precisely, learning the variable order transition statistics of distributed patterns. A year ago we started development of a new sequence learning method that is deeply aligned with cortical anatomy. The new cortical learning algorithms address many difficult theoretical challenges. They appear to be a leap forward in understanding what layers of neurons are doing in neocortex.In this talk I will give an overview of our overall neocortical theory and then present the new cortical learning algorithms.

    Fall 2010

  • Bernard Baars, Ph.D.
    The Neurosciences Institute
    San Diego, CA
    "Consciousness is Biological"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Abstract: A neurodynamic view of Global Workspace Theory suggests new predictions about perceptual consciousness, episodic memory, and the medial temporal lobe.

    Spring 2010

  • Karl Deisseroth
    Bioengineering & Psychiatry
    Stanford University
    "Optogenetics: new developments, new applications"
  • Nora Suppes Conference Room 103

    2008-2009

    Fall 2009

    Perception and Consciousness Reading Group. For details contact CEC

    Spring 2009

  • Albert Newen
    Ruhr-Universität Bochum
    "The person-model theory of understanding other minds"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • Jeffrey Barrett
    UC Irvine
    "Quantum mechanics, Wigner, and the temptation of dualism"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • Neil Van Leeuwen
    Tufts University
    "Four dimensions of cognitive attitude space"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall
  • John Campbell
    UC Berkeley
    "Attention, space and consciousness"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall

    Fall 2008

  • Fred Dretske
    Duke University
    "What we see: The texture of conscious experience"
  • Barwise Room, Cordura Hall