Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference
Hong Kong: This is the 15th international interdisciplinary scientific conference on consciousness and it is opened to researchers and scholars throughout the sciences, humanities and arts.
The event is part of a larger Asia Consciousness Festival that will include workshops, cultural events, and other Conferences on topics such as cognitive informatics, and artificial general intelligence that are scheduled in June.
2009 Conference Themes
BRAIN
How can the brain produce 'qualia', the raw feel of experience, of conscious awareness? Will neuroscience alter our ideas about the mind, currently rooted in introspection, folk psychology and philosophy?
In the brain, does consciousness require ascending arousal, recurrent feedback, specific regions, or does it move through the brain as a mobile agent, or conscious pilot? At the level of neurons, does consciousness most directly involve axonal firing explosions, dendritic synchrony, gap junctions or finer-scale activities?
Do sensory inputs fully portray conscious perception, or merely modify and update an ongoing worldview playing out in cortex? Are we conscious of sensory inputs outside attention? Do envelopes of synchrony moving through the brain correlate with mind wandering and the stream of consciousness?
MIND
How can we objectively study subjective experience? What is the place of consciousness in the natural order?
What can Eastern traditions contribute to the science of consciousness, and what can the science of consciousness contribute to the understanding of Eastern traditions?
What are the differences between conscious and unconscious processes in the mind?
TECHNOLOGY
How can conscious experiences be communicated through film, video games, music and interactive media? How can our brain-based world-view be most closely duplicated in technology? How can media activate brain pleasure and reward functions?
Can brain mechanisms for conscious and non-conscious decisions help influence media audience choices? Can the brain’s organizational features be applied to business models?
Can computers be conscious? Can artificial intelligence attain the ‘Singularity’?
How directly can medical technologies couple to conscious and non-conscious brain processes?
For Media related enquiries please contact:
Hong Kong
Alex Parkes
Telephone: +852 2766 4171
Email: [email protected]
United States
Arlene Behar-Montefiore
Telephone: +1 520 621 9317
Email: [email protected]
