Brains

Brains

On Philosophy of Mind and Related Matters

Brains

New Contributors Welcome

Thanks to its ever growing community of contributors, Brains's traffic has increased to about 150-300 unique visitors per day. As I said before, Brains is a service to the community of scholars interested in the philosophy of mind and related sciences. Anyone who belongs in this community and would like to contribute to Brains is welcome to contact me.

Posted by gualtiero piccinini at 1/3/2012 9:26 AM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment

CFP: Consciousness and Moral Cognition

Mark Phelan (Lawrence) and Adam Waytz (Northwestern) are guest editing a special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology on consciousness attribution in moral cognition. Guest authors include: Kurt Gray (Maryland), Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh) and Justin Sytsma (East Tennessee State), and Anthony I. Jack (Case Western Reserve) and Philip Robbins (Missouri).

Submissions are due March 31, 2011.

The full CFP, including relevant dates and submission details, is available here.

Here is an abbreviated CFP: When people regard other entities as objects of ethical concern whose interests must be taken into account in moral deliberations, does the attribution of consciousness to these entities play an essential role in the process? In recent years, philosophers and psychologists have begun to sketch limited answers to this general question. However, much progress remains to be made. We invite contributions to a special issue of The Review of Philosophy and Psychology on the role of consciousness attribution in moral cognition from researchers working in fields including developmental, evolutionary, perceptual, and social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and philosophy.

Posted by gualtiero piccinini at 12/27/2011 8:33 AM | Add Comment

Consciousness and Moral Cognition

The Review of Philosophy and Psychology has just released a call for papers for a special issue on Consciousness and Moral Cognition.

In essence, the editors are interested in questions about how people's attributions of consciousness affect their moral judgments. Do people think that they have a greater obligation to creatures that have phenomenal consciousness than they do to creatures that only have non-phenomenal mental states?

Just in the past few years, there have been a couple of really exciting empirical papers on this topic. The psychologists Kurt Gray, Liane Young and Adam Waytz have a pretty amazing paper arguing that part of the very essence of moral judgment is an ability to see the victim as being capable of a certain kind of experience. But then again, Adam Arico, Brian Fiala, Rob Goldberg and Shaun Nichols have suggested that people ascribe consciousness using the very same process they use to ascribe any other psychological state, and Justin Sytsma and Edouard Machery have claimed that ordinary people don't even have the notion of phenomenal consciousness.

Regardless of whether you have read any of these earlier papers, I'm just curious to hear what you think about these issues. Do ascriptions of consciousness actually play any special role in moral judgment? What do you think?

Posted by Joshua Knobe at 12/26/2011 5:44 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment

APA Session on Grant Opportunities

If you are attending the APA, consider attending the Session on Grant Opportunities organized by the APA Committee on Lectures, Publications, and Research. All of the agencies we contacted in organizing this session (including a number that were not able to attend the panel) noted that they are very interested in increasing the number of philosophers obtaining grants. Please also share this information with Junior colleagues and graduate students — they will surely benefit as well! Best wishes

Wednesday, December 28th
GROUP SESSION III – 11:15 A.M.-1:15 P.M.

GIII-1. APA Committee Session: Grant Opportunities for Philosophers
Arranged by the APA Committee on Lectures, Publications and Research
11:15 a.m.-1:15 p.m.
Chair: Carol C. Gould (Hunter College/Graduate Center–City University of New York)
Speakers: Frederick Kronz (National Science Foundation)
Steven Ross (National Endowment for the Humanities)
Jason Boffetti (National Endowment for the Humanities)
Suzanne Brown-Fleming (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Posted by gualtiero piccinini at 12/24/2011 10:36 AM | Add Comment

Neuroscience Boot Camp

Each summer, Penn Neuroscience Boot Camp gives participants a basic foundation in cognitive and affective neuroscience and equips them to be informed consumers of neuroscience research.

Neuroscience is increasingly relevant to a number of professions and academic disciplines beyond its traditional medical applications. Lawyers, educators, economists and businesspeople, as well as scholars of sociology, philosophy, applied ethics and policy, are incorporating the concepts and methods of neuroscience into their work. Indeed, for any field in which it is important to understand, predict or influence human behavior, neuroscience will play an increasing role. The Penn Neuroscience Boot Camp is designed to give participants a basic foundation in cognitive and affective neuroscience and to equip them to be informed consumers of neuroscience research.

The intensive summer institute covering basic neuroscience is geared towards professionals and graduate students in law, ethics, education, business, and other fields. Through a combination of lectures, break-out groups, laboratory visits and more, participants will gain an understanding of the methods of neuroscience and key findings on the cognitive and social-emotional functions of the brain, and disorders of brain function.

The total cost to attend Neuroscience Boot Camp is $4,500.00. This cost includes tuition, housing, breakfast, lunch and three evening receptions. Limited scholarship aid is also available.

Complete applications are due by midnight on Feb. 3rd, 2012. For more information and to apply:

visit www.neuroethics.upenn.edu

email bootcamp@neuroethics.upenn.edu

call 215-573-8534

Posted by gualtiero piccinini at 12/21/2011 10:56 AM | Add Comment

CFP: Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on Consciousness at Boston University

"Boston University is hosting its fourth annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on Consciousness (IGCC) on April 13th and 14th 2012. This year's theme is Consciousness at the Margins. We are particularly interested in papers on issues in implicit bias and subconscious emotions. Psychologist Mahzarin R. Banaji and philosopher Owen Flanagan will be this year's keynote speakers. The purpose of IGCC is to promote interdisciplinary dialogue in the academic study of consciousness among interested graduate students working in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, computer science, and other related disciplines. We invite papers between 2000 and 3000 words (suitable for a 30-minute talk).

Multi-authored submissions spanning two or more fields are particularly welcome. Recent graduates and junior-level researchers are encouraged to submit. Submit anonymized papers to consciousgrads@gmail.com by February 15th, 2012. Please see http://www.bu.edu/conscious for details."

Posted by Carolyn Dicey Jennings at 12/16/2011 10:53 AM | View Comments (3) | Add Comment

Cognitive Access: The Only Game in Town

[cross-posted @ Philosophy Sucks!]

In Ned Block's recent paper, published in Trends In Cognitive Science, he has defended his argument that perceptual consciousness overflows cognitive access from several recent objections (including from me). It is important that Block is defending overflow from cognitive access since he admits that perceptual consciousness does not overflow all access. Phenomenal consciousness consists in there being something that it is like for the subject of the experience and this suggests that there must be some kind of access to the experience. Block has elsewhere argued that some non-cognitive form of access can account for this but no account of non-cognitive access to date can explain what needs to be explained. Given this the anti-overflow position should remain the default until/unless we have much stronger evidence than what Block presents. Block suggests that there is a philosophical fallacy in the assumption that non-overflow is the default and in the insistence that we need strong evidence to overthrow the non-overflow position but this is not fallacious. It is the reasonable thing to do when you have very weak evidence that is consistent with two competing theories and one of those theories appeals to a mysterious place-holder concept while the other doesn't.

Block suggests two possible forms of non-cognitive access. The first is a deflationary account and the second is a version of a self-representational theory. On the deflationary account we are aware of our mental states just in the having of them, in much the same way that we smile our own smiles just by smiling. Recall that what we are trying to explain is how a particular experience comes to be for the person who has it. When I feel a pain, not only do I experience the painful quality but I also experience it as mine. How can the deflationary account handle this? The deflationary account applies equally well to any state that happens to be instantiated in the brain. We can say that we are aware, in this way, of a state in the LGN, for instance, but surely we don't want to say that it is phenomenally conscious.

The same problems arise for a self-representational account. One kind of self-representational account, holds that the higher-order awareness is itself a part of the state that it represents. But this is a variant of a cognitive access theory. Block seems to want a notion of self-representation that amounts to the state in question merely being instantiated (in the way a color sample represents the color just by being that particular color). But then every state would be conscious since every state represents itself merely by being instantiated. In fact every representation self-represents itself in this way but we don't want to say that sentences are phenomenally conscious!

These notions of non-cognitive access are too weak to distinguish conscious mental states from unconscious mental states, or from any kind of brain activity at all. On the other hand a higher-order cognitive representation explains how a mental state can be for me; I am representing myself as being in that state, in some suitable way, so I will naturally experience the state as mine.

Block endorses only the reasonableness of tentatively accepting the overflow conclusion. But until we have a notion of non-cognitive access that can explain how a mental state can be experienced as mine that is at least as satisfactory as that given by cognitive access we need much stronger evidence than what Block presents to accept overflow.

Posted by Richard Brown at 12/13/2011 5:14 PM | View Comments (2) | Add Comment

New Philosophers' Carnival

Here.

Posted by gualtiero piccinini at 12/12/2011 11:16 AM | Add Comment

Perceptual Learning through Neurofeedback Alone

Recently a talented vision scientist in my lab published a paper in Science showing that one can induce perceptual learning in an experimental participant through neurofeedback alone (i.e. they were able to improve the fit between the participants' brain activity and an fMRI decoder for a particular orientation by asking the participants to "somehow regulate activity in the posterior part of the brain to make the solid green disc that was presented 6 s later as large as possible," where the participants had no idea what increasing the size of that disc represented in their brain). As one blog puts it, "BU wizards find success in unconscious neurofeedback learning, announce plans for secret lair." Impressive stuff!

Posted by Carolyn Dicey Jennings at 12/11/2011 4:59 PM | View Comments (1) | Add Comment

Chancellor’s Fellowships in Edinburgh

Anyone looking, or temptable to be on, the job market might be interested in the following fellowships (they may not be aware of them since these may not appear in Jobs for Philosophers)...

They are a pretty amazing deal: 5 years of research time with a permanent lectureship at the end.

One of the areas that they are looking to hire is cognitive science, including philosophy of cognitive science: http://www.docs.csg.ed.ac.uk/HumanResources/Strategic_areas_for_appointment.doc

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/ADQ364/chancellors-fellowships/

Chancellor’s Fellowships

Humanities and Social Science

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, a global top 20 University located in one of the world’s fine cities, is making a major investment in the future of its academic staff with the appointment of prestigious tenure-track Fellowships across all disciplines. These 5-year Fellowships are intended to support outstanding candidates at the start of their independent academic career. Up to 100 positions are available.

A Chancellor’s Fellow will already show the ability to conduct world-leading research and exhibit clear potential to become an international leader in their discipline. The Fellow will be able to concentrate on research in the first instance, acquiring the full duties of University Lecturer across the period of the Fellowship. Subject to satisfactory review at the end of 3 years, the Fellow will move to an open contract on the University academic staff.

Appointment will normally be made on the Lecturer scale (£36,862 - £44,016), dependent on experience, and in exceptional circumstances a more senior appointment may be made. Some positions are available with immediate effect and it is expected that successful applicants will be in post from August 2012.

Applications containing a detailed CV and a 1-page outline of a proposed research programme should be made online at www.jobs.ed.ac.uk to meet one of the closing dates below. General advice may be obtained by emailing chancellorsfellows@ed.ac.uk and specific details may be obtained from the appropriate Head of School.

Salary Scale: £36,862 - £44,016

Please quote vacancy reference: 3015150JW

Closing dates: 16 January, 29 February and 16 April 2012

Posted by Mark Sprevak at 12/11/2011 10:52 AM | Add Comment

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CFP: Consciousness and Moral Cognition

Consciousness and Moral Cognition

APA Session on Grant Opportunities

Neuroscience Boot Camp

CFP: Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference on Consciousness at Boston University

Cognitive Access: The Only Game in Town

New Philosophers' Carnival

Perceptual Learning through Neurofeedback Alone

Chancellor’s Fellowships in Edinburgh

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