Consciousness and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Convenor: Diana Stanciu (ICUB, University of Bucharest)

The seminar Consciousness and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Approach is designed as an opportunity for interdisciplinary discussions between specialists in neuroscience, medicine, biology, physics, anthropology, linguistics, metaphysics, applied philosophy and the history of philosophy on largely debated themes such as consciousness and physicalism (Alter, Walter 2007, Alter, Nagasawa 2015), emergence, embodied cognition and quantum consciousness (Clayton 2004), consciousness and the self (Liu, Perry 2012), the neurophysiology of consciousness (Laureys, Gosseries, Tononi 2015), the cognitive limits of consciousness – the ‘explanatory gap’ (Levine 1983) and the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (Chalmers 2010), epistemic subjectivity and the limits it imposes on ‘knowability’ and ‘understandability’ of various facts about consciousness (Nagel 1974, Van Gulick 1985, Lycan 1996), consciousness, attention, and conscious attention (Montemayor, Haladjian 2015), mind, self and person (O’Hear 2015), consciousness as a self-creating and self-organising system (Varela, Maturana 1980), the unity and organisation of consciousness – the causal unity of consciousness (the integration of affection and control into a unified focus of agency) and the representational and intentional forms of unity (Cleeremans 2003), higher-order theories of consciousness – the analysis of conscious meta-mental states in terms of reflexive (meta-mental) self-awareness (Armstrong 1981, Rosenthal 1986, 1993, Lycan 1987, 1996, Van Gulick 2004, 2006, Kriegel 2009, Gennaro 2004, 2012), the phenomenal consciousness (Miller 2015) and the representational consciousness (Speaks 2015,Pennartz 2015).

Contact: Diana Stanciu – diana.stanciu(at)gmail.com

Tuesday, 4 October 2016, 17h – Dan Psatta (Academy of Medicine, Bucharest), Consciousness: An Electrophysiological Mechanism

Tuesday, 11 October 2016, 17h – Laura Pana (Polytechnic University, Bucharest), Co-evolution of Human and Artificial Cognitive and Moral Agents

Tuesday, 18 October 2016, 17h – Beatrice Radu (University of Bucharest), Neurovascular Unit – An Integrative View of Our Brain

Tuesday, 25 October 2016, 17h – Stefan Stanciugelu (National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest / Kiril and Metodiu University, Slovakia), The Fractal Grammar of the Social and the Emotional Brain

Tuesday, 1 November 2016, 17h – Cristian Pascu (University of Bucharest), Human Consciousness and Artificial Intelligence

Tuesday, 8 November 2016, 17h – Laura Craciun (Colentina Hospital, Bucharest), Moral Decision in Neurological Ailments

Tuesday, 15 November 2016, 17h – Alexandru Berceanu (National University for Theatre and Film `I.L. Caragiale` Bucharest), CINETic Innovative Methodologies for Improving Cognitive and Emotional Human Performances

Tuesday, 22 November 2016, 17h – Emilian Mihailov (University of Bucharest), Cognitive Enhancement and Mental Doping

Tuesday, 29 November 2016, 17h – Radu Uszkai (University of Bucharest), The Role of Unconscious Cognition and Moral Intuitions in the Commodification/Anti-Commodification Debate

Tuesday, 6 December 2016, 17h – Constantin Vica (University of Bucharest), No VR without AI 

Tuesday, 13 December 2016, 17h – Bogdan Boghitoi (University of Bucharest), Photographic Transparency – A Cognitivist Approach

Tuesday, 17 January 2017, 17h – Robert C. Froemke (New York University School of Medicine), Oxytocin, Social Behavior and Neural Plasticity (organised together with Alexandru Berceanu)

Thursday, 26 January 2017, 17h – Ioana Mindruta (University Emergency Hospital/ `Carol Davila` University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Bucharest), Effective Connectivity in the Brain – Method and Applications

Tuesday, 31 January 2017, 17h – Ioan Opris (University of Miami), The Role of Prefrontal Cortical Microcircuits in Conscious States

Tuesday, 7 February 2017, 17h – Mircea Deaca (University of Bucharest), The Impact of Neuroscience on the Cognitive Approach in the Cinematographic Discourse

Tuesday, 14 February 2017, 17h –  Iulia Anghel (Polytechnic University, Bucharest), Consciousness and Identity: A Case Study