Center for Consciousness Center . Tucson . Arizona

Pre-Conference Workshops

Pre-conference workshops will be offered 9am-1pm and 2pm-6pm on Tuesday April 6 and 9am-1pm on Wednesday April 7. The fee for attendance is $50 per workshop.

TUESDAY APRIL 6, 9AM-1PM

What scientists have learned about consciousness and the brain: A decade of remarkable evidence

Bernard Baars & Katharine McGovern

New brain imaging methods are providing glimpses into the conscious living brain that could only be imagined a decade ago. Conscious sensory functions show visibly different brain events from physically identical unconscious ones. Unconscious states ranging from sleep to epilepsy show marked decrements in brain metabolism; conscious resting states are more active metabolically than mental tasks that require focused attention. Even at the level of single neurons, we can tell the distinctive effects of conscious input. Functional brain imaging is showing recognizably "mental" patterns of activity, in mental effort, emotions, pain, inner speech, visual imagery, mental conflict, memory, and self. What's going on? Some current theories are trying to wrestle with a new flood of facts. A neo-Jamesian science may be starting to emerge. The subjective side of life that has been taboo since Pavlov and Skinner is back in the scientific headlines. The workshop will include exercises designed to sample some of the conscious and unconscious events that have been studied.

Bernard Baars is affiliated with the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego and the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis. He is author of A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness and is a co-editor of Consciousness and Cognition and of Science and Consciousness Review. Katharine McGovern is Associate Professor of Psychology at the California Institute for Integrative Studies in San Francisco.

Visibility and Visual Awareness

Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik

This tutorial will address several fundamental questions concerning visibility and its relationship to visual awareness: What is the physical substrate of the perception of visibility? What features of the world are most visible and what are their neural correlates? What parts of the brain contain the circuits necessary for us to be aware of the visible stimulus? We will discuss data from studies combining psychophysical, electrophysiological, optical imaging, computational, and human fMRI methods, and we will demonstrate many novel visual illusions illustrating these percepts, so that participants are able to replicate the experiments in their own brains.

Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik are researchers at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.

Action in Perception: The Enactive Approach to Perceptual Consciousness

Alva Noë

This workshop will focus on a new approach to perception and perceptual consciousness, developed in recent years by a number of philosophers and psychologists including the presenter. This approach is known, variously, as the sensorimotor, the dynamic-sensorimotor, or the enactive approach. According to this approach, perception is, in effect, a kind of sensorimotor skill. This theory has application to philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and the theory of art, and it has recently received attention in each of these areas. The aim of this tutorial is to present the theory and illustrate its approach to a range of phenomena including the nature of sensory modalities, sensory substitution, neural plasticity, the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, and the explanatory gap.

Alva Noë is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-author (with Kevin O'Regan) of "A Sensorimotor Approach to Vision and Visual Consciousness" (Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2001), and author of Action in Perception (MIT Press, forthcoming).

Observing the Mind, Part 1: Basic Training in Skillful Means

Charles T. Tart

In the nineteenth century, psychologists failed to develop a science of the mind using introspective data. A major reason for failure is that ordinary mind has little skill at observing itself, as well as being very active and "noisy." Further, our "normal" state of consensus consciousness is like a virtual reality, generating apparently real experiences based on cultural conditioning and often distorting perceptions to support these scenarios. This morning workshop will introduce participants to two basic techniques for calming the mind (concentrative meditation) and developing deeper understanding of the mind (insight meditation, vipassana). The emphasis will be on learning actual skills, rather than just talking about them. These skills can make us better scientists and therapists, improve our ability to obtain data about consciousness, and can apply to personal efforts such as stress reduction, clearer reality contact, and improving the quality of life. Prior reading of Tart's books "Waking Up" and "Living the Mindful Life" and/or his recent "Mind Science: Meditation Training for Practical People" (based on an earlier version of this workshop) is recommended but not required.

Charles T. Tart has done pioneering psychological work on altered states of consciousness ad is a founder of the field of transpersonal psychology. He is author of "Altered States of Consciousness" (1969) and "Transpersonal Psychologies" (1975), and maintains The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences (TASTE) website, intended to bring scientist's transcendent experiences into public view.

TUESDAY APRIL 6, 2PM-6PM

Observing the Mind, Part 2: Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Charles T. Tart

Developing mindfulness skills under the restricted and protected conditions of formal meditation practice is very useful, but these skills usually take some time to generalize into ordinary life conditions. Yet ordinary life is where our mindlessness too often gets us into trouble! This workshop will introduce students to a practice of "self-remembering," somewhat along the lines originally taught by G. I. Gurdjieff, an early pioneer in adapting Eastern mindfulness development skills to Western people. The mindfulness and presence brought about by self-remembering helps us gain more accurate knowledge of our own and others' mental, emotional and physical functioning, thus contributing to the development of a science of mind as well as personal and "spiritual" growth. Taking the morning workshop on basic mindfulness skills or having attended a previous workshop by Tart on this is a prerequisite for taking this afternoon workshop.

Attention, Consciousness, and Visual Perception

Ronald Rensink

The past decade has seen an explosion in our understanding of visual perception, with the discovery of striking new phenemena and the development of powerful new theories of how it operates. This workshop will provide an overview of recent advances and current controversies in this area, with particular focus on the issue of how attention relates to conscious and nonconscious visual processing. A variety of visual phenomena will be introduced, including change blindness, inattentional blindness, motion-induced blindness, blindsight, implicit perception, and mindsight (sensing events without visually experiencing them). This workshop will also provide an introduction to several of the latest theories of visual perception, including recent proposals about how attention may be related to consciousness. Implications of these results for the general nature of visual perception will also be discussed, as will implications for the general study of consciousness.

Ronald Rensink is an Associate Professor in the departments of Psychology and Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is well-known for his research on several aspects of visual attention and consciousness, on topics such as change blindness and inattentional blindness.

Philosophical Theories of Consciousness

Uriah Kriegel

Philosophical theories of consciousness are concerned with the ontology of consciousness: they are concerned not just with how consciousness works, but also with what consciousness is. In this workshop, we shall survey six or seven leading theories of consciousness to be found in the current philosophical literature: the New Mysterianism, Naturalistic Dualism, the Representational Theory of Consciousness, Higher-Order Thought theory, Higher-Order Perception Theory, and the Same-Order Monitoring theory. After the main tenets of each approach will be presented, we shall discuss the arguments for and against the theory in question.

Uriah Kriegel is a Research Fellow in the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. He has published numerous articles on the nature of consciousness and is currently writing a book on theories of consciousness.

What scientists have learned about consciousness and the brain: A decade of remarkable evidence

Bernard Baars & Katharine McGovern

This workshop is a duplicate (N.B. not a second part) of the Baars/McGovern workshop offered on Tuesday April 6 from 9am-1pm.

Details can be found above.

Lucid Dreaming

Stephen LaBerge

WEDNESDAY APRIL 7, 9AM-1PM

Neurophenomenology

Evan Thompson

Neurophenomenology, a research program originally proposed by the late Francisco Varela, aims to integrate first-person methods of exploring experience and cognitive neuroscientific investigations of cognition and consciousness. This workshop will provide an overview of current neurophenomenological research. This research includes neurophenomenological studies of visual perception and consciousness, pain, emotion, and contemplative states. The theoretical background of neurophenomenology in neurodynamics and phenomenological philosophy will also be explored.

Evan Thompson holds a Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Science and the Embodied Mind in the Department of Philosophy, York University, Toronto.

What does science know about extra-ordinary states of consciousness?

Katharine McGovern, Bernard Baars, Stanley Krippner, and Frank Echelhofer

Extra-ordinary experiences have been reported since the dawn of written thought and in many cultures around the world. Yet scientifically we know little with certainty. For decades, psychologists have tried to discover the effects of meditation methods, but it is very difficult to get answers that are not shaped by the attitudes and expectations of practitioners. Brain imaging provides a new look at extra-ordinary states, in the case of advanced Tibetan monks, TM practitioners, Buddhist mindfulness practitioners, Christian mysticism, hypnotic states and absorption, altered identity states, lucid dreams, and drug experiences. We touch on subjects like Shamanic practices and states of consciousness, psychotropic drugs like Ayahuasca, and spontaneous mystical experiences. After twenty years of scientific studies, small islands of understanding may be emerging. The Workshop will include demonstrations and movies of some of the extra-ordinary states that have been studied.

Teaching Consciousness

Susan Blackmore

Courses on consciousness are increasingly popular. During ten years of teaching third-year undergraduate courses I have developed methods for explaining difficult ideas, class activities to bring abstract arguments to life, and personal exercises for developing insight. In this workshop I shall enlist the participants as students (and critics) to discuss course structure, and to try out some of the activities, including activities related to: Mary the colour scientist; the cutaneous rabbit; Libet's experiment on voluntary action; split brain twins; the imitation game; positioning the theories; personal exercises. These, and many other activities, are in Consciousness: An Introduction. Some lecturers may think that these "games" waste time and trivialise the subject. Trying them out will enable us to discuss this. Others may object to the intense personal exercises, or wish to discuss the ethical issues that arise when students' deepest beliefs are challenged. I hope that the workshop will be fun, while helping us to learn from each other about the teaching of consciousness studies.

Susan Blackmore is a psychologist and lecturer, and author of "The Meme Machine" and the recent textbook "Consciousness: An Introduction".

Visual Neuroscience and Visual Consciousness

Christof Koch

The study of visual consciousness represents, for now, the most promising empirical model for scientifically approaching the mind-brain problem. Any such understanding must be based on knowledge of the neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and psychology of the mammalian visual system. This workshop will review the anatomy and the electrophysiology of the visual system, from the retina to the posterior parietal and inferior temporal cortices and beyond. The aim is to link specific properties of forebrain neurons to specific features of visual consciousness in monkeys, normal subjects and neurological patients. The workshop will cover material from the presenter's "The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach".

Christof Koch is Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology at the California Institute of Technology. He is author of Biophysics of Computation and the forthcoming The Quest for Consciousness.

Quantum Approaches to Consciousness

Paavo Pylkannen, Stuart Hameroff, Jack Tuszynski

Quantum physics provides a new scientific world-view and suggests an approach to biology and neuroscience necessary for the understanding of cognition and conscious experience. A number of recent models (e.g. Bohm, Stapp, Penrose-Hameroff) suggest that the transition between the pre-conscious and the conscious is some form of transition between the quantum and classical worlds. In this workshop philosopher Paavo Pylkkanen will provide a generally accessible overview of quantum mechanics and how it may relate to conscious experience; anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff will discuss the neuroscientific aspects of the Penrose-Hameroff model of quantum computation in brain microtubules; and physicist Jack Tuszynski will discuss the biophysical and biochemical properties of microtubules which may enable quantum computation in the human brain at physiological conditions.

Paavo Pylkkanen is head of the Consciousness Studies Program at the University of Skovde in Sweden. Stuart Hameroff is Professor in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology and Associate Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Jack Tuszynski is Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Mission

People