Scientific Controversies No. 11: Consciousness

Experientially, consciousness is a subjective, internal movie, a virtual reality of the mind the most elaborate virtual reality, replete with images, sounds, smells, tactility, memories. Conscious entities can invent, imagine, visualize and dream. The existence of consciousness seems to qualify as a scientific fact. After all, I observe my own consciousness. But is the observation just an illusion? Is consciousness reducible to elementary biology? Or is consciousness itself somehow fundamental or even universal to every material thing?

Director of Sciences Janna Levin invites neuroscientist Christof Koch (President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science) and cognitive scientist David Chalmers (Director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University) to ask: Do androids actually dream of electric sheep?

Doors open at 7pm
Conversation begins at 8pm











When: Fri., May. 26, 2017 at 8:00 pm
Where: Pioneer Works
159 Pioneer St., Red Hook, Brooklyn
718-596-3001
Price: Free, RSVP required
Buy tickets/get more info now
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Experientially, consciousness is a subjective, internal movie, a virtual reality of the mind the most elaborate virtual reality, replete with images, sounds, smells, tactility, memories. Conscious entities can invent, imagine, visualize and dream. The existence of consciousness seems to qualify as a scientific fact. After all, I observe my own consciousness. But is the observation just an illusion? Is consciousness reducible to elementary biology? Or is consciousness itself somehow fundamental or even universal to every material thing?

Director of Sciences Janna Levin invites neuroscientist Christof Koch (President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science) and cognitive scientist David Chalmers (Director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University) to ask: Do androids actually dream of electric sheep?

Doors open at 7pm
Conversation begins at 8pm

Buy tickets/get more info now