CAPEレクチャー(Prof. Georg Northoff)のお知らせ

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Seminars of Prof. Georg Northoff (University of Ottawa) on World-brain Problem

Talk I: World-brain Problem I: Spatiotemporal model of consciousness
Date and Time: From 14:00 to 16:00 on 12th June 2017
Venue:  the meeting room on the ground floor of the building of faculty of letters, Yoshida main campus, Kyoto University (building no.8 in this map).


Talk II:
World-brain problem II: Spatiotemporal ontology of consciousness
Date and Time: From 12:30 to 14:30 on 13th June 2017
Venue:  the meeting room on the ground floor of the building of faculty of letters, Yoshida main campus, Kyoto University (building no.8 in this map).

With Profs. Szu Ting Cheng (National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan) and Kai Yuan Cheng (National Yang Ming University, Taiwan) as discussants.

Abstract:
There is much debate about consciousness and mental features in general in both neuroscience and philosophy. However, despite intense debates, both empirical mechanisms and ontological characterization of mental features remain unclear. I here suggest a novel approach to mental features, namely a spatiotemporal approach that can account for both empirical mechanisms and ontological characteristics of mental features. My main argument for both talks is that the mind-body problem can be replaced by what I describe as world-brain problem.
The first talk will focus on developing a spatiotemporal model of consciousness as based on recent empirical findings in neuroscience. Empirically, consciousness can be related to the capacity of the brain’s spontaneous activity to construct its own “inner time and space”. I will present various empirical examples which also connect well with existential and phenomenological approaches to consciousness and especially “inner time consciousness”. Moreover, this aligns well with the concept of time in ancient Chinese philosophy as by Zhuangzhe.
The second talk will focus on the ontology of consciousness. The spatiotemporal model of consciousness presupposes an ontology that focuses on relation and structure as constructed in spatiotemporal terms. This leads to ontic Structural realism (OSR) of mental features which must be distinguished from the traditional property-based ontology with the assumption of mental and/or physical properties. OSR of mental features considers the relation between world and brain in spatiotemporal terms which makes it possible to establish necessary connection between world-bran relation and mental features. I therefore consider world-brain relation including its spatiotemporal features as necessary condition of possible consciousness, i.e., ontological predisposition of consciousness (OPC). I conclude that the question for mental features can ontologically be addressed in terms of world-brain relation rather than mind-body relation – the mind-body problem may consecutively be replaced by what I describe as “world-brain problem”.