🚀 go-pugleaf

>Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:10:06 -0500
>From: "Robert L. Campbell" <campber@CLEMSON.EDU>
>Subject: Conference on Consciousness and Cognition (2nd call; deadline
extended)
>X-Sender: campber@mail.clemson.edu
>To: campber@CLEMSON.EDU
>
>  
> Mind 4
>       Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland, August 16-20, 1999
>  
> Theme: "Two Sciences of Mind"
>
>
>                        Confirmed invited speakers include:
>                                  Bernard Baars
>                                   David Galin
>                                  Karl Pribram
>                                Stuart Hammeroff
>                                 Kathy McGovern
>                              Steven Nachmanovitch
>                                Jacob Needleman
>                                                 
>                                Program Committee:
>                                  Bernard Baars
>                                  Mark Bickhard
>                                 Robert Campbell
>                              Christian de Quincey
>                                 Stuart Hammeroff
>                                  Paul Mc Kevitt
>                                  Kathy McGovern
>                              Steven Nachmanovitch
>                                 Jacob Needleman
>                                 Sean O Nuallain
>                                  Yoshi Nakamura
>                                   Max Velmans
>                                  Terry Winegar
>
>Keynote addresses:
>
>Jabob Needleman: "Inner and Outer Empiricism in Consciousness Research"
>
>Bernard Baars: "The Compassionate Implications of Brain Imaging of
>Conscious Pain: New Vistas in Applied Cognitive Science."
>
>Stream 1: Outer and Inner empiricism in consciousness research 
>
>This stream will feature papers that attempt to show how "inner" states can
>be elucidated with reference to external phenomena. "Inner empiricism"
>designates experience, or qualia. They are shaped (somehow) by brain
>processes or states which sense and interpret the external phenomena.  The
>physical nature of these processes or states may tell us much about
>consciousness. Likewise, the argument that we are conscious of only one
>thing at a time because of the gating action of the nuclei reticularis
>thalami (Taylor, Baars, etc) is indicative of the kind
>of thinking we are trying to encourage. In this vein, pain experience and
>its imperfect relationship to neural activity are similarly relevant. We
>particularly welcome papers that feature empirical data, or, lacking these
>data, show a grasp of the  range of disciplines necessary to do justice to
>the topic.   
>
>Papers are also invited that 
>  
>- Interpret qualia in terms of a quantum-mechanics based panpsychism (or,
>in current terms,
>pan-protopsychism) 
>
>- Establish links with developments like Whitehead's pan-experientialism
>and process thought 
>
>-Interrelate physiological processes at the neural level with current
>thought in QM 
>
>- Emphasize "relational empiricism", ie second-person considerations 
>
>- Investigate the brain processes or states giving rise to qualia at
>whatever level the writer considers appropriate (eg intra-cellular
>cytoskeletal activities and/or quantum-level phenomena). 
>
>- Involve studies of central pain states as well as other curiosities like
>allodynia, spontaneous analgesia, pain asymbolia, and hypnotic analgesia. 
>
>The invited talks include: 
>
>David Galin "The Experience of 'Spirit' in Cognitive Terms." 
>
>Stuart Hameroff "Quantum Computing and Consciousness" 
>
>Steve Nachmanovitch "Creativity and Consiousness" 
>
>Each of these talks will be followed by a panel discussion discussing
>respectively, consciousness as explored experientially, through scientific
>investigation, and in the arts. 
>  
>
>Stream 2: Foundations of Cognitive Science 
>
>Co-chairs: 
>  
>
>Sean O Nuallain 
>  
>Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland 
>
>(sonualla@compapp.dcu.ie) 
>  
>
>Robert L. Campbell 
>  
>Department of Psychology, Clemson University, 
>
>Clemson, SC USA 
>
>(campber@clemson.edu) 
>  
>  
>
>WHAT THE STREAM IS ABOUT 
>  
>
>Though deep and contentious questions of theory and metatheory have always
>been prevalent in Cognitive Science--they arise whenever an attempt is made
>to define CS as a discipline--they have frequently been downrated by
>researchers, in favor of empirical work that remains safely within the
>confines of established theories and methods. 
>
>Our goal to is redress the balance.  We encourage participants in this
>stream to raise and discuss such questions as: 
>  
>
>* the adequacy of computationalist accounts of mind 
>
>* the adequacy of conceptions of mental representation as structures that
>encode structures out
>in the environment 
>
>* the consequences of excluding emotions, consciousness, and the social
>realm from the purview of cognitive studies 
>
>* the consequences of Newell and Simon's "scientific bet" that
>developmental constraints do not have to be studied until detailed models
>of adult cognition have been constructed and tested 
>
>* the relationship between cognitive science and formal logic   
>
>A wide range of theoretical perspectives is welcome, so long as the
>presenters are willing to engage in serious discussion with the proponents
>of perspectives that are different from their own: 
>  
>
>* Vygotskian approaches to culture and cognition 
>
>* Dynamic Systems theories 
>
>* Piagetian constructivism 
>
>* interactivism 
>
>* neuroscience accounts such as those of Edelman and Grossberg 
>* accounts of emergence in general, and emergent knowledge in particular 
>
>* perception and action robotics 
>
>* functional linguistics 
>
>* genetic algorithms 
>
>* Information Procesing 
>
>* connectionism 
>
>* evolutionary epistemology 
>  
>********************
>
>Contributors will be asked to submit short papers (3000 word limit) in
>
>the form of ASCII text files (HTML files are also welcome, but are
>optional) to Robert Campbell (for stream 2) and Sean O Nuallain (stream 1).
>The deadline is March 1, 1999.  We will email notification of acceptance or
>rejection by April 1.
>
>The standard presentations during the streams will be 20-minute talks and
>poster sessions. 
>  
>***********
>
>The "MIND" conferences have normally had their proceedings published by
>John Benjamins. We have already been approached by prospective publishers
>for Mind 4. All accepted papers and posters will be included in a preprint. 
>  
>Robert L. Campbell
>Professor, Psychology
>Brackett Hall 410A
>Clemson University
>Clemson, SC 29634-1511 USA
>phone (864) 656-4986
>fax (864) 656-0358
>http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/index.html
>Editor, Dialogues in Psychology
>http://hubcap.clemson.edu/psych/Dialogues/dialogues.html  
Lise Menn
Professor and Chair
Linguistics Department - Box 295
University of Colorado
Boulder CO 80309-0295
303-492-8042; fax 303-492-4416

BEWARE PROCRUSTES BEARING OCCAM'S RAZOR