Public Dialogues

YHouse continues its program of lectures, events, and conversations on exciting and provocative topics at a number of venues around New York City.

Consciousness Club NYC

YHouse invites you to the Consciousness Club, a study group to promote broadly transdisciplinary discussions on the neural and computational bases of consciousness, and how these concepts can be applied to other fields of interest. Our weekly meetings are for you if you are into awareness, science, technology, philosophy, art, and design.

For more information and meeting schedule, check out our Facebook page, or tune in to our Twitter updates.

Although the meetings are open to all, we encourage technical and scientific discussions for this series of meetings.

Cognition Lunch Salon

YHouse continues to organize informal Lunch Salon events hosted by the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, N.J., West Building Seminar Room, 2nd floor. The format is an informal chat, followed by longer open-ended discussions among the participants, on the topic of consciousness and cognition. This event is by invitation only. To request an invitation, please email us at info@yhousenyc.org

Speaker: Susan Schneider (University of Connecticut, Yale University, Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton)

Abstract: Fundamental physics (e.g., string theory, quantum mechanics) is highly mathematical. Mathematical entities purport to be abstract—they purport to be non-spatial, atemporal, immutable, acausal, and non-mental. (Whether they truly are abstract is a matter of debate, of course.) “Physicalism” (a doctrine in philosophy), to a first approximation, holds that everything is physical, or is composed of physical entities. As such, physicalism is a metaphysical hypothesis about the fundamental nature of reality. Given this, in this talk, I urge that it is reasonable to ask the physicalist to inquire into the nature of mathematical entities, for they are doing heavy lifting in the physicalist’s theory, describing and identifying the fundamental physical entities that everything that exists is said to reduce to. I then ask whether the physicalist has the resources to provide a satisfying account of the nature of these mathematical entities, given existing work in philosophy of mathematics she would likely draw from. And the answer will be: she does not. I then argue that this deflates the physicalist program: physicalism lacks the traditional advantages of being the most economical theory, and having a superior approach to causation, relative to certain competing theories. *My conclusion is that conscious awareness is not a physical phenomenon.*

Thursday, November 3, 12:30 p.m.
Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, West Building Seminar Room, 2nd floor
Host by the Program in Interdisciplinary Studies