Mathematical Phenomenology: Synergies and Connections Workshop

16:00 – 17:30 CET  🌍

Substrate Hybrid Systems in the Context of Conscious AI

Lukas Kob

• The debate between computational functionalism and biological naturalism overlooks an important possibility: substrate-hybrid systems. These coupled systems consist of one silicon-based part and one biology-based part. Recent advances in brain organoid research support the feasibility of creating these systems. In this talk, I will discuss the implications of potential substrate-hybrid systems for conscious artificial intelligence, particularly from the perspective of biological naturalism. I will argue that the prospect of consciousness in these systems hinges on the theories of consciousness considered and align these theories with two specific hybrid-system scenarios. In a scenario in which organoids control silicon-based computations, I will conclude that cognitive theories of consciousness are consistent with the emergence of consciousness in these systems. Conversely, hybrid systems that simply outsource computations from silicon to biological computers will only be conscious based on local sensory theories of consciousness. Thus, considering substrate-hybrids helps us not only estimate their technical feasibility, but also improve our understanding of the relationship between consciousness and its substrate. 

18:30 – 20:00 CET  🌍

Your Experience is a Causal Structure 

Larissa Albantakis

• Integrated information theory (IIT) starts by identifying the essential properties of experience and aims to provide a theoretical framework to account for these essential properties in physical terms. One of these essential properties is that experience has phenomenal structure. IIT proposes that the phenomenal structure of every experience—its quality—can be accounted for in full by the cause–effect structure specified by the substrate of consciousness in its current state—that “all quality is structure.” I will outline how IIT operationalizes phenomenal structure as cause-effect structure, and how it proposes to account for contents of experience that are at least partially introspectable, namely spatial extendedness, temporal flow, and the experience of objects. I will also discuss how the proposed identity between phenomenal and causal structure can be validated empirically and how IIT’s notion of intrinsic cause-effect structure differs from extrinsic notions of structure in consciousness science, mathematics, and philosophy.

20:30 – 22:00 CET  🌍

Impossible Conscious Experiences

Wanja Wiese

• Are there (logically possible) conscious experiences that no existing human being could have? In one sense, this may be trivial, if we consider how our perceptual experiences are limited by our sensory organs. But there may be non-trivial types of impossible conscious experience. For instance, if there are causal dependencies between the neural mechanisms required to instantiate distinct phenomenal properties (in human beings), then instantiating one of these phenomenal properties without certain others may be impossible. Investigating such ‘impossibilities’ may be facilitated by mathematical models. This talk clarifies the idea of impossible conscious experiences and outlines a general methodology for its investigation.

09:00 – 10:30 CET  🌍

The Qualia Structure Paradigm: Towards a Construction of a Qualia Periodic Table for the Dissolution of the Hard Problem of Consciousness

Nao Tsuchiya

• The nature of the relationships between qualitative aspects of consciousness, or qualia, and their physical substrates remains unclear. The problem of qualia is one of the biggest challenges among the enigmas of consciousness. One difficulty in qualia research is characterization of qualia. Verbal descriptions and simple behavioral responses are unable to capture the richness of qualia, the dilemma faced by the traditional NCC paradigm. Comparing a quale with another quale, however, is not difficult. Such relational characterization of qualia, but now in a structural context, underlies the core of the Qualia Structure paradigm. This new paradigm was inspired by category theory, in particular, the Yoneda lemma, which states that an object in a category is characterized by its relationships to all objects in that category. Inspired by the lemma, the Qualia Structure paradigm proposes a pathway to characterize and organize the structural properties of different qualia type one by one. As a result, it aspires to reach an organizing principle, akin to a Mendeleevian periodic table, for the domains of qualia and their physical substrates. Under this framework, any valid theories of consciousness should link the two domains in a structure-preserving manner. This level of specification and understanding of relations between qualia and the physical would dissolve the Hard Problem of consciousness in its current form.

18:30 – 20:00 CET  🌍

Title TBA

Tim Ludwig

• Abstract TBA

20:30 – 22:00 CET  🌍

Phenomenal Magnitudes and Phenomenal Measurement: Towards a Moderate Realism 

Geoffrey Lee

• In this talk I will defend the view that the phenomenal character of experience involves phenomenal magnitudes, and that these magnitudes can in principle be measured by us. Phenomenal magnitudes are features of experience itself that have magnitude structure and are part of the felt character of the experience. Possible examples might be the feeling of experiencing brightness or experiencing loudness. I will discuss and attempt to resolve a number of foundational problems with this view, defending a moderate realism. On the moderate realist view these magnitudes do indeed exist and are accessible to measurement procedures, but at the same time, assuming that physicalism is true and they are implemented in a biological neural network, the facts about them are probably less determinate than we might naively have expected. The indeterminacy here is a little surprising, but easier to swallow once we see that phenomenal magnitudes are no worse off than other macroscopic non-fundamental magnitudes in this respect. 

22:30 – 23:30 CET   🌍

Plenary Discussion Session