announcements

cfp: Fifth Online Consciousness Conference

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UPDATE: The deadline is fast approaching!

I am pleased to announce the call for papers for the Fifth Online Consciousness Conference, which is scheduled for February 15-March 1, 2013.

Invited talk by Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University

Special Session on Self-Consciousness organized by John Schwenkler, Mount St. Mary’s University. Invited participants include Katja Crone and Joel Smith. This session will also include two submitted talks by graduate students or recent PhDs. If you want your paper to be considered specifically for this special session please indicate so in your submission email.

Papers in any area of consciousness studies are welcome (construed widely so as to include philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, as well as the cognitive sciences) and should be roughly 3,000-4,000 words. Submissions made suitable for blind review should be sent to consciousnessonline@gmail.com by January 5th 2013.

For papers that are accepted, an audio/visual presentation (e.g. narrated powerpoint or video of talk) is strongly encouraged but not required.

Program Committee:
Richard Brown
David Chalmers
Adam Pautz
Susanna Siegel

For more information visit the conference website at http://consciousnessonline.com

Find Consciousness Online on Facebook!

Qualia Fest 2012 LIVE

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Thanks to David Billingsly this year’s Qualia Fest was recorded. The recordings sound surprisingly good for being made on a hand-held audio recorder which was set in the back of the room. I have made the recordings available at the New York Consciousness Collective’s Bandcamp site. You can stream them for free or download the files in virtually any format for a small fee. The small fee goes in the first instance to help me recoup the costs of putting Qualia Fest together, and after that any proceeds (should it ever come to that) will go to the group in question. Help keep Qualia fest free and buy the albums!

1. Mary’s Roommate
2. The Amygdaloids
3. Quiet Karate Reflex
4. Space Clamps

Qualia Fest 2012

Richard Brown 1 Comment

—–BREAKING NEWS—–
Kit Fine Trio added to the line up!
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To any and all in the Tri-State area you are invited to the 3rd Qualia Fest. Organized by the New York Consciousness Collective the Qualia Fest is an annual event that celebrates the music of philosophers and cognitive scientists.

When: Monday December 10th 2012
Where: The Bowery Electric 327 Bowery St (between Great Jones St & 3rd St)
New York, NY 10003
Online: Facebook Event Page

Music starts at 7:00 p.m. sharp and it’s FREE!

Line Up:

  • The Zombie Blues Band -Featuring the Zombie Blues led by David Chalmers and backed by a band composed of philosophers and scientists. Gary Ostertag on guitar, Steve Fleming on keys, Ross Otto on bass, and Richard Brown on drums.
  • The Amygdaloids –Joe Ledoux on guitar, Tyler Volk on guitar, Daniela Schiller on drums, Amanda Thorpe on bass, plus special guests on cello and saxophone!
  • Kit Fine Trio. Featuring Kit Fine on Piano, Sandra Lindgren and Zee Perry on vocals. They will perform two original songs; ‘Love Song for David V’ for contralto solo and ‘A Lovers’ Quarrel: Hartry and Truth’ for Contralto and Tenor.
  • Quiet Karate Reflex -Alex Keifer (PhD candidate CUNY Grad Center) on keys and 8bit Gameboy, Pete Mandik on guitar, and Richard Brown on drums
  • Space Clamps –Erik Nylen on keys and vocals, Sara Steele on vocals, Lawrence DeGeest (U Mass Amherst) on vocals and guitar, David Billingsley (NYU Law School) on bass, and Richard Brown on drums
  • The Whims -led by Fletcher Maumus (PhD in philosophy (2012) from The Graduate Center, CUNY)
  • Mary’s Roommate -Led by David Billingsley (NYU Law school), on vocals and guitar

I *Really* Do Love New York in the Fall

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The fall semester is set to kick off, and I am very excited about it. I am giving the first talk in the CUNY Philosophy Colloquium tomorrow September 5th. It is entitled “The Nature of Phenomenal Consciousness”. I haven’t recorded a practice run yet, but this talk is my attempt to talk about everything related to phenomenal consciousness that interests me. It should be a lot of fun! I am especially excited about it since it is almost exactly four years to the date since I was a student at CUNY! I still can’t believe it has been four years since I defended; that’s a lot of New York Minutes!

In October I will be giving a talk at the Metro-Area Research Group on Awareness and Meditation run by Zoran Josipovic . And of course there will be many, many awesome talks around town. I am going to try to blog a bit more about any I happen to attend. I am also teaching in my ‘cluster’ Brain, Mind, and Consciousness. A cluster is a group of classes centered around a theme in which all students take all of the same classes. Mine has a mind-themed intro to phil, an intro psych, and two english classes. This is the third time I have done it and I am thinking of recording some supplementary video lectures.

In other news, I have joined the list of contributors at The Philosopher’s Cocoon, a new blog for early career types (I still have a year left of being ‘early career, right?). I’ll be posting on career and teaching related issues over there. For instance, at LaGuardia I am taking a professional development seminar on online teaching. Specifically I am working on transitioning my traditional face to face Logic and Philosophy course to a hybrid model. I have been teaching online for a few years now and I thought I might blog a bit about it.

Or at least such are my (academic) New Year’s resolutions.

And then there is of course the Qualia Fest waiting for us on the other side of Fall!

SSPP 2013

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UPDATE 09/01/12
To be honest I have never paid much attention to the Psychology part of the SSPP, but this year looks really excellent and features a joint session on attention and a symposium with Steve Fleming and Hakwan Lau. Very cool to see more of an attempt to integrate the two sides of the conference.
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Looks like we are on track for another awesome SSPP this year. This is turning into one of my favorite conferences…and that’s not just because I was an invited participant in a symposium last year. It starts right when the Online Consciousness Conference will be coming to an end!

Call for Philosophy Papers

The Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology announces a call for papers for its One Hundred and Fifth Annual Meeting, to be held February 28 – March 2, 2013 in Austin, TX. SSPP meetings feature concurrent programs in Philosophy and Psychology, as well as plenary sessions jointly sponsored by the Philosophy and Psychology Program Committees. The deadline for all submissions is October 15, 2012.

President’s Invited Speaker:

Patricia Smith Churchland
UC San Diego/Salk Institute, San Diego

Invited Speakers:

Austen Clark, University of Connecticut
Fred Dretske, Duke University
Michael Tye, University of Texas, Austin

Invited Symposia:

Epistemology of Perception
Jack Lyons
Susanna Siegel

Naturalism
Owen Flanagan
Steven Horst

New Perspectives on Type Identity
Alyssa Ney
Thomas Polger

Introspection & Self-Knowledge
Peter Carruthers
Brie Gertler
Eric Schwitzgebel

Attention! (Joint Symposium)
Marisa Carrasco
Robert Kentridge
Christopher Mole
Sebastian Watzl

Epistemic Paradoxes
Krista Lawlor
Roy Sorensen
Michael Veber

The Philosophy Program Committee encourages the submission of papers and symposium proposals. Their selection will be based on quality and relevance to Philosophy, Psychology, and other sciences of the mind. The aim of the committee is to present a program as balanced as the quality of submissions in each area permits.

Submissions exceeding 3,000 words will not be considered. Submissions should include a word count and an abstract of no more than 150 words. Self-reference should be deleted to permit blind reviewing. All papers submitted and presented should employ gender-neutral language. All submissions must be made using our online submission system at: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=sspp2013

Under the Keywords section, in addition to descriptions of the submission, please include any of the following if they are applicable: To volunteer to be a session chair: ‘Chair.’ To comment on a paper: ‘Comment.’ To be considered for a Graduate Student Travel Award: ‘GSTA.’ To be considered for the Griffith Prize: ‘Griffith.’ For details and eligibility see: http://www.southernsociety.org/griffithaward.htm

Please direct Philosophy Program related questions to the Program Chair, Rik Hine at: rikhine@gmail.com

Zombies vs Shombies

Richard Brown 2 Comments

Richard Marshall, a writer for 3am Magazine, has been interviewing philosophers. After interviewing a long list of distinguished philosophers, including Peter Carruthers, Josh Knobe, Brian Leiter, Alex Rosenberg, Eric Schwitzgebel, Jason Stanley, Alfred Mele, Graham Priest, Kit Fine, Patricia Churchland, Eric Olson, Michael Lynch, Pete Mandik, Eddy Nahmais, J.C. Beal, Sarah Sawyer, Gila Sher, Cecile Fabre, Christine Korsgaard, among others, they seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel, since they just published my interview. I had a great time engaging in some Existential Psychoanalysis of myself!

Consciousness and Computation

Richard Brown 2 Comments

2012 marks 100 years since the birth of Alan Turing. Saturday June 23rd is the actual centenary. That weekend also happens to be pride week in nyc. Given this line up of the Celestial Signs, The New York Consciousness Collective invites you to the Lower East side of Manhattan to let your freak flag fly in honor of Alan Turing. The event is free and features music from cognitive scientists and philosophers!

When: Saturday June 23rd
Turing festivities start at 7:30 p.m.

Where: The Local 269
269 E. Houston st NY, NY

The Line Up

1:00-1:45 The P-Branes -Newly minted PhD, David Pereplyotchick on bass and guitar, Hakwan Lau on guitar, and Richard Brown on drums. Two of these three are leaving nyc to seek fortune and fame in the wild blue yonder. Don’t miss your chance to see this special late night funk fest!

11:00-12:45 Space Clamps -Who invented the space clamp? S P A C E C L A M P S ! Sara Steele on vocals, Erik Nylen on keys and vocals, Lawrence De Geest on guitar and vocals, David Billingsley on bass and vocals, and Richard Brown on drums.

10:00-10:45 Quiet Karate Reflex -8bit fusion of higher-order thoughts about vegan unicorn meat with experimental breakbeats. exileFaker on 8bit Gameboy and keys, Pete Mandik on Guitar, Hakwan Lau on Kindle Fire and guitar, Richard Brown on drums.

9:00-9:45 William James Trio -Two neuroscientists and a philosopher walk into a bar…to play funky jazz standards! Steve Fleming on keys, Hakwan Lau on guitar, Richard Brown on drums. This may be the last performance of WJ3!

8:00-8:45 The Whims -led by Dr. Fletcher Maumus this group constructs lush indie rock. 60s hooks meets 70s guitars — all filtered through a 90s slacker aesthetic.