MESEC 2021 is over!
The first MESEC Workshop took place in September of 2021, and brought together 16 students and early-career researchers from different approaches to the consciousness science field.
At MESEC, proponents of different theories of consciousness from various backgrounds (Philosophy, Psychaiatry, Neuroscience, Modeling, Psychology, to name a few), took part in an interactive workshop that included structured debates and informal discussions.
The main focus of the workshop was theories of consciousness: we explored the emerging field of consciousness theories, and through discussions between advocates and challengers of each theory, we characterized how each paradigm views phenomena such as:
- Dreams, lucid dreaming, and sleep as opposed to wakeful consciousness
- Unique consciousness states (e.g., hypnosis, freediving) and conscious experience in neuropsychiatric disorders
- Disorders of consciousness (e.g., minimally conscious states)
- Thought experiments (e.g., split-brain, brain in a vat) and futuristic predictions (e.g., artificial intelligence)
- Differences and similarities to other theories of consciousness
At the end of the workshop, we produced an internal output document summarizing our discussions. In addition, we were joined by two experienced Youtube scientific content creators, Monsieur Phi and Dirty Biology. They created several videos about consciousness for the wider non-scientific audience. You can watch the videos here, and here (more to come).

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Campomoro, Corsica
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From September 4th to 11th 2021
Gallery







Staff

Esteban Munoz Musat
Paris Brain Institute

Julie Hemmerlin
Cognitive science consultant

Ulysse Klatzmann
Center for Neural science, NYU

Hadrien Titeux
LSCP, École Normale Supérieure
Scientific Chair

Cyriel Pennartz
Head of Dept. Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience, University of Amsterdam
Participants

Camilo Miguel Signorelli
Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, NeuroSpin

Francesco Ellia
University of Bologna

Adrien Doerig
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition & Behaviour

Jakub Vohryzek
University of Oxford

Urte Laukaityte
UC Berkeley Philosophy

Veith Andreas Weilnhammer
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Rony Hirschhorn
Tel Aviv University

Suraiya Luecke
University of Edinburgh

Kwangjun Lee
University of Amsterdam

Romy Beauté
Paris Brain Institute

George Deane
University of Edinburgh

Matteo Grasso
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Karla Matić
Max Planck School of Cognition

Mathis Bassler
University of Amsterdam

Basak Turker
Brain and Spine Institute - ICM

Stavros Anagnou
University of Hertfordshire
Speakers

María Victoria Sánchez-Vives
Research Professor at Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer

Cyriel Pennartz
Head of Dept. Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience, University of Amsterdam

Jan G. Bjaalie
Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo

Timo Dickscheid
Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Forschungszentrum Jülich

Viktor Jirsa
Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes

Maaike van Swieten
University of Oslo

Michael Denker
Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, Forschungszentrum Jülich

Brent Huisman
Institute for Advanced Simulation , Forschungszentrum Jülich

Steven Laureys
Centre du Cerveau, CHU Liège

Mihai Alexandru Petrovici
NeuroTMA Group, University of Bern

Theofanis Panagiotaropoulos
Neurospin
Youtubers

Thibaut Giraud
French educational youtube channel on Philosopy

Léo Grasset
French educational youtube channel on Natural Science
Partners

Humain Brain Project

EBRAINS
