MESEC Workshop 2021
Passed
  • Campomoro, Corsica

  • From September 4th to 11th 2021

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).

Staff

Esteban Munoz Musat

Paris Brain Institute

Julie Hemmerlin

Cognitive science consultant

Ulysse Klatzmann

Université Paris Cité/ University of Oxford

Hadrien Titeux

École Normale Supérieure

Scientific Chair

Cyriel Pennartz

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

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

Participants

Camilo Miguel Signorelli

University of Oxford

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

Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science

George Deane

University of Montreal

Matteo Grasso

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Karla Matić

Max Planck School of Cognition / Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Mathis Bassler

University of Amsterdam

Basak Turker

Brain and Spine Institute - ICM

Stavros Anagnou

University of Hertfordshire

Youtubers

Thibaut Giraud

French educational youtube channel on Philosopy

Léo Grasset

French educational youtube channel on Natural Science

With the support of

Humain Brain Project
EBRAINS
European Union