Event overview
Dr Peter beim Graben (Hamburg)
The concept of contextual emergence has been proposed as anon- reductive relation between different levels of description of physical and other systems where a "lower level" description comprises necessary but not sufficient conditions for a "higher level" description. These are supplied by contingent contexts implementing particular stability conditions. In neuro-dynamical systems, such contexts define macroscopically measurable quantities, such as the electroencephalogram (EEG) or the functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) signal from a "third-person's perspective" on the one hand, or introspective reports about mental states from a "first-person's perspective" on the other hand]. Contextual emergence provides a way to relate these descriptions to each other by means of neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). Here, a neural system is necessary for the emergence of an NCC. The sufficient conditions are then provided by contextually given "phenomenal families" introducing a dynamically stable partition of the neural state space into equivalence classes that multiple realise the corresponding mental states. Interestingly, different contexts could also lead to incompatible descriptions thereby elucidating dual aspect accounts in cognitive neuroscience and in the philosophy of mind as well.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 2 Dec 2009 | 4:00pm - 5:00pm |
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