Conferencia Rethinking philosophy of mind in the light of Bayesian models of consciousness

Fecha de inicio: 20 de junio

Ingreso: 1:00 PM

Lugar: Sala de Consejo EEGGLL

Organizado por: Estudios Generales Letras

Sobre la Conferencia:

I will present how Bayesian models conceive of consciousness – and especially of various cases of altered consciousness (such as dreaming and hallucination) – and then explore the philosophical implications of these models. Current interpretations of Bayesianism maintain that these models vindicate externalism and enactivism. On the contrary, I will argue that Bayesian models are fundamentally internalists and I will defend internalism on this neurocomputational ground.

Sobre Martin Fortier:

Martin Fortier holds a master’s degree in philosophy as well as a master’s degree in anthropology.

He is currently a doctoral student at Institut Jean Nicod (a lab hosted by the ENS Department of Cognitive Studies) and at the Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences of EHESS. He is also a visiting student researcher at the Department of Anthropology of Stanford University. His research broadly explores how culture influences cognition. In order to investigate this question, Martin resort to tools from psychology, neuroscience, philosophy and anthropology.

His current PhD research project consists in exploring the interplay between neurobiological processes and culture in the formation of altered states of consciousness (and especially those induced by hallucinogenic substances). The model he is developing is largely influenced by the predictive coding and the free energy paradigms put forward by researchers such as Karl Friston, Chris Frith and Alexandre Pouget. Part of his PhD research consists in examining the philosophical consequences of this Bayesian model of altered consciousness on issues classically discussed by philosophers of mind and perception.

In parallel, Martin is still further exploring the topic of Amazonian animism which was at the core of his anthropology master thesis. This second project aims at understanding the main cognitive mechanisms of animism. Martin is currently conducting several experiments in the Peruvian Amazon – and is hoping to conduct many other in the near future; these experiments look at the way indigenous people conceive of the person, of ethnic identity and of biological identity and at how these conceptions are related to animism. Much of this program is influenced by recent Bayesian models of cognition developed by Joshua Tenenbaum, Thomas Griffiths, Fei Xu and colleagues.