Friday, April 11, 2025
1:20 – 2:25 pm
VIRTUAL
On Friday, April 11 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Christof Koch.
A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Register for the Zoom link here (TBD).
Consciousness and its Place in Nature
Any scientific theory of consciousness, here meant as any experience – feeling-like-something, seeing, smelling, thinking, fearing, dreaming – needs to not only explain the relationship between experience and its substrate, the neural correlate of consciousness, but also why different experiences feel the way they do – why space feels spatially extended, why time flows and why colors feel different from an infected tooth or the taste of Nutella. Most contemporary theories of consciousness are based on computational functionalism. Integrated Information Theory takes a purely operational approach rooted in causal power. IIT argues that the neuronal correlates of consciousness, the maximum of intrinsic cause-effect power, are the posterior hot zone, and that certain types of meditative or psychedelic experiences may go together with a “silent” cortex. I will discuss clinical progress achieved in locating the footprints of such experiences to the posterior part of the cerebral cortex and in reliably detecting the presence of covert consciousness in patients with Disorder of Consciousness.
Christof Koch, PhD, Meritorious Investigator, Allen Institute, Seattle, Chief Scientist, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, Santa Monica
Christof Koch PhD, is a neuroscientist best known for his studies and writings exploring the basis of consciousness, starting with the molecular biologist Francis Crick. Trained as a physicist, Christof was for 27 years a professor of biology and engineering at the California Institute of Technology. In 2011, he joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle as their Chief Scientist, becoming the President in 2015. He is now Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute and the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, with its focus on understanding consciousness, and how this knowledge can benefit humanity. His latest book is Then I am myself the world.
Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.