CELab PhD Seminars

An interdisciplinary online seminar series on self-consciousness and social interactions in humans and artificial agents.

Hosted by the Co-Embodied Self Lab (CELab) led by Dr. Anna Ciaunica.

TIME
Fridays 16:00 – 18:00 (Lisbon time)

ZOOM LINK:
https://tinyurl.com/celab-phd-seminars-zoom

The online seminar is open to everyone, usually takes place on Zoom and ocassionally takes place hybrid in the following venue:

VENUE
Amphitheatre of FCiências.ID & Online live streamed on Zoom
Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon
Building C1, Floor 3
Campo Grande, Lisbon

The Seminars are funded by:

2023 Event Poster:

Upcoming Events:

 

28 July 2023
“Information and dynamics: Resolving false dichotomies in 4EA cognitive science”
Maxwell Ramstead, VERSES AI/Spatial Web Foundation; University College London

Abstract
This talk will critically examine a foundational assumption of the 4EA literature—on the embodied, enactive, extended, embedded, and affective mind: namely, that dynamical systems theoretic and information theoretic accounts are mutually exclusive and incompatible. We argue that dynamical systems theoretic and information theoretic accounts are mutually implying. We argue that this foundational assumption of the 4EA literature is incorrect. We argue that this argument has no basis in mathematical fact—that it is, mathematically speaking, a nonstarter, and that it has to date been exclusively motivated by a priori ideologically commitments. We argue that it is currently holding the field back significantly from making progress, and propose an alternative framing via the free-energy principle

Bio
Maxwell J. D. Ramstead is the Director of Research at the VERSES Research Lab, where he and his team are developing a new, standardized approach to contextual computing, knowledge graphs, and graphical inference agents. Ramstead is also an Honorary Fellow at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, at University College London, in the United Kingdom, where he works with Professor Karl Friston within the Theoretical Neurobiology unit. Ramstead’s research focuses on the free-energy principle, Bayesian mechanics, multiscale formulations of active inference, and computational phenomenology.

summer break

15 September 2023
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Konstantina Kilteni, Donders Institute, Radboud University; Karolinska Institute, Stockholm

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22 September 2023 (exceptionally from 17:00 – 19:00)
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Michael Levin, Tufts University, Massachusetts; Wyss Instiute, Harward University

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29 September 2023
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Carolyn Jennings, University of California

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03 October 2023 (exceptionally on Monday)
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Earl K. Miller, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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06 October 2023
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Megan Peters, Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, University of California Irvine

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13 October 2023
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Marleine van der Werf, Filmmaker/Visual Artist; Dutch Film Academy

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20 October 2023
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Evan Thompson, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

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27 October 2023
“What is social interaction?”
Tobias Schlicht, Ruhr-University Bochum

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03  November 2023 (exceptionally from 13:00 – 15:00)
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Jan Aaru, University of Cape Town

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10 November 2023
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Mark Solms, University of Cape Town

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24 Nov 2023
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Michel Alhadeff-Jones, Sunkhronos Institute, Geneva; University of Fribourg

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15 December 2023:
“Using your breath to change your mind: The neuroscience of conscious breathing” (date was changed)
Martha Havenith, Ernst-Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, Frankfurt

Abstract

Psychoactive substances are one way to explore altered states of consciousness (ASCs) – but by far not the only one. Traditions across the globe have used physical challenges like fasting, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures or pain in order to evoke ASCs in ceremonial settings. One of the most widespread and accessible practices in this vein is voluntary hyperventilation, often referred to as breathwork. Unlike the more subtle effects of slow-breath practices, breathwork can trigger immediate and at times dramatic mental shifts. It may conjure up visual experiences, resurface memories, or trigger intense expressions of emotion. How can simply changing the rhythm of your breath so profoundly alter your conscious state? Neuroscience has only just begun to address this question, and in this talk I will discuss current insights into the physiological and neuronal mechanisms by which breathing – conscious and unconscious – can shape cognitive processing. We will focus on hyperventilation-based approaches such as Holotropic/Connective Breathwork and Tummo, and explore how an interplay between O2-CO2 balance, blood pH, cortical blood flow and neurotransmitter release may give rise to the extraordinary subjective experiences that can be evoked by breathwork.

Bio

Martha Havenith is a Max Planck research group leader at the Ernst-Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, where she uses virtual-reality tasks to explore the brain’s astonishing ability to juggle multiple ongoing cognitive processes in the same group of neurons. Her previous career milestones include an M.Sc. at Oxford University, a Ph.D. at the Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research (Frankfurt), and post-doctoral fellowships at University College London and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (Nijmegen). She is also a certified facilitator for Connective Breathwork. In that capacity, she regularly facilitates breathwork sessions for individuals and small groups, as well as offering facilitator training to medical professionals.

Past Events:

25 February 2022
“An Introduction to Anomalous Self-Experiences – From theory to Clinical Practice”
Luís Madeira, Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon (FMUL)

Abstract
The model of self-disorder offers a unifying conceptualization of schizophrenia that accounts for the wide range of seemingly heterogeneous symptoms found in this disorder. It also sheds new light on more subtle and early changes in this disorder by interpreting them as disturbed ipseity. These subjective changes have been collected and organized into the EASE semi-structured interview, which facilitates their systematic exploration in clinical (and non-clinical) populations. EASE studies have identified ASEs also schizotypic and schizotaxic traits, and in first-episode psychosis and its prodromal phases. The model has been substantiated by conceptual, clinical and neurobiological evidence. Changes in the lived world are distinctive of patients with schizophrenia in clinical and psychopathological descriptions, both classic and contemporary. Indeed, as with the ASEs, Anomalous World Experiences are described in numerous autobiographical accounts and patient reports. The full set of items in the EAWE explores how these and the subject’s overall existential orientation can be disturbed. These changes involving world experience (AWEs) are postulated to occur early in life and relevant for early diagnosis and intervention. This talk introduces the field of Anomalous Self and World Experiences drawing from seminal conceptual inputs and previous empirical research on the topic.

Bio
Luís Madeira, 35, develops his career in four synchronous strands. He is a Psychiatrist, graduated in Medicine from the University of Lisbon in 2008, working at North Lisbon Hospital Centre (CHLN) e CUF Infante Santo Hospital. He holds a Master of Philosophy from the University of Central Lancashire and a PhD in the field of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Assistant Professor of Ethics and Medical Deontology and Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon. He is also a Psychotherapist by the Portuguese Society of Client-Centered Psychotherapy and Person Centered Approach. He has presented more than a hundred national and international communications and has in his name 20 publications.

25 March 2022
“I think therefore you are”
Karl J. Friston, Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Institute of Neurology, University college London

Abstract
This overview of the free energy principle offers an account of embodied exchange with the world that associates neuronal operations with actively inferring the causes of our sensations. Its agenda is to link formal (mathematical) descriptions of dynamical systems to a description of perception in terms of beliefs and goals. The argument has two parts: the first calls on the lawful dynamics of any (weakly mixing) ergodic system – from a single cell organism to a human brain. These lawful dynamics suggest that (internal) states can be interpreted as modeling or predicting the (external) causes of sensory fluctuations. In other words, if a system exists, its internal states must encode probabilistic beliefs about external states.

Heuristically, this means that if I exist (am) then I must have beliefs (think). The second part of the argument is that the only tenable beliefs I can entertain about myself are that I exist. This may seem rather obvious; however, it transpires that this is equivalent to believing that the world – and the way it is sampled – will resolve uncertainty about the causes of sensations. We will consider the implications for functional anatomy, in terms of predictive coding and hierarchical architectures, and conclude by looking at the epistemic behaviour that emerges – using simulations of active inference and communication.

Bio
Karl Friston is a theoretical neuroscientist and authority on brain imaging. He invented statistical parametric mapping (SPM), voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and dynamic causal modelling (DCM). These contributions were motivated by schizophrenia research and theoretical studies of value-learning, formulated as the dysconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia. Mathematical contributions include variational Laplacian procedures and generalized filtering for hierarchical Bayesian model inversion. Friston currently works on models of functional integration in the human brain and the principles that underlie neuronal interactions. His main contribution to theoretical neurobiology is a free-energy principle for action and perception (active inference). Friston received the first Young Investigators Award in Human Brain Mapping (1996) and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999). In 2000 he was President of the international Organization of Human Brain Mapping. In 2003 he was awarded the Minerva Golden Brain Award and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2006. In 2008 he received a Medal, College de France and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of York in 2011. He became of Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2012, received the Weldon Memorial prize and Medal in 2013 for contributions to mathematical biology and was elected as a member of EMBO (excellence in the life sciences) in 2014 and the Academia Europaea in (2015). He was the 2016 recipient of the Charles Branch Award for unparalleled breakthroughs in Brain Research and the Glass Brain Award, a lifetime achievement award in the field of human brain mapping. He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Zurich and Radboud University.

22 April 2022
“Metacognition and cognitive agency on-screen”
Joëlle Proust, Institut Jean-Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris, CNRS Paris

Abstract
Metacognition is the set of abilities for controlling and monitoring one’s own cognitive actions, such as trying to learn or to solve a problem. Many cognitive actions are now integrated into computerized environments. A large body of evidence shows that metacognition is selectively impaired in processing information on-screen, leading to poorer learning or cognitive performance (unless appropriate correcting measures are applied).  This evidence will be presented and discussed for its implications regarding artificial quasi-agentive programs.

Bio
Joëlle Proust is an emeritus CNRS Director of Research at Institut Jean-Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris. For the last twenty years, her research concentrated on metacognition: an ESF-EUROCORE project (2006-9) was devoted to the evolution of metacognition (Beran, Brand, Perner & Proust, The Foundations of Metacognition, 2012; Proust, The Philosophy of Metacognition: mental agency and self-awareness, 2013). An ERC project  (2011-2016), explored cultural diversity in children’s and adults’ metacognitive practices (Metacognitive Diversity, 2018). From 2018 onward, as a member of the French Scientific Council of National Education, she has conducted pedagogical research based on metacognition.

27 May 2022
Pascal Ludwig, Université de Sorbonne, Paris, France

8 July 2022
Guillaume Dumas, University of Montreal, Canada

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17 February 2023
“Psychedelics in psychiatry: drugs, psychotherapy or humbug?”
Eduardo Schenberg, Instituto Phaneros (Brasil) / UCL (UK))

Abstract
With psychedelic drugs (in a broad definition of the term) advancing to pharmaceutical-sponsored Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials, the mental health community is increasingly debating what these new treatments are all about. How efficacious, and risky, can they be? And there is strong disagreement, ranging from panacea-like discourses to medical humbug alarms. In this talk, Brazilian neuroscientist Eduardo Schenberg, who researches these drugs for more than a decade, will present a panoramic map of the sector and inquire about important methodological, normative and regulatory tensions. And the main question to collectively discuss will be: can the philosophy of science come to rescue an increasingly fractured field?

Bio
Eduardo is a Brazilian neuroscientist, with a degree in biomedicine, a masters in psychopharmacology and a doctorate in neurosciences. He is Director of Instituto Phaneros, a non-profit organization in Brazil, and honorary researcher at University College London. Eduardo led studies on the effects of Ayahuasca using EEG and participated in the first neuroimaging study of the brain on LSD as honorary researcher at Imperial College London. In 2018 he published an article in Frontiers in Pharmacology about the Psychedelic Paradigm, which currently has over 110,000 views, sitting at the top 1% most downloaded and 6% most cited articles of the entire Frontiers scientific journals. Between 2015 and 2019, Eduardo carried out Brazil’s first clinical trial of MDMA to address PTSD, whose encouraging results were published by the Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry. In 2011 he founded Phaneros Institute, which in February of 2022 launched the first facilitators’ training in MDMA and psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy research in Latin America, now with over 100 enrolled students. Eduardo is co-founder of the Journal of Psychedelic Studies, the International Society for Research on Psychedelics (ISPR), an honorary researcher at UCL and advisor to Ocama Partners and the Global Initiative for Psychedelic Science Economics (GIPSE).

17 March 2023
“Infant Intentions and the Origin of Shared Meaning”
Jonathan Delafield-Butt, University of Strathclyde

Abstract
This talk examines the early embodied nature of psychological development in infancy, and the role of the neuromotor system as an active generator of conscious experience made in affective engagement with caring and sensitive social others.  The significance of this early embodied agency sheds light on how meaning is co-created between individuals in reciprocal expressive actions that share common rhythm to yield a ‘narrative’ organisation.  This narrative structure, evident in social interaction from birth, is ubiquitous in the human time-based arts of poetry, music, drama, and literature.  It structures human intelligence,  underneath and before verbal language.  In autism, new evidence reveals a subtle, but significant disruption to this embodied motor agency in children, from early infancy onwards.  It can thwart efficient engagement and lead to autistic symptomatology of emotional dysregulation and social withdrawal.  New serious games digital technologies coupled with artificial intelligence can detect these subtle ‘autism motor signatures’ before conventional clinical instruments allow, providing new routes to its early identification, and new understanding of affective engagement for sensitive care, and improved lifelong success. 

Bio
Jonathan Delafield-Butt is Professor of Child Neurodevelopment and Autism.  His work examines the origins of conscious experience and the embodied and emotional foundations of psychological development, with attention to the subtle but significant motor disruption evident in autism spectrum disorder.  He took his Ph.D. in Developmental Neurobiology at the University of Edinburgh Medical School before extending to Developmental Psychology advancing intersubjectivity theory in postdoctoral work at the Universities of Edinburgh and Copenhagen.  He held scholarships at Harvard University and the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Edinburgh for science-philosophy bridgework in the nature of brain-mind relationship.  Delafield-Butt trained pre-clinically in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the Scottish Institute for Human Relations.  He is a member of the World Association for Infant Mental Health, the International Society for Autism Research, and the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre at Gothenburg.

28 April 2023
“The Principle of Dynamic Holism: guiding methodology for investigating cognition in non-neuronal organisms”
Matt Sims, Ruhr-University Bochum

Abstract
The research programme of basal cognition is a bottom-up approach to cognition which aims to investigate basal cognitive capacities and mechanisms in non-neuronal organisms. Being that basal cognition is committed to producing testable hypotheses that are subject to empirical investigation, this programme faces a formidable methodological challenge: when designing experiments, how can investigators avoid using zoo-centric assumptions that are insensitive to or even misrepresent how some non-neuronal model organism of interest makes its living within its econiche? The aim of this talk is to meet this challenge head-on by articulating and arguing for what I call the Principle of Dynamic Holism (PDH), a methodological principle for guiding research on non-neuronal cognition. In this talk I will spell out PDH and describe how it may be seen in relation to various holistic research programmes in human-focused cognitive science and psychology. The value of PDH will then be exemplified by comparing two different experiments on Physarum polycephalum and their use of extracellular slime to navigate their surrounds. The second of these experiments, I will argue implicitly deploys something like PDH and as a result, is able to uncover an otherwise difficult to recognise nuanced process of decision making that taking place. By providing an ecologically based methodology guiding principle that is aimed at improving hypothesis construction, experimental design, operationalisation, and behavioural (data) interpretation for studies of non-neuronal cognition, this talk contributes to the budding research programme of basal cognition.

Bio
Matt Sims received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh. His thesis focused on identifying common principles and mechanisms underlying both living processes and cognitive processes. During a part of his PhD, Matt was a research assistant in the lab of Giovanni Pezzulo at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (Rome) where he was trained in designing behavioural experiments. Since then, he has been designing and running a series of experiments using acellular slime mould (P. polycephalum) to investigate behavioural decision-making in collaboration with Michael Levin (Tufts University). From 2021 to 2023 Matt was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral fellow at Ruhr University Bochum, where he is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Philosophy II. His interdisciplinary research is located at the intersection of philosophy of biology and philosophy of cognitive science, focusing most recently on methodological issues surrounding holistic explanations in biology and cognitive science, the evolution of collective decision making, and anticipatory behaviour in both neuronal and non-neuronal organisms.

26 May 2023
“Digitial spaces of loneliness and intimacy”
Lucy Osler, Cardiff University

Abstract
The internet seems like an inherently social place – offering numerous platforms for chatting and sharing with, commenting on, and watching and listening to others. Yet, the internet has a bad rep when it comes to sociality. Sherry Turkle (2017) draws attention to the swaths of individuals who feel that their large digital social networks leave them feeling disconnected and alone. In a similar vein, Laura Candiotto (2022) claims that hyperconnectivity drives loneliness. In this presentation, I consider how the specific design of particular digital platforms (e.g., Twitter, WhatsApp, and Massively Multiplayer Online games) create spaces that promote loneliness and intimacy.

Bio
Lucy Osler is a philosophy Lecturer at Cardiff University. She specialises in phenomenology, 4E approaches to cognition and affectivity, and phenomenological psychopathology. Her current research is focused on investigating the structures of digital spaces and exploring how they impact our social relations and experiences.

16 June 2023
Neurophenomenology of Selfhood in the continuum of states
Andrew Fingelkurts, Brain and Mind Technologies Research Centre, Espoo, Finland

Abstract
I will introduce a neurophysiological three-dimensional construct model of the complex experiential Selfhood, which is based on the EEG operational synchrony analysis. This triad model of Selfhood has been put forward to account for the phenomenological distinctions between three major aspects of Selfhood, namely (i) first-person phenomenal agency, (ii) embodiment & related emotional states, and (iii) reflection/narration, all of which are commensurate with one another and thus reflect the multi-faceted nature of self-awareness. Together these three aspects form a unified sense of self. Further, I will present a summary of the empirical findings that illustrate the dynamics of such Selfhood triad during various normal, altered and pathological states or conditions.

Bio
Dr. Andrew A. Fingelkurts and his identical twin brother Dr. Alexander A. Fingelkurts have careers of more than 30 years in academic neuroscience, psychophysiology and clinical research, with a considerable number of publications in scientific journals, book chapters and conference proceedings, as well as a lecturing practice in the areas of neuroscience and applied psychophysiology.

Their areas of expertise include neuroinformatics, quantitative EEG diagnostics, advanced methods of EEG/MEG analysis, cognition, consciousness, Self-awareness and meditation.Based on their studies they have established an empirical basis for and proposed a general theory of brain-mind Operational Architectonics (OA), according to which the simplest mental/cognitive operations (responsible for qualia or simple computations) are presented in the brain in the form of local 3D fields produced by local transient functional neuronal assemblies, while complex operations (responsible for complex objects, images or thoughts) are brought into existence by joint simple operations (temporal coupling of local 3D fields by means of operational synchrony) in the form of so-called operational modules (OM) of varied complexity. Therefore, brain OA is presented as a highly structured and dynamic extracellular electric field nested in spatial and temporal domains and over a range of frequencies, thus forming a particular operational space–time (OST) that is isomorphic to a phenomenal (subjective) space-time (PST).

They recently have developed the neurophysiological three-dimensional construct model of the complex experiential Selfhood within the OA framework. This triad model of Selfhood captures the phenomenological distinctions between three central aspects of Selfhood that are commensurate with one another: (i) phenomenal first-person agency (referred to as ‘Self’), (ii) embodiment (referred to as ‘Me’), and (iii) reflection/narration (referred to as ‘I’). The interaction of these three phenomenological elements produces a holistic sense of Selfhood.

30 June 2023
“Embodied time in ordinary and altered states of consciousness: How the body informs us about the passage of time.”
Marc Wittmann, Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Freiburg, German

Abstract
Empirical findings suggest that physiological changes of the body, the basis of our feeling states, form an internal signal to encode the duration of external events and the feeling of time passage in the range of seconds. On a basic level the bodily self is the functional anchor of phenomenal experience – and of subjective time. Neuroimaging studies have shown that neural activity in the insular cortex is related to the processing of temporal intervals in the multiple-seconds range. The entanglement of self-reflective consciousness, emotion and body awareness with the experience of time is prominently disclosed in altered states of consciousness such as in experiences of flow and of boredom, in meditative states, in floatation-REST, under the influence of psychedelics, as well as in many psychiatric and neurological conditions. In such altered states of consciousness peak experiences can occur which later are described as culminating in the oceanic feeling of ‘selflessness’ and ‘timelessness’. This body of work on the intricate relationship between the self and time will be discussed for an understanding of everyday time experience as well as of altered states of consciousness.

Bio
Marc Wittmann studied Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and the University of Munich, Germany. He received his Ph.D.  and his habilitation at the Institute of Medical Psychology, Medical School, University of Munich. Between he was Research Fellow at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego. He is currently employed at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Freiburg, Germany. He is author of the books Felt Time (2016) and Altered States of Consciousness (2018), both published by MIT Press.