Consciousness in humans and other things

Professor Anil Seth, Centre for Consciousness Studies, Sussex University

When: Tuesday 4 March, 5pm-7pm 2025
Where: Online
Cost: Free for CEP members, associates, affiliates and esubscribers but registration required. Concessions (students, EDI, retired, low income) £5; BPS members £10; Non-members £15
Bursaries: In addition there are 10 free places open to students, EDI and low-income delegates – apply now
Registration: Via the BPS event webpage
Organiser: BPS Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Network (CEP)

Consciousness research is progressing apace. Professor Anil Seth’s webinar will illustrate how the framework of predictive processing can help bridge from mechanism to phenomenology – addressing not the ‘hard problem’ but the ‘real problem’ of consciousness. He will explore how conscious experiences of the world around us, and of being a self within that world, can be understood in terms of perceptual predictions – ‘controlled hallucinations’ that are deeply rooted in a fundamental biological imperative for physiological regulation. He will also explore the implications of this view for the prospects of conscious machines, and describe results from The Perception Census – an ambitious large-scale study of perceptual diversity.

There will be time for questions and Professor Seth is well-placed to respond to psychological, neuroscientific and philosophical points.

This is a two hour online webinar. The event link will be emailed to those who register shortly before the event, normally the day before. We expect to email a recording of the event to those that register. After the event you may receive a short email asking for your feedback.

This event is suitable for academics, researchers, students, practitioners and others interested in a presentation by an eminent researcher on current thinking and research on consciousness. All welcome.

Presenter

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and Director of the Centre for Consciousness Studies at the University of Sussex. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Brain, Mind and Consciousness and Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness. He has published more than 200 research papers, is a Highly Cited Researcher (2019-2023). His TED talk has been viewed over 14 million times. His 2021 book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness was a Sunday Times Best seller, and Economist, Guardian and Financial Times Book of the Year. www.anilseth.com