Past Events
Infant Consciousness Conference – Friday February 28 and Saturday March 1, 2025
June 2023: Conference, ASSC 26
The Center organized the 26th meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, June 22-25 2023.
More details and reports available at: https://theassc.org/assc-26/ and https://twitter.com/ASSC26nyc
Video recordings of four of the keynote talks and five of the symposia can be watched at the following links:
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- Thomas Nagel, “Psychophysical Monism as an Ideal”
- Yoshua Bengio, “Source of Richness and Ineffability for Phenomenally Conscious States”
- Joseph LeDoux, “Our Four Realms of Existence: A Fresh Look at the Science of What and Who We Are”
- Elisabeth Parés Pujolràs, “The Neural Bases of Motor Awareness”
- “Animal Consciousness Beyond Mammals”, featuring Jonathan Birch, Andrew Crump, Matilda Gibbons, Peter Godfrey-Smith, and L. Syd M. Johnson
- “The Interplay Between Consciousness and Learning: Empirical, Methodological, and Theoretical Advances”, featuring Lina Skora, Răzvan Jurchiș, Gaetan Mertens, and Eva Jablonka
- “Broad-Spectrum Introspection: Metacognition and Self-Awareness Across Diverse Domains”, featuring Jorge Morales, Elisa Filevich, Tony Cheng, and Sarah Garfinkel
- “Mathematical Spaces for Conscious Experiences”, featuring Johannes Kleiner, Andrew Lee, Catherine Tallon-Baudry, and David Rosenthal
- “Affective Impact on Perception”, featuring Frédérique de Vignemont, Marisa Carrasco, Judith Domínguez-Borràs, and Hilla Jacobson
March 24, 2023: Debate, Do language models need sensory grounding for meaning and understanding?
March 25-26, 2023: Conference, The Philosophy of Deep Learning
The Center is co-sponsoring a debate on large language models, followed by a two-day conference on the philosophy of deep learning.
All talks in this event can be watched online at YouTube here:
Speakers will include:
Yann LeCun (New York University / Meta AI), Brenden Lake (New York University), Jacob Browning (New York University), David Chalmers (New York University), Ellie Pavlick (Brown University / Google AI), Gary Lupyan (University of Wisconsin–Madison), Nuhu Osman Attah (University of Pittsburgh), Cameron Buckner (University of Houston), Patrick Butlin (University of Oxford), Rosa Cao (Stanford University), Tony Chen (MIT), Ishita Dasgupta (DeepMind), Jacqueline Harding (Stanford University), Anna Ivanova (MIT), Nikolaus Kriegeskorte (Columbia University), Brenden Lake (New York University / Meta AI), Grace Lindsay (New York University), Tal Linzen (New York University / Google AI), Robert Long (Center for AI Safety), Fintan Mallory (University of Oslo), Raphaël Millière (Columbia University), Ida Momennejad (Microsoft Research), Nicholas Shea (Institute of Philosophy, University of London), Anders Søgaard (University of Copenhagen), Philippe Verreault-Julien (Eindhoven University of Technology), Atoosa Kasirzadeh (University of Edinburgh), Wai Keen Vong (New York University), Sreejan Kumar (Princeton University), Will Merrill (New York University), Julia Minarik (University of Toronto), Jared Moore (University of Washington), Emin Orhan (New York University), Stephan Pohl (New York University), Hokyung Sung (MIT), Justin Tiehen (Puget Sound)
December 5th 2022: Talk, Investigating Nonhuman Consciousness
Organized by the Mind, Ethics, and Policy program, and co-sponsored by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness, the Animal Studies Department, and the Center for Bioethics.
12.00pm-1.30pm
Online event
Speakers: Jonathan Birch and Susan Schneider
More details here.
Watch the recording online here.
October 13th 2022: Talk, Are Large Language Models Sentient?
Organized by the Mind, Ethics, and Policy program, and co-sponsored by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness, the Minds, Brains, and Machines initiative, and the Center for Bioethics.
5.00pm-6.30pm
Hybrid event: in-person venue Jurow Hall, Silver Center, 31 Washington Place
Speaker: David Chalmers
More details here.
Watch the recording online here.
May 9th, 2022: Debate, “Is Memory Continuous with Imagination?” 
In-Person Location: Jurow Hall, Silver Center, 31 Washington Place
Speakers:
Felipe De Brigard (Duke)
Rob Hopkins (NYU)
Sarah Robins (Kansas)
Shayna Rosenbaum (York)
Art Credit: Katlyn Beattie @vinegarpeach
Watch the recording online here.
October 24th, 2019: Debate, “Is Activity in Prefrontal Cortex Important for Con
scious Perception?”
Deutsches Haus
42 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003
Speakers:
Biyu Jade He (NYU Medical Centre)
Hakwan Lau (UCLA)
Victor Lamme (University of Amsterdam)
Johannes Fahrenfort (University of Amsterdam)
May 3, 2019: Debate, “Is Psychoanalysis Relevant to Neuroscience?”
Cantor Film Center
36 E 8th St. New York, NY 10003
Speakers:
Cristina Alberini (NYU, Neural Science)
Heather Berlin (Mt. Sinai, Psychiatry)
Mark Solms (Cape Town, Neuropsychology)
Robert Stickgold (Harvard, Psychiatry)
Jurow Lecture Hall
Silver Center
31 Washington Place
Joseph LeDoux (Center for Neural Science, NYU)
Yaïr Pinto (Psychology, University of Amsterdam)
Elizabeth Schechter (Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis)
May 8, 2018: Debate, “Does Hierarchical Predictive Coding Explain Perception?”Cantor Film Center
Room 101
Andy Clark (Philosophy, University of Edinburgh)
David Heeger (Center for Neural Science, NYU)
Lucia Melloni (Neurology, Max Planck Institute / NYU)
Michael Rescorla (Philosophy, UCLA)
November 17-18, 2017: Conference, “Animal Consciousness”
Co-sponsored with the NYU Center for Bioethics and NYU Animal Studies
Cantor Film Center (36 E 8th St)
Speakers and panelists include:
Colin Allen (University of Pittsburgh, History & Philosophy of Science), Andrew Barron (Macquarie, Cognitive Neuroethology), Victoria Braithwaite (Penn State, Biology), Peter Carruthers (Maryland, Philosophy), Marian Dawkins (Oxford, Zoology), Daniel Dennett (Tufts, Philosophy), Stuart Derbyshire (National University of Singapore, Neuroscience), David Edelman (San Diego, Neuroscience), Todd Feinberg (Mt. Sinai, Neurology), Peter Godfrey-Smith (Sydney, Philosophy), Lori Gruen (Wesleyan, Philosophy), Brian Hare (Duke, Evolutionary Anthropology), Stevan Harnad (Montreal, Cognitive Science), Alexandra Horowitz (Barnard, Psychology), Eva Jablonka (Tel Aviv, Cohn Institute), Joseph LeDoux (NYU, Center for Neural Science), Björn Merker (Neuroscience), Diana Reiss (Hunter, Psychology), Peter Singer (Princeton, Philosophy), Michael Tye (Texas, Philosophy)
October 5, 2017: Debate, “Does AI Need More Innate Machinery?“
Tishman Auditorium
NYU School of Law
40 Washington Square South
Speakers:
Yann LeCun (Data Science, NYU; Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research)
Gary Marcus (Psychology, NYU; Founder, Geometric Intelligence)
April 17, 2016: Debate, “Is There Unconscious Perception?”
Silver Center (31 Washington Place), Jurow Hall.
Link to Video Recording of the Event.
Ned Block (NYU)
Marisa Carrasco (NYU)
Hakwan Lau (UCLA)
Megan Peters (UCLA)
Ian Phillips (Oxford)
October 14-15, 2016: Conference, “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”
Co-sponsored with the NYU Center for Bioethics
Speakers and panelists:
Peter Asaro (The New School, Media Studies), John Basl (Northeastern University, Philosophy), Nick Bostrom (University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute), Meia Chita-Tegmark (Future of Life Institute), Kate Devlin (Goldsmiths College, University of London, Computer Science), Vasant Dhar (NYU Data Science, Stern), Virginia Dignum (Delft University of Technology, Technology, Policy and Management), Mara Garza (UC Riverside, Philosophy), Daniel Kahneman (Princeton, Psychology), Adam Kolber (Brooklyn Law), Yann LeCun (Facebook, NYU Data Science), S. Matthew Liao (NYU, Bioethics), Gary Marcus (NYU, Psychology), Steve Petersen (Niagara University, Philosophy), Francesca Rossi (IBM, University of Padova), Stuart Russell (UC Berkeley, Computer Science), Ronald Sandler (Northeastern University, Philosophy), Jürgen Schmidhuber (IDSIA, AI), Susan Schneider (University of Connecticut, Philosophy), Eric Schwitzgebel (UC Riverside, Philosophy), Jaan Tallinn (CSER), Max Tegmark (Future of Life Institute), Wendell Wallach(Yale, Bioethics), Stephen Wolfram (Wolfram Research), and Eliezer Yudkowsky (Machine Intelligence Research Institute).
September 29, 2016: Debate, “Do Replication Projects Cast Doubt On Many Published Studies in Psychology?”
Brian Nosek (University of Virginia),
Jason Mitchell (Harvard University)
Thursday, September 29, 2016 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
Room 802, Kimmel Center, NYU
Susan Carey (Harvard) and Jesse Prinz (CUNY)
Jurow Hall, NYU Silver Center
Gabrielle Starr (NYU) and Alva Noë (UC Berkeley)
Casa Italiana, 24 W 12th St
Hilary Barth (Wesleyan), Jeffrey Bowers (Bristol), David Danks (Carnegie Mellon), Ernest Davis (NYU), Karl Friston (University College London), Wei Ji Ma (NYU), Larry Maloney (NYU), Eric Mandelbaum (CUNY), Gary Marcus (NYU), John Morrison (Barnard/Columbia), Nicoletta Orlandi (UC Santa Cruz), Michael Rescorla (UC Santa Barbara), Laura Schulz (MIT), Susanna Siegel (Harvard), Eero Simoncelli (NYU), Joshua Tenenbaum (MIT) and others
Kimmel Center and Hemmerdinger Hall, NYU
Vittorio Gallese (Universita di Parma) and Gregory Hickok (UC Irvine)
Kimmel Center Room 914
Joshua Greene (Harvard, Psychology) and Elizabeth Harman (Princeton, Philosophy)
5 Washington Place, Room 101, NYU
Gary Lupyan (Wisconsin) and Brian Scholl (Yale)
5 Washington Place, Room 202, NYU
Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for Bioethics
Tim Bayne (The University of Manchester), Heather Berlin (Mount Sinai Hospital), Melanie Boly (University of Wisconsin), Joseph Fins (Weill Cornell Medical College), L. Syd Johnson (Michigan Technological University), Steven Laureys (Belgian National Fund of Scientific Research), Marcello Massimini (University of Milan), Lionel Naccache (Hôpital de la Pitié-Salpêtrière), Adrian Owen (Western University), Alexander Proeket (Weill Cornell Medical College), Harry Scheinin, (University of Turku), Nicholas Schiff (Weill Cornell Medical College).
King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center,
53 Washington Square South, 1st Floor Auditorium, NYU
Co-sponsored by the NYU Center for Bioethics
Cori Bargmann (Rockefeller University), Patricia Churchland (UC San Diego), Nita Farahany (Duke University), Sean Hill (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne), Gary Marcus (NYU), Anthony Movshon (NYU), Anders Sandberg (Oxford University), Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Duke University), Felipe De Brigard (Duke University), Rafael Yuste (Columbia University), Anthony Zador (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories)
Hemmerdinger Hall, Silver Center, 100 Washington Square East, NYU
Susanna Siegel (Philosophy, Harvard), Sally Linkenauger (Psychology, Max-Planck-Institut for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen), Alvin Goldman (Philosophy, Rutgers), David Bennett (Philosophy, Brown), Chaz Firestone (Psychology, Yale), Brian Scholl (Psychology, Yale), James Brockmole (Psychology, Notre Dame), Emily Balcetis (Psycholgy, NYU), Frank Durgin, (Psychology, Swarthmore), Eric Mandelbaum (Philosophy, Harvard)
5 Washington Place, Room 101, NYU
Alison Gopnik (Berkeley)
5 Washington Place, Room 202
Giulio Tononi (Wisconsin)
12 Waverly Place, Room G08