Consciousness, Information and the Mind: Can the "Hard Problem" Be Solved?

About this event

For this Wednesday's Sydney Open Forum, we will explore a challenging and controversial paper that re-examines consciousness through the lenses of analytic philosophy, neuroscience, and information processing. David Killingly argues that many of the enduring debates in the Philosophy of Mind stem from a failure to define and analyse its central concept: consciousness. Rather than treating consciousness as an irreducible mystery or a fundamental property of the universe, the author proposes an Input-Processing-Output (IPO) model of the mind, inspired by both cognitive science and information technology. Within this framework, consciousness is understood as the degree of integration between the mind's information-processing systems. Topics for discussion will include: • What is consciousness, and how should it be defined? • Is consciousness fundamentally about awareness, subjective experience, information processing, or something else? • Does the "hard problem" of consciousness represent a genuine scientific and philosophical challenge, or is it based on conceptual confusion? • Can subjective experience be explained in terms of neural information processing? • What role do emotions, feelings and the affective system play in conscious awareness? • Are current theories such as Integrated Information Theory, dualism, panpsychism and biological naturalism helping or hindering our understanding? • Can artificial intelligence ever be conscious, or does consciousness require an affective system that only biological organisms possess? Killingly presents a strongly argued alternative to mainstream approaches in consciousness studies and will provide ample opportunity for critical discussion. Participants are encouraged to engage constructively with both the strengths and weaknesses of the author's arguments, regardless of their philosophical perspective. Whether you are interested in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, or the nature of human experience itself, this session promises a lively examination of one of humanity's oldest and most fascinating questions: What is consciousness, and how is it related to information?