Centre for Consciousness

There's now a website for the new ANU Centre for Consciousness.  The Centre is located in the RSSS Philosophy Program at ANU.  I'm director, and various other ANU faculty and post-docs are involved.  The Centre (see its mission statement) focuses especially on the nature of consciousness, the nature of intentionality, and the connection between the two.  But the idea is that it will take a broad approach, bringing in all sorts of work from elsewhere in philosophy and cognitive science where it's relevant.

The Centre is a sort of sibling of the Arizona Center for Consciousness Studies, except (i) spelling, (ii) the ANU Centre will be somewhat more philosophy-centric than the Arizona Center (mostly because there aren't as many relevant people in psychology and neuroscience at ANU), and (iii) it won't be organizing regular huge conferences along the lines of the biennial "Toward a Science of Consciousness" conference in Tucson, though there are rumours of some sort of big event to be held in Sydney or Canberra in mid-2007.

The Centre will be holding regular small conferences and workshops, as well as talks (mostly held as part of the regular RSSS Philosophy talk series), and will host regular visitors.  The first small conference (an inaugural conference on The Contents of Consciousness) was held in October, and two more are coming up: Concepts and Conceptual Analysis on January 20-21, 2005, and Perception and the External World on (probably) February 24, 2005.

Thanks to Karen Downing, the Centre's administrator and webmaster, for the excellent website design.  Aficionados will notice the homage to the Coombs building in the lower left corner of the main page.

Comments

[Lucia Salvato]

Don't you think that Intentionality is tied up to Consciousness? Can exist Intentionality without a conscious mental state? I think it is
counterproductive for Science circumscribe, divide issues: it has worked
with external objects of scientific study but it seems to does not work with mental-cerebral issues.
Consciousness, Mind, Intentionality, Will,etc.. are all faces of the same medal and Perceptions, Language, Emotions, Movement,Learning are different cerebral abilities all directed,regulated by properties,laws of Consciousness.
If Science want to move forward productively and coherently in the Universe of Mind,it has to change itself by its same instruments...
I firmly think that Science needs a theoretical support in the approach of these issues. For me Philosophy can help Science, with Semplicity and power of Reason, and if philosophers will not support Science, because of its firm will to keep the predomination on these arguments, then future of Philosophy surely will feel the effects of this!