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Mind, Matter and Meaning: A Jubileum

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October 2, 2025 @ 4:00 pm – October 6, 2025 @ 5:00 pm CEST

Mind, Matter and Meaning: A Jubileum

October 2-6, 2025
Pari, Italy

Event Schedule

Thursday, October 2

16:00-16:30 Welcome/Introductions

16:30-19:00 Symposium 1

  • 16:30 Oliver Sharpe: “Portfolism – Reasoning well given the logical limits of rationality”
  • 17:30 Berkan Eskikaya: “Before it’s gone: Fragility as a Precondition for Consciousness, Meaning, and Value”
  • 18:30 General discussion: Reason and Living well

Friday, October 3

09:30-13:00  Symposium 2

  • 09:30 Paavo Pylkkänen: “Bohm’s pilot wave theory and its philosophical implications”
  • 10:30 General discussion: Science and philosophy
  • 11:00 coffee
  • 11:30 Uziel Awret: “Consciousness and the AdS/CFT Duality”
  • 12:30 General discussion: Physics and consciousness

15:00-18:00     Symposium 3

  • 15:00 Vinod Goel: “Biological Constraints on the Rational Mind”
  • 16:00 coffee
  • 16:30 Ron Chrisley: “Creativity as Non-Conceptual Conceptual Change”
  • 17:30 General discussion: Beyond the Rational/Conceptual Mind

Saturday, October 4

09:30-13:00     Symposium 4

  • 09:30 John Polito: “How to perceive BS with AI (It’s not what you’re thinking, it’s what your hearing)”
  • 10:30 Avery Wang: TBA
  • 11:30 coffee
  • 12:00 Barney Pell: TBA

Sunday, October 5

09:30-13:00     Symposium 5

  • 09:30 Yair Pinto: “Conscious comprehension enables non-algorithmic capabilities.”
  • 10:30 Mark Kennedy: TBA
  • 11:30 coffee
  • 12:00 Ron Chrisley: “Adventures in Self-Reference 1: Epistemic Blindspots”

15:00-18:00     Symposium 6

  • 15:00 Ewan Paton: “Must Judges Be Human?”
  • 16:00 coffee
  • 16:30 Brian Keeley: “The weird epistemology of conspiracy theories.”
  • 17:30 General discussion: Reckoning & Judgement

Monday, October 6

09:30-13:00     Symposium 7

  • 09:30 Ron Chrisley: “Adventures in Self-Reference 2: The Situatedness of Computation and Inference”
  • 10:30 TBA (possibly Vinod Goel?)
  • 11:30 coffee
  • 12:00 General discussion: Moving Forward
  • 12:30 Closing

Participants

Uziel Awret

Presentation:

“Consciousness and the AdS/CFT Duality”

In my talk I will try and convince you that were the neural correlates of consciousness shown to be massively entangled then consciousness might be an exotic phase of matter that is constituted similarly to space. Physicists like Juan Maldacena believe that in the not so far future we will be able to use quantum computers to generate AdS spaces with a couple of thousands of properly entangled qubits. These spaces, which are a solution of Einstein’s gravitational equation, are more classical in nature and possess many philosophically relevant properties.

I will begin the talk with methodological issues relevant to any theory of consciousness that appeals to novel physical mechanisms and proceed to motivate my argument. Next I will say a few words on massively entangled systems that harbor interspersed local measuring devices and the new Frontier of quantum complexity. While the physical scenario that I will be entertaining may have little to do with reality (after all it assumes large scale entanglement in the warm brain and embraces a radical interpretation of the holographic duality) it is worth considering because of the many philosophical advantages that it provides, if time permits, I will list more than twenty such philosophical advantages.

Ron Chrisley

Presentations:

I will give some or all of the following talks:

  • “Creativity as Non-Conceptual Conceptual Change”
    • Much of our mental life is non-conceptual (roughly, composed of meanings not capturable in words). This poses a challenge for our sciences and technologies of the mind, but also promises several opportunities. The challenge is how to talk and theorize about these otherwise ineffable non-conceptual contents. The opportunities derive from the role that non-conceptuality plays in our mental lives: grounding perception, action on the one hand, and providing the medium for radical learning and creativity on the other. How can the proper recognition and understanding of the role of the non-conceptual inform the design of better AI systems?
    • (This talk of mine from almost 20 years ago introduces some of the key ideas: https://e-asterisk.blogspot.com/2007/08/interactive-empiricism-philosopher-in_06.html )
  • “Adventures in Self-Reference 1: Epistemic Blindspots”
    • “It’s raining, but George doesn’t know it” is an example of an epistemic blindspot for George: it can be true, it can be known (e.g. by Ron), but it is logically impossible for George to know it. Each knower has an unbounded number epistemic blindspots. I show:
      • (Following Sorensen) how conditional epistemic blindspots can be used to resolve paradoxes (e.g., the paradox of the surprise examination);
      • How epistemic blindspots can be used to defeat a famous argument against physicalism, Jackson’s Knowledge Argument;
      • That physical knowledge can be logically private and ineffable knowledge;
      • That the mere possibility of epistemic blindspots implies that for any knowledge-based system (natural or artificial) to track the truth it must not only check for logical consistency (as is well known), but must also check for what I call epistemic consistency.
    • (This talk of mine from almost 20 years ago introduces some of the key ideas: https://e-asterisk.blogspot.com/2006/07/epistemic-blindspot-sets-resolution-of.html)
  • “Adventures in Self-Reference 2: The Situatedness of Computation and Inference”
    • Computation and inference are both situated in the sense that they occur in a particular context; specifically, there is a particular system carrying out the computation, and a particular subject engaging in the inference at a particular time.  The upshot of this is that general accounts of what is and what is not computable, or what inferences are or are not valid, must, contrary to orthodoxy, pay attention to these contextual details. I demonstrate this by showing:
      • One cannot capture inferential validity purely syntactically: the argument “P; P->Q; Therefore Q” is not, despite conventional wisdom, always valid; to capture validity requires reference to situational aspects, not just syntactic form.
      • The non-computability of the (non-)Halting Problem by a system is itself dependent on the identity (classification) of that system. One result of this is that the diagonal argument against AI fails.
    • (This talk of mine from last year introduces some of the key ideas concerning the second point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSBpUOG7UH8)

Berkan Eskikaya

Presentation:

“Before it’s gone: Fragility as a Precondition for Consciousness, Meaning, and Value”

This talk is a speculative exploration of how fragility and vulnerability are not only essential features of living systems, but also serve as a lens through which we can shape our understanding of consciousness, meaning, and value. Edge cases such as mind–body conditions and ephemeral art are used to probe and stress these ideas — for instance, do they point to ways fragility can be turned into appreciation or resilience? The aim is to invite dialogue on how fragility, as a unifying principle, may connect across domains relevant to consciousness, AI, and creativity.

Vinod Goel

Presentation:

“Biological Constraints on the Rational Mind (Discussed in Context of “Us and Them” Phenomenon)”

We are widely considered to be the rational animal.  This entails that our volitional behavior is a function of our beliefs, desires, and a principle of coherence which guides our pursuit of the latter in the context of the former.  Where human behavior seems less than rational one can appeal to irrationality in the form of various “heuristic” responses.

At least two important assumptions underly the model of rationality: (1) Beliefs (and cognitive desires founded on false suppositions) are considered to be malleable/corrigible allowing for unlimited learning and enormous flexibility in behavior at any tme.  (2) The model is self-contained and insulated from lower-level biological systems (for e.g beliefs and desires presumably cannot mingle with low blood sugar level).  I want to suggest that both of these assumptions are flawed.  They ignore basic biological constraints.  In the case of the first assumption, while neural development does allow for local belief revision at any time,  revision of large-scale worldviews are rare/impossible after certain neural maturation windows have closed.  In the case of the second, if we are to accept the theory of evolution and the past 100 years of neurobiology research we must acknowledge that our system of rationality is built on top of and modulated by evolutionarily older systems such as the autonomic system, reinforcement learning systems, and instincts.  There is no Libertarian CEO in charge.  The control structure is based on hedonic principles.  This leads to a notion of arational (rather than irrational) behavior.  Accepting these constraints leads to a model of mind tethered to and constrained by  various biological systems and processes and gives us a larger repertoire of tools for explaining teenage daughters, MAGA, Brixet, Ukraine and Gaza.  I will discuss these ideas in the context of the “us and them” phenomenon.

Suggested reading:

  • Both assumptions are discussed in the this manuscript entitled “Us And Them: Insights From Evolution, Neurodevelopment, And The Tethered Mind” which is currently in review.  (My apologies for the length of the ms but the reviewers keep asking for more details…. but over half of it is bibliography.)
  • I have also made a one hour YouTube video for my students about the tethered mind that discusses the problem with the second assumption and my proposed solution.  Here is the link:https://youtu.be/zb2Z7P7CCKg

Brian Keeley

Presentation:

“The weird epistemology of conspiracy theories.”

In the late ‘90s, when it looked like nobody wanted to hire a philosopher who studied the neuroscience of electric fish, I wrote a random paper on the philosophy of conspiracy theories (CTs), because almost no one else had. That got published in the Journal of Philosophy, which got me a job. Then 9/11 happened and lots of people became interested in CTs to the point that there’s now a thriving cottage industry in the academic study of this social and epistemic phenomenon. Since this is not a crowd of conspiracy theory theorists, I’ll introduce the topic and explain what topics are currently driving me and others who study the current landscape. Please come prepared to discuss and defend the conspiracy theory you most want to believe.

Suggested reading:

The opening chapter of political scientist,  Joe Uscinski’s Conspiracy Theories: A Primer, 2nd edition, 2023, available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17CchevMUC4bBi_OR6zowfeJH5Efk3GwY/view?usp=share_link

Mark Kennedy

TBA

Ewan Paton

Presentation:

“Must Judges Be Human?”

Suggested reading:

“Algorithms and adjudication” – William Lucy (2024) Jurisprudence, 15:3, p251-281

Full article: Algorithms and adjudication

Barney Pell

TBA

Yair Pinto

Presentation:

“Conscious comprehension enables non-algorithmic capabilities.”

In this talk I present an argument against the computational theory of mind. In short, the argument states that human comprehension plus volition enables capabilities that exceed the capabilities of finite algorithmic systems. I will shortly outline how the current argument is similar to the Lucas-Penrose argument. Moreover, an empirical research line is deduced from this argument. The first tasks within this research line have recently been finalized. Performance on these tasks of humans, and of various large language models (Grok, Claude 4, o3, etc.), will be discussed.

Suggested reading: TBA

John Polito

Presentation:

“How to perceive BS with AI. (It’s not what you’re thinking, it’s what your hearing)”

Suggested reading:

Here are a couple quick blurbs that might get everyone closer to the topic than my presentation title (which will be explained!).

Paavo Pylkkänen

Presentation:

“Bohm’s pilot wave theory and its philosophical implications”

Bohm’s pilot wave theory has been one long-term focus of my interaction with Ron, and he has provided valuable criticisms of it over the years. Assuming that many of the other participants are not familiar with the theory, I will first present it. I will then move on to discuss its philosophical implications, hoping to engage in a debate with Ron and others. For philosophers the Bohm theory offers the possibility of a new kind of ‘physicalism’ where information is assumed to be fundamental, leading to the notion that ‘meaning is a key factor of being’. If this is correct, it will be valuable to give more attention to the role that meaning plays both in nature and in our lives individually and socially. I will explain what meaning meant for Bohm and look forward to a lively discussion.

Suggested reading:

Bohm, D. (1990) A new theory of the relationship of mind and matter, Philosophical Psychology, 3:2-3, 271-286, DOI: 10.1080/09515089008573004. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T7_BBDPLIQBOT-VPMU7Qlt7uhRV8KH5Z/view?usp=share_link

Oliver Sharpe

Presentation:

“Portfolism – Reasoning well given the logical limits of rationality”

In the 20th century our rational, calculative tools showed us their own limits, from Russel’s paradoxes of set theory; through Gödel’s incompleteness theorems; to the unresolved tensions between quantum mechanics and general relativity. With Wittgenstein, Derrida and others the limits of language also became clear. For some these conclusions painted a hopeless state of affairs from which the very notion of reasoned progress became an impossibility. Others simply ignored or forgot these limits. 

In my talk I’ll explain the route through this tension that I’ve been exploring for the last decade, a framework of ideas I call “portfolism”. It provides a way to understand what we count as good reasoning, while also holding on to the benefits of our rational tools without ignoring the implications of their own limits.

Avery Wang

TBA

Details

  • Start: October 2, 2025 @ 4:00 pm CEST
  • End: October 6, 2025 @ 5:00 pm CEST