The new MALBEC seminar starts tomorrow! Announcement below.
The Department of Mathematics is pleased to announce a special lecture series for Spring 2009. The MALBEC lectures (“Mathematics, Algorithms, Learning, Brains, Engineering, Computers”) aims to encourage closer ties between mathematicians and scientists around UW doing mathematical work on the foundations of learning, perception, and behavior of people and machines. Please come, participate, and hang around afterwards with the speakers!
Up-to-date information about the series can always be found at the MALBEC home page.
Our first lecture, “Measuring consciousness as integrated information,” by David Balduzzi, will be held tomorrow, Wednesday, March 4, at 4pm, in Van Vleck B102. David holds a 2006 Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and is now a postdoc at the UW Center for Sleep and Consciousness. The lecture will be followed by a reception in the Van Vleck 9th floor lounge. Upcoming speakers include Partha Niyogi (U Chicago, CS) on April 17; Michael Coen (UW, biostat and CS) on April 21; and Jerry Zhu (UW, CS) on May 6.
We are very grateful to the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery and the Morgridge Institute for Research for their support of the MALBEC seminar.
Abstract: The integrated information theory (Tononi 2004) starts from phenomenology and makes use of thought experiments to claim that consciousness is integrated information. First: the quantity of consciousness corresponds to the amount of integrated information generated by a system of elements. Information is quantified by taking the current state as a measurement the system performs on itself, which specifies a repertoire of prior states that cause (lead to) the current state. Integrated information (phi) is quantified by computing the repertoire specified by the system as a whole relative to the repertoires specified independently by its parts. Second: the quality of an experience is completely specified by the set of informational relationships generated within that system. The set of all repertoires generated by subsystems of a system is represented in a geometric object, the quale. Informational relationships between points in the quale characterize how the measurements resulting from interactions in the system give structure to a particular experience.
After describing the theory in some detail, I will discuss how several neurobiological observations fall naturally into place in the framework: the association of consciousness with certain neural systems rather than with others; the fact that neural processes underlying consciousness can influence or be influenced by neural processes that remain unconscious; and the reduction of consciousness during dreamless sleep and generalized seizures. Furthermore, features of the quale can be related to features of conscious experience, such as modalities and submodalities, and can explain the distinct roles of different cortical subsystems in affecting the quality of experience.
Quomodocumque 
Damn, this looks interesting but I probably can’t get there tomorrow. :-(
In my world Malbec will always be a type of wine.
So, I in fact wasn’t able to make it, and I’m wondering if someone could give a brief summary of interesting ideas.
Here’s one thing that’s fascinated me about consciousness. Consciousness seems to involve awareness of self and not-self. On the other hand, one of the trickiest problems for the immune system is distinguishing self from not-self, and not destroying that which is self (this fails in autoimmune conditions). Is there more than a coincidence here?