Psychology and cognitive science have always aspired to understand awareness, consciousness, and sensation. For much of the 20th century, however, studying the inner workings of the mind was off limits: the influential behaviourist movement, built on animal experiments like Skinner's and Pavlov's, allowed us to speak only of externally visible actions and not private, internal thoughts.
     By 1995, however, consciousness was back on the table. Since then, there have been many attempts to solve what David Chalmers called the Hard Problem. Influential figures like Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, have joined the debate. Many ways to measure, detect, and simulate consciousness have been proposed. But when we work on consciousness, are we all speaking about the same thing?
     Surely it is important to define a problem clearly before attempting to solve it. Most works on consciousness, however, assume that everyone knows what it is already - which seems tempting, because the reader is employing their conscious mind to understand them. We usually find a quick description of conscious sensation at the beginning - "The ineffable redness of red," "The beautiful feeling of your favourite piece of music." Then, assuming that everyone is talking along the same lines, the work forges on towards a solution to consciousness.
     In this discussion, we leave aside the solution and aim to explore the problem. What kinds of feelings and sensations qualify as conscious? What kind of a solution to the Hard Problem would we be happy with? Are we all actually talking about the same thing?

We will be joined by five (virtual) panellists:

Mateus Bolson Ruzzarin is a Brazilian/Mexican Industrial and Systems Engineer who decided to abandon the corporate life in order to pursue his lifelong passions. Last year he studied philosophy and literature at University College London, and is now studying a philosophy MA at King's College London, meanwhile, he created Mindshop London, a consulting agency that harnesses the power of philosophy to solve issues in various industries.

Tim Meese is Professor of Vision Science, director of the Aston Laboratory of Immersive Virtual Environments (ALIVE), director of the Centre for Vision and hearing Research (CVHR), one of the four chief editors of the journals Perception and i-Perception and Vice-Chairman of the Applied Vision Association (AVA). He has technical research interests in binocular vision, spatial vision, contrast gain control, and depth perception, but more general interests in the interfaces between visual perception, social perception, consciousness and our perception of reality.

Fintan Nagle is a cognitive scientist at UCL. He is currently investigating task switching in automated driving, but has always been interested in the more philosophical side of cognitive science. He did his undergrad at York (biology) and PhD at UCL (vision science). He also advises the Lyra project.

George Rae is a sound artist and founder of Tilde Productions C.I.C. He is currently studying a contemporary art practice MA called Art in the Public Sphere at the Royal College of Art. and has worked with many internationally acclaimed artists including Alison Wilding, Guiseppe Penone Mike Nelson and Susan Hiller. George's practice as an artist spans quite a few mediums - predominantly sound and site specificity. The focus of the work is the language of the present through the lens of improvised sensorial experience. Tilde is a recently incorporated non profit production company that is primarily working within digital advertising space. Tilde.productions is looking to identify the extent in which using adspace for education is publicly beneficial and implement this form of educational strategy accordingly.

Mark Ransley is a PhD student on UCL's CoMPLEX doctoral training programme. His work combines mathematical modelling and real-world engineering to investigate the possibilities of new materials such as 3D-printed chainmail. He has just completed filming a documentary on consciousness, and outside academia, he is an avid musician, freelance engineer, and graphic artist.

In this discussion, yon can reply to any message by moving your mouse over it and clicking "Reply." To start a new sub-thread, reply to the original (first) message. You can find a guide to Lyra here: www.hellolyra.com
     Consciousness may be abbreviated as "C".