Neuroeconomics

Harvard MBB Series

Last Friday, I attended the first of the Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative’s March Conversation Series. http://mbb.harvard.edu/.  The two speakers were Christof Koch and Ned Block.  The topic was Consciousness.  Both speakers are obviously at the top of the game on this question.  This is a really good series, and I strongly encourage those who can attend the remaining two talks to go.  There was a great interchange between both speakers and between the speakers and the audience.

At the talk Ned Block discussed his idea of phenomenal versus access consciousness.  Phenomenal consciousness is the content of an experience, (say, red or green), and access consciousness is the general processing of this content by a variety of systems in what is sometimes called the global workspace.  I have a problem with this terminology, and while it is probably a mistake to talk about it, here goes.  In order to understand my problem with this let’s remember what we are trying to understand is the nature of experiences or qualia.   If we do not perceive something then it is not a part of consciousness. For example, there are many things my brain is doing (like setting my heart rate) that I am not conscious of, and so therefore are not part of my consciousness.  To sharpen the distinction between the two types of consciousness, Prof. Block gave the example of thinking about something else while we are hearing a noise and then suddenly realizing we have been hearing this noise for some time.  As I understand it, he would say we are phenomenally conscious of the noise the whole time, but we only have access consciousness of it when we are aware of it.  I would argue that phenomenal consciousness, as he discusses it, is not consciousness at all.  In order for there to be consciousness, we have to be conscious of the perception.  That is, until we were aware of the noise, we were recording it, but there were no qualia associated with the noise. I agree with him that the neurological systems that he has identified with phenomenal consciousness (as he would define it) are likely necessary in order for there to be a conscious experience, but they are almost by definition not sufficient for it. That is, under this terminology if we have an experience of something, then it is the subject of access consciousness.  However, if there is no experience, then we are not talking about consciousness.  Therefore, if something is not the subject of access consciousness, then it cannot be said to the subject of consciousness at all. The systems of phenomenal consciousness seem to record stimuli, which we may access either at the time or later (in some cases), but which we did not access at the time.  Therefore, until they enter the realm of access consciousness, we are not conscious of them.  To sum up, the systems identified with phenomenal consciousness are perhaps necessary, but not sufficient for a conscious experience.  Given the vast scope of the consciousness literature, this objection has probably been made before, and perhaps someone has proved it false.  Beyond this quibble, I thought the talks were both entertaining and informative.

Third Annual Conference in Neuroeconomics

We will again hold the Neuroeconomics conference at Kiawah Island in early September 15-18.  Gregory Berns hosted the 2001 conference at Marthas Vineyard, setting both the quality of the conference, and a preference for island resorts.  This year it is being hosted by Paul Glimcher, Aldo Rustichini, and Maggie Grantner.  You can call Maggie at 212-998-3904 to put down your registration fee of $550.  This includes a year membership in the Society for Neuroeconomics.  If you are a researcher with any overlapping interest in decision making, economics or other social sciences, and cognitive and social neuroscience, then you should attend these meetings.  Our last meeting at Kiawah was amazing.  Really great collaborative research is occuring between neuroscientists and economists and it is getting into the top journals.  Last year's host Read Montague has an excellent set of pictures of the 2004 conference.  Check them out.   

Conference in September '04

There will be a conference in NeuroEconomics in 2004. This is a followup to the 2003 conference and includes many of the active researchers in the field. The 2003 meeting was very interesting in terms of getting active researchers, who were interested in NeuroEconomics, together, and learning what research they were involved in. The 2004 conference promises to report on a number of projects that are nearing publication in this new field. While the 2003 conference consisted mainly of economists and neuroscientists, I think the potential for researchers in other disciplines is very good. It is not too late to present a poster. You can learn more and register at the following HNL/Baylor link.

Neuroeconomics Conference

Gregory Berns just hosted a Neuroeoconomics conference at Martha's Vineyard. With both neuroscientists and economists in attendance there were a number of presentations of interdisciplinary research that will soon be submitted for peer review. Throughout the conference two main questions were the focus of much discussion. How will economics influence neuroscience? Here the main consensus seems to be in the application of models of choice and decentralized exchange to brain function. Also, how will neuroscience influence economics? This question seemed to have less consensus, but one view suggested by a number of participants was that neuroscience lets us see economic decision making as a nexus of competing interests inside the individual, and that this competition results in heterogeneity in individual behavior that once understood will likely influence the way we think about economic policy.