Consciousness & Reality (C&R) 2026-27 Series Inaugural Colloquium

Consciousness & Reality (C&R) 2026-27 Series Inaugural Colloquium Consciousness First: What Experience Tells Us About What Exists Thu, Nov 19th, 1 p.m. Eastern Time Online-only event. Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/92871253560?pwd=I4rZU3N9vLUsB0a2uSXLK5sOW5pyBP.1 GIULIO TONONI Professor of Psychiatry & David P. White Chair in Sleep Medicine, University of Wisconsin–Madison Distinguished Professor in Consciousness Science, University of Wisconsin–Madison Director, Wisconsin Institute for Sleep and Consciousness Consciousness is all we have, the one thing whose existence is immediate and irrefutable, yet science’s standard extrinsic perspective has a hard time accounting for its presence and quality. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) reverses the order and takes the intrinsic perspective: it starts from the essential properties of experience and asks what a physical substrate must be like to account for them. The answer explains why consciousness depends on some brain regions but not others, why it fades in dreamless sleep, and why space feels extended and time flowing. It also implies that what truly exists is what exists for itself, and that AI can replicate what we do but not what we are. INTRODUCTION BY CHRISTOF KOCH Neuroscientist and Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THE EVENT This lecture will be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience. Members from all divisions of the participating institutes and universities (Caltech, MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, Stanford, UA, UCB and IMICS) are welcome to join. Select questions from the Q&A window will be answered after the lecture. ABOUT THE SERIES The Consciousness & Reality colloquium series promotes interdisciplinary investigations on mind, cognition, consciousness, and the nature of reality. Recordings of previous C&R colloquia can be made available by requesting access at this email address: vvf-exec@mit.edu. Also see www.imics.org.