Zoomposium with Dr. Wanja Wiese: “The mathematization of consciousness or can mind be simulated?”
Information about the person
In another very exciting interview from our Zoomposium themed blog “Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind”, Axel and I talk this time with the still young German philosopher Wanja Wiese, who has already co-supervised some very interesting research projects and published numerous very readable publications, but more on that later.
He studied philosophy and mathematics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, graduating with an M.A. in mathematics in 2012 and a PhD in 2015. From 2015 to 2021 he was a postdoc in the Theoretical Philosophy Group with Prof. Dr. Thomas Metzinger in the Philosophy Department of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. From 2018 to 2019, he had the opportunity to work as a visiting researcher at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London with Prof. Dr. Karl Friston, which also resulted in some important joint publications. Since 2021, he had taken up a lecturer and research position as a postdoc at the Ruhr University Bochum at the Institute of Philosophy II at the Chair of Philosophy of Mind. From 2023, he will be deputizing for the Chair of Theoretical Philosophy and Philosophy of the Social Sciences in the Faculty of Management, Economics and Society at Witten/Herdecke University.
I had been aware of Wanja Wiese for some time, as his name has often been mentioned in the context of the application of the philosophical concepts of “predictive coding/processing” and the “free energy principle” in connection with the elucidation of the constitution of consciousness. And it was precisely on this topic that I came across a very interesting video “Free Energy Principle, Consciousness, Illusionism, and Realism | Brains Roundtable discussion” of a discussion group together with Karl Friston, Mark Solms, Wanja Wiese, Krzysztof Dolega and Majid D. Beni on YouTube, in which the above-mentioned concepts were discussed. The subsequent discussion of Mr. Wiese’s publications was also very promising and made for an interesting interview. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to briefly outline a few of his philosophical concepts.
More at: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2024/08/22/mathematisierung-des-bewusstseins/
Full video interview in German (please activate Youtube auto-translate feature for English subtitles):
