Humanities

Please join us for the “Biological Naturalism about Consciousness,” a conference at UCLA from Thursday-Friday, November 5-6, 2026 in Royce Hall 306.   RSVP HERE   About the conference Can non-biological systems be conscious? If not, why not? These questions have taken on new weight as AI systems become increasingly sophisticated, not least because our answers bear on which entities might matter morally.   This conference focuses on biological naturalism: the family of views holding that certain biological properties are required for consciousness. Biological naturalism is often positioned as the principal alternative to functionalism. But compared to its rival, biological...