Megan Peters
Assistant Professor of Neuroscience
UC Riverside / UC Irvine

Computational Approaches to Studying Qualia

Few people tackle the neural or computational basis of qualitative experience (Frith 2019).  Why?  One major reason is that science and philosophy have both struggled to propose how we might even begin to start studying it.  I propose that metacognitive computations, and the subjective feelings that go along with them, give us a solid starting point. Specifically, perceptual metacognition possesses unique ontological and practical properties that provide a powerful and unique opportunity for studying the studying the neural and computational correlates of subjective experience.  By capitalizing on decades of developments in computational cognitive science and formal computational model comparisons as applied to the specific properties of perceptual metacognition, we are now in a privileged position to reveal new and exciting insights about how the brain constructs our subjective conscious experiences.

The MIRA (Mind-like Intelligence, Research, and Analysis) Group at Penn is an innovative, interdisciplinary research and training group. Topics of interest range across issues in philosophy of mind and language, cognitive science, and epistemology. We also study epistemic and normative issues concerning these topics, especially as they relate to diversity, wellness, and social justice. MIRA-Open meetings promote community and creative thinking centered around issues in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, epistemology, and related normative issues.