Nous vous proposons un séminaire iPAC "improvisé" (au sens que nous l'avons ne l'avions pas programmé) ce jeudi 8 juillet, 13h30, dans
le grand Amphi du Loria. L'orateur étant anglophone, le séminaire sera
en Anglais.

Orateur: John Case, Professor, University of Delaware.
Titre : Machine Self-Reference And The Theater Of Consciousness

Résumé :
On the one hand:
In the 1930s Kleene published his Strong Recursion Theorem which
provides for program/machine self-reference over and above that needed
to capture the special case of programming language recursive calls or
even Brian Smith's lisp programs which examine their own traces. This
result has had many applications in the theory of computability.
I will explain pictorially, symbolically, and conceptually Kleene's
result as well as provide illustrative, brief, elegant, mathematical
applications.

On the other hand:
Human consciousness is a conceptually difficult, multi-faceted
phenomenon, with disparate facets including, awareness, qualia, and
self-reflection/self-modeling.
The main focus of my talk will feature, then, a pictorial modification of Kleene's result, which modification, I'll argue in detail, can
insightfully model an idealized version of the
self-reflecting/self-modeling facet of human consciousness. There will
be some corresponding recommendations to the neurophysiologist regarding
a possible, corresponding decomposition of brain functions to look for.

I'll close with some hints as to what use this
self-reflecting/self-modeling aspect of consciousness may have.