Abstract

My project draws from neuroscience and evolutionary biology to propose how the sentience that arises early in mammalian evolution comes to be formatted in human experience. My thesis is that memory contributes a characteristic thickness of meaning and context to conscious experience. The content of perception, sensation, thought, and imagination are thus guided by processes that maintain, integrate, and project ourselves through time. I argue that the thick present emerged when matter evolved and self-organized the capacities of agency and memory.

Short Bio

Rami Gabriel is Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychology and a founding Fellow of the Research Group in Mind, Science and Culture. Trained as a cognitive and perceptual scientist, he has published empirical studies on memory, self, emotion, prosopagnosia, consciousness, and the philosophy of cognitive science in the academic journals Synthese, Cognition & Emotion, Social Cognition, Theory & Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, and the Journal of Consciousness Studies. He has published three books: A Suspicious Science: The Uses of Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2023), The Emotional Mind: The Affective Roots of Culture and Cognition (Harvard University Press, 2019, co-authored with Dr. Stephen T. Asma), and Why I Buy: Self, Taste, and Consumer Society in America (Intellect Press, 2013).

What is an AIAS Seminar?

The AIAS Seminar Series is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellows, AIAS Visiting or Tandem Fellows or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, a fellow will present and discuss her/his current research and work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience for 30 minutes, closing off with 30 minutes for questions, comments and discussion.

All seminars are in-person and held in English. To attend online, please contact Cecilie Horshauge at cecilie@aias.au.dk by 9:00am on the day of the seminar as the latest to request a link.