Starting in October, Dr. Lukas Kob of Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg will receive a Feodor Lynen Postdoc Fellowship, which is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He will spend a year working in the Department of Analytic Philosophy on the possibility of consciousness in artificial systems. This work applies philosophical insights on consciousness to recent, successful AI architectures and brain organoids, which are artificial “mini-brains” grown from stem cells. The goal is to better understand the circumstances under which artificial systems can potentially be considered conscious.
About the researcher
Dr. Lukas Kob studied for his Bachelor of Psychology at the University of Leipzig, the city where the philosopher Wilhelm Wundt founded the world’s first laboratory of experimental psychology. Dr. Kob then obtained a Master of Science in Philosophy-Neuroscience-Cognition from the University of Magdeburg, where he also received his Ph.D. in 2024. His dissertation project, titled “Structuralism as a methodological approach in consciousness science,” was part of the research training group “Extrospection. External access to higher cognitive processes,” at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Dr. Kob completed the graduate program there as well, and his doctoral studies were also supported by the German Scholarship Foundation. Since 2023, he has held a full-time position as a research assistant at the Chair of Theoretical Philosophy in Magdeburg, led by Prof. Holger Lyre. Dr. Kob publishes theoretical papers on consciousness and AI. He also collaborates with colleagues from the lab of his second Ph.D. supervisor, renowned neuroscientist Prof. John-Dylan Haynes, on empirical studies.
Lukas Kob, Ph.D.
About the Feodor Lynen Postdoc Fellowship
The Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship, named after the biochemist and Nobel laureate Feodor Lynen, is awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The postdoctoral fellowship is awarded to highly qualified early-career researchers within four years of receiving a Ph.D. It allows for long-term research stays with members of the Humboldt network worldwide. Dr. Kob will be hosted by Professor Tomáš Marvan.
