Who am I?
I am a postdoc and a memeber of the situated cognition research group at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. My current research focuses on the psychology and epistemology of conspiracy theories and is realized under a Volkswagen Foundation grant entitled ‘Why do people believe weird things: Bayesian brain, conspiracy theories, and epistemic vices’ which I co-wrote with Prof. Tobias Schlicht.
My doctoral research was also conducted at the Ruhr-Universität and was supervised by Tobias Schlicht and Daniel Dennett. In my dissertation I investigated the way in which the computational models developed within the framework of predictive processing constrain the space of possible mechanisms underlying perceptual experience and whether the framework can yield a new perspective on the nature of consciousness. I was awarded my PhD in Philosophy with a grade of summa cum laude in May 2019. My work was also distinguished by the GfD with the annual prize for the best interdisciplinary dissertation.
Apart from computational models of cognitive functions, mental representations, and consciousness, I am also keenly interested in topics prominent in philosophy of computation, philosophy and ethics of AI, meta-cognition, and philosophy of science. When I'm not doing philosophy, I spend most of my time tinkering with 🐍 scripts, 🚴♂️ on gravel roads, and 🧗 in boulder gyms.