The new season of Science & Cocktails in Brussels begins with a dive into the inner workings of the brain and how its interactions with itself and the world generate consciousness. The tour guide into our own mind is Axel Cleeremans, professor of neuroscience at Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Despite advances in our understanding of the brain, there is still no theory that can explain how information processing in the brain is accompanied by personal experience. While we all have experienced what it is like to recognise a face, drink coffee or smell an unfamiliar fragrance, there is nothing "it is like" for a computer to compute. Neuroscientists want to understand the differences in information processing with or without consciousness and how consciousness emerges in the brain.

Tonight's talk will overview the basic concepts of consciousness, pointing out that it is not a single thing but a complex dynamical process. At the hand of present day empirical methods and the current theoretical understanding of consciousness, we will come to see that it is something the brain learns to do, rather than a static property of our biological state.

Afterwards, you can enjoy a cocktail menu filled with brain-melting flavours cooled down with dry ice as Belem takes the stage. Elegant melodies are interspersed with crazy rhythms and you can let yourself sway in the expressive chamber music of this accomplished duo on diatonic accordion and cello.