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The magazine will feature exclusive interviews with artists, scientists, writers and creative thinkers.

Mind Uploading

Mind-Uploading: the process of transferring one’s mind from the brain to a new substrate, generally a computer. It is the stuff of science fiction, immediately recognizable in contemporary literature and cinema. However, it has also become increasingly respectable–or at least approachable–within technological, neurological, and philosophical circles. In this exclusive interview, Keith Wiley (author of ‘A Taxonomy and Metaphysics of Mind-Uploading’), discusses the ways that minds may be uploaded in the future, and some of the key issues that this poses.

Eunoia- beautiful thoughts

American-born and Korean-raised, Lisa Park is a multidisciplinary artist who is currently based in New York. In the past few years, she started experimenting with biosensors (brainwave, heart-rate monitoring devices) as a vehicle for manifesting her inner states. Park’s recent performances “Eunoia” and “Eunoia II” involved using a commercial brainwave(EEG) headset as a self-monitoring tool to obtain real-time feedback of her emotional reactions. The performances were done in an attempt to visually reflect the vibrations of the mind by expressing herself on the surface of the water.

Passionate about Consciousness

Philip Goff is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Central European University in Budapest. HIs main research focus is trying to explain how the brain produces consciousness. In this exclusive interview he discusses how we need to radically rethink our understanding of matter in order to explain consciousness, in something like the way Einstein radically rethought the nature of space and time

On the interface between neuroscience and philosophy

Patricia Smith Churchland is a Professor emerita of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship for her work in neurophilosophy. Her research focuses on the interface between neuroscience and philosophy, realizing that to understand the mind one must understand the brain. She is the author of many insightful books, including ‘Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain’; ‘Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality’; and the groundbreaking book, ‘Neurophilosophy’.

The Brain and its Embodiment

Murray Shanahan is Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London. His current interests include brain connectivity, neurodynamics, comparative cognition, and the relationship between cognition and consciousness. His book “Embodiment and the Inner Life” was published by Oxford University Press in 2010, and he is currently working on a book about the technological singularity for MIT Press.

Discussing consciousness

John R Searle is the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley. His work ranges broadly over philosophical problems of mind and language. He received the Jean Nicod Prize in 2000; the National Humanities Medal in 2004; and the Mind & Brain Prize in 2006. Among his notable concepts is the “Chinese room” argument against “strong” artificial intelligence.

Consciousness, memes and meditation

“I don’t think there’s a hard problem, I think the hard problem is an illusion that comes about because of the way we wrongly think about consciousness,” Dr Susan Blackmore explains in this exclusive interview. A freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster, her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. Her many publications include The Meme Machine; Conversations on Consciousness; Zen and the Art of Consciousness; and Consciousness- An Introduction.

Art and the Brain

As an artist, Julia Buntaine is interested in what has proven to be the most complex puzzle, the epitome of emergence, the deepest well our sciences have examined; the brain. The instantiation of form and function united, from the molecular to the level of Neuroscience as a discipline, her work seeks to address the beliefs, theories and findings of the biological phenomenon of consciousness. Beginning with biological form or data, her work departs into the world of aesthetics as she manipulates the idea through the use of scale, metaphor, material and form. Unlike articles and raw data, scientific ideas in the form of art inherently demand subjective judgment and interpretation, and her goal as a science-based artist is to provide the viewer an alternative way to understand the wonders of biology we have discovered in ourselves.

Interacting with Science

Andrew Carnie’s artistic practice often involves a meaningful interaction with scientists in different fields as an early stage in the development of his work. There are also other works that are self-generated and develop from pertinent ideas outside science. The work is often time-based in nature, involving 35 mm slide projection using dissolve systems or video projection onto complex screen configurations. In a darkened space, layered images appear and disappear on suspended screens; the developing display absorbs the viewer into an expanded sense of space and time through the slowly unfolding narratives that evolve before them.

Future Body

Legendary Australian performance artist Stelarc is known for going to extremes, from aggressive voluntary surgeries and robotic third arms to flesh-hook suspensions and prosthetics. For more than four decades, he has used his body as a canvas for art on the very edge of human experience. In this exclusive interview for the Interalia Magazine, he talks about his life, his work, and his vision for the future.