Tam Hunt is an Affiliate Guest in Psychology in the META Lab, Psychological and Brain Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Barbara. His work focuses on the philosophy of mind, reconciliation of scientific and spiritual views of the world, and the interaction of mind and matter. A practicing lawyer, he brings a unique perspective to psychology and philosophy.
Thomas Cronin is Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His research interest is in Visual ecology: the evolution, adaptation, and specialization of visual systems of animals ranging from the simplest marine invertebrates to complex animals like mantis shrimps, cuttlefish, whooping cranes, and right whales
“In many ways the brain is a time machine, we remember the past to predict the future and we engage in mental time travel (we can mentally project ourselves into the past and future). Additionally, we are pretty good at telling time, whether demonstrated by catching a ball, playing the piano, or anticipating when the red light will change to green. But how does Mother Nature build clocks using neurons?”
Dean Buonomano is a professor in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology, and a member of the Brain Research Institute, and the Integrative Center for Learning and Memory at UCLA. He is a leading researcher on how the brain tells time. His new book is is titled ‘Your Brain is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time.’
“One could say that the study of time consciousness overlaps with the study of phenomenal consciousness. Conscious awareness is extended awareness of duration, temporal order, the present-moment, and the passage of time.”
Marc Wittmann is currently employed at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health, Freiburg, Germany. He has written two books on the topic of time perception. ‘Felt Time’ has been published in 2016 by MIT Press and ‘Altered States of Consciousness’ is going to appear in August 2018, also published by MIT Press.
Valeriya N-Georg is an artist inspired from Neuroscience, Psychology and Consciousness studies, who works with a range of media: drawing, printmaking, mixed media and sculpture.
“My principal interest is Neuroscience, as a system of exploring the relationship between the human body and the embodied self. I use fragments of physical anatomy to visually represent the inexpressible experience of inhabiting a body; the boundaries between the inner and outer self; between the physical and metaphysical; tangible and intangible, the tactile and the optical.”
“My art seeks to give form to those processes of thought which have yet to be fully articulated and to explore the enormous scope of the beautiful and delicately balanced neural choreographies designed to reflect what is occurring in our own minds as we think.”
Artist and writer, Richard Bright, has addressed the relationship between art, science and consciousness for over 30 years. In his recent series of drawings he explores the impermanent and shifting process of thinking.
Roger Beaty is a postdoctoral fellow in cognitive neuroscience working with Daniel Schacter in the Schacter Memory Lab at Harvard University. His research explores the neural and cognitive basis of creativity. In particular, he studies the roles of memory systems and cognitive control in creative thought.
Yoshua Bengio is a Canadian computer scientist, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks and deep learning. He is Full Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, head of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA),CIFAR Program co-director of the CIFAR program on Learning in Machines and Brains, Canada Research Chair in Statistical Learning Algorithms. His main research ambition is to understand principles of learning that yield intelligence. In this exclusive interview he discusses his ideas and work on AI and Deep Learning.
Professor Kevin Warwick’s main research areas are artificial intelligence, biomedical systems, robotics and cyborgs. Due to his research as a self-experimenter he is frequently referred to as the world’s first Cyborg. His experiments into implant technology led to him being featured as the cover story on the US magazine, ‘Wired’. He achieved the world’s first direct electronic communication between two human nervous systems, the basis for thought communication. Another project extended human sensory input to include ultrasonics. He also linked his nervous system with the internet in order to control a robot hand directly from his neural signals, across the Atlantic Ocean. In this exclusive interview he discusses his ideas and work on AI, robotics and the future of humans ‘plugging’ into technology.
Mario Klingemann is an artist working with algorithms, data and artificial neural networks. He investigates the possibilities that machine learning and artificial intelligence offer in understanding how creativity, culture and their perception work. He has worked part-time as an artist in residence at Google Arts and Culture since early 2016 and is a prominent member of a new school of artists who are turning neural network technology inside out. In this exclusive interview he discusses his ideas and work.