Tag Archives: Brain

Higher-Order Thoughts and The Consciousness Paradox

Higher-Order (HO) theories of consciousness have in common the idea that what makes a mental state conscious is that it is the object of some kind of higher-order representation. In this exclusive interview, Rocco Gennaro discusses Higher Order Theories and the Consciousness Paradox, which asks the question – how it is possible to hold a number of seemingly inconsistent views, including higher-order thought (HOT) theory, conceptualism, infant and animal consciousness, concept acquisition, and what he calls the HOT-brain thesis?

Education, Mindfulness and The Consciousness Quotient

“Consciousness Quotient focuses on witnessing awareness – decoupling from auto-pilot mode. The first step on the ladder of education is awareness”. Dr. Sona Ahuja is M.Sc.,M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Education. She is working as a teacher-educator in Dept. of Pedagogical Sciences, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (DEI), Agra, India. Her primary research interests are consciousness studies, pedagogical practices, yoga and meditation. She is team member of Consciousness Quotient Institute and has conducted researches using CQ-i. She is also active participant of activities at Center for Consciousness Studies, DEI. In this exclusive interview she discusses her ideas and work.

Is your brain really a computer, or is it a quantum orchestra tuned to the universe?

Stuart Hameroff’s research involves a theory of consciousness developed over the past 20 years with eminent British physicist Sir Roger Penrose. Called ‘orchestrated objective reduction’ (‘Orch OR’), it suggests consciousness arises from quantum vibrations in protein polymers called microtubules inside the brain’s neurons, vibrations which interfere, ‘collapse’ and resonate across scale, control neuronal firings, generate consciousness, and connect ultimately to ‘deeper order’ ripples in spacetime geometry. Consciousness is more like music than computation.

On Dreaming

What is the function of dreaming? To answer this “we then need to ask ‘what is the function of waking consciousness?’ To answer that question we need to know what waking consciousness is doing”. Dreaming is the most often occurring altered states of consciousness, yet its function remains unsolved. In this exclusive interview, Katja Valli discusses her research and work into the content, neural correlates and function of dreaming.

On ‘Mind Change’

In her latest book, ‘Mind Change’, Baroness Susan Greenfield discusses the all-pervading technologies that now surround us which, in her view, are creating a new environment, with vast implications, because our minds are physically adapting and are being rewired. In this exclusive interview, she discusses what this could mean and how can we harness, rather than be harnessed by, our new technological milieu to create better alternatives and more meaningful lives. ‘Mind Change’ is intended to incite debate as well as yield a way forward.

Rhythmic videos

Rhythmic videos featuring Russell Foster: The Rhythms of Life – What your body clock means to you from eye disease to jet lag ; Phillip M Gilley: Brain Rhythms ; Bernie Krause: The voice of the natural world ; Clayton Cameron: The Brush Master ; Anje-Margriet Neutel: Feedback loops: How nature gets its rhythms ; and Sabina Sandoval: Celebrating the rhythms of life by being in the pocket.

Fabrica Vitae (film trailer)

Fabrica Vitae is a philosophical film about the anatomical mortal body and the study of the nature of consciousness within this body. It questions what it is that makes us human. Seven diverse, world-renowned, pioneers in Science and Art talk about their life’s work. In encompassing life and death, with the body as their investigative tool, they have often had to break taboos and push boundaries. They don’t avoid controversy, but on the contrary, dare to take a leap of faith into the void, to tread on virgin ground and to tell an unheard and unknown story.

Life and nature in all its beauty and strength, fragility and disease, mortality and death.

Pascale’s work attempts to capture the point where art and science meld. An alchemist at heart, her work begins with observation and experimentation but is however steeped in solid scientific research and findings. Her inspiration is drawn from observing the internal and external human body in all its diversity, life and nature in all its beauty, strength, fragility, disease, mortality, immortality and death. New technologies and philosophies , quantum physics, nano technology, animatronics are amongst her interest and are important in her work.

On TRANSIC​ONMORPHOSIS – an interview with Emilio Vavarella and Fito Segrera

If in the future, the possibility of face-to-face communication becomes less widely used and written communication becomes crystallized in a series of immutable forms, humans will lose the empathic abilities that today are, in part, reproduced by emoji and emoticons. TRANSICONMORPHOSIS is an interactive artwork that proposes an ambiguous and experimental communication system for the near future, the result of a theoretical reflection on the development of new forms of technological communication, their effects on human beings, as well as their political effects.