Tag Archives: Consciousness

Can plants think? They could one day force us to change our definition of intelligence

Stuart Thompson is a Senior Lecturer in Plant Biochemistry, University of Westminster. His main interest is in the relationships between plant cell wall biochemistry, plant cell wall mechanical behaviour and plant physiology. His main research interest is how plants manipulate the chemical components of their cell walls in order to control their structural properties allowing cell expansion to occur in a controlled and regulated fashion.

Linking brains to computers: how new implants are helping us achieve this goal

Dr Yunlong Zhao joined the Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey as Lecturer (Assistant Professor) and with a joint appointment at the National Physical Laboratory (UK) as the Senior Research Scientist since October 2018. Prior to this appointment, he carried out his postdoctoral research and joint doctoral research at Harvard University, where he conducted research in nano-semiconductor devices and flexible electronics for electrophysiology and nano-bio interface.

How we identified brain patterns of consciousness

Davinia Fernández-Espejo is Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology and Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham. Her main goal is to understand how the brain supports consciousness and what goes wrong for patients to become entirely unaware after severe brain injury. She uses techniques such as MRI (structural and functional), tDCS, and behavioural approaches in both healthy volunteers and patients with a disorder of consciousness to test hypotheses about the role of different brain structures in the clinical deficits they present. This research is directly translated into the development of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers to be used in clinical settings, as well as the development of novel treatment approaches.

Demystifying the psychedelic experience

Marta Kaczmarczyk is an expert in persuasive science and technology. She is interested in demystifying the psychedelic experience and creating a scientific framework that would be more accessible to the Western mind and more relevant than the shamanic or new age framework which is popular in the psychedelic community. She is a co-founder and a coordinator of Psychedelic Society of the Netherlands; a non-profit organization focused on advocating a safe use of psychedelic substances.

How a trippy 1980s video effect might help to explain consciousness

Robert Pepperell is an interdisciplinary researcher who works between art, science, and philosophy. He has published research in the fields of art history and theory, neuroscience, perceptual psychology, computer science, and philosophy of mind. He current leads FovoLab (www.fovography.com), where methods from art and science are combined to investigate the nature of visual experience and how it can be represented.

Ketamine trips are uncannily like near-death experiences

Christian Jarrett is a senior editor at Aeon, working on the forthcoming Psyche website focused on psychological wellbeing. A cognitive neuroscientist by training, his writing has appeared in BBC Future, WIRED and New York Magazine, among others. His books include ‘The Rough Guide to Psychology’ (2011) and ‘Great Myths of the Brain’ (2014). His next, on personality change, will be published in 2021.

Ecstasis

Fine artist Luciana Haill works with stroboscopic lighting & brainwaves (EEG signal) exploring consciousness & expressing the results through digital media, performance, sound & drawings.
Her artworks focus on liminal states of consciousness, sleep – more specifically the discrete states of Lucid Dreaming (the awareness within a dream & the ability to take control) & ‘Hypnagogia’ which is an inspirational state more commonly experienced at the onset of sleep & day-dreaming. She investigates the neural correlates & reveals these to the audience as changes in textured soundscapes & data visualisations. She is currently a visiting lecturer at Brighton University for the Digital Media Art MA.

Philosophy and Psychedelics

Dr Peter Sjöstedt-H is an Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind who specializes in the thought of Whitehead and Nietzsche, and in fields pertaining to panpsychism and altered states of sentience. In the words of futurist, philosopher and pop star Alexander Bard: ‘One of our favourite contemporary philosophers, Peter Sjöstedt-H…think a psychedelic Nietzsche’.

Teleological behaviourism or what it means to imagine a lion

Howard Rachlin is an American psychologist and the founder of teleological behaviorism. He is Emeritus Research Professor of Psychology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. His current research focuses on patterns of choice over time and how those patterns affect self-control (on which he worked with George Ainslie), including cooperation over time. His most recent book is The Escape of the Mind (2014).