Links to the Interalia Magazine blog, ‘Talking about Consciousness’, featuring – Daniel Dennett: The Hard Question of Consciousness ; David Chalmers: How do you explain consciousness? ; Christof Koch: The Search for Consciousness ; Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness ; Sir Roger Penrose: The quantum nature of consciousness ; Max Tegmark: Consciousness is a mathematical pattern ; Nicholas Humphrey: The Magic of Consciousness
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’.
Daniel Dennett: The Hard Question of Consciousness ; David Chalmers: How do you explain consciousness? ; Christof Koch: The Search for Consciousness ; Antonio Damasio: The quest to understand consciousness ; Sir Roger Penrose — The quantum nature of consciousness ; Max Tegmark: Consciousness is a mathematical pattern ; Nicholas Humphrey: The Magic of Consciousness
Hans Borgonjon is an artist with a background in philosophy and art history. He draws his inspiration for ‘Microtubuli X4’ from such scientists/philosophers as David Chalmers, Stuart Hammeroff and Roger Penrose.
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.
How does our brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before.
In his lively book, ‘Consciousness and the Brain’, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state. The book explores cutting-edge science and technology and the vast philosophical, personal, and ethical implications of finally quantifying consciousness.
This excerpt is from the Introduction; The Stuff of Thought.
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.
“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.
Questions: Why is it so difficult to understand consciousness? What can be done to understand it better?
Featuring: Boho Interactive: Chaos, complexity, balloons and bunnies ; Marcus du Sautoy: Symmetry, reality’s riddle ; Amy Tan: Where does creativity hide? ; Ron Eglash: The fractals at the heart of African designs