THE SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

April 25-30, 2016 - Tucson, ARIZONA     

Loews Ventana Canyon Resort

PLENARY

TUESDAY

April 26, 2016

2:00 pm to 4:10 pm   

PL 1 -Five Roads to Consciousness

Stuart Hameroff, MD

University of Arizona

Banner University Medical Center, Tucson

Director, Center for Consciousness Studies

Co-Chair TSC 2016                         

Professor Emeritus, Departments of Anesthesiology, College of Medicine, University of Arizona and Psychology  

Banner – University Medical Center Tucson

Anesthesiologist, Professor and Researcher joined the faculty at University Medical Center in 1975. Dr. Stuart Hameroff's research for over 35 years has involved consciousness (how the pinkish gray meat between our ears produces the richness of experiential awareness). Studying anesthetic gas mechanisms, he focused on how quantum effects control protein conformational dynamics. Following an interest which began in medical school in the computational capacity of microtubules inside neurons, Dr. Hameroff proposed in the early 1980's that microtubules functioned as molecular computers. Hameroff’s 1987 book Ultimate Computing suggested downloading consciousness into microtubule arrays. In the mid-1990s Hameroff teamed with British physicist Sir Roger Penrose to develop the controversial theory of consciousness called “orchestrated objective reduction” - Orch OR theory - in which consciousness derives from quantum computations in microtubules inside brain neurons, quantum computations connected to the fine- scale structure of spacetime geometry. Dr. Hameroff has published five books and well over 100 research articles, and appeared in the film ‘What the Bleep do We Know?’ and numerous TV documentaries on the problem of consciousness including BBC, Discover Channel, History Channel, PBS, OWN, Huff Post Live and the film “What the Bleep?”

As Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies, established in 1997 at the University of Arizona, Hameroff co-organizes the international, interdisciplinary biennial conference series ‘Toward a Science of Consciousness’ since 1994 - now known as The Science of Consciousness - Tucson Conference.  For the past 20 + years TSC, CCS has been providing opportunities for researchers to meet in an international and interdisciplinary setting and has provided scholarships, grants, webcourses, seminars, symposiums. The Center is grateful for the past research support from Pfizer-Roerig, NSF, Fetzer Institute The Chopra Foundation, The Bhaumik Foundation, YeTaDeL Foundation, Google, Elata Foundation, Journal of Consciousness Studies, Journal of Cosmology, Monroe Institute, NIMS, and Mind Event AB, AOARD, EOARD, AFOSR.