TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

BRAIN, MIND & REALITY 

TSC 2011

STOCKHOLM ~ SWEDEN

AULA MAGNA HALL

Why Stockholm?

Toward a Science of Consciousness (TSC) is an annual interdisciplinary
conference on all aspects of conscious experience, alternating yearly
between Tucson, Arizona and various locations around the world,
organized by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of
Arizona. This year the 18th TSC will be held May 3-7, 2011 at Aula
Magna Hall, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.

Why Stockholm? Why Aula Magna? A primary reason is Swedish businessman
and conference co-sponsor Christer Perfjell.

Why the conference? The Karolinska Institute holds esteemed Nobel
Symposia addressing neuroscience and brain functions, for example one
upcoming May 24-26, 2011 on ‘Minds, Machines and Molecules’. The
annual Society for Neuroscience attracts 30,000 participants. Hundreds
of various conferences, journals and organizations approach many
levels of brain function. But these approaches are almost entirely
reductionist, materialist and based strictly on classical physics,
solving important problems but missing the big picture. Because
consciousness cannot be directly measured nor observed, it is
generally ignored or ‘explained away’ as an epiphenomenal output of
complex brain computation. In classical physics, mind is machine, with
no room for conscious awareness, phenomenal experience, free will, nor
anything resembling a soul. The age-old quest to understand
consciousness slips farther and farther away.

TSC conferences focus on consciousness, with leading authorities in
relevant neuroscience, molecular biology, medicine, physics,
cosmology, philosophy and spiritual practice.

Among these, some contend that consciousness requires macroscopic
quantum processes in the brain, a view discredited by the incorrect
assumption that quantum processes require extremely cold temperature.
Recent evidence for warm, functional quantum processes in ion
channels, DNA and microtubules may portend a Pandora’s Box of
non-locality, entanglement, quantum coherence and backward time
effects in consciousness, with potentially profound implications for
who we are, the nature of reality, and our place in the universe.
These questions, among others, will be aired and debated.

Vi ses i Stockholm!

Stuart Hameroff MD,

Abi Behar-Montefiore
Center for CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES
The University of Arizona

Christer Perfjell
Perfjell Foundation

Mind Event, AB

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