The Rise of Human Consciousness

Featuring

David Chalmers, PhD

Co-Director, Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness, New York University

David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University, and also holds a part-time position at the Australian National University. He is well-known for his work on consciousness, especially for his formulation of the "hard problem" of consciousness.

His 1996 book The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory was successful with both popular and academic audiences. Chalmers co-founded the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness and has organized some of the most important conferences in the field. He also works on many other issues in philosophy and cognitive science, and has articles on the possibility of a "singularity" in artificial intelligence and on philosophical issues arising from the movie The Matrix.

Michael Graziano, PhD

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Princeton University

Michael Graziano is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton University. He is an author of novels, children's books, and books on the brain. He is known for his work on how the brain represents the space near the body and controls complex movement within that space. More recently he has worked on the brain basis of conscious experience, and his most recent book is Consciousness and the Social Brain.

Hod Lipson, PhD

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University; author of Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing

Max Tegmark, PhD

Professor, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Max Tegmark is a Professor of Physics at MIT, co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, and Scientific Director of the Foundational Questions Institute. His research has ranged from cosmology to the physics of cognitive systems, and is currently focused at the interface between physics, AI and neuroscience. He is the author of over 200 publications and the book Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality. His work with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey on galaxy clustering shared the first prize in Science magazine's "Breakthrough of the Year: 2003."

Moderator

George Musser, PhD

Contributing Editor at Scientific American

George Musser is a contributing editor at Scientific American magazine, a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT for 2014–2015, and the author of Spooky Action at a Distance (2015) and The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory (2008). Although he focuses on space science and fundamental physics, his writings range widely over the sciences. He has won numerous awards for his work, including the 2011 Science Writing Award from the American Institute of Physics and 2010 Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award from the American Astronomical Society. As a Scientific American senior editor for 14 years, he was co-awarded the National Magazine Award in 2003 and 2011.