News and Research - Science of Consciousness
Center for Consciousness Studies
University of Arizona

Stuart Hameroff M.D. joined the Department of Anesthesiology University of Arizona in 1975. Aside from his full-time clinical role, Dr. Hameroff's academic and research interests have related to the study of consciousness, how the brain produces conscious experience, and how anesthetics erase it. He has written or edited 5 books, more than one hundred articles, and discussed the science of consciousness in numerous TV shows on BBC, Discover Channel, History Channel, PBS, OWN, and in the film "What the Bleep?" As Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, Hameroff co-organizes (with philosopher David Chalmers) the conference series "Toward a Science of Consciousness". Hameroff is co-developer, with British physicist Sir Roger Penrose, of the controversial Penrose-Hameroff "Orch OR" theory of consciousness, based on quantum computations in microtubules.

Center for Consciousness Studies - Toward a Science of Consciousness - The Tucson Conference

The study of human consciousness is one of science's last great frontiers. After being neglected for many years (i.e. during a period of dominance by behaviorism in psychology), interest in the science of consciousness exploded in the last decades, with much progress in neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and other areas. The University of Arizona has been at the center of these developments. The 1994 Tucson conference on "Toward a Science of Consciousness" is widely regarded as a landmark event, and the subsequent series of biennial conferences in Tucson have attracted extraordinary interest.

Toward a Science of Consciousness is the largest and longest-running interdisciplinary conference emphasizing broad and rigorous approaches to the study of conscious awareness probing fundamental questions related to conscious experience. Topical areas include neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, biology, quantum physics, meditation and altered states, machine consciousness, culture and experiential phenomenology & contemplative approaches

Held annually since 1994, the conference is organized by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona, and alternates yearly between Tucson, Arizona and various locations around the world. An estimated 500 scientists, philosophers, psychologists, experientialists, artists and students from over 60 countries are due to take part. An annual alternate year TSC is held overseas in cooperation with partner organizations and institutions - cities included: Helsinki, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Salzburg, Budapest, Prague, Skovde, Tokyo, Naples, Elsinore and Agra.

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