The Quantum Mind

There's a conference happening May 3rd to 7th this year, in Stockholm, Sweden, that looks like it will be very good to keep an eye on. Here's a link to a page promoting the event, which is called Toward a Science of Consciousness: Brain, Mind and Reality.

Toward a Science of Consciousness
Brain, Mind, Reality
May 3-7, 2011
Aula Magna Hall, Stockholm University
Stockholm, Sweden

Tuesday May 3

Plenary 1, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Brain Electromagnetic Fields and Consciousness
McCormick D, Yale, Endogenous Electric Fields Guide Cortical Network Activity
Pockett S, Auckland, Electromagnetic Field Theory Of Consciousness: The Shape Of
Conscious Fields
McFadden J, Surrey, The Continuous Electromagnetic Information (CEMI) Field
Theory of Consciousness

Plenary 2, 11:10am to 12:30 pm
Time and Consciousness I
Atmanspacher H, Freiberg, Temporal Nonlocality In Bistable Perception
Gonzalez-Andino S, Geneva, Backward Time Referral in the Amygdala of Primates

Plenary 3, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Consciousness and Reality I
Chopra D, Chopra Foundation Vedic Approaches To Consciousness And Reality
Mlodinow L, Pasadena, Grand Design
Zizzi P, Padua, Consciousness In The Early Universe

Wednesday May 4

Plenary 4, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Transcranial Therapies
Wassermann E, NIH, Transcranial Stimulation and Consciousness
Snyder A, Sydney, Accessing Information Normally Beyond Conscious Awareness by
Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation
Tyler WJ, Arizona State, Transcranial Ultrasound Therapy for Brain Injury

Plenary 5, 11:10am to 12:30 pm
Neural correlates of consciousness I
Malach R., Weizman, Local Neuronal Ignitions And The Emergence Of Perceptual Awareness
Plenz D, NIH, Neuronal Avalanches, Coherence Potentials, And Cooperativity:
Dynamical Aspects That Define Mammalian Cortex

Plenary 6, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Consciousness and Reality II
Kafatos M, Chapman, Consciousness and The Universe: Non-local, Entangled, Probabilistic and Complementary Reality
Kallio Tamminem K, Helsinki, Quantum physics and Eastern philosophy
Pylkkanen P, Helsinki, Bohmian view of consciousness and reality


Thursday May 5

Plenary 7, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Varieties of Religious Experience
Beauregard M, Montreal, Neuroscience of Transcendent Experiences
Moreira-Almeida, A., Juiz De Fora, Differential Diagnosis Between Spiritual Experiences and Mental Disorders
Roberto, Padr. Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Sacred Plants of Amazonia

Plenary 8, 11:10am to 12:30 pm
Time and consciousness II
Bierman D, Amsterdam, Presentiment
Cerf M, NYU, Time effects in human cortical neuronal firings

Plenary 9, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Quantum Biology I
KEYNOTE: Luc Montagnier, Nobel Laureate, Pasteur Institute, The Transfer of Biological
Information Through Electromagnetic Waves and Water.
Giuseppe Vitiello, Salerno, DNA: On the Wave of Coherence
Bernroider/Summerhammer, Salzburg, Quantum Properties in Ion Channel Proteins

THURSDAY EVENING
CONFERENCE DINNER CRUISE

Friday May 6

Plenary 10, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Microtubules
Tuszynski JA., Edmonton, Information Processing Within Dendritic Cytoskeleton
Bandyopadhyay, A , NIMS, Tsukuba, Direct Experimental Evidence for Quantum
States in Microtubules and Topological Invariance
Tanzi R , Harvard, Zinc link between aBeta and microtubule instability in
Alzheimers disease

Plenary 11, 11:10am to 12:30 pm
KEYNOTE
Sir Roger Penrose
Oxford

Plenary 12, 2:00 pm to 4:10 pm
Neural correlates of consciousness II
Hesslow G, Lund, The Inner World As Simulated Interaction With The Environment
Ehrsson H, Karolinska, How We Come To Experience That We Own Our Body: The Cognitive
Neuroscience of Body Self-Perception
Ullen F, Karolinska, The Psychological Flow Experience: From Phenomenology to
Biological Correlates

Saturday May 7
Plenary 13, 8:30 am to 10:40 am
Anesthesia and consciousness
Hudetz A, Milwaukee, Anesthetics and Gamma Synchrony
Franks N, London, Molecular Actions of Anesthetics
Hameroff S, Tucson, Meyer-Overton Meets Quantum Physics

Plenary 14, 11:10 to 1:20 pm
End of life brain activity
Chawla L, GWU, Surges of Electroencephalogram Activity at the Time of Death. A
Case Series.
Van Lommel P. , Amsterdam, Nonlocal Consciousness: A Concept on the Continuity
of our Consciousness

There are also workshops in the days leading up to the event. This is huge! Leading edge research on the latest developments in understanding how quantum effects, once thought to be impossible to manifest in the "warm and wet" environment of living creatures, are a basic part of our experience of reality.

Here's another couple of links for you:

At the end of January, a great round table discussion featuring some of the experts who will be at the above conference occurred, go to the Philoctetes Center's Multidisciplinary Study of Imagination webpage and view the video. There are also some great comments on that page, including additional links provided by some of the participants in the round table discussion.

That same video is also on youtube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEQeRBZcScY. Embedding has been disabled for the video so I can't paste it here, but there is some thoughtful and stimulating debate in this presentation, which is almost 107 minutes long. Enjoy the journey!

Next: Changing Your Brain