X-Message-Number: 26017 Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 16:50:07 -0400 From: Subject: On the Complexity of Brains Those in Southern California might be interested in the following, copied from E-Skeptic: Brain, Mind & Consciousness The Skeptics Society Annual Conference Friday, Saturday, Sunday, May 13 15 at the Westin Resort & Hotel and the Beckman Auditorium, Caltech, Pasadena, CA Research on the brain, mind, and consciousness was given a significant boost by Nobel laureate Dr. Francis Crick in 1994, when he wrote in his book, The Astonishing Hypothesis, that you, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. This is what is called the hard problem explaining how billions of neurons swapping chemicals give rise to such subjective experiences as consciousness, self-awareness, and awareness that others are conscious and self-aware; that is, not only the ability to wonder, but the ability to wonder why we wonder, and even wonder why others wonder why. Explaining each of the functional parts of the brain is the easy problem, such as the differences between waking and sleep, discrimination of stimuli, or the control of behavior. By contrast, what has come to be known as the hard problem in consciousness studies is experience: what it is like to be in a given mental state. Adding up all of the solved easy problems does not equal a solution to the hard problem. Something else is going on in private subjective experiences called qualia and there is no consensus on what it is. Dualists hold that qualia are separate from physical objects in the world and that mind is more than brain. Materialists contend that qualia are ultimately explicable through the activities of neurons and that mind and brain are one. Our speakers, some of the top neuroscientists in the world, will address these and other problems, such as the evolution of the brain, and how and why it got to be so large. Skeptics will get a chance to interact with these world-class scientists on the breaks, during meals, and in a formal discussion period. We will also consider the implications of this new brain research to better understand apparent paranormal phenomena, as well as how and why people believe weird things. Special Guest: Mike Reiss, head writer for The Simpsons Magicians: James The Amazing Randi Bob Friedhoffer, the madman of magic mentalist Mark Edwards illusionist Jerry Andrus Speakers: Dr. John Allman Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Neuroscience, Biology Division, California Institute of Technology, author of Evolving Brains, conducts research on the evolution and development of the brain, reconstructions of cerebral cortex, the interface between emotion and cognition, and the relationship between the anterior cingulate cortex and attention deficit disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, phobias, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety disorders. Dr. Susan Blackmore is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol. With degrees in psychology and physiology from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in parapsychology from the University of Surrey, her research interests include memes and the theory of memetics, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She is author of Beyond the Body, Dying to Live, In Search of the Light, Test Your Psychic Powers, The Meme Machine, and Consciousness: An Introduction. Dr. Ursula Goodenough Professor of Biology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO; conducts research on cell biology, the evolution of the genes governing mating-related traits, the molecular basis for flagellar motility, emergent properties in biological systems, the evolution of symbolic communication in primates, and the interface of science and religion. She is the author of the widely adopted textbook, Genetics, and of the popular science book, The Sacred Depths of Nature. Dr. Alison Gopnik Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley; runs the cognitive development lab, conducting research on cognition, brain, and behavior; theory of mind; psychology and philosophy; how children develop and change intuitive theories of the world in much the way that scientists do; children s causal knowledge and causal learning across domains, including physical, biological and psychological knowledge; in essence, how the brain learns to think. Dr. Christof Koch obtained his Ph.D. in (bio)-physics with a minor in Philosophy. After four years at MIT, he joined the California Institute of Technology, where he is the Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology. His laboratory focuses on experimental and computational research pertaining to neuronal correlates of selective visual attention and consciousness in the mammalian brain, a topic he has worked on for the past 16 years with Francis Crick. Dr. Richard J. McNally Department of Psychology, Harvard University, author of Remembering Trauma and the classic paper in Psychological Science, Psychophysiological Responding During Script-Driven Imagery in People Reporting Abduction by Space Aliens, in which he demonstrates that imaginary traumas are as terrifying as the real thing. Conducts research on memories: true, false, recovered, repressed, and remembered. Dr. Steven Quartz Division of Humanities & Social Sciences, and Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, co-author of Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are, conducts research in neuroeconomics, the neural correlates of product branding, and the neuroscience of cooperation, competition, and the development of trust. Dr. V. S. Ramachandran Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and Professor of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, author of Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, The Emerging Mind, and A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, and is Editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Human Behaviour. Newsweek magazine called him one of the hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century. Dr. Hank Schlinger Department of Psychology, California State University, Northridge, author of Psychology: A Behavioral Overview, A Behavior-Analytic View of Child Development, and Introduction to Scientific Psychology and has published scientific articles in journals including the American Psychologist, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, Psychopharmacology, Psychological Record, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, The Behavior Analyst, Skeptic and Skeptical Inquirer. Dr. Terry Sejnowski Director, Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, Salk Institute, Advisory Board Chair of The Science Network, author of Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are, conducts research on the hippocampus, believed to play a major role in learning and memory; and the cerebral cortex, which holds our knowledge of the world and how to interact with it. Dr. Paul Zak Center for Neuroeconomics Study, Claremont Graduate University, conducts research on the neurobiology of trust, the neural substrates of reward valuation, the relationship of touch and trust, and the link between economic systems, social structures, and trust. tickets Register online (www.skeptic.com/conf/reg.html) or call 626-794-3119 $150 Skeptics Society members, $175 nonmembers, $75 Students Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26017