consciousness
The majority of Americans believe that the soul lives on after the body dies. How can we know whether consciousness can survive bodily death? In this week’s eSkeptic, Stephen Cave takes a look at the belief that souls exist, and reminds us that modern brain imaging technology provides scientific evidence to strengthen the case against such fuzzy notions.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Sam Mackintosh reviews Terrence Deacon’s book, Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged From Matter.
Neuroscientist Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. Koch recounts not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his quest—his instinctual (if “romantic”) belief that life is meaningful.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Ueli Rutishauser reviews Christof Koch’s latest book entitled, Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist .
Sam Harris demonstrates — with great intellectual ferocity and panache — that free will is an inherently flawed and incoherent concept, even in subjective terms. If he is right, his book “Free Will” will radically change the way we view ourselves as human beings.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Robert L. Martone reviews Nicholas Humphrey’s book Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness (University Press, 2011, ISBN: 978-0691138626). Martone is a research scientist and is the Neuroscience Therapeutic Area Lead for the Covance Biomarker Center of Excellence. He has extensive experience in neuropharmacology research, having led neuroscience drug discovery and technology teams through all phases of drug discovery from target identification through clinical trials with expertise in both small molecule and protein therapeutics. He also has…
HUMAN BEINGS DO NOT STAND OUTSIDE NATURE; we are a part of it. Ultimately we are made of particles, evolving and interacting according to the laws of physics. And we know what those laws are — the progress of modern science has reached a point where the laws underlying everyday life are completely understood. This is a lecture you won’ want to miss!
In this week’s eSkeptic: upcoming Lectures at Caltech: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, more… feature article: Broadcasting from the Great Beyond podcast double header: Skepticality and MonsterTalk follow Michael Shermer: Our Neandertal Brethren follow Daniel Loxton: The Value of Vertigo Announcing the New Seasonof Lectures at Caltech Mark your calendar! The Skeptics Society is pleased to […]
In this week’s eSkeptic, we present Dr. Michael Shermer’s review of The Brain and the Meaning of Life by Paul Thagard.
Does God Have a Future? Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston debate the question with Michael Shermer and Sam Harris.
This debate between Deepak Chopra and Michael Shermer came about after the widely read and referenced debate the two had last year on the virtues and value of skepticism. Deepak and Michael thought it would be stimulating to have a debate on the topic. Michael read Deepak’s book and goes first in the debate, offering his assessment of the “proofs” presented in Deepak’s book, then Deepak responds.
Leading child psychologist and philosopher Alison Gopnik examines children’s imaginations, their consciousness, and their ideas about love and morality, and finds that the way they play, pretend, and explore are actually part of the most profound and fundamental aspects of human nature. It is through play and imagination that children solve problems of morality, learn about the world around them, and create bonds with other people.
Our 2008 conference at Caltech, on the question of origins, featured lectures by Leonard Susskind, Paul Davies, Sean Carroll, Donald Prothero, Christof Koch, Stuart Kauffman, Kenneth Miller, Nancey Murphy, Michael Shermer, Hugh Ross, Victor Stenger, and a performance by Mr. Deity.
In this week’s eSkeptic, we present Henry D. Schlinger’s revised version of an invited talk presented at our annual conference, “Brain, Mind and Consciousness,” at Caltech in May 2005. This article is also available in Skeptic magazine Volume 13, Number 4.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Lee Traynor reports on the Skeptics Society’s 2005 Conference at Caltech.
The Brain, Mind & Consciousness conference, on what Nobel Laureate Francis Crick called “the greatest unsolved problem in biology,” was held over the weekend of May 13–15, 2005 at Caltech. Watch the entire conference for free in three sessions (approximately 7.5 hours over 3 videos).
In this week’s eSkeptic, David Voron reviews Eric Baum’s book, What is Thought?
In this week’s eSkeptic, John Olmsted reviews the fantasy docudrama and cult hit What the #$*! Do We Know?.
In this week’s eSkeptic, Michael Shermer remembers the life of Francis Crick (1916–2004); Anusuya Vethanayagam reviews the film I-Robot
In this week’s eSkeptic, David Voron reviews Being No One by Thomas Metzinger.
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