The Science of Consciousness (TSC; formerly Toward a Science of Consciousness) is an international

academic conference An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an Convention (meeting), event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic jou ...

that has been held biannually since 1994. It is organized by the Center for Consciousness Studies of the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

. Alternate conferences are held in Arizona (either Tucson or Phoenix), and the others in locations worldwide. The conference is devoted exclusively to the investigation of

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

Associated people

The main organizer is

Stuart Hameroff Stuart Hameroff (born July 16, 1947) is an American anesthesiologist and professor at the University of Arizona known for his studies of consciousness and his controversial contention that consciousness originates from quantum states in neural mi ...

, an anestheologist and the director of the center that hosts the conference. One of the speakers at the first conference,

David Chalmers David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist, specializing in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, as well ...

, had co-organized some of the following ones, until the event became too far away from the scientific mainstream.

Conference books

Three books published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

have resulted from the conference.

John Benjamins John Benjamins Publishing Company is an independent academic publisher in social sciences and humanities with its head office in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The company was founded in the 1960s by John and Claire Benjamins and is currently managed ...

published a book containing selected proceedings from TSC 1999. See:

Independent academic coverage

* An essay review ''Toward a science of consciousness:Tucson I and II'' by J. Gray was printed in ''ISR Interdisciplinary Science Reviews'' Volume 24 Issue 4 (1 April 1999), pp. 255–260. * Michael Punt reviewed TSC 2002 in the journal ''Leonardo''. See: * In the ''Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research'', Christopher Holvenstot reviewed TSC 2011, likening it to ''The Greatest Show on Earth''. * A review of TSC 2012 may be found in the ''

Journal of Consciousness Studies The ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'' is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed academic journal dedicated entirely to the field of consciousness studies. It is published by Imprint Academic, and was founded in 1994. It was previously edited by J ...

''. * A commentary on dropping the word "Toward" was published in the ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'' in 2016.

Media coverage

Chapter 8 of

John Horgan John Joseph Horgan (August 7, 1959 – November 12, 2024) was a Canadian politician and diplomat who served as the 36th premier of British Columbia from 2017 to 2022 and the ambassador of Canada to Germany from 2023 to 2024. He led the Briti ...

's book ''The Undiscovered Mind'' is entirely devoted to his experiences at the first (1994) TSC conference. In ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', George Johnson wrote about the 2016 conference that "wild speculations and carnivalesque pseudoscience were juxtaposed with sober sessions". The conference and its main organizers were the subject of a long feature in June 2018, first in the ''

Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is an American newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals, including staff members and administrators. A subscriptio ...

'', and re-published in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. Tom Bartlett concluded that the conference was "more or less the Stuart ameroffShow. He decides who will and who will not present. ..Some consciousness researchers believe that the whole shindig has gone off the rails, that it’s seriously damaging the field of consciousness studies, and that it should be shut down."

References

External links