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 event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journal ...

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 land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

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

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

Associated people

The main organizer is Stuart Hameroff, 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 the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York Univers ...

, co-organized some of the following ones, until the event became too far away from the scientific mainstream. Plenary or keynote speakers have included Daniel Dennett, Prem Saran Satsangi, and Roger Penrose.

Conference books

Three books published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

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:

Academic coverage

(None of the following peer-reviewed journals are involved with the organization of TSC.) 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. A review of TSC 2012 may be found in the ''

Journal of Consciousness Studies A journal, from the Old French ''journal'' (meaning "daily"), may refer to: *Bullet journal, a method of personal organization *Diary, a record of what happened over the course of a day or other period *Daybook, also known as a general journal, a ...

''. A commentary on dropping the word "Toward" was published in th
''Journal of Consciousness Studies''
in 2016. In the ''Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research'', Christopher Holvenstot reviewed TSC 2011, likening it to ''The Greatest Show on Earth''. Michael Punt reviewed TSC 2002 in the journal ''Leonardo''. See:

Media coverage

Chapter 8 of

John Horgan John Joseph Horgan (born August 7, 1959) is a Canadian politician who served as the 36th premier of British Columbia from 2017 to 2022, and also as the leader of the British Columbia New Democratic Party from 2014 to 2022. Horgan has been the ...

's book ''The Undiscovered Mind'' is entirely devoted to his experiences at the first (1994) TSC conference. 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 a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to r ...

'', and re-published in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. 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