The recently deceased Karl Pribram and his student Walter Freeman, giants of neuroscience, argued cogently that the current American and Asian brain-science mega-projects will shortly follow their European counterpart into collapse. Their long and full lives included over a century of experimentation in a neurodynamics paradigm, in which individual neurons’ firing emerged from holistic brain processes. In short, the current extravagantly funded mega-projects are several orders of magnitude too simple in their assumptions.

While Pribram and Freeman were at the height of their careers in the 1970s, a group of underemployed physicists centered in the San Francisco Bay Area began considering the implications of the trails blazed by David Bohm and John Bell. The result is well documented in the curious masterpiece How the Hippies Saved Physics. While few are still hippies, their views on consciousness are refreshingly radical. Join us for a day of discussion and controversy featuring many of the players from the original revolutions.

Free for full-time students. For others, suggested donation: $100. Nobody will be turned away for lack of funds.

The conference is organized by Foundations of Mind (FoM) founder Sean Ó Nualláin, and hosted by the Center for Consciousness Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).

Dr. Ó Nualláin is the author of the highly acclaimed book One Magisterium and many other works. He was also the last full-time researcher at the Freeman lab (2007–2008).

Past FoM speakers have included Henry Stapp, Tony Bell, Jacob Needleman, Stan Klein, Terence Deacon, Menas Kafatos, and members of the CIIS community including as Glenn Hartelius, Shelli Joye, and Allan Combs.
 

10 a.m.  Neurodynamics: The Divergent Approaches of Walter Freeman, Karl Pribram, and William Hoffman
Sean Ó Nualláin

In a 2014 review of his friend and teacher Karl Pribram’s intellectual autobiography, “The Form Within,” Walter Freeman argued that adherence to the “neuron doctrine” will likely wreck the U.S. and Asian Brain projects as it did the Markram/EC one. For neuroscience to prosper, it must instead embrace field effects. Yet the approaches of Pribram and Freeman focus on different levels of brain process: Pribram’s holonomic approach arises from consideration of the “microscopic” level, in particular individual neurons, while Freeman was interested in mass action at the “mesoscopic” level. The speaker was fortunate enough to work with both, and the first part of the talk will examine computer simulations of each neurodynamics paradigm.

The lesser-known William Hoffman, an American contemporary of these two greats, had an occasionally intense rivalry with Pribram. He was not an experimentalist of anything like their caliber; instead, he championed a “geometry of systems” approach that could encompass mathematical fiber bundles and category theory. While his work is necessarily more speculative, it will be argued that the three may have blazed the trail for much of 21st century neuroscience.
 

11 a.m.  Panel discussion: Dreeeman’; Neurodynamics, Dreams, and Psi
Allan Combs

Simply put, while physics claims the most veridical description of reality, psychology claims to explain physics. Neurology claims a reduction of psychology to its terms.
 

noon–1 p.m.  Break
 

1 p.m.  Panel Discussion: The Quantum Freeman: Physics, Psychology & Neuroscience
Henry Stapp

In the final decade of a full and distinguished life and career, Walter Freeman undertook a dialogue with those approaching mind from the quantum science perspective. At the outset, this dialogue seemed quixotic; it was received wisdom that quantum effects could not persist at physiological temperatures. Perhaps as a result, his early forays in this area focused on phenomena — like anomalous dispersion — that are shared with classical physics. His subsequent development was shaped by two forces. The first was his work with Giuseppe Vitiello, with whom he developed a quantum field theory approach to certain issues of cortical representation and processing. Secondly, under the aegis of the Foundations of Mind group, in 2014 he rekindled an old dialogue with his contemporary, the great Henry Stapp, still with us. At this point, through the work of Engel and others, it was clear that quantum effects could persist at physiological temperatures. If it can be established that these are relevant to issues of mind — particularly of voluntary action — the consequences are enormous. We may, as John Searle has argued, have found the only real proof of free will; we may also, à la Penrose, intriguing evidence that the human mind can engage in actions beyond the scope of Church-Turing computability.
 

2 p.m.  How Hippies Can Save the Second Quantum Revolution
Cynthia Sue Larson

It is widely acknowledged that we are now in the midst of the second quantum revolution, which depends upon our ability to more fully understand and harness a conceptual awareness of quantum mechanics. The arrival of such new programs as Europe's "Quantum Manifesto" launching new initiatives in quantum technology indicates there has never been a time of greater need for fully understanding the quantum paradigm. A fresh look at the ideas of those who first led this charge in 1975 with the Fundamental Fysiks Group promises to ensure this second quantum revolution can steer the world in a more utopian than dystopian direction.
 

Confirmed speakers include: Ruth Kastner, George Weissmann, Liz Rauscher, Henry Stapp, Russell Targ, Cynthia Sue Larson

Toast to Walter: Jan. 30, 8 p.m., Britt Marie’s, 1369 Solano Ave, Albany, CA 94706

Please note: We are rescheduling our course on consciousness to begin Feb. 1, 2017; free for full-time students. Enroll here. Contact president@universityofireland.com.

Proceedings of the Foundations of Mind II Conference (2015) are now available free on the e-journal Cosmos and History.

Proceedings of the Foundations of Mind I Conference (2014) are now available free on the e-journal Cosmos and History.