Thursday, June 4, 2009

Great E3 for Meaningful Media

Its looking like the mainstream game development community is recognizing the potential for meaningful games. Rather than violent games, they are beginning to build new interfaces that explore "inner experience." Check out the demo from Lionhead, and the new heart-rate interface from Nintendo. At least the hardware is there now. Exciting to see what new content emerges!

Monday, June 1, 2009

The Reconnection

Eric Pearl Transcends the Healing Techniques

Eric Pearl has appeared on numerous television programs in the US and around the world, and his healing work has touched the lives and hearts of countless people. He was originally a chiropractor for 12 years, but one day his patients started to experience healings when he simply held his hands near them. Patients soon reported miraculous healings from cancer, epilepsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis, AIDS-related diseases, birth disfigurements and other serious health issues. The healings have been documented in Eric's book, The Reconnection: Heal Others, Heal Yourself, which has become a bestseller and is available in 30 languages. Today he travels the world to teach people how to utilise this new spectrum of healing frequencies. He's taught more than 50,000 people worldwide and his groundbreaking healings continue. Vivienne Tang talks to the entertaining healer to find out more about the healer's work and his involvement in the new movie, The Living Matrix.

Click HERE for the full interview

Eric Pearl will be visiting Hong Kong for the About Consciousness Conference, June 6-7 and will be giving a workshop on the Essence of Healing, June 8. For more information or to book for these events visit www.aboutconsciousness.net

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Dr. Masaru Emoto Reveals the Consciousness of Humanity

The groundbreaking work of pioneer researcher Dr. Masaru Emoto has dramatically changed the way we look at Earth's most precious resource. His knowledge about water has been captured in various books, including The Message from Water where he documents the true nature of water and the influence of human vibrational energy, thoughts, words and music on the molecular structure of water. He has discovered many differences in the crystalline structure of water that has been collected from various places around the world. Water taken from pristine mountain streams show beautiful geometric patterns when frozen, whereas polluted water forms distorted crystalline structures. His famous water crystal photography has been further published in The Hidden Messages in Water and his work has been featured in the popular movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? He speaks to Vivienne Tang from The Source Asia about the consciousness of humanity and its connection with water, sharing his thoughts about the polluted oceans and what we can do to change that.

Dr. Emoto will be giving two workshops in June, to register visit www.aboutconsciousness.net

To read the full interview with Vivienne Tang and Dr Emoto click here

Friday, May 22, 2009

Stuart Hameroff

Stuart Hameroff is a leading proponent of the Quantum Mind. While most scientists are content in relating the mind to neural activity in the brain, Hameroff working with Roger Penrose have developed a theory that places the mind at the quantum level. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him on the Conference (my discussions with him in Tucson three years ago started the process of hosting the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference here in Hong Kong) and other media related projects. He is inspirational in his dedication to promoting Consciousness Studies (he heads the Tucson Center) and his work on the Quantum Mind.

The Quantum perspective move the goalposts for reductionists attempting to explain consciousness with neurons by applying their own methodology (neurons are made of atoms, atoms are made of sub-atomic particles, governed by quantum mechanics). Physicist David Bohm also presented this idea with his notion of an “implicate order.”

One of the significances of this is that the model leaves room (in the implicate order or at the quantum level) for non-deterministic effects such as free will as well as a “meaning” to all (God, etc.). Quite the character, Stuart give a great account of his reception at an “atheists conference” here: http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/skunk.htm. If you are interested in the on-going science vs. religion debates, videos of the presentations at the conference are available online as well: http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival.

Stuart's interest in Consciousness Studies stems from his professional career as an Anesthesiologist. He recorded a great welcome to the TSC Conference and Festival and provides a short primer here.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Primers for the Asia Consciousness Festival

Baroness Susan Greenfield will be speaking at the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference.  In addition to writing many books including her latest, ID: The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century, she also produced the excellent BBC series Brain Story which can be seen online here: http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/08/excellent_bbc_brain_.html.   The series includes many videos of stroke / split brain patients and interviews with leading researchers including Benjamin Libet.  Its a great primer for the Asia Consciousness Festival coming up next month!  Here is another talk by Susan given last year on the future of Brain (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7355464462502289999).

Robert Lawrence Kuhn also has some really good video exploring consciousness up at his Closer to Truth site (http://www.closertotruth.com/consciousness). Among the many excellent interviewees include Stuart Hameroff and David Chalmers who will also be presenting at the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference.

If you want to whet your appetite for the lively consciousness discussions coming in June, both these links provide great background information!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Room Share

If you are visiting from overseas and wish to share hotel accommodation leave a post here with your contact information.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

What is Consciousness, How Does it Arise and What Does it Mean to You? You Decide - Post a Comment

Consciousness poses the most baffling problems in the science of the mind. There is nothing that we know more intimately than conscious experience, but there is nothing that is harder to explain. All sorts of mental phenomena have yielded to scientific investigation in recent years, but consciousness has stubbornly resisted. Many have tried to explain it, but the explanations always seem to fall short of the target. Some have been led to suppose that the problem is intractable, and that no good explanation can be given.
[David Chalmers - Facing up to the Problem of Consciousness Journal of Consciousness Studies 2(3):200-19, 1995]