Il 20 gennaio 2018, a Lucerna, celebri scienziati come l’astrofisico e astronomo britannico Martin J. Rees, lo scienziato americano cognitivo Donald D. Hoffman, lo scrittore e giornalista scientifico John Horgan, il fisico brasiliano Marcelo Gleiser, B. Alan Wallace, l’ex monaco buddista e rappresentante delle scienze contemplative e, non ultima, la nostra dott.ssa Tania Re, interverranno alla XII Biennale svizzera di scienza, tecnica ed estetica che si terrà presso il Museo svizzero dei trasporti. Questi importanti ricercatori di neuroscienze e scienze cognitive, filosofia della mente, buddismo, cosmologia, fisica e intelligenza artificiale, nonché dai campi di ricerca che riguardano gli effetti delle sostanze che espandono la coscienza negli Stati Uniti, Brasile, Cile, Regno Unito, Italia, Paesi Bassi e Svizzera, si confronteranno su domande come: Può essere spiegata la coscienza umana? Come funziona? Perché è così sconcertante? C’è una spiegazione scientifica per la sua comparsa?
Tutte le lezioni saranno tradotte simultaneamente dall’inglese in tedesco o viceversa.
Ulteriori informazioni sull’evento e iscrizione su www.neugalu.ch
Topic 2018: Trailer (Youtube) 
Press release
In 1962 the US American biologist Francis O. Schmitt (1903 – 1995) started the Neurosciences Research Program (NRP) established with headquarters at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). What was then considered the last frontier of science—the brain and brain functions—has, over more than five decades, turned into a research paradigm around the globe making massive progress: Today new scientific tools are enabling us to see what neurons are doing when we think certain thoughts.
The revolutionary impact of neuroscience on our understanding of the brain is undeniably impressive. At the same time, however, neuroscience has equally influenced our views on modern psychology, on the philosophy of science as well as on the philosophy of mind, which—from a broader vantage point—have been profoundly led astray by the dogmas of scientific materialism. Dying, for example, is for many today nothing more than the ending of brain function. And the idea of an inner self/subject or incorporeal realm of the mind with qualia is—according to internationally acclaimed philosopher Daniel Dennett—just a cognitive illusion.
Yet, is what Buddhist contemplatives have recognised and even have succeeded in coming to terms with over the past 2500 years, namely the ontology of the mental—an irreducibly first-person ontology or the subjectivity of consciousness—just mumbo-jumbo? And are the very sophisticated ways of training attention and introspective skills that they have devised for probing deeply into the origins and nature of consciousness only hocus-pocus? What is primary: The mind or the brain?
These are key questions of the 12th Swiss Biennal on Science, Technics and Aesthetics. They will be debated from the perspective of issues in philosophy of mind, contemplative science, neuroscience, cognitive science, consciousness studies, artificial intelligence, cosmology, physics and epistemology as well as in the wide field of research about the effects of consciousness-expanding substances by keynotes, and in sessions as well as in a panel discussion with renowned speakers from around the globe.
I wish you a spiritually rewarding day with many inspiring talks and conversations.
Dr. René Stettler, Founder and Director, Swiss Biennial on Science, Technics + Aesthetics
