A computational neuroscientist and roboticist, Jeff Krichmar is currently a professor in the Department of Cognitive Sciences and the Department of Computer Science at University of California, Irvine. A Senior Fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at The Neurosciences Institute from ’99 – ’07, he worked closely with Dr. Gerald M. Edelman. Jeff’s research interests include neurorobotics, embodied cognition, biologically plausible models of learning and memory, neuromorphic applications and tools, and the effect of neural architecture on neural function.

David Edelman, PhD: A neuroscientist and currently Visiting Scholar in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, David has taught neuroscience at the University of San Diego and UCSD. He was Professor of Neuroscience at Bennington College until 2014 and visiting professor in the Department of Psychology, CUNY Brooklyn College from 2015-2017.

He has conducted research in a wide range of areas, including mechanisms of gene regulation, the relationship between mitochondrial transport and brain activity, and visual perception in the octopus. A longstanding interest in the neural basis of consciousness led him to consider the importance—and challenge—of disseminating a more global view of brain function to a broad audience.

A professional magician who is fascinated by using magic to better understand how we see the world. Mark has performed for Mick Jagger, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, John Mayer, Katy Perry, Salman Rushdie, Sienna Miller, Sting, Sylvester Stallone, and many others; at the Olympic Games; in war-torn Liberia; and in hospital wards around NYC.

He regularly presents on ‘Perception’ at universities and conferences in North America and Europe, including the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and has lectured with the late Nobel Laureate Dr. Gerald Edelman of The Neurosciences Institute.

Dr. Heather Berlin is a dual-trained neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mont Sinai in NY. She explores the neural basis of impulsive and compulsive psychiatric and neurological disorders with the aim of developing novel treatments. She is also interested in the brain basis of consciousness, dynamic unconscious processes, and creativity. Clinically, she specializes in lifespan (child, adolescent, and adult) treatment of anxiety, mood, and impulsive and compulsive disorders (e.g. OCD), blending her neural perspective with cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and humanistic approaches. You can visit her website at https://www.heatherberlin.com/

Robert Kozma is the Professor & Director of the Center for Large-Scale Integrated Optimization and Networks (CLION) at the FedEx Institute of Technology, and Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Memphis. Robert is Editor-In-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics and past President of INNS, the Int’l Neural Networks Society.

Robert Kozma’s current research interests include spatio-temporal dynamics of neural processes, random graph approaches to large-scale networks, such as neural networks, computational intelligence methods for knowledge acquisition and autonomous decision making in biological and artificial systems.

Link to CV:

https://umwa.memphis.edu/fcv/viewcv.php?personUUID=rkozma

Together with his love for surfing and music, Joshua (ישוע) is an experienced decision analyst and strategic planner with a degree in systems engineering with emphasis in operations research, management science and decision analysis as From 1994 onwards, after a set of meaningful spiritual experiences in 1993, he has spent many years traveling as an Ambassador of Peace around the world sharing spiritual wisdom with people, families, and communities in different cultures. Since 1998, Joshua has worked in research concerning decision making and consciousness and published his master thesis in Cognitive Science under the supervision of Grant Gillett; “The Brain of Melchizedek: A Cognitive Neuroscience Approach to Spirituality” (2009). Since 2011 he has conducted research in close collaboration with Grant Gillett, Robert Kozma, Walter Freeman, Paul Werbos and Maarten Hoogerland, in the areas of Cognitive Neuroscience, Philosophy, Quantum Physics and The Biophysics of Meaning, Values and Peace.

Currently, Joshua spends time surfing, playing jazz and sharing wisdom with visitors at The Embassy of Peace in Whitianga, New Zealand, while researching in the fields of cognition, consciousness and the biophysics of peace and spiritual values. https://thescienceofpeace.weebly.com/

Stanley A. Klein is an American psychophysicist. He is Professor of Vision Science and Optometry at the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the Berkeley Visual Processing Laboratory. He was a consulting editor for Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, a publication of the Psychonomic Society which promotes the communication of scientific research in psychology and allied sciences. His major area of research has been neurotechnology, a field of science that studies the body and mind through the nervous system by electronics and mechanisms. He was the co-chair for the SPIE (an international society on the science and application of light) meetings on human vision. Klein has authored and co-authored numerous papers on visual perception in the human brain. http://vision.berkeley.edu/?p=413

Alea Skwara is a Postdoctoral scholar at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain and Global Migration Center. My research explores the neurocognitive bases of compassion and adaptive responses to suffering, and how we can bridge basic research and urgent real-world issues to create a more just society for all. Google Sholar

Ilian Daskalov is a senior undergraduate student at University of California, Irvine where he studies Cognitive Science. He holds an associate degree with honors from San Diego Mesa College. His research interests include sleep, psychedelics, and artificial intelligence. He is passionate about communicating science and promoting critical thinking. 

How do biological systems confront, adapt, and survive in an ever-changing world?

This is the central question that defined Charles Darwin’s scientific journey.

160 years after On the Origin of Species, Natural Selection provides a framework for understanding adaptation at many different scales of biological organization, from protein translation (e.g., ribosomes acting as mRNA message ‘filters’ which determine final protein products), to the immune response (i.e., ‘recognition’ of foreign agents or pathogens by antibodies), to organismal development (e.g., morphogenesis; embryogenesis, etc.), to the origin of species and dynamics of vast ecologies (e.g., rainforest canopies, grasslands, island biogeography, etc.).

Could the very same Darwinian principles help explain how complex nervous systems adapt? It seems like a strange thought.

But more than 40 years ago Gerald Edelman proposed Neural Darwinism, the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS), to account for the development and function of the human brain. Neural Darwinism proposes that the functional circuitry of the brain is determined by selective forces operating during development and throughout the life of an organism. It provides a robust biological framework for understanding brain function, including consciousness–the most complex and mysterious of all brain processes.

In a nearly six decade long career, Gerald M. Edelman’s research spanned diverse areas of biological science, including immunology, developmental biology, and neuroscience. The common thread running through all of Dr. Edelman’s pursuits was an enduring interest in the relationship between biology and human experience. Neural Darwinism represents the culmination of his efforts to reconcile the two.

Similarly,  psychobiologist Bernard Baars has sought to link fundamental brain processes and conscious human experience. His Global Workspace Theory and Edelman’s Neural Darwinism naturally complement one another. Both theories propose that the conscious brain supports numerous unconscious processes which together yield a single, coherent stream of experiences.

Through recent neuroscientific advances, we have begun to lift the veil of mystery surrounding consciousness. In an open-minded discussion, the panel explores Neural Darwinism and Global Workspace in the context of these advances and make the case that together, these complementary theories provide a rich biological roadmap of subjective experience.

Through recent neuroscientific advances, we have begun to lift the veil of mystery surrounding consciousness. Through lively discussion, the panel will explore Neural Darwinism and Global Workspace in the context of these advances and make the case that together, these complementary theories provide a rich biological roadmap of subjective experience.

Here, we unpack the Theory of Neuronal Group Selection (TNGS) and make the case that this theory lays out tractable biological ‘first principles’ for building a brain that learns, remembers, and experiences.

Illustration by Jolyon Troscianko

The title card for our Podcast “On Conscioussness with Bernard Baars” is adapted from a wonderful illustration by Jolyon Troscianko – a scientist, photographer and builder of things: Conversations on Consciousness by Susan Blackmore, Oxford University Press (2006).

A link to Jolyon’s Illustrations Page: https://www.jolyon.co.uk/illustrations/conversations-on-consciousness/

A link to his website: https://www.jolyon.co.uk/

We are immensely grateful for his immense talent and generosity!

An evolving list of scientific & artistic references discussed in the podcast “On Consciousness with Bernard Baars.”

Check back for frequent updates :).

Scientific References

The Gerald M. Edelman Family Archive

Edelman Tribute 2014, Artist Eric Edelman

Gerald M. Edelman – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2019. Thu. 14 Nov 2019. 

“Man Who Made Up His Mind, The”; “Horizon, Series”; Producer/Writer David Sington, Contributor Jana Bennett; Broadcast on BBC2 on 24/1/94.

“Putting the mind back in nature” Gerald Edelman, Scientist. Web of Stories: A Story Lives Forever. © 2019 Web of Stories.

Immunoglobulin G (IgG) U.S. National Library of Medicine

Cambiaghi, M. J Neurol (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-019-09322-z Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Dynamic mapping of human cortical development during childhood through early adulthood. Nitin Gogtay, Jay N. Giedd, Leslie Lusk, Kiralee M. Hayashi, Deanna Greenstein, A. Catherine Vaituzis, Tom F. Nugent, David H. Herman, Liv S. Clasen, Arthur W. Toga, Judith L. Rapoport, Paul M. Thompson. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences May 2004, 101 (21) 8174-8179; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0402680101

Yinan Wan, Ziqiang Wei, Loren L. Looger, Minoru Koyama, Shaul Druckmann, and Philipp J. Keller. “Single-cell reconstruction of emerging population activity in an entire developing circuit.” Cell. Published online September 26, 2019. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.08.039

Sporns, G. Tononi, G.M. Edelman, Theoretical Neuroanatomy: Relating Anatomical and Functional Connectivity in Graphs and Cortical Connection Matrices, Cerebral Cortex, Volume 10, Issue 2, February 2000, Pages 127–141, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/10.2.127

Visualization of MRI brain scan data from a single person, showing nerve fiber bundles near or feeding into part of the hippocampus. Neuroscientist Tyler Ard, NIH-supported lab of Arthur Toga, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Jim Stanis, Arthur W. Toga, Ryan Cabeen, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute; NIH Brain initiative 2019

Cabeen RP, Bastin ME, Laidlaw DH (2016). Kernel regression estimation of fiber orientation mixtures in diffusion MRI. Neuroimage, 127, 158-172. 

Cabeen RP, Laidlaw DH, Toga AW (2018) Quantitative Imaging Toolkit: Software for Interactive 3D Visualization, Data Exploration, and Computational Analysis of Neuroimaging Datasets, Proceedings of the Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB. Paris, France, 2854 

Cabeen RP, Toga AW (2019) A Fully Atlas-driven Framework for Bundle-specific Tractography with Multi-compartment Diffusion MRI. 25th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM)

Neuronal connections between the amygdala. Center for Integrative Connectomics, Hongwei Dong, Mike Bienkowski, The Mary and Mark Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (INI)

Center for Integrative Connectomics (CIC), Mouse Connectome Project (MCP)

NIH Support: National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; National Institute of Mental Health

Macaque brain long distance network. Singh, Raghavendra & Nagar, Seema & Nanavati, Amit. (2015). Analysing Local Sparseness in the Macaque Brain Network. PloS one. 10. e0138148. 10.1371/journal.pone.0138148.

Circular representation of human cortical networks for subject and population-level connectomic visualization. Irimia, Andrei; Chambers, Micah C; Torgerson, Carinna M; Van Horn, John D (2012). NeuroImage, ISSN: 1095-9572, Vol: 60, Issue: 2, Page: 1340-51

Allen Institute.

Allen Cell Types Database (2015)

Allen Developing Mouse Brain Atlas (2008)

Allen Human Brain Atlas (2010)

Allen Mouse Brain Atlas (2004)

Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas (2011)

Penfield W. SOME MECHANISMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS DISCOVERED DURING ELECTRICAL STIMULATION OF THE BRAIN. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1958;44(2):51–66. doi:10.1073/pnas.44.2.51

Jean Housen. Image of Nympheum (School of Aristotle) licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Photographer: Jonathunder Medal: Erik Lindberg (1873-1966) – Derivative of File:NobelPrize.JPG Front side (obverse) of one of the Nobel Prize medals in Physiology or Medicine awarded in 1950 to researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The design is a registered trademark owned by the Nobel Foundation.

Neural Darwinism and the Darwin Series of Brain-Based Devices. G.M. Edelman, G.N. Reeke, W.E. Gall, G. Tononi, D. Williams, and O. Sporns, PNAS, 1992.

Darwin VII – Machine Psychology and Value Systems in a Brain-Based Device. J.L. Krichmar and G.M. Edelman, Cerebral Cortex, 2002.

Darwin VIII – Feature Binding through Reentry in a Brain-Based Device. A.K. Seth, J.L. McKinstry, G.M. Edelman and J.L. Krichmar, Cerebral Cortex, 2004.

Darwin X – Goal-Directed Behavior, Reentry and Degeneracy in a Brain-Based Device. J.L. Krichmar, D.A. Nitz, J. A. Gally, G.M. Edelman, PNAS, 2005.

CARL – Schema and Memory Consolidation in Robots. T.J. Hwu, H.J. Kashyap, and J.L. Krichmar, Under review. 2019.

Reading in the Brain by Stanislas Dehaene, Penguin Viking, November 16th 2009

Izhikevich E. M., Edelman G. M. (2008). Large-scale model of mammalian thalamocortical systems. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 3593–359810.1073/pnas.0712231105

[PMC free article] [PubMed] [Cross Ref]

Cognition, Brain and Consciousness: An Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience. Edited by Bernard J. Baars and Nicole M. Gage 2007, Academic Press.

Baars BJ, Franklin S and Ramsoy TZ (2013) Global workspace dynamics: cortical “binding and propagation” enables conscious contents. Front. Psychol. 4:200. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00200

On Consciousness: Science & Subjectivity – Updated Works on Global Workspace Theory by Bernard J. Baars; Edited by Natalie Geld. The Nautilus Press, NY (2019)