31ST THE SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 2025

The Science of Consciousness (‘TSC’) conference is the world’s longest running inter-disciplinary gathering on the study of consciousness, the nature of existence and our place in the universe. TSC has alternated yearly since 1994 between Tucson, Arizona USA and elsewhere including Italy, Denmark, Japan, Sweden, Czech Republic, Hungary, Hong Kong, India, California, Switzerland, Finland, and in 2023 Taormina, on the island of Sicily. In 2025 TSC will be in Barcelona, Spain preceding and in conjunction with The Festival of Consciousness. We are at a crossroads in the age-old study of consciousness. Over the past thirty years approaches to understanding consciousness have diverged along two distinct paths: 1) ‘neurocomputational’ views of the brain as a complex computer of simple neurons, a view compatible with AI systems becoming conscious, and 2) ‘funda-mental’ views in which consciousness is intrinsic to the universe, connected to the brain through quantum biology. Exploring the funda-mental view, TSC embraces neuroscience biology far more rigorously than AI-compatible simple neurons. Ironically, conscious AI may be most likely to occur in biomimetic quantum computers.