Consciousness and the Brain, Part Five: Consciousness in the Universe,withStuart Hameroff

Books Mentioned In This Interview

stuart hameroff toward a science of consciousness

Stuart Hameroff, MD, is a professor of anesthesiology and psychology at the Banner University Medical Center of the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is also co-founder and director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. He is author of Ultimate Computing: Biomolecular Consciousness and Nanotechnology. Since 1994, he has organized the “Toward a Science of Consciousness” conferences at the University of Arizona and elsewhere. Working with Sir Roger Penrose, he is the co-author of the “Orch OR” theory of consciousness.

Here he describes the “anthropic principle” in cosmology, based on the notion that the physical constants discovered by cosmologists suggest that the universe in which we live is uniquely designed to support human consciousness as we know it. This principle has both a strong and weak form. Hameroff points out that his theory is consistent with the strong form of the principle, suggesting that consciousness is intrinsic to the very structure of the universe. He also notes that his “Orch OR” theory is consistent with the idea that biological evolution is guided by consciousness. Therefore, he claims that the Darwinian notion of evolution based on natural selection is incomplete.

(Recorded August 5, 2015)

Published on August 19, 2015

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