Revolution in Neuroscience: Let's Break the Taboos
Be a part of the revolution.
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This week, I’ve been focused on the open-to-the-public event we are planning at the largest neuroscience conference -- the Society for Neuroscience -- on 11/11 in DC. To be clear at the outset, our intention for this event is to break taboos and incite revolution. You know, totally casual.
Donate here to support the event =)
Consciousness remains one of the greatest mysteries of science. Despite decades of research and theory, consciousness researchers are far from closing the gap between neurons and phenomenological experience with a widely-accepted theory. While the dominant theory in neuroscience proposes that consciousness arises from the brain, the past few years have seen alternative theories based on experimental evidence being published in scientific journals – including the idea that consciousness is fundamental. So, the biggest taboo we’re breaking is asking these bigger questions. What if consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the universe? What if precognition is real? What does that mean for consciousness?
Gotta admit, though: I have felt conflict about this event, and I’ll explain why in a minute. I absolutely loved the event we had last year, the Neuroscience & Spirituality Social (I wrote about it here), where my collaborator, Allison Paradise, and I told our personal stories of experiencing weird things that science can’t yet explain. Instead of watching all the scientists in the audience get up and leave (as I expected), they began sharing their own stories. In real time, we watched a theory I had – that these anomalous events are typical human experiences– turn into fact. Elation.
So, I was initially excited to plan this year’s event. Yes! Let’s find more scientists who are curious and willing to discuss the weird, taboo things we can’t usually discuss with our colleagues!!!
But as the event came together – the title we settled on is: Revolution in Neuroscience: Alternative Models of Consciousness (Explaining the Unexplainable) – and we got five distinguished scientists (Christof, Koch, PhD, Donald Hoffman, PhD, Bernardo Kastrup, PhD, Julia Mossbridge, PhD, and Jonathan Schooler, PhD) to agree to participate, it began to feel wrong. Something was off. In a way, it felt like the same old type of tired, boring, typical event at a neuroscience conference.
And, if I’m being honest, I started to get scared. How are we going to discuss the weird stuff in front of all these distinguished scientists?! Last year, we had the word ‘spirituality’ in the title of the event, so people knew what they were walking into, at least to some degree. But this year, I imagined that some scientists would be walking in with the expectation of hearing a talk on the neural correlates of consciousness, suddenly finding themselves hearing questions about precognition or non-human entities (hey, they allegedly have consciousness, too!). I started to worry about all this and feel conflict about hosting the event at all. This became really apparent when I started preparing my presentation and started editing out a lot of things.
Luckily, Julia Mossbridge has been mentoring us with this event and when she caught my hesitation, she asked me to be honest about it. I started pouring my heart out about how I felt conflict about staying true to our mission (to share stories to help destigmatize the things we can’t yet explain) while not blindsiding our speakers and potentially making them feel uncomfortable.
You know what she told me? Put that in your talk. Be honest about it all. Wow, immediate relief.
Another reason I felt uneasy? It felt like I was stepping back into an old role. I love the scientific method and I love science. It’s thread into the fabric of my being and a part of my identity. But the endeavor of science – going through grad school, engaging in the field – took so much from me. It tore parts of me away, bit by bit. Be less feminine. Be more combative. Don’t waste time on artistic self-expression. Be serious so people take you seriously. Be tough. I have worked so hard to welcome those parts of myself back, with love. Going back to the system, back to the SfN conference – the belly of the beast – felt like abandoning myself all over again. But not this time. I can’t abandon these parts again, not for a stupid science panel.
That’s when the lightbulb went off, or really, it felt more like an ignition was lit. With this event, not only were we going to break taboos about what we can talk about, we were also going to break the old way of doing things. Instead of conforming myself to fit back into the system, I was going to change the system to fit the new me. I’m excited to tell you what that means.
In academia, there are three unspoken assumptions that we intend to incinerate in the way we facilitate this event. These are the assumptions and how we will change them:
Assumption #1: When asking questions or making comments, you can use any tone you want – commonly aggressive or combative.
Solution: Nope, not at our event. We ask that everybody make comments or ask questions with curiosity and love/kindness. If you can’t, you will be asked to yield the floor. (and p.s. maybe you should go ruminate on why that is difficult for you).
Assumption #2: Inner/subjective experience doesn’t matter for science.
Solution: Inner/subjective experience guides science, so we attend to it with curiosity and love.
Assumption #3: Hierarchy is the way and younger scientists (and lay people) are not welcome to voice their opinions.
Solution: Everybody is welcome and all perspectives are invited. Consciousness is personal experience, and personal experience is universal.
We’re tired of the old way. Been there, done that. Let’s try something new.
So, listen, putting this event together took a lot of resources. I fucking hate fundraising as much as I hate taboos and being told what I can and can’t talk about, but we still haven’t raised enough money to cover basic A/V, much less record the event.
So, I gotta ask: If you care about consciousness, spirituality, breaking taboos, changing systems, inciting real revolution to the ways we think and do science – please donate and share to your networks! If you’ve ever wished scientists would be more open-minded about the human experience, please donate! It’s an opportunity to directly participate in creating change without doing much (we’ll do the work)!
Donate Here =)
(or if you know a company who might want to be a sponsor or if you know an A/V team in DC who wants to help out, holler!)
We truly appreciate every donation and offer to help – it takes a community to make real change. If we raise enough, we will livestream and record the event (you can check our website for updates). If you are in DC, we’d love to meet you in person at the event!