Mind Science Foundation Seeks Answers for Top Question in Science.

SAN ANTONIO -- Einstein once walked these hallways as did the bongo-drum beating physicist Richard Feynman. Both offered theories that turned the scientific doctrine of their time on its head.

Next week at the famed California Institute of Technology some of the world's leading researchers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, neurology, artificial intelligence, philosophy and physics will gather to ponder one of the top questions in modern science -- an enigma that has eluded brilliant minds for centuries: how does consciousness arise in human beings?

"How does the pulsating gray matter in our brains give rise to the sensorial richness of the world around us and the intricate complexities of our own self-perception?" asks Joseph Dial, Executive Director of the Mind Science Foundation, which is the lead sponsor of this year's Cal-Tech conference.

In a TV interview last year, best-selling author and string theory physicist, Brian Greene, PhD, gave his opinion of the top three questions in science:

--the origin of the cosmos;

--the origin of life; and

--how consciousness arises.

The first two very familiar questions receive millions of dollars each year in funding from major institutions and government entities for research in a wide variety of fields, including: astronomy, cosmology, particle physics, biology, and genetics.

Funding for the third question, how consciousness arises, is virtually non-existent.

In a recent lecture to the Mind Science Foundation, Dr. V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at UCSD and one of Newsweek magazine's "top 100 people to watch in the next century," stated, "To my knowledge the Mind Science Foundation is the only group in the world with an awards program funding broad-based international research in the field of consciousness."

Next week in Pasadena this small Foundation will be the first lead sponsor of the annual Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness conference (ASSC 9 at Cal-Tech from June 24-27, 2005). Christof Koch, PhD (Cal-Tech), a well-known researcher in visual processing and consciousness, is one of the principal organizers of the conference. www.mindscience.org/conferences

In 2004, the Mind Science Foundation embarked on a long-term program of funding for broad-based, international research in the field of human consciousness. The Tom Slick Research Awards in Consciousness are made by private invitation. www.mindscience.org/research

The Foundation was established in 1958 by visionary Texas philanthropist Thomas Baker Slick Jr. www.mindscience.org/foundation

"We are still surprised by the lack of funding from major institutions for research focused on answering this critical question. Francis Crick, who was co-discoverer of the DNA double-helix, once called consciousness the greatest unsolved question of biology. Of course, there are scientists from many other fields who feel they can shed some light on the answer as well," says Dial. "We are funding talented individual scientists, while working to raise awareness and increase funding for the field of consciousness research as a whole."

The first morning of the ASSC 9 international conference will open with a Tom Slick Awardee Panel featuring such scientific luminaries as: Fred Gage, Salk Institute; Baroness Susan Greenfield, Oxford University; Christof Koch, Cal-Tech; J. Allan Hobson, Harvard Medical School; and Steven Laureys, University of Liege, Belgium.