Conference Center of the Hanns Seidel Foundation,
Wildbad Kreuth, Bavaria, Germany
June 21--27, 2003

Organizers:
Ioannis Antoniou and Harald Atmanspacher

Contact:
Workshop Secretary

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The relationship between mind and matter and the problem of how to explore it in detail is older than current scientific disciplines and their acquired bodies of knowledge. But even today, there is no general agreement about how the domains of the mental and the material are to be correctly conceived, and it is unclear how their mutual relationship can be properly explored. Within recent decades, these topics have become revitalized within quite a number of disciplines. In the neurosciences, novel imaging techniques and methods of data analysis have provided a vast amount of empirical material waiting for interpretation. Mind-body relations in psychoneuroimmunology and -endocrinology are fascinating active areas of research. Conceptual frameworks such as the theory of complex systems or quantum theory have been used to discuss relations between mind and matter. Crucial questions in the philosophy of science and mind focus on reduction or emergence of mental experience to or from the material brain as well as on downward causation from the mental to the material. The combined power of these different fields will be necessary to achieve substantial progress in mind-matter related research.

The subject areas of this workshop will be:

• Mind-brain as a complex system
• Quantum approaches
• Neural correlates of consciousness
• Philosophical issues