Dawn Bonker
Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., dean of the Schmid College of Science, will be among some of the world’s top scientists participating in the Second Annual Chopra Foundation Symposium:
Sages and Scientists – The Merging of a New Future
on Feb 25-27. The conference will be held at the La Costa Resort in Carlsbad.
Deepak Chopra, founder of the Chopra Foundation and popular author on spirituality and mind-body medicine, says, “Our panel of world-class scientists and sages are sympathetic with the search for a single reality that embraces science and wisdom.
The Merging of a New Future
will explore a series of fantastic emerging facts – the only genuine currency of science – and a contemporary synthesis where science and soul coexist comfortably. Without such a merging, our world cannot survive.”
The conference is unique in that it brings together both scientists (physicists, physicians, psychologists, biologists) and “sages” (futurists, popular authors, activists, spiritual leaders and humanitarians) to examine what Chopra calls “the emerging future…with a view to finding common ground.” Among the questions the sages and scientists are scheduled to discuss at the symposium, according to the official website, are:
- Are we in the midst of a major paradigm shift in science?
- Is there an ultimate reality?
- Does consciousness conceive, govern, construct and become the physical universe?
- Is the universe becoming self aware in the human nervous system?
- Is the next stage of human development conscious evolution?
- Do we have the ability to influence the future evolution of the cosmos?
- How does our understanding of consciousness as pure potentiality enhance our capacity for intuition, creativity, conscious choice making, healing, and the awakening of dormant potentials such as non-local communication and non-local sensory experience?
- How does our understanding of consciousness also enhance our capacity for total well being (physical, emotional, spiritual, social, community, financial and ecological)?
Dr. Kafatos has previously partnered with Chopra to write articles published in
The Huffington Post
, most recently critiquing
Stephen Hawking’s latest book
in two installments,
part one
and
part two
. More information about the conference is available at
deepakchopra.com
.
At the Sages and Scientists Symposium, Dr. Kafatos will be part of a roster of noted scientists, including Henry Stapp, Ph.D., physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and author of
Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics
; Leonard Mlodinow, Ph.D., physicist at CalTech and co-author with Stephen Hawking of
The Grand Design
; Stuart Hameroff, M.D., anesthesiologist and researcher at the University Medical Center, University of Arizona College of Medicine, and collaborator with physicist Sir Roger Penrose on groundbreaking studies on consciousness; Dean Radin, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and author of
The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds
; Robert Lanza, M.D., chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology and author of
Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe
; Bernard Haisch, Ph.D., astrophysicist, founder of the California Institute for Physics and Astrophysics and author of
The God Theory
and
The Purpose-Driven Universe
; Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D., the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and author of
Decoding Darkness: The Search for Genetic Causes of Alzheimer’s Disease
; Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D., evolution biologist, futurist and author of
Earthdance: Living Systems in Evolution
; V.S. Ramachandran, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Brain and Cognition and professor in the psychology department and neurosciences program at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author with Sandra Blakeslee of
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
; and Jim Tucker, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia Health System and author of
Life Before Life: Children’s Memories of Previous Lives
; among others.
The “sages” include Ian Somerhalder, actor, environmentalist and founder of the Ian Somerhalder Foundation; Victor Chan, founding director of the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education and co-author, with His Holiness The Dalai Lama, of
Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys
; James Doty, M.D., director and founder of Project Compassion, Stanford University, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist; Elizabeth Thompson, executive director of the Buckminster Fuller Institute; Timothy P. Shriver, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of Special Olympics; Duane Elgin, Goi International Peace recipient, internationally recognized visionary speaker and author of The Living Universe; and others.
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