The Future of Human Collective Consciousness

Robert Lawrence Kuhn speaks on consciousness at the N2 Conference in Berkeley on November 23, 2023

Robert Lawrence Kuhn is an American intellectual who has focused his attention on the subject of consciousness over the past 20+ years, and is the author of the 2000 book Closer to Truth: Challenging Current Belief.

Kuhn also created, wrote, executive-produced, and hosted the PBS TV series Closer to the Truth, which premiered in 2000 and broadcast 22 seasons of episodes. The series offers conversations with leading scientists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars on topics such as cosmology, physics, philosophy of science, consciousness (brain/mind), and philosophy of religion.

Kuhn spoke remotely at Human Energy's N2 Conference The Noosphere at 100, at the University of California, Berkeley, on November 17-19, 2023. He presented diverse explanations, or theories, of consciousness in a “Landscape” of essences and mechanisms with these categories:

• Materialism Theories (philosophical, neurobiological, homeostatic and affective, relational, and representational)

• Non-Reductive Physicalism

• Quantum Theories

• Integrated Information Theory

• Panpsychisms

• Monisms

• Dualisms

• Idealisms

• Paranormal and Altered States Theories

• Challenge Theories

"In Teilhard de Chardin’s grand vision, the noosphere is an emergent entity that reflects the evolution of complexity in the universe and is constituted by the collective, planetary engagements of human minds. Human minds require consciousness, and consciousness remains an amalgam of mysteries; even with advances in neuroscience, explanations of consciousness, rather than narrowing, are proliferating."