Summary

Consciousness is a cutting-edge topic in scientific circles, its precise nature holding huge implications for the future of science itself.With so many recent advances in brain studies, questions of mind and consciousness have become of critical importance for scientists and theorists alike. Are we 'nothing but a pack of neurons' that will in due course reveal their secrets in the laboratory? Or do our conscious mind and self-awareness stem from some dimension beyond material investigation? How, too, are we to account for 'parapsychological' phenomena in which consciousness seems to defy space and time boundaries?These recent contributions to the debate, selected from the annual 'Beyond the Brain' conferences, show that it is time for radical re-think of our theories and methods in investigating phenomena of the human mind.