It is becoming one of the most confusing conundrums of the twenty-first century: What is consciousness? The question seems rather simple at first glance. We all have it, right? Yes, but what exactly is it, and where did it come from? The issue gets thornier the more you think about it. Is consciousness a byproduct of the human brain or the ground of its activities? Has it evolved or was it always present? Despite these profound gaps in our most basic understanding of reality, consciousness studies haven't exactly garnered widespread interest. As Nobel Laureate Francis Crick wrote in 1994, “The majority of modern psychologists omit any mention of the problem . . . and most modern neuroscientists ignore it.” But that oversight may very well be a thing of the past. Recently, David Chalmers, a philosophy professor at the University of Arizona and director of the Center for Consciousness Studies, has helped fire up the field with his Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference, which he has been organizing since 1996. The most recent installment was just completed this April in Tucson. Bringing together cognitive scientists, philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, parapsychologists, and even some spiritual teachers, Chalmers is approaching this difficult field with the widest possible net. “It's a big question. It's not going to be solved overnight,” he told WIE. “It's probably the big challenge over the next century of science.” But he does feel that progress is being made. “The framework of a science of consciousness is coming together, but we can probably expect a revolution or two before we get there.”

Of course, not everyone thinks we need a revolution. The popular author and highly respected cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett also attends the conference, despite his contention that consciousness is easily reducible to brain function. Dennett is an arch materialist even by scientific standards, and his views do not exactly resonate with most of the attendees, a fact that is not lost on him. “Now I know what it must have felt like to be a cop at Woodstock,” he joked after last year's event.

Chalmers is not alone in his quest to bring more consciousness to the question of consciousness. In fact, he is at the forefront of a cross-disciplinary surge of interest in the subject, one that crosses normal academic dividing lines. And you can count him among thinkers, like Nonzero author Robert Wright, who are pushing for scientists to accept what mystics have long claimed—that there are inner dimensions of the human experience not ultimately reducible to matter. “You're not going to reduce consciousness to a process in the brain,” he declares. “My own view is that consciousness itself is in some sense irreducible. Maybe even something fundamental in the world.” Call it a new consciousness counterculture if you want, but if Dr. Chalmers has his way, this emerging Woodstock nation is going to shake up the old guard and rattle the cages of the academy, changing the face of science, philosophy, and maybe even religion in the years to come.