The Mind-at-Large Project is a three-year, multidisciplinary exploration into consciousness and its role in the nature of reality. Anchored in philosophy yet open to the sciences, the arts, and spiritual traditions, the project challenges the constricted worldview that confines mind to brains alone. Instead, it invites participants to imagine consciousness as fundamental, relational, and potentially cosmic in scope.
The first gathering, “A New Dawn,” inaugurates this unfolding inquiry. Convening April 15-17, 2026 at the University of Exeter, thought leaders and emerging scholars will come together to explore the deeper nature of mind—from the quantum to the ecological, from the human to the transpersonal. As we enter this new horizon, we ask: Could consciousness be more than an illusion? Could it be the very fabric of reality itself?
We invite papers that engage creatively and critically with the re-emerging paradigm of “mind-at-large,” traversing multiple thresholds of philosophical, scientific, and cultural discourse, including but not limited to:
- Philosophy of Mind: panpsychism, idealism, dual-aspect monism, process philosophy, nondualism
- Mind & Matter: quantum theory, observer participation, the metaphysics of measurement
- Biology & Consciousness: cognition in plants, animals, and bioelectric systems
- 4E Cognition: embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended mind
- Indigenous and Animist Perspectives: relational ontologies and ecological mind
- History of Science & the Disenchantment of Nature: recovering participatory modes of knowing
- Theology & Cosmology: panentheism, pantheism, and the divinization of nature
- Extraordinary Experience: psychedelic, mystical, and psi phenomena as windows onto a wider consciousness
Submission Guidelines
- Eligibility: Undergraduate, MA, PhD, and early-career scholars (within five years of degree completion)
- Abstract: 300-500 words, including title, brief bio (100 words), and institutional affiliation
- Submission Deadline: January 15, 2026
- Notification of Acceptance: February 15, 2026
- Presentation Format: 20-minute presentation, followed by moderated panel discussion with other presenters (30 minutes)
Outstanding papers may be selected for inclusion in the Mind-at-Large media series and future publications associated with the project.
Dr. Andrew M. Davis is an American process philosopher, theologian, and scholar of the cosmos. He is Research and Academic Director for the Center for Process Studies, where he researches, writes, teaches, and organizes conferences on various aspects of process-relational thought. An advocate of metaphysics and meaning in a hospitable universe, he approaches philosophy as the endeavor to systematically think through what reality must be like—because we are a part of it. He is author, editor, and co-editor of nearly a dozen books, including Mind, Value, and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy (2020); Process Cosmology: New Integrations in Science and Philosophy (2022); Metaphysics of Exo-Life: Toward a Constructive Whiteheadian Cosmotheology (2023); and Whitehead and Teilhard: From Organism to Omega (2025). His forthcoming book is a comprehensive yet conversational introduction to Alfred North Whitehead titled Whitehead’s Universe: A Prismatic Introduction. Follow his work at andrewmdavis.info.