The Mind-at-Large Project is a three-year, multidisciplinary inquiry into consciousness and its role in the nature of reality. Rooted in philosophy yet reaching across the sciences, the arts, and spiritual traditions, the project challenges the prevailing assumption that mind is confined to human brains alone. Instead, it explores the possibility that consciousness is fundamental, relational, and potentially cosmic in scope.
Against the background of a long period of intellectual disenchantment—one that rendered nature mute, inert, and mindless—the Mind-at-Large Project seeks to recover and re-imagine participatory modes of knowing. It invites dialogue across disciplines and traditions that take seriously the idea that mind may be woven into the fabric of the universe itself.
The first gathering, “A New Dawn,” inaugurates this unfolding inquiry and will be held fully online from April 15–17, 2026, hosted by the Center for Process Studies. Designed to be globally accessible, the conference will convene leading thinkers and emerging scholars from around the world for two and a half days of shared inquiry into the deeper nature of mind—from the quantum to the ecological, from the human to the transpersonal.
The program will feature a dynamic mix of plenary lectures, emerging perspectives, and panel discussions, fostering both depth and dialogue across disciplinary boundaries. As we enter this new horizon, we ask: Is consciousness merely an evolutionary by-product, or could it be a fundamental feature of reality itself? What new metaphysical, scientific, and ethical possibilities emerge if mind is not an illusion, but a pervasive dimension of the cosmos?
Format
Plenary Pioneers
The conference will feature plenary lectures from leading thinkers whose work has helped reopen the question of consciousness in philosophy, science, and culture. Together, these Plenary Pioneers represent diverse yet convergent efforts to rethink mind beyond reductive materialism. Each plenary will offer a distinctive vantage point on the possibility that consciousness is not merely a feature of complex brains, but a fundamental dimension of reality itself.
Emerging Perspectives
In addition to the plenary lectures, Emerging Perspectives sessions will showcase accepted papers from promising scholars whose work engages the guiding question of the conference with originality, rigor, and interdisciplinary reach. Selected through a review process, these contributions represent emerging lines of inquiry into the re-emergence of mind-at-large across contemporary thought.
Themes
Presentations will address this question from a wide range of philosophical, scientific, and cultural vantage points, including—but not limited to—the following areas:
Philosophy of Mind
Panpsychism, idealism, dual-aspect monism, process philosophy, nondual traditions
Mind & Matter
Quantum theory, observer participation, and the metaphysics of measurement
Biology and Consciousness
Cognition in plants, animals, and bioelectric systems
4E Cognition
Embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended approaches to mind
Indigenous and Animist Perspectives
Relational ontologies and ecological consciousness
History of Science and the Disenchantment of Nature
Recovering participatory modes of knowing
Theology and Cosmology
Panentheism, pantheism, and the divinization of nature
Extraordinary Experience
Psychedelic, mystical, and psi phenomena as windows onto a wider field of consciousness
Together, the plenary and emerging sessions aim not to close the question of consciousness, but to reopen it—expanding the conceptual space in which new understandings of mind, nature, and reality may emerge.
Plenary Speakers
Andrew M. Davis
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.
Curt Jaimungal
Curt Jaimungal is a Toronto-based filmmaker and interviewer. He explores topics related to theoretical physics, consciousness, and free will through his podcast Theories of Everything. Through utilising the connection between physics, consciousness and meaning, Jaimungal takes an in-depth dive into the intricacies behind meaning and whether or not there is an explanation. Theories of Everything invites intellectuals and personalities with relation to contemporary sciences to share their takes on various subjects such as panpsychism, God and meaning, and how we can equip certain mindsets to cultivate stronger understanding.
Edward Kelly
Dr. Edward F. Kelly is currently a Professor in the Division of Perceptual Studies (DOPS), a research unit housed administratively within the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD in psycholinguistics and cognitive science from Harvard in 1971, and spent the next 15-plus years working mainly in parapsychology. Between 1988 and 2002 he worked with a large neuroscience group at UNC-Chapel Hill, mainly carrying out EEG and fMRI studies of human somatosensory cortical adaptation to natural tactile stimuli. He returned full-time to psychical research in 2002, serving as lead author of Irreducible Mind (2007), Beyond Physicalism (2015), and Consciousness Unbound (2023). He is now returning to his central long-term research interest—application of modern functional neuroimaging methods to intensive psychophysiological studies of paranormal or ‘psi’ processes and psi-conducive altered states of consciousness in exceptional subjects. Prof. Kelly is a member of Essentia Foundation’s Academic Advisory Board.
Freya Mathews
Dr. Freya Mathews is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Philosophy at Latrobe University. Her books include The Ecological Self (1991, 2021), Ecology and Democracy (editor) (1996), For Love of Matter: a Contemporary Panpsychism (2003), Journey to the Source of the Merri (2003), Reinhabiting Reality: towards a Recovery of Culture (2005), Ardea: a philosophical novella (2016), Without Animals Life is not Worth Living (2016) and The Dao of Civilization: a Letter to China (2023). She is the author of over a hundred essays, chapters and articles in the area of ecological philosophy. Her current special interests are in ecological civilization; indigenous (Australian and Chinese) perspectives on “regenerativity” and how these perspectives may be adapted to the context of contemporary global society; panpsychism and the critique of the metaphysics of modernity; and conservation ethics. In addition to her research activities she helps to care for a private conservation reserve in northern Victoria. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Iain McGilchrist
Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London. He has been a Research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies in Stellenbosch. He has published original articles and research papers in a wide range of publications on topics in literature, philosophy, medicine and psychiatry. He is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale 2009); and his book on neuroscience, epistemology and ontology called The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (Perspectiva 2021). Follow Iain at channelmcgilchrist.com
Jared Morningstar
Jared Morningstar is an independent scholar living in Chicago with academic interests in philosophy of religion, Islamic studies, comparative religion, metamodern spirituality, and interfaith dialogue. Their work in these areas seeks to offer robust responses to issues of inter-religious conflict, contemporary nihilism, and the “meaning crisis,” among other things. Jared graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2018 with degrees in religion and Scandinavian studies and currently works for the Center for Process Studies and the Psychedelic Medicine Association.
Matthew David Segall
Matthew David Segall is a transdisciplinary researcher and teacher applying process philosophy across the natural and social sciences, including the study of consciousness. He is Assistant Professor in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness Program at California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA. Matt is author of Crossing the Threshold: Etheric Imagination in the Post-Kantian Process Philosophy of Schelling and Whitehead (Integral Imprint, 2023) and Physics of the World-Soul: Alfred North Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology (SacraSage Press, 2021). Follow his work at Footnotes2Plato.com
Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes
Dr. Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes is a Philosopher of Mind and Metaphysics, and lecturer at the University of Exeter. He specializes in the thought of Whitehead, Nietzsche, Bergson, and Spinoza—and in fields pertaining to panpsychism, pantheism, mental causation, and altered states of consciousness. Peter is the author of Noumenautics (2015), Modes of Sentience (2021), co-editor and contributor of Bloomsbury’s Philosophy and Psychedelics (2022), the TEDx Talker on “psychedelics and consciousness,” and he is inspiration to the recreation of inhuman philosopher Marvel Superhero, Karnak.
Philip Goff
Dr. Philip Goff is a professor of philosophy at Durham University. He received his PhD from University of Reading where he studied under Galen Strawson and subsequently did postdoctoral work at the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University. His main research focus is consciousness, but he is also interested in the purpose of the universe, the mystery of psycho-physical harmony, and value objectivity among other topics. He is most known for defending panpsychism as the best theory of consciousness. He is the author of Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (2019) and more recently, Why? The Purpose of the Universe (2023) where he explores whether panpsychism can offer a kind of middle way between traditional belief in God and secular atheism.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn
Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn is the creator, executive producer, writer, and host of Closer To Truth, the PBS/public television series on Cosmos, Life, Consciousness, and Meaning that presents leading scientists, philosophers, and creative thinkers discussing fundamental questions. He has a BA in Human Biology (Johns Hopkins), SM in Management (MIT), and PhD in Anatomy/Brain Research (UCLA). Dr. Kuhn has published over 30 books and numerous academic articles, including the influential “A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications” (Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2024). In addition to his academic work, Dr. Kuhn is a renowned China expert, international corporate strategist, investment banker, and public intellectual.
Susan Blackmore
Dr. Susan Blackmore is a psychologist, lecturer and writer best known for her book The Meme Machine (1999) and the textbook Consciousness: An Introduction (4th Edition 2024 with her daughter Emily Troscianko). She is a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth, UK. Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, NDEs, OBEs, free will, lucid dreams, sleep paralysis, drugs, psychedelics, spirituality and meditation. She has written more than sixty academic papers, a hundred contributions to books, and her work has been translated into twenty other languages. She has practised Zen for forty years and plays in a samba band.
Tevin Naidu
Dr. Tevin Naidu, MBChB, PGDipGP, MPhilPEMH, is a South African medical doctor, philosopher, and the creator and host of Mind-Body Solution. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Medicine and Surgery from Stellenbosch University and a Master’s Degree in the Philosophy and Ethics of Mental Health from the University of Pretoria. He is a full-time medical practitioner with a PGDip in General Practice, and his MPhil academic work focused on theories of consciousness, computational psychiatry, phenomenological psychopathology, values-based practice, addiction, moral luck, and free will. He champions Mind-Body Solution’s mission to provide open-access, thought-provoking content, advancing philosophical and scientific inquiry, and inspiring a global community to explore the fundamental nature of mind, matter, meaning, and more. Join him on his quest to illuminate the Mind-Body Problem and take one step closer to the Mind-Body Solution.
Wm. Andrew Schwartz
Dr. Wm. Andrew Schwartz is an American philosopher and activist. He currently serves as Executive Director of the Center for Process Studies (CPS), Co-Founder & Vice President of the Institute for Ecological Civilization (EcoCiv), and Associate Professor of Process Studies and Comparative Philosophy at Claremont School of Theology (CST). His research and teaching covers a wide range of topics, such as environmental philosophy, philosophy of religion, Asian and comparative philosophies, metaphysics, economic philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of education, and more. However, his current work mainly focuses the application of process philosophy in understanding reality, understanding humanity, and understanding how best to organize systems of society for ecological civilization. He is author/editor of 7 books, including What is Ecological Civilization (2019) and The Metaphysics of Paradox (2018). As Executive Director, Andrew has overall strategic and operational responsibility for CPS, including development and implementation of the CPS mission, programs, and strategic vision.
Organizers
