Today was Day 2 (and last) of the 2006 Almaden Institute. I avoided the talks which looked as though they were grounded in deep neuroscience and biology — that left me two to attend.
The first was Beyond Dualism by John Searle of Berkeley. He talked about consciousness, free will, free won’t, intentionality, and subjectiveness — and that was in the first ten minutes. But, even though the talk spent most of its time in deep philosophical waters, I didn’t feel adrift.
And then I returned for the last talk of the day, on Consciousness by Kristof Koch of Caltech. This talk had demos, humor, and raised some interesting questions.
I stayed for part of the closing panel, but my phone rang and, after leaving the auditorium to answer it, I didn’t feel like returning for the last few minutes.
Instead, I went home for dinner and then a quick cache; I had hoped to be first-to-find it, but viperfin beat us by 17 minutes. There were two other brand new caches in the vicinity, but I hadn’t written down the details of either one, so they’ll have to wait.