Mini-Conference on Magic and Neuroscience
This past week I hosted a small conference on Magic and Neuroscience. Participants included my friend Eric Edelman, and artist based in New York; his brother David Edelman, a neuroscientist from the Neurosciences Institute in la Jolla, CA; and magician Thomas Fraps from Munich. We talked about perception, consciousness, and what science can learn from magic, and had meetings with neuroscientist/olfactory expert Stuart Firestein from Columbia University, animal behavior expert Diana Reiss from Hunter College, Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Jonathan Weiner, and biologist Bonnie Bassler and mathematician John Conway from Princeton University, actor Todd Reichart, and magic consultants Charles and Regina Reynolds. We also attended a talk by Christof Koch and Apollo Robbins at the New York Academy of Sciences.
It was a very stimulating week and my mind is still spinning from all the insights. Thank you to David and Thomas – who traveled so far to be here – and to all the people who so generously spent time with us!
Here we are doing magic tricks for Bonnie Bassler’s grad students, and listening attentively to John Conway (click to enlarge):
[Photos by Thomas Fraps]