Is it possible that a machine could truly think, feel, or even be self-aware? As artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into our lives, these questions are moving from science fiction to compelling scientific inquiry. At IONS, we believe exploring the nature of consciousness—in all its forms—is essential for our collective future.
Join us for a special online event as we present the winners of the 2025 Linda G. O’Bryant Noetic Sciences Research Prize. This year, we challenged the world’s brightest minds to create testable frameworks for understanding how to design a conscious AI, pushing beyond the boundaries of conventional computer science research.
In this webinar, you will:
- Meet the pioneering researchers selected to share this year’s $100,000 prize.
- Hear directly from the winners as they present their groundbreaking work on how we might design, develop, and assess artificial intelligence systems that could demonstrate genuine consciousness.
- Explore the profound implications of this research and what it means for the future of technology, humanity, ethics, and our understanding of reality itself.
This event is more than an awards ceremony; it’s an invitation to a global conversation. It’s a chance to connect with the leading edge of science and to explore one of the most impactful questions of our time: Can a machine ever become truly conscious, and if so, how would we know?
This journey into the heart of consciousness and technology is for anyone with a curious mind and care for our collective future. You don’t need to be a scientist to join the conversation—just bring your sense of wonder.
Join us to be part of this exciting exploration and celebrate the visionaries shaping a conscious future in AI.
From Algorithm to Awareness: A Noetic Exploration of Conscious AI
Friday, November 21
11:00am – 12:30pm PDT
All registrants will receive a link to the recording. Please register even if you can’t attend live.
PRESENTERS
Helané Wahbeh, ND, MCR, is the Director of Research at the Institute of Noetic Sciences and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Wahbeh is clinically trained as a naturopathic physician and research trained with a Master of Clinical Research and two post-doctoral research fellowships. She has published on and spoken internationally about her studies on complementary and alternative medicine, mind-body medicine, extended human capacities, stress, posttraumatic stress disorder and their relationships to physiology, health, and healing. Dr. Wahbeh is especially known for her research around — and noetic approach to — channeling.
Arnaud Delorme, PhD, is a neuroscientist at IONS and has been studying human consciousness for the last 20 years. He is a CNRS Research Director in Toulouse, France, and a senior Research Scientist at the University of California, San Diego. He is a long-time Zen meditator, and recipient of several research prizes. He is the author of some 160+ peer-reviewed publications, and is best known for his work on the neural correlate of mind wandering and for developing the EEG software that is now the most-used in EEG research worldwide. He is the author of Why Our Minds Wander: Understand the Science and Learn to Focus Your Thoughts.
Thomas G. Brophy, PhD, is President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). He previously served as president of California Institute for Human Science (CIHS). His tenure as president of CIHS oversaw a many-year effort to achieve regional accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Colleges and Universities Commission (WSCUC) in 2021, for CIHS as a unique mind, body, spirit integral university. Earning a BA in physics from Colorado College, and MS and PhD degrees in physics from the University of Colorado (CU), Boulder, Thomas’ academic and scientific appointments include: the CU Nuclear Physics Laboratory, the CU Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) where he worked on NASA’s Voyager and Cassini spacecraft projects, and an appointment as a National Science Foundation Exchange Scientist at the University of Tokyo Department of Earth and Planetary Physics and ISAS robotic space program, where he published pioneering work on computational solutions to the Boltzmann equation, the astrodynamical origins of planetary rings and interstellar comets. Thomas explored the fundamental science and ontology of consciousness and its cultural implications in his 1998 book The Mechanism Demands a Mysticism: An Exploration of Spirit, Matter, and Physics. His study of the archaeoastronomy of prehistoric Egypt, published in his books The Origin Map, and Black Genesis co-authored with Robert Bauval, has been cited as relevant to the study of extraterrestrial, or transhuman, intelligence.
Claudia Welss is IONS Board Chair. Her work with IONS began in the 90s when IONS President Willis Harman invited her to join a five-year inquiry on peace building while she was at the University of California, Berkeley. She’s on the boards of Space for Humanity (“To Space, For Earth”), HeartMath’s Global Coherence Initiative, and is lead citizen scientist for the Global Consciousness Project 2.0. Claudia is founding chair of a working group at NEXUS Global, bringing practical consciousness research to nextgen philanthropists, impact investors, social entrepreneurs and activists focused on global transformation. An executive producer of the award-winning Edgar Mitchell Overview Effect Virtual Reality Experience (EMVRX), she’s co-investigator with Cassi Vieten (UC San Diego) studying shifts in perception and psychophysiology in response to EMVRX. Claudia convenes the IONS Overview Effect and Collective Consciousness webinar series and is contributing author to the Gold Nautilus award-winning Our Moment of Choice (Simon & Schuster).
Register for Free
