Christof Koch   Maxine Anderson   Karl Brunnhölzl

This will be the fifth in a series of conversations representing these three views, where we have explored and learned that natural science’s objective knowledge and the subjective understanding of inner science are not mutually exclusive.

Christof Koch, PhD

Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. His research interests include elucidating the biophysical mechanisms underlying neural computation, understanding the mechanisms and purpose of visual attention, and uncovering the neural basis of consciousness and the subjective mind. Koch’s research addresses scientific questions using a widely multidisciplinary approach.
Dr. Koch has published extensively, and his writings and interests integrate theoretical, computational and experimental neuroscience. His most recent book, Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, blends science and memoir to explore topics in discovering the roots of consciousness

Maxine Anderson, MD

Maxine K. Anderson, MD, is a founding member of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and a Training and Supervising Analyst at several psychoanalytic institutes in North America and Canada. In addition, she is a full member of the British Psychoanalytic Society.
Her current thinking and writing interests focus on the forces for and against thought and growth, the ongoing tension between symbolic and a-symbolic functioning, and more widely on the nature of reality. Her most recent explorations into the nature of reality attempt to bridge the disciplines of psychoanalysis, neuroscience and philosophy. She has written several articles publishing in the JAPA, and the Canadian Journal of Psychoanalysis. Her most recent book is The Wisdom of Lived Experience: Views from Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience, Philosophy and Metaphysics.

Karl Brunnhölzl

Karl Brunnhölzl was originally trained, and worked, as a physician in Germany. He received his Buddhist and Tibetan language training mainly at Marpa Institute For Translators in Kathmandu, Nepal (director: Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche) and also studied Tibetology, Buddhology, and Sanskrit at Hamburg University, Germany.
Mitra Karl is one of the senior translators and teachers at Nalandabodhi and Nitartha Institute (director: Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche) in North America, Asia, and Europe. In addition, he regularly taught at Gampo Abbey’s Vidyadhara Institute from 2000–2007. He is the author of over a dozen books on Buddhism, such as The Center of the Sunlit Sky, Straight from the Heart, When the Clouds Part, and The Heart Attack Sutra. Karl lives in Seattle and mainly works as a translator of Tibetan and Sanskrit texts.