Cognitive neuroscientist and science writer, Bobby Azarian, returns to the Integral Stage for a deep and wide-ranging discussion of the emerging scientific paradigm -- the complexity science paradigm arising out of the intersections of physics, biology, neuroscience, and information theory -- that will likely shape self, culture, and society for the next century. If the universe is now known to be self-organizing through levels of developmental emergence, and if we are, as Carl Sagan once said, "a way for the cosmos to know itself," what really are the implications of such a view for all the domains of life that matter to us? This perspective, of course, is in its general outlines very similar to the one Ken Wilber outlined in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, but the science has developed since Wilber published SES; so Bobby and Layman explore those developments, and how they further reinforce, and in some cases update, the synthesis Wilber offered several decades ago.

Bobby Azarian is a cognitive neuroscientist (PhD, George Mason University), a science journalist, and author of the book The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity. He has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, BBC Future, Scientific American, Slate, The Huffington Post, Quartz, The Daily Beast, Aeon, and others. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals like Human Brain Mapping, Cognition & Emotion, Acta Psychologica, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. His Psychology Today blog (Mind in the Machine) has received over 8 million views, making it one of the most popular blogs on the website. He has been a guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, the Michael Shermer Show, The David Pakman Show, The Jim Rutt Show, The Young Turks, the Singularity University podcast, and many others. He helped develop multiple episodes for Season 2 of the YouTube Premium series Mind Field, which won the show its first Emmy nomination. He is a pro at audio and music production, and is currently working on an educational podcast based on his new book.