From philosophical zombies and the purpose of dreaming, to measuring consciousness like temperature and why brains aren’t computers, Seth unpacks the idea that our experience of reality – and of ourselves – is a kind of waking dream, a “controlled hallucination”, shaped by prediction, perception, and the body’s primal drive to stay alive.

His theory of what it means to ‘be you’ challenges how we understand perception – and turns what you thought you knew about yourself on its head.

Following intro sessions that happened at schools back in February, nearly 200 8th-grade students from Escola do Alto do Lumiar (Lisboa) and Escola Dr. Azevedo Neves (Amadora) took part in a series of hands-on/minds-on experiments at both the GIMM Foundation and Champalimaud Foundation (CF) in March. 

Date and Time

July 15, 2025, 14:00-18:00 WEST

Location

Seminar Room, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon

The problem with averages

Imagine you’re deciding whether to wait in line for your favourite meal at a busy restaurant or grab a quick snack at the nearest café. Your brain weighs not just how good the meal might be, but also how long it will take to get it.

"AI/Radiomics 2.0: How to Safely Translate Research Results to the Clinics"

Nickolas Papanikolaou, Computational Clinical Imaging Group

"A New Society of Mind"

Joe Paton, Learning Lab
 

Moderation

Carlos Minutti, Immunoregulation Lab

Venue

Champalimaud Foundation Auditorium 

“I love talking about the molecular structure [I discovered]”, said Ardem Patapoutian, who leads a lab at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, as he was presenting his work to an audience gathered at the Champalimaud Foundation (CF), in Lisbon, last week. “It's very easy for me to talk about it when I have PowerPoint slides, but what if I'm in a restaurant or in a bar and I want to tell someone about how it works? I decided to get a tattoo of the structure and I want to share it with you.”