INTRODUCTORY REMARKS FOR THE READERS OF THE SPECIAL EDITION OF COSMOS AND HISTORY The Foundations of Mind conference was the fifth annual meeting of the cognitive science society of Ireland. Like the first, which took place in Sheffield, England, it was held outside Ireland; in this case, at international house in UC Berkeley, California. It is worth making several remarks about the staging of the event, particularly given the event has led to a burgeoning workshop series and discussion group. In the first place, despite giving rise to several academic books, the meetings of the cognitive science society of Ireland have never had any funding. It is indeed meet this new publication should take place on the site of Cosmos and History, a truly admirable attempt at open science and humanities. Secondly, we found a remarkable range of eminent academics, from Stuart Kauffman through Walter Freeman to Henry Stapp, were willing to present. Finally, I wish only to thank Arran Gare for his support for this and other projects before allowing the event to begin speaking for itself. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS AT THE CONFERENCE ITSELF Thanks and welcome. The theme of this year's conference is Foundations of Mind: Cognition & Consciousness. There is a clear implication these two can be distinguished, an implication puts clear blue water between this conference and others apparently on the same theme. This distinction can be found as far back as 200 AD with Alexander's interpretation of Aristotle's common sense as that which perceives, an interpretation echoed in Plotinus with his theory of the inner sense. While this move at first sight might seem to remove the magic from mental function, in fact it seems to me to be salutary. In particular, splitting the act of awareness from the contents presented to awareness allows a more detailed examination of these contents per se. And so the panels we have examine this. We will learn in the first panel about the reconstruction of this distinction in thinkers such as Gurdjieff; we will also hear about the notion of tuning in the area of modern cosmology, an area in many ways invented by the Belgian priest and physicist Georges Le Maitre. We then go on to examine which neuroscience methods can in fact characterize content in ways are formally sufficient. This leads to the issue of whether there is not a proper way to reduce one discipline to another. The dichotomy between content and perception continues in language, where clearly attention has a valuable information-processing role to play. At the ultimate metaphysical and indeed ontological level of analysis, we find there is an as yet unresolved issue about how the act of observation can affect an apparently objective state of affairs. Of course, decoherence theory has established observation may not be necessary, and the epistemological interpretation of QM withholds belief in our ability cognitively to penetrate nature at this level. Yet interpretation of QM is precisely the weasel words with which Osiander introduced De Revoltionibis by Copernicus. Consequently, among the many fine submissions we got for review, we will include in the program here speculative interpretations of Q entanglement and the links with subjective experience. We have an extremely diverse group of presenters, diverse not just in the range of subjects in which they are expert but in their ethnic and political affiliation. In the old story, at the summit of the mountain we are all wearing the same kit, and we are all mountaineers as we scale the highest heights. I wish everybody here a great conference. The Panels were as follows: Panel 1: Jacob Needleman and Robert Spitzer It is now accepted the Abrahamic religions, focused as they are on community solidarity based on the sacred and with it the supernatural, are inappropriate for environmental preservation even without their licensing of exploitation of the earth. …