Who's Doing This? Why? Who's Paying?
What Is Consciousness?
The people: Chalmers, Dennett, Tononi, Koch, Seth, Schneider, Frankish. Who funds consciousness research — and why the Templeton Foundation matters.
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Learning Material
5 pagesLesson 7 — Who's Doing This? Why? Who's Paying?
Understanding the Complex: What Is Consciousness?
As of May 2026
Consciousness research is unusual among scientific fields. It's philosophically contested, methodologically complex, and — compared to, say, cancer research or AI — modestly funded. Yet it's also deeply consequential and, in recent years, has attracted serious philanthropic money from sources that deserve scrutiny.
This lesson maps the people, the institutions, and the money.