Vail Health Foundation, Vail Symposium Event Asks About Consciousness From Transformative Experiences
Christof Koch, PhD, is a physicist who has made a career out of empirically studying consciousness. When Koch began to study consciousness 35 years ago, people thought it couldn’t be done by scientists and that it was a field for philosophers and mystics. “I thought this was silly. Consciousness is at the center of my universe, and if science is supposed to provide a complete description of everything, it better have an idea about consciousness,” Koch said.
Koch presented some of his conclusions on consciousness to a sold-out crowd of more than 150 people during an Innovations In Health Learning Lab on Wednesday, presented in partnership by the Vail Health Foundation and the Vail Symposium.
Through its Behavioral Health Innovation Center, led by Dr. Charles Raison, Vail Health is studying the impacts of psilocybin, the hallucinatory ingredient in psychedelics, on depression. The use of psilocybin for medical treatment was approved by Colorado voters in 2022 and should begin in the state later this year.
Vail Health is also studying the impacts of heat and cold therapy on patients with depression. The study was a draw for Koch — he wanted to know what the medical sauna immersion experience might teach him about consciousness. Though not depressed, Koch said the sauna experience did have a profound — and, at least temporarily, lasting — effect on his mood.
Koch argues that transformative experiences have the power to make someone a better person.
“Empirically, we know that many people who have such transformative experiences become more oriented toward the better good,” he said. “They become less driven by themselves — it’s less about me, me, me — less about money and maximizing return on investment, and they do become more acutely aware of their mortality, the transiency of life, the impermanence of life, the beauty of life, and the need to be compassionate with themselves and with every other living being.”
Watch the video recording or read the full article on VailDaily.com.
