Paul L. Nunez

Paul L. Nunez is Emeritus Professor at Tulane University and heads a small consulting firm (Cognitive Dissonance, LLC) that engages in brain physics and cognitive science research, mostly with the Cognitive Science Department at the University of California at Irvine. He has authored three technical books: Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of EEG, 1981 (2nd edition with Ramesh Srinivasan of UCI, 2006) and Neocortical Dynamics and Human EEG Rhythms, 1995. Nunez has also written two books on consciousness aimed at a general audience: Mind, Brain, and the Structure of Reality (Oxford University Press, 2010) and The New Science of Consciousness: Exploring the Complexity of Brain, Mind, and Self (Prometheus Books, 2016). The latter book extends the ideas presented in the 2010 book, but softens the technical content to appeal to a broader audience.

Nunez also contributes regular posts to Psychology Today. His most recent posts: 1) Consciousness and integrated information theory. A more realistic and unambiguous measure of integrated consciousness is needed (December 2021). 2) What constitutes a genuine theory of consciousness? How will we know when the hard problem of consciousness is solved? (July 2021). 3) Complexity, physics, and the emergence of consciousness. Why materialism and dualism may not be so different (April 2019). Some of Professor Nunez's thoughts on EEG studies of consciousness may be found in a YouTube talk at the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, University of California San Diego 2020: Brains as complex systems. Multi-scale sources of EEG, genuine, equivalent, and representative.

Professor Nunez holds a Ph.D. in engineering physics and NIH-sponsored postdoctoral training in the neurosciences, both from the University of California at San Diego. Early in his career he held several positions in private industry, working on such disparate projects as spacecraft guidance, plasma instabilities, and controlled fusion. Nunez has written more than 100 scientific journal articles on electroencephalography (EEG) and related aspects of Complex Systems as well as many sections or chapters of edited books. A few of his more recent works are found in the following books: Brain Computer Interfaces for Communication and Control, 2012 (Wolpaw); Encyclopedia of Behavioral Science, 2012 (Ramachandran); Quantitative EEG Analysis: Methods and Applications, 2009 (Tong and Thakor); Handbook of Brain Connectivity, 2007 (Jirsa and McIntosh); Encyclopedia of Nonlinear Science, 2005 (Scott); Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 2004 (Adelman and Smith); Encyclopedia of the Human Brain, 2002 (Ramachandran); Analysis of Physiological Brain Functioning, 1999 (Uhl).

Nunez was awarded the 2011 Pierre Gloor Award by the American Clinical Neurophysiological Society for his contributions to clinical research. Nunez's hobbies have included playing tennis (sub mediocre), running in senior track meets (200m, 400m above average), and writing historical fiction (as author Scott Spade).