Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, a writer, philosopher and consciousness researcher, presented a talk titled "The Impossible Efficacy of Intention? Psi as a Model for Value-Based Holistic Causation" as part of "Archives of the Impossible: Transnationalism, Transdisciplinarity, Transcendence." The May 11-13, 2023 international conference at Rice University featured speakers and panelists who set out to demystify the paranormal through their research and experiences regarding metaphysics, UFOs and much more.
Rawlette specializes in anomalous phenomena and their implications for our understanding of consciousness. She is specifically interested in how the value and meaning intrinsic to conscious experience connect to the functioning of the physical world.
She earned her PhD in philosophy from New York University in 2008, studying under Thomas Nagel and writing her dissertation at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. From 2008 to 2010, she was Florence Levy Kay Fellow in Ethics at Brandeis University before leaving academia for an independent writing career. Her books include "The Feeling of Value: Moral Realism Grounded in Phenomenal Consciousness" (2016), "The Source and Significance of Coincidences: A Hard Look at the Astonishing Evidence" (2019), and "Beyond Death: The Best Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness" (2021), which was named a runner-up in the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS) 2021 essay contest. She currently serves on the BICS advisory board and is a supporting researcher for the International Centre for Reincarnation Research.
Learn more about the Archives of the Impossible:
impossiblearchives.rice.edu