Erik Hoel is an American neuroscientist, novelist, and philosopher who turned the hardest problem in science - consciousness - into a literary career. Holding a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under consciousness pioneer Giulio Tononi, Hoel developed 'causal emergence' theory and the 'overfitted brain hypothesis' before trading academic tenure for a Substack with 69,000+ subscribers. His newsletter The Intrinsic Perspective blends rigorous science with razor-sharp cultural commentary, while his books - the debut mystery novel The Revelations (2021) and the nonfiction The World Behind the World (2023) - bring consciousness science to general readers. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, he grew up in his mother's independent bookstore in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was mentored by novelist Andre Dubus III at age 13.
Joanne McNeil is an American writer, editor, and art critic who sits at the curious crossroads of internet culture and contemporary art. Best known for 'Lurking: How a Person Became a User' (2020) - a critical history of the internet told from the perspective of ordinary users - she followed it with her debut novel 'Wrong Way' (2023), a tech-industry satire about precarious gig labor. Formerly editor of Rhizome at the New Museum and founder of The Tomorrow Museum blog, she has written for Frieze, Wired, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. She holds the inaugural Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation Arts Writing Award and has been a fellow at the Logan Nonfiction Program, a resident at Eyebeam, and an instructor at the School for Poetic Computation. Her next nonfiction work, 'Too Early for the Future,' is forthcoming from MCD/FSG.