In the concluding chapter of The Road to Reality, mathematician Roger Penrose asks, "What is reality?" He goes on to state, "I do not believe that we have yet found the true 'road to reality,' despite the extraordinary progress that has been made over two and half millennia, particularly in the last few centuries. Some fundamentally new insights are certainly needed.... Some readers may still take the view that the road itself may be a mirage. Others might take the view that the very notion of a 'physical reality with a truly objective nature, independent of how we might choose to look at it, is itself a pipe dream." Penrose's inquiry provides the parameters for this roundtable—can physics and mathematics fully describe reality? Is it possible that reality will never be fully described within a mathematical framework, thus questioning whether mental processes and consciousness can be fully explained within the physics/mathematics paradigm? Is it possible that a future, yet undiscovered physics/mathematics will accurately define reality?

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Mark Alford is a professor of theoretical physics at Washington University in Saint Louis. He has held research positions at U.C. Santa Barbara, Cornell University, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and M.I.T., as well as a lectureship at Glasgow University. In 2005 he received an Outstanding Junior Investigator award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Deepak Chopra is the founder and chairman of the Chopra Foundation, founder and co-chairman of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing in Carlsbad, California, and Senior Scientist with The Gallup Organization. He is the author of over fifty-five books, including eighteen New York Times bestsellers, on mind-body health, spirituality, and peace. Peace Is the Way received the Religion and Spirituality Quill Award in 2005 and The Book of Secrets: Unlocking the Hidden Dimensions of Your Life was awarded the Grand Prize in the 2005 Nautilus Awards. Chopra's latest New York Times bestsellers include Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul and Muhammad: A Story of the Last Prophet. In 1999 Chopra was called one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century by Time Magazine.

Stuart Firestein is Professor of Neurobiology and Chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. He has received numerous awards and has been a McKnight Scholar and Whitehall Fellow. Most recently he received the prestigious Linville-Wright Award for Research in Olfaction. His work has received support from the Human Frontiers Science Program, NATO, the Office of Naval Research and the National Institutes of Health, as well as private foundations and industry. Dr. Firestein's laboratory investigates the sense of smell, attempting to understand the molecular, genetic and physiological mechanisms that make the vertebrate nose the best chemical detector on the planet. He has published more than 50 papers in scientific journals and is the author of several popular articles and textbook chapters on smell.

Stuart Hameroff is Professor of Anesthesiology and Psychology and Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. In the mid-'90s Hameroff developed a theory of consciousness with Sir Roger Penrose. This theory proposes a connection between neuronal processes in the brain and the most fundamental level of reality, i.e., Planck scale geometry described through quantum gravity. In recent years Hameroff has considered the implications of this theory for Eastern spiritual traditions, suggesting that consciousness occurring in non-local, holographic spacetime geometry may conceivably account for various so-called mystical phenomena, including awareness of a deeper reality, interconnectedness by entanglement, and afterlife.

Menas Kafatos is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computational Physics at Chapman University, in Orange, CA. He also holds the positions of Vice Chancellor for Special Projects and Dean of the Schmid College of Science. His research interests are general relativity and cosmology; consciousness and quantum theory; Earth system science; hazards and climate change; data systems; and computational science. He has written numerous articles and books on quantum theory, its relationship to consciousness, and approaches to the development of what he terms "integrative science." He is author or co-author of more than 300 articles and 15 books, including The Conscious Universe, The Non-Local Universe, Looking in–Seeing out: Consciousness and Cosmos, and Principles of Integrative Science.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.