New: Late abstracts welcome (see Deadlines section). Registration fee reduced (see Registration section).

Aims of Conference

All earnest and honest human quests for knowledge are efforts to understand nature, which includes all human and nonhuman systems, the objects of study in science. Thus, broadly speaking, these quests (as well as the systems being studied) are science matters. The methods and tools used may be different; for example, the literary people use mainly their bodily sensors and their brain as the information processor, while natural scientists may use, in addition, measuring instruments and computers. Yet, all these activities could be viewed in a unified perspective—they are scientific developments at varying stages of maturity and have a lot to learn from each other. In this conference, we invite experts from different disciplines worldwide to share their experience and outlooks, and hopefully plan the future together.

Many of the topics included in this conference are under the name of science and culture, science and art, science and society, etc. We do not think these descriptions are useful. For example, by saying “science and culture,” it implies that science and culture are two different things, which could be opposing each other. Instead, we view them as different aspects of the same thing the effort to understand nature, and a new word “science matters” is called for. (poster download)