Dr. James Cooke is a neuroscientist and consciousness scientist, and is the Director and Principal Investigator of The Oxford Contemplative Science Research Program within The Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, and is based in Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry. He is a Research Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. His research is aimed to reenvisioning psychiatry as a first-principles science of the relief of human suffering, grounded both in time-tested ancient wisdom and in cutting-edge science. He conducts neuroscientific research into conscious experience using tools such as brain imaging, computational modelling, phenomenology, and philosophical investigation.

James holds three degrees from Oxford University (a DPhil (PhD) and Masters in Neuroscience & a BA in Experimental Psychology). He has conducted scientific research for over a decade at institutions such as Oxford University, University of California, Berkeley, University College London, Trinity College Dublin, and Riken Brain Sciences Institute in Tokyo.

He is the originator of the philosophical paradigm of Nondual Naturalism, articulated in his book The Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive (Rowman & Littlefield), which synthesizes science and contemplative insight to reframe the Hard Problem of Consciousness. He is also the originator of the Living Mirror theory of consciousness which, in combination with the framework of Nondual Naturalism, envisions consciousness as epistemic relationality, within a broader relational metaphysics, thereby overcoming the false dichotomy between mind and matter.

Building on this work, he applies his account of consciousness as grounded in living systems to questions about artificial intelligence, contributing to policy discussions on AI consciousness and model welfare, and on how AI can support rather than undermine human flourishing.