About Me

I'm Cory Lanker, and this site shares a philosophy that has transformed how I understand consciousness, choice, and existence.

I'm sharing the Conscious Permanence Project with the world because I believe it offers what many of us seek: the potential for significance informed by science, grounding for why choices matter, and practical wisdom for daily life.

My journey began two decades ago searching for three things: unraveling the mystery of existence, finding purpose in life, and understanding why habits are so hard to change. The breakthrough came from a simple thought experiment I formed in my thirties: What if you could relive yesterday with no memory of having lived it before?

I built this philosophy from what I knew with certainty: I experience consciousness, time seems to flow, and I make choices that influence my life's direction. My reading about neuroscience had convinced me consciousness was purely physical. To make all this work together, I identified what pieces would need to exist: a fixed spacetime structure and deterministic brains with agency. I then discovered modern physics describes 4D spacetime (though whether it exists permanently remains an interpretation) and neuroscience supports neural determinism with agency emerging from complexity.

I'm an applied statistician with an unusual educational path—a background in electrical engineering, a second career in economics, and finally a PhD in Statistics. This quantitative training combined with a lifelong love of philosophy gave me the tools to develop these ideas rigorously.

I live in Massachusetts where I continue developing these ideas that began with one persistent question about replaying our days.

If these ideas resonate with you, I invite you to read the overview, join our community, and discover how understanding this project can transform your approach to living.

Questions? Thoughts? Connect with me through the community links or newsletter.

© 2025 Cory Lanker. This work is licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).