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Magic is typically performed as a sequence of barely-related tricks, which focus merely on fooling people. It is typically viewed as being a trivial and light-hearted distraction for children, rather like a dancing dog. However magic can be far more than just that. It can portray deeper truths about the human mind, the human condition, and the human predicament. I shall illustrate a number of performance pieces that draw from cognitive science to make the magic more meaningful. Judge my magic, not merely by how convincingly it lies, but by how compellingly it reveals he greater truth.

Dr Kim Silverman is a Principal Research Scientist at a large Silicon Valley technology company, where he works on speech and language technologies. He has B.Sc. degrees in Cognitive Science and in Computer Science, his Ph.D. is from Cambridge University, where he was Research Fellow in Speech Synthesis. and his post-doctoral research was at Bell Labs.

Kim is also a professional magician, with a reputation for making magic meaningful. He is President Emeritus of the Silicon Valley chapter of the Society of American Magicians, and a Magician Member of the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, better known as the world-famous Magic Castle. His TEDx presentations on his thinking behind his magic have 107000 views so far. His Commonwealth Club presentation on “Magic, Science, and the Human Mind” was syndicated to 160 public broadcasting stations nationwide.