Richard has a longstanding interest in the philosophy of mind and the problem of consciousness. His current approach to the problem stems from distinguishing the conscious from the non-conscious brain... He is sceptical of information system and metaphysical accounts of consciousness, believing that computers can at best be intelligent zombies (no bad thing) while metaphysics can be fun but lacks explanatory power.

He first graduated in Computers & Cybernetics following up with artificial neural network Masters research before spending over 20 years in the software industry. He has recently switched to full-time study of molecular biology, gaining a further MSc, and is currently completing a PhD in computational biology.