Backed by his Zombie Blues band, David Chalmers is a vision of primordial rock ’n’ roll: a growling, howling menace with wild hair and a leather jacket. But the lyrics he shouts are inside references to debates about the nature of consciousness, and the audience that gathers for the performance is in on all the jokes.

The opportunity to hear Professor Chalmers, one of the most celebrated philosophers of mind and a visiting professor at New York University, will next arise on Monday night at the third annual Qualia Fest, a lineup of seven bands, most of whose members hail from the realms of philosophy and neuroscience.

Those two fields were once miles apart. In recent years, however, and particularly in New York, an area of overlap has emerged among theorists and practical researchers. Someday that overlap may produce clear answers about the human mind. But it has already produced a whole mess of bands. Qualia Fest, which this year will take place at the Bowery Electric starting at 7 p.m., is their Woodstock.

It is the brainchild, if you will, of Richard Brown, a philosopher at the City University of New York. Back when he was a graduate student, he started playing music with some fellow academics in a colleague’s basement. Those jam sessions became the New York Consciousness Collective, and moved to a monthly gig at the Parkside Lounge on the Lower East Side. Along the way, the musicians coalesced into a few discrete bands.