What is consciousness? And why do I have subjective experiences at all? Are animals conscious too – or computers? And how can we know? These are real mysteries for science and the more we learn about how the brain works, the less we seem able to answer the really difficult question – why should the activity of millions of brain cells ever produce subjective experience? How can a physical lump of flesh be responsible for my sense of being alive here and now? Susan Blackmore will describe some of the recent evidence on consciousness, try out some demonstrations, and discuss how we can investigate our own experience directly. Come and join the discussion on the mystery of consciousness and we hope that by the end of the evening you will be feeling deeply confused about the most obvious thing in your life – your own experience.
On 30 March at 1700 at Kloostri ait.
Dr. Susan Blackmore is a freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980).
Her research interests include memes and the theory of memetics, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She writes for several magazines and newspapers, and is a frequent contributor and presenter on radio and television, including BBC Radio 4.
She is the author of over sixty academic articles, about forty book contributions and many book reviews. Recently, her article 'The case of the mysterious mind' appeared in NewScientist. Her books include 'The Meme Machine (1999)' which has been translated into eleven other languages, including Estonian.
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