A Wild Culture event
Swedenborg Hall, London, 6th November 2013
Is our experience of consciousness limited to the individual brain, or is it something prior or external? The Society for the Preservation of Wild Culture presents an evening of discussion and debate about the nature of consciousness, bringing together perspectives from art, neuroscience and parapsychology in order to interrogate our understanding of this most ancient of questions.
What is consciousness? Where is it located? And what does it actually do? With its apparent inability to deal with the subjective, individual and hazily defined, mainstream scientific research has traditionally steered clear of the complex issue of consciousness. All that began to change in the 1980s, and since the mid-1990s, it seems not a month goes by without another neuroscientist or philosopher of the mind claiming, finally, this time, to have solved the hitherto intractable problem of consciousness.
But is there a limit to what mainstream materialist science can tell us about consciousness? Where do parapsychological phenomena such as out-of-body experiences, precognition and remote viewing fit in? Are they ‘real’ phenomena, or simply illusions caused by misfiring neurons. Join us at Swedenborg Hall on 6th November to find out!
Featuring:
Anthony Peake – science writer
Graham Nicholls – out-of-body experience specialist
Stephen Law – philosopher
Deborah Hyde – Editor of The Skeptic
Jane Aspell – neuroscientist
Tom Jeffreys, Editor of the Journal of Wild Culture, chairs.