Seminars
- 1. Vision of the Future (Part 1) - Dec 2005
- 2. Vision of the Future (Part 2) - Dec 2005
- 3. Change Your Mind: Memory and Disease - Dec 2005
- 4. Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness - Dec 2005
- 5. Fighting Cancer with Nanoparticle Medicines - May 2008
- 6. Protein Recycling: Its Role in Human Biology and Disease - Dec 2008
Seminars on Medicine - Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness - Dec 2005
Seminar 4 - Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness - Dec 2005
The three speakers are Alexander Shulgin who is a Pharmacologist and Chemist, Christof Koch who is Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology in CalTech and Patricia Churchland who is Professor of Philosophy in University of California, San Diego.
Mental phenomena are nothing but phenomena of the physical brain, says Patricia Churchland. It’s "an illusion of the brain" to think that we have a "nonphysical soul that does our feeling." But how the brain creates constructs of itself and things in the world remains a major puzzle. For instance, how does a brain "habitually represent goals, plans and projects -- things that don’t yet exist?" And what about the huge amount of spontaneous activity in the brain that occurs while we’re resting? In his day, Alexander Shulgin explored consciousness through "the art of chemistry." He synthesized a version of mescaline and invented other psychedelic drugs, experimenting on himself, before the era of government and university regulations. Alexander Shulgin is a Pharmacologist and Chemist. Christof Koch is Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology in California Institute of Technology. Patricia Churchland is Professor of Philosophy in University of California, San Diego.
Alexander Shulgin, Christof Koch, Patricia Churchland
Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT World) http://mitworld.mit.edu Date accessed: 2009-02-24 License: Not applicable |