Video Series: The Biology of Consciousness

PLEASE NOTE NEW START TIME: 9:30am ET

We have now completed the lecture series on Indigenous Canada. Our next topic will be a study of the biology of consciousness, in this course offered by World Science University (https://worldscienceu.com/courses/the-biology-of-consciousness-chistof-koch/)

As we have done in the past, we will be watching the course videos in Zoom, interspersed with moderated group discussion.

This online course is available for free - participants are welcome to sign up individually, to catch up on missed lectures, or to investigate more of the learning resources provided.

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OVERVIEW:
Science has yet to explain how the brain gives rise to the mind.

• Science has allowed us to understand many physical aspects of the universe extraordinarily well, from the large-scale structure of the cosmos to the microscopic processes of chemistry and biology. Yet nowhere in these fields of knowledge is there any description of how consciousness arises.
• There are some philosophers who reject the notion that consciousness depends on physics at all, often using the zombie argument, which states that we can imagine a world that is fully compatible with the laws of nature and in which consciousness is absent.
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz discussed the difficulty of solving this problem in his 1714 work La Monadologie. He argued that if we could enlarge a brain and inspect it, we “will only find parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception.”
• Today this is known as the hard problem of consciousness, a term introduced by philosopher David Chalmers. It refers to the problem of explaining how and why the physical processes of the brain result in subjective conscious experiences.

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This meeting is presented as an online teleconference using Zoom. The link will be provided to those who RSVP.
If you have technical problems or questions, please email techsupport@centreforinquiry.ca, or post a message in the comments below.

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CFIC-Ottawa's Secular Community Network is an intentional community working cooperatively to build a fair, inclusive and cohesive society through gaining knowledge and serving others.

Secularism Is For Everyone
■ We are a community of diverse people engaged in cooperative learning and collaboration opportunities, through community outreach and being of service to others.
■ We are a wide-ranging group of open-minded people who hold a variety of worldviews but together recognize our common humanity and value the learning that comes from respectful dialogue and disagreement.
■ As a secular group, we warmly welcome everyone interested in working towards our common goals; regardless of sex/gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race or religion.
■ Simply put, we understand that the only way to build a fair, cohesive, and inclusive community is by ensuring equality and respect of diversity for all.