Mind, Time and Evolution: A Celebration of Henri Bergson

28 October 2009 19:00 - 28 October 2009 21:00

Venue: Colet House, 151 Talgarth Road, London W14

To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, we are staging a dialogue to discuss his ideas and their importance for our time. Bergson was the most famous French philosopher of his epoch, a Member of the Academie Française and a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He made significant contributions to evolutionary theory with his idea of élan vital (Creative Evolution) and to philosophy of mind with his notion of the brain as the organ of attention to life, which channelled rather than generated consciousness (Matter and Memory). Hence he sees the brain as both an instrument of focused consciousness and an impediment to wider consciousness, holding similar views to the Oxford philosopher F.C.S. Schiller and William James. He also wrote on the nature of time, free will and laughter, and was President of the Society of Psychical Research in 1913.

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Rupert Sheldrake, PhD is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books, including A New Science of Life  (new edition, February, 2009), Seven Experiments That Could Change the World and Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home.  His website is www.sheldrake.org

David Lorimer is Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, and author and editor of a dozen books, including Survival? Body, Mind and Death in the Light of Psychic Experience, Whole in One - The Near-Death Experience and the Ethic of Interconnectedness, The Spirit of Science and Thinking Beyond the Brain. His website is www.davidlorimer.net