According to our standard view of things, consciousness exists only in the brains of highly evolved organisms, and hence consciousness exists only in a tiny part of the universe and only in very recent history (cosmically speaking). According to panpsychism, in contrast, consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it. The view sounds a bit strange, but a growing number of philosophers and neuroscientists are starting to think it might be our best hope for integrating cons...
Oct 28, 2022•1 hr 48 min
This episode is part of our Meeting of the Minds series in which we bring together leading thinkers from different backgrounds to discuss topics of mutual interest. The topic is “religion without belief” in which we explore to what extent it is possible to benefit from religious practices, without fully adopting the associated belief systems. The speakers are Rupert Sheldrake, Paul Kingsnorth, and Philip Goff, and some of the key points discussed include: — How they arrived at their current unde...
Oct 21, 2022•1 hr 19 min
“Use your head.” That’s what we tell ourselves when facing a tricky problem or a difficult project. But a growing body of research indicates that we’ve got it exactly backward. What we need to do, says acclaimed science writer Annie Murphy Paul, is think outside the brain. A host of “extra-neural” resources—the feelings and movements of our bodies, the physical spaces in which we learn and work, and the minds of those around us—can help us focus more intently, comprehend more deeply, and create ...
Oct 14, 2022•57 min
Research tells us that our autonomic nervous system scans our body four times per second asking “am I safe?, am I safe? am I safe? am I safe?” If the answer is ‘yes’, we stay neurobiologically in our prefrontal cortex, the most mature part of our brain, our wise adult self, the part of us that is here and now that can observe, reason and decide. However, if the answer is ‘no, I don’t feel safe’, more primitive parts of our neurology get activated. The wise adult self shuts down and the more prim...
Oct 06, 2022•1 hr 1 min
In a previous two-hour lecture for TWU, I argued for the nature of consciousness as a foundational element in the cosmos, not derivative from anything else. In this talk, I will not attempt to repeat that argument, but start from where I left off. In a new book, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (Perspectiva Press, November 2021), I ask how we come to know anything at all, and move on to consider what we can say about the irreducible ‘building blocks...
Sep 23, 2022•57 min
Mark has a pretty interesting story to tell. Earlier in life, he was an international drug smuggler, an addict of 17 years, homeless, and has spent time locked up in a Spanish prison. Now, he is a leading addiction psychotherapist at Harley Street Clinic in London, a bestselling author of two books, a family-man, and a sought after speaker and teacher on working with addiction. His work has attracted praise from the likes of Russell Brand and Ross Kemp, and he has been featured on BBC, the Daily...
Sep 08, 2022•1 hr 1 min
The comparative study of identical and fraternal twins is a powerful method for identifying the relative contributions of genes and environments to individual differences in behavioral, physical, and health-related characteristics. Studies of reared-apart twins provide even more compelling ways to approach this same class of questions, given that the co-twins were raised in different homes, communities and/or countries, so were unable to influence one another. This talk first reviews the differe...
Sep 02, 2022•1 hr 24 min
So many of us believe that we are free to shape our own destiny. But what if free will doesn’t exist? What if our lives are largely predetermined, hardwired in our brains – and our choices over what we eat, whom we fall in love with, even what we believe are not real choices at all? Neuroscience is challenging everything we think we know about ourselves, revealing how we make decisions and form our own reality, unaware of the role of our unconscious minds. Did you know, for example, that: — Anxi...
Aug 26, 2022•1 hr 49 min
Dr Music will examine how early experiences, secure attachments, and safe environments can lead to more altruistic, prosocial, and empathic ways of acting while stress, trauma, and neglect can lead to more aggression, callousness, and antisocial behaviour. He will examine what current research and clinical understandings can teach us about living a Good Life. Why might we, and the children or adults, act selfishly and antisocially? Are we born selfish or cooperative and what might sway us in eit...
Aug 19, 2022•1 hr 53 min
Former social media executives tell us that the system is an addiction-machine. We are users, waiting for our next hit as we like, comment and share. We write to the machine as individuals, but it responds by aggregating our fantasies, desires and frailties into data, and returning them to us as a commodity experience. This talk will provide an unflinching view into the calamities of digital life: the circus of online trolling, flourishing alt-right subcultures, pervasive corporate surveillance,...
Jul 29, 2022•1 hr 28 min
For 15 years, the transpersonal psychologist Steve Taylor has been researching cases of ‘transformation through turmoil,’ or spontaneous spiritual awakening caused by suffering. In times of bereavement, serious illness, addiction, deep depression and intense stress, a miraculous transformation can occur: the death of an old identity and the birth of a new, spiritually awakened self. In this session based on his upcoming book Extraordinary Awakenings, Steve shares some cases from his research, an...
Jul 22, 2022•1 hr 51 min
Within us, the dim cavern of the unconscious holds our forbidden feelings, secret wishes, destructive impulses, and creative urges. Over time, these “dark” forces take on a life of their own, forming the Shadow. A recurring theme in literature and legend, the Shadow is like an invisible twin, a stranger that is us, yet not us. When it acts out, we hurt ourselves or others. As we bring it into awareness with shadow-work, it loses its grip on us and we experience deeper self-knowledge, greater aut...
Jun 17, 2022•1 hr 28 min
In this talk, Rupert Spira will explore the perennial, non-dual understanding that lies at the heart of all the great religious and spiritual traditions: reality is a single, infinite and indivisible whole whose nature is consciousness or spirit. Central to this understanding is the recognition of the nature of consciousness, which has been described in the Tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism as ‘the greatest secret, more hidden than the most concealed of things, and yet more evident than the ...
Jun 10, 2022•1 hr 1 min
How Victor Frankl’s experiences in Nazi concentration camps informed the development of logotherapy and existential analysis (EA), why the search for meaning is our deepest motivation, and how EA brings philosophy, psychotherapy, and spirituality together through a scientific methodology to help individuals unlock a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. -- Alfried LÄNGLE, M.D., Ph.D., Dr. h.c.mult., professor and honorary professor, was born in 1951 in Austria where he still lives....
May 20, 2022•2 hr
Annahita believes that the dramatic rise in mental illness and how we treat those who are mentally ill exposes a dysfunction inherent within our society. She believes there’s a place for psychiatric medication, but emphasises that we need to move away from a standardised and restrictive approach to mental illness that is over reliant on sedation and dampening feelings and desires. Based on this premise, Annahita argues that contemporary mental health treatments need reviewing and revising. Annah...
Apr 29, 2022•1 hr 34 min
This talk will describe how we can evolve more nurturing societies. The human and biological sciences have converged in recent years in showing that individuals and human groups are most likely to thrive in nurturing conditions. Nurturing environments minimize toxic biological and social conditions, richly reinforce diverse forms of prosocial behaviour, limit influences and opportunities for antisocial or unhealthful behaviour, and promote psychological flexibility, which involves mindfully acti...
Apr 15, 2022•1 hr 28 min
The concept of society as an organism stretches back to antiquity and was a mainstay of 19th and early 20th century social science. Likewise, 19th century evolutionary thinkers such as Spencer and Lamarck envisioned evolution as in part a conscious process and even Darwin shared these views to a degree. Both of these concepts–society as an organism and conscious evolution– became marginalized and even taboo within evolutionary biology during the middle of the 20th century. Group selection seemed...
Apr 08, 2022•2 hr 1 min
The ‘hard problem’ of consciousness is very topical in neuroscience today. It asks why our brains, which function unconsciously for the most part, require consciousness at all. It also asks how the subjective stuff of experience can be inserted into our mechanistic account of brain functioning. There seems to be no place or need for subjective experience in the physical universe. In this talk, Mark Solms will outline the novel approach to this problem that he has taken in his recent work as repo...
Mar 25, 2022•1 hr 30 min
Covid-19 vaccines are delivered on a variety of ‘platforms’, traditional and innovative — all aiming at a common underlying mechanism of protection, i.e. stimulating the development of anti-spike-protein antibodies and T-cell activation. Similarly, scholars have tried to delineate the common factors which underpin the 570 (and counting) varieties of psychotherapy, many of which, as the ‘dodo-bird verdict’ suggests, can be highly effective, but none consistently demonstrably more so than another....
Mar 18, 2022•1 hr 59 min
Neurodiversity is the idea that neurological differences among people should be recognized and respected just the same as any other form of human variation. For too long the medical model of mental health has viewed differences like autism, ADHD, and dyslexia solely as “dysfunctional,” “disorders,” and “disabilities.” In the rush to provide treatments focused on “curing” these conditions too little attention has been given to enabling people with neurologically different brains to be accepted fo...
Feb 25, 2022•1 hr 44 min
In this seminar, we will take a voyage together exploring the biological and cultural evolution of individual identity, and the consequences of our self-perspective for major global, social, and environmental issues. Part one draws on evidence from molecular biology and neuroscience, such as how most of our 37 trillion cells have such a short lifespan that we are essentially made anew every few weeks, whilst the bacteria, fungi, and viruses that make up our bodies influence our moods and even ma...
Feb 18, 2022•1 hr 56 min
In the first half of this talk, I will present data demonstrating the impact of mindfulness practice on brain structure and function, and how that leads to enhanced cognitive abilities in older adults who regularly practice mindfulness meditation and yoga. I will also discuss how mindfulness can be used to help cope with pain and fear. -- Sara W. Lazar, PhD is an Associate Researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor in Psychology at Harvar...
Jan 28, 2022•1 hr 57 min
All in Nature is interconnected: all processes are interactive. The brain and the world (which it exists to bring into being for us) are no exceptions to this. Our brains mould the world and the world moulds our brains. Given the capacity for each hemisphere to attend to the world differently, and therefore make some aspects of the world stand forward at the expense of others, different cultures may come to emphasise different ‘takes’ on the world. I will consider some ways in which this has wor...
Dec 24, 2021•1 hr 55 min
Right now, billions of neurons in your brain are working together to generate your conscious experience. How does this happen? According to neuroscientist Anil Seth, we’re all hallucinating all the time; when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it “reality.” This talk will provide an insight into how consciousness emerges from the brain, and how changes to our brain can result in bizarre experiences of consciousness. You’ll learn about the latest research in the new science of consciousne...
Dec 17, 2021•1 hr 56 min
Oliver is a writer, TED speaker, and the bestselling author of several books, including: “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking”, and “Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get More Things Done.” This conversation focuses on Oliver’s most recent book: 4,000 Weeks, which is about making the most of the very brief amount of time we all have here on the planet. There have been few books that have impacted me as much as this one, and if you can apply some of Oliver’...
Dec 10, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Through his brain-scan studies on Brazilian psychic mediums, Sufi mystics, Buddhist meditators, Franciscan nuns, Pentecostals, and participants in secular spirituality rituals, Dr Andrew Newberg has discovered the specific neurological mechanisms underlying spiritual experiences – and how we might activate those circuits in our own brains. In his survey of more than one thousand people who have experienced enlightenment, Dr Newberg has also discovered that in the aftermath they have had profound...
Nov 26, 2021•1 hr 29 min
In this one-of-a-kind session, Irshad Manji will take your questions about faltering relationships — in your family, among your friends, with your co-workers, or in society at large — and coach you to repair them by listening to understand and speaking to be understood. What does this have to do with diversity? Everything. Honest diversity isn’t about labeling people according to race, gender, religion, sexuality, disability, or any other group marker. Instead, true diversity is about communicat...
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 49 min
Do you ever wonder why you want what you want? Our desires shape almost everything we do in life: what we value, what goals we pursue, who we choose for a romantic partner, and even what career paths we go down. Yet very rarely do we stop to ask ourselves why we want these things. In other words, what causes us to desire them in the first place? In this interview I’m joined by Luke Burgis - a writer and academic who has recently published: Wanting; The Power of Mimetic Desire and How to Want Wha...
Nov 12, 2021•1 hr 6 min
David Sloan Wilson is one of the world’s foremost evolutionary thinkers and a gifted communicator about evolution to the general public. He is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University. In addition to his teaching and research, David is President of Prosocial World – an organisation which aims to catalyze positive cultural change to consciously evolve who we are, how we connect with each other, and how we interact with the planet. David is passion...
Oct 29, 2021•2 hr 2 min
In this meeting of the minds discussion, we’re joined by three of the world’s leading experts on addiction: Dr. Gabor Maté, Dr. Richard Schwartz, and Professor Marc Lewis. Although their backgrounds vary widely, with Gabor initially training as a medical doctor, Richard as a family therapist and Marc as a developmental psychologist and neuroscientist, all three of them have reached similar conclusions in their understanding of, and approach to treating addiction. In a lively and wide-ranging dis...
Oct 15, 2021•1 hr 4 min
