MIND, TIME and EVOLUTION A Celebration of Henri Bergson (1859-1941)

Scientific and Medical Network
MIND, TIME and EVOLUTION
A Celebration of Henri Bergson (1859-1941)


Rupert Sheldrake and David Lorimer in dialogue
Colet House, 151 Talgarth Road, London W14
Wednesday 28th October, 2009, 7-9 pm




"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
Memor y). 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. For biographies of speakers, see overleaf."


Contact: Conference Administrator, Scientific and Medical Network,
PO Box 11, Moreton-in-Marsh, Glos GL56 0ZF. Tel: +44 (0) 1608 652000,
Fax +44 (0) 1608 652001, Email: info@scimednet.org, web site www.scimednet.org

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
Sur vival? 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






Source: http://www.scimednet.org/pdf/09_Bergson.pdf