"Consciousness and Its Implications" Monthly DVD Lecture Series

The Delaware Association for Humanism, in cooperation with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Newark (UUFN), presents "Consciousness and Its Implications", a DVD lecture series instructed by Professor Daniel N. Robinson of Oxford University. The scope of the series is as follows:

"The subject of consciousness is among the most vexing in both philosophy and science, and no less
tractable in psychology, where the conceptual problems are often neglected. As a 'state',
consciousness seems resistant to translation in physical terms and measurements, though its
dependence on a helathy nervous system appears to be as close to a 'cause and effect' relationship
as any in the natural sciences.

The aim and scope of these 12 lectures must be modest, for the subject is as vast as that of human
and animal awareness. What I hope to convey can be distilled into four points; consciousness
and mental life are 'sui generis' they are not like anything else, what distinguishes consciousness
form all else is its 'phenomenology' - there is something it is like to be conscious that is different
from all facts of nature, consious awareness is a power possessed by the normal percipient, including
non-human percipients, such powers vary over the course of a lifetime, are subject to disease and
defect, and thus, lead to questions of profound consequence.

Here, then, is a topic in which sciemce, philosophy, medicine, and ethics are merged, the result being
issues at once intriguing and unsettling."

The series will be held at the UUFN's campus in Newark, De. on the second Wednesday of each month. Two lectures will be presented followed by a 60-90 minute discussion of the given lectures' topics. A donation is asked of all attendees in helping to defray costs.