Talks and Lectures
Since writing �Mapping the Mind� in 1998 I have been invited to talk about brain function , consciousness and behaviour to a huge range of groups all over the world . I have spoken at all the main literary conferences in the UK: Hay (�How the Brain Works� and �What is experience?�) Dartington (�Brain or Soul?�) Cheltenham ( �The Nature of Consciousness�) and Edinburgh (�The Biological Basis of Mind�).
I have spoken to teachers and school heads about how neuroscience can inform education; to architects about how it can be used to create better environments, to psychiatrists about the ethical issues in treating mental patients with drugs, to business people about how knowledge of their brain processes can help them to make better decisions, to religious groups about the implications of neuropsychology for faith, to artists about what brain function reveals about the nature of art, and to children about why learning about their brains is probably the best educational investment they can make.
Below are some of the topics which I cover in my talks. I am always very happy to tailor any presentation to the group and I am particularly adept at making the more complicated subjects (consciousness, for example) accessible to people who are not familiar with them.. I can either deliver a formal lecture with appropriate audio-visual aids, handouts and references, or an informal and talk in which the audience is invited to participate. In both cases I try to include the very latest relevant research findings in the field.
If you would like to discuss with me the possibility of my talking to your meeting, conference or group, please email me: [email protected]
Art and the Mind — How the Brain processes and understands art.
Religion and the brain — What is happening in the human brain when we have a �spiritual� experience, and what are the implications for traditional religion?
The Future of Psychiatry — �talking � therapies versus psychopharmaceutical solutions for mental illness and the development of direct brain manipulation technology such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and �pacemaker� implants
Altered States : — Apparitions, out-of-the-body experiences, hallucinations, trance, dissociation, near death experiences and other weird and wonderful states
Communication without words — Mirror neurons, theory of mind, body language � the rains techniques for getting into the minds of others..
Language and Thought — Is language the expression of thought, or is a thought the creation of language? Can we actually think anything without putting words to it?
Consciousness — What is it? Where does it come from? Why is it here? Or is it not here at all��?
Visual experience — why and how we see the world as we do. How image construction can go wrong. And how a gorilla can walk across your path without you noticing�
Dissociation — what is actually happening in the brain when you go into a trance, hallucinate a ghost or peck like a chicken at the behest of a hypnotist.
Personal Identity — so who do you think you are? Are you the same person as you were yesterday and will be tomorrow? Is your identity a matter of memory? Or belief? Can you switch from one �me� to another?
Freewill — Why we don�t have any, and what that awesome recognition means for us!
Illusion and Delusion — how do magicians, con-artists and illusionists do it?
Memory — why a perfect memory is vague, gappy, distorted and unreliable.
Memory disorders — amnesia, false and recovered memories, memory �gaps� and glitches such as d�j� vu and jamais vu
Emotions — why they are not what we think they are. Plus emotional disorders such as psychopathy, phobia and oddities like Capgras , Anton and Cotard�s delusions.
Addiction — the biological basis of addiction
Drugs — (see �rants� for my line on these!) The Moral Brain: How moral decision-making is �hard-wired into the human brain and thoroughly unfair as a result.
Creativity — What it is, how to maximise it, and, conversely, how to keep it in control!
Science writing — What do readers want? Why should they get it? And How to Give it to them (if you must)
Sleep and Dreaming — What are dreams for and do they have meaning? How to �wake up� in them (lucid dreaming) and take control.
Happiness — Why traditional approaches are doomed to failure and what we should be doing to promote well being instead!
Books:
→ Mapping the Memory
→ Mapping the Mind
→ (Exploring) Consciousness
→ Multiplicity