Recommended: Anil Seth
Another short blog to commend to you the work of University
of Sussex professor and neuroscientist Anil Seth. I discovered Seth recently
while surfing Terence McKenna podcasts: Seth was mentioned and I was very intrigued.
Get to know something about Seth’s teachings on
consciousness by checking him out on YouTube: get your feet wet with the 2017
lecture called ‘Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality’ on the TED
channel (a great channel to subscribe to, by the way).
This video is basically a 15-minute introduction to Seth’s
public discourse (I don’t think this one is an academic talk) on brain, mind,
and the science of consciousness, with a little heavy-going stuff on
neurophenomenology and predictive processing. It’s OK - you won’t get lost in
it.
If you’re familiar with me and this blog, you know that I’ve
always been fascinated with and casually studying brain dynamics and how it
relates to embodiment and our sense of self. I’m disappointed that I didn’t
discover Seth sooner. He has great clarity in his talks: any layman like myself
can attend a lecture and keep up with him as he discusses consciousness science
and complex brain networks.
Here’s where you’ll find most of his podcasts: www.anilseth.com/podcasts-and-interviews.
He’s becoming increasing active publicly, and I’d love to attend one of his
lectures and have the chance to ask him some questions. Road trip, anyone?
Seth also sits on the steering group and advisory board of
the Human Mind Project at the University of London, (check it out at
humanmind.ac.uk) – a group whose goal is to understand the nature and significance
of the human mind. A very cool and curious group of people.
Winter is approaching, and it's a great time to hunker down
with some of this kind of material. No matter your personal or professional
background, we can all get interested in finding answers to questions like:
Where does consciousness reside? How does the brain create consciousness? What
is self? What is emotion? Is all life conscious?
Neurology is a great challenge for 21st century
science. I’m more fascinated by it than ever. I think you too can get excited
by this subject, which besides delving deep into the cerebellum, also urges us
to explore our humanness and the integrity, value, and oneness of everything
that lives. This is good stuff.
Much love,
Barbie xo
