Baronness Professor Greenfield - the video!
September 21st 2010 21:51
Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE Hon FRCP, Member, House of Lords, United Kingdom, Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology, Lincoln College, Oxford University presents this lecture: How does the brain generate consciousness? This video was recorded at The Australian National University on 17 August 2010, and was the keynote speech at a John Curtin School of Medical Research symposium: New Perspectives in Clinical Neuroscience and Mental Health. Susan Greenfield was both an undergraduate and graduate at Oxford, but has subsequently spent time in postdoctoral research at the College de France, Paris, with Professor J Glowinski and at the New York University Medical Centre, New York, with Professor R Llinas. As a consequence of working in both biochemical and electrophysiological environments she has developed a multidisciplinary approach to exploring novel neuronal mechanisms in the brain that are common to regions affected in both Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The basic theme of her research is to develop strategies to arrest neuronal death in these disorders. She is also co-founder of a university spin-out company specialising in novel approaches to neurodegeneration, - Synaptica Ltd In addition, Professor Greenfield has a supplementary interest in the neuroscientific basis of consciousness, and accordingly has written 'Journey to the Centres of the Mind Toward a Science of Consciousness' (1995) W H Freeman Co, and 'Private Life of the Brain' (2000) Penguin. Her latest book 'Tomorrow's People: How 21st Century technology is changing the way we think and feel' (Penguin 2003), explores human nature, and its potential vulnerability in an age of technology. In addition, she is also Director of the Institute for the Future of the Mind, part of the James Martin 21st Century School, which exploits the parallels between the brains of the very young and very old, and how they are all vunerable to technology, chemical manipulation, and disease. She has also written 'The Human Brain': A Guided Tour (1997) Orion-Phoenix Press, which ranked in the best seller list for hard and paperbacks. She held the Gresham Chair of Physic from 1996-1999, and has received 28 honorary degrees. In 1998 she was awarded the Michael Faraday medal by the Royal Society and in 1999 was elected to an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians. She is also involved in science policy and has given a consultative seminar to the Prime Minister on the future of science in the UK. Susan has been involved in the 'Science and the Economy' seminars at No 11 and in response to a request in 2002 from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, she produced the Greenfield Report 'SET Fair: A Report on Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology'. She was awarded the CBE in the Millennium New Year's Honour's List and Life Peerage (non-political) in 2001. In 2003 she was awarded the Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur.
WARNING - you need to be very patient at first, and you may want to move the tape along a bit, but if you sit down to watch it, with a nice cup of hot, tea, coffee or chocolate, your patience and tolerance will increase especially when the good Baroness begins to speak! (katyzzz comment)
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Comment by Qunitin J Watt
1) How does philosophy stand, and how do we philosophers of the human mind stand, in relation to (I will say OTHER) scientists? For my considered views on this, anyone interested really should read my comment on the post of this blog called "Baroness Greenfield citicises 'Taliban-like' Stehpen Hawking" - WHICH SEE!! .....
2) We philosophers of the human mind DO tend to seek a concept not so much of a 'centre of consciousness' as a 'centre of awareness' - not quite the same thing! - but we do not conceive of this as a PHYSICAL ENTITY at all - refer, for example, to the work of Descartes ['cogito ergo sum': 'I think, therefore I am'], Kant and Sartre and Nietzsche .. and, for those who are interested, keep watching out for my PhD thesis publication, when it becomes available for general readership - it will be in 'accessible' language for the non-scientist! -, entitled "Dionysus, Apollo and the Psychic Swan" [strange title? Read it and it will make sense!]
3) I CANNOT agree with Greenfield -- if I understand her to be saying this! - that 'we will all lose consciousness tonight' ;presumably, she means when we sleep. I have already said quite a bit about the subject of sleep and dreaming - it is ONE important area of the work I do as a mental and spiritual healer - in my comments on the post of this blog called "Where Do Pets Go When They Dream?" - WHICH ALSO SEE!!!
4) I note, though, that Greenfield later seems to contradict herself whe she talks about LEVELS of consciousness - and admits, in passing, that there are are also LEVELS of sleep. ABSOLUTELY THERE ARE!! And she goes on to talk of her theories of 'measurable degrees of consciouness' which she seeks to quantify - rather than this being an 'all or nothing' state. This is interesting because, at a physical single nerve cell level, the nerve impulse IS an 'all or nothnig' phenomenon. There is either a signal or there isn't - end of!
However, looking at this more from the viewpoint of a philosopher of the mind, not a neurologist, and interested much more in AWARENESS, as I have said, rather than what she is pleased to call 'consciousness', I do, in fact, agree with Greenfield - insofar as this is certainly a scalar not an absolute phenomenon - varying from species to species, as she suggests; for a human indiviual at different ages - including also , I will add, at the embryonic as well as at the foetal stage; - between individual different humans even, too ,I will suggest and, of course, as she suggests, for the same individual human at different times or in different situations. After all, we, all of us, think at a number of different levels simultaneously in normal - that is, anyway, waking - life, don't we? So, why would our awareness - or 'consciousness' - level be fixed, unaltering and invariable? In fact, I would suggest, we may have different levels of awareness of different things with different parts of our minds. And these too altering, and altering in relation to one another, at different times and in different situations. Does anyone agree with this?
5) In anaesthesia also, which she refers to by way of illustration, there are indeed a number of 'levels and planes' - as one eloquent aneastho-scientist, whose name escapes me, once put it!. And I know well from the work which I do - I am also an ethically registered hypno-therapist and use a number of other 'lighter' states of mind relaxation too in my own work - there is, to coin a phrase, a lot more to it all than meets the - casual or ill-informed - eye!
6) As to the 'consciousness' of animals e.g. our pets - only I prefer, as I keep saying, to talk rather of 'awareness'; a much more useful term to a philosopher! - well, as one scientist once put it on a UK television documentary about 'what is awareness/consciousness?' - that would not have been its exact title - nearly twenty years ago ;I paraphrase him: "I use my mind as a model to try and understand my dog - but do I have any reason to suppose that he - my dog - uses HIS mind as a model by which to try and understand mine?"
For those who are interested, by the way, Austrian philosopher Immanuel Kant, in the eighteenth century, suggested some tentative models of the animal mind and of animal thought and emotion.
Anyone here care to opine on any of this?
I have yet to see the remaining third of Greenfield's lecture, then I shall, no doubt, comment further .....
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spiritual Healer
Comment by katyzzz
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The mind is far removed from the brain, in my opinion, and you demostrate that you use yours to a remarkable degree.
The Good Baroness carries with her 'world acclaim' and it is not an easy thing to teach any kind of science to a 'largely' unreceptive audience, she does well.