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Panpsychism is Universal Consciousness 

Traditional societies, including those in medieval Europe, saw the entire universe as alive and conscious.

Since the emergence of modern science in the 17^th century, the universe and everything in it has been treated as unconscious, mechanical and purposeless.  According to the currently dominant scientific paradigm of mechanistic materialism, consciousness is confined to the insides of human heads in an otherwise inanimate universe. 

However, within philosophy and neuroscience, there is a growing move towards this panpsychist view of nature, once again seeing consciousness as inherent in all self-organising systems including electrons and the universe as a whole; stars and galaxies may have their own minds and purposes, including the sun. This revolutionary change in worldview reconnects us with ancient mythologies and enables us to think of our own minds as part of vastly larger realms of consciousness. 

In this talk, Dr Sheldrake will explore this idea and the concept of Consciousness within the universe. 

About Rupert Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author of more than 90 technical papers and nine books, including The Science Delusion.  He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in cell biology.  He was also a Research Fellow of the Royal Society. From 2005-2010 he was Director of the Perrott-Warrick Project for research on unexplained human and animal abilities, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge. He is currently a Fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, near San Francisco, and lives in London. His web site is www.sheldrake.org