On Thursday 3 September neuroscientist and psychoanalyst Professor Mark Solms will address the question “What is the mind?” as part of the Great Texts / Big Questions public lecture series presented by the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts.

Mark Solms is an internationally renowned neuroscientist and psychoanalyst who came to prominence in the 1990s when he discovered how the brain generates dreams. He has since broadened his research to include all the emotional functions and disorders of the brain. He is Professor of Neuropsychology at UCT.

Solms says that his lecture will address the mysteries of the mind. “Psychology is the science of the mind, but psychologists have great difficulty telling us what a ‘mind’ is. They say it is not the same as ‘consciousness’ because most of the mind’s functions are performed unconsciously. They say it cannot be reduced to ‘information processing’ or ‘memory’ because many computers perform such functions better than us. They tell us that the mind is somehow connected to the physiology of the brain but they cannot tell us what this connection is, let alone how the physical machinery of the body comes to be controlled by a non-physical ‘ghost’,” said Solms.

Mark Solms audio recording available for download.

Mark Solms video recording:

Start: 3 Sep ’09 5:00 pm

End: 3 Sep ’09 6:30 pm

Cost: Free

Category: 

Organizer: GIPCA

Email: fin-gipca@uct.ac.za

Venue: Hiddingh Hall 

Phone: +27 21 480 7156 

Address: UCT Hiddingh Campus, 31-37 Orange Street, Cape Town, 8001, Cape Town, Western Cape, 8001, South Africa