Invitation – Narrative & Medicine Project – Raymond Tallis

Date: 24th October 2012 / 6.00 pm
Place: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa / Anfiteatro II
Organiser: CEAUL / ULICES

Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Mankind

Neuromania is based on the incorrect notion that human consciousness  is identical with activity in the brain, that people are their brains, and that societies are best understood as collections of brains. While the brain is a necessary condition of every aspect of human consciousness, it is not a sufficient condition – which is why neuroscience, and the materialist philosophy upon which is it based, fails to capture the human person. Since the brain is an evolved organism, Neuromania leads to Darwinitis, the assumption that, since Darwin demonstrated the biological origins of the organism H sapiens, we should look to evolutionary theory to understand what we are now; that our biological roots explain our cultural leaves.  In fact, we belong to a community of minds that has developed over the hundreds of thousands of years since we parted company from other primates.