Exploring Consciousness
Whether you are curious, passionate or searching for meaning, join us to explore the mysteries of existence together and broaden our intellectual and spiritual horizons. Our content is created from the work and research of renowned thinkers and scientists in order to offer an in-depth reflection on the nature of reality and the art of living in full awareness.
About the speaker
Alexis Martig holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and has focused his research on social movements, claims of dignity and contemporary slavery based on various fieldwork in Brazil. After working in the academy for fifteen years in France and Canada, he is now enjoying life in the East Kootenays and working for the Ktunaxa Nation Council.
A Series of 4 Lectures
The 2025 Series of lectures on Consciousness will take place at the PineLogs Arts and Cultural Centre in Invermere from March to June.
Focusing on Consciousness, this series of lectures will cover a wide range of topics from physics, anthropology, near-death studies, and Indigenous worldviews to philosophy and biology.
A total of 4 presentations will be given exploring the following topics:
1) Science and Consciousness;
2) Consciousness in traditional societies;
3) Reality, Death and Consciousness;
4) Living in Consciousness: Wisdom and Evolution…
The presentations will be about 2 hours long; 1h30 to 1h45 of lecture and 15 to 30 minutes of open discussion.
These presentations aim to share diverse perspectives and address important questions such as: What is consciousness? What do recent works in science tell us about consciousness? If Consciousness exists, what are the consequences for how we live daily? What is the relationship between Consciousness and Evolution?
PROGRAM
April 13, 2:00 to 4 pm - Science and Consciousness
Science historically developed itself in opposition to religion and anything related to the spiritual or non-material world. Because of that, for a long time, the two have been seen as naturally and completely opposed. Recent scientific discoveries in a variety of different disciplines have significantly changed this opposition leading scientists to consider the need for a new approach called post-materialism. This introduction to the series of presentations aims to introduce these recent changes towards post-materialist science and explore the consequences for a science of consciousness.
Physics is the science dedicated to the understanding of reality and its mechanisms. What about the physics of consciousness? What can physics tell us about consciousness, and how is it related to quantum physics? What is the relationship between consciousness, time and space…? To answer these questions, we will introduce recent findings on the Physics of Consciousness (P. Guillemant, N. Haramein) and explore its consequences on the way we see the world and reality, as well as on other disciplines like anthropology for example…
May 4, 2:00 to 4 pm - Consciousness in traditional societies
All traditional societies acknowledged the existence and reality of spiritual and non-material dimensions of reality. Most of them developed different means to communicate and interact with the non-material world based on knowledge about an essence, a form of energy or consciousness at the origin of the material world (D. LeBreton). More than that, these traditional conceptions considered everything to be connected through these concepts of essence, energy or consciousness. This presentation will describe these traditional worldviews, how modernity imposed a materialist worldview through the development of individualism and give an illustration of the Canadian Indigenous worldview through the example of the Ktunaxa First Nation (guest presenter TBD).
The interconnected vision of consciousness at the origin of the material world is known as pan-psychism. First, this presentation will present the idea of pan-psychism and its differences from the materialist conceptions of consciousness. Second, we will introduce some studies in the field of biology and psychology (R. Sheldrake, D. Radin) using this theory and showing how human beings are interconnected in daily life.
May 18, 2:00 to 4 pm - Reality, Death and Consciousness
In modern contemporary societies, death has progressively been perceived as the end of all, in opposition to traditional worldviews. This presentation will present and explore the testimonies of people who went through Near-Death Experiences (NDE) and recent studies showing some form of consciousness even when the neural activity of the brain is completely null.
As human beings, we primarily experiment what we call reality through our physical senses, and by extension, through the material world. But how much can we rely on our senses, and how much do they manipulate, change or influence the experience of what is Real? To answer these questions, we will first introduce experiments showing how much our senses limit and restrain the experience of reality. In a second time, we will introduce studies questioning the nature of reality as an illusion (D. Hoffman), this presentation will explore the difference between experiencing reality through our senses rather than through our consciousness.
June 01, 2:00 to 4 pm - Living in Consciousness: Wisdom and Evolution…
Considering consciousness exists prior to the material world and connects everything within it, this presentation will explore the consequences of living in consciousness at a social and political level. Living in consciousness comes with the development of virtues and qualities at the individual level that can completely reshape the groups and communities we live in or even the political model of modern societies. Among these virtues, one that we will explore is wisdom and its potential to shape a new form of political organization for the societies we live in.
In this final presentation, we will explore two key aspects of the relationship between consciousness and evolution. First, we will ponder: if consciousness is inherent to our nature, what is its relationship with natural evolution? How does it take part in the process of evolution and its laws? Does it imply new laws of evolution towards a “conscious” man? Second, if “living in consciousness” is the next step of our evolution: what might that look like? Are there examples of individuals who have already explored what it means to be a conscious man or woman and what can we learn from their experience?