Open Public Seminar on Consciousness
About AUM
The Association for the Unity of Mankind (AUM) is a non-profit organization (NPO) whose mission is to inform and raise public awareness of the unity of humanity through the organization of educational and outreach activities. These activities make it possible to disseminate knowledge and know-how of various kinds on the unity of mankind in different forms: interventions in schools, conferences for the public, international forums…
About the speaker
Alexis Martig is Dr in Cultural Anthropology and has been mainly researching social movements, claims of dignity and contemporary slavery based on various fieldworks in Brazil. After working in the academy for fifteen years in France and Canada, he is now enjoying the life of the East Kootenays and working for the Ktunaxa Nation Council.
Program
March 15, 2:30 to 4 pm
Science and Consciousness 1
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 this series of presentations aims to introduce these recent changes towards post-materialist science and explore the consequences for a science of consciousness.
Series of presentations about Consciousness!
The 2025 Open Public Seminar on Consciousness will take place at the Pynelogs Arts and Cultural Centre at Invermere from March to June. A total of 8 presentations will be given exploring the four following themes:
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 1 hour and 30 minutes, with a 45-minute to 1-hour presentation and a 15-minute to 30-minute open discussion.
March 22, 2:30 to 3:30 pm
Science and Consciousness 2
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 does it relate to quantum physics? What is the relationship between consciousness, time and space…? To answer these questions, we will introduce recent work on the Physics of Consciousness (Guillemant) and explore its consequences on the way we see the world and reality, as for other disciplines like anthropology for example.
April 12, 2:30 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 (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).
April 19, 2:30 to 3:30 pm Consciousness in traditional societies
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 (Sheldrake, Radin) using this theory and showing how human beings are interconnected in daily life.
May 17, 2:30 to 3:30 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 in the brain is completely null.
May 24, 2:30 to 3:30 pm Reality, Death and Consciousness
As human beings, we mainly experiment with what we call reality through our physical senses, hence 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? Focusing on experiments showing how much senses limit and restrain the experience of reality, as on studies questioning the nature of reality as an illusion (Hoffman), this presentation will explore the difference between experiencing reality through our senses rather than through our consciousness.
June 14, 2:30 to 3:30 pm Living in Consciousness: Wisdom and Evolution
Considering the existence of consciousness precedes the material world we live in and connects everything in this world, 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 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.
June 21, 2:30 to 3:30 pm Living in Consciousness: Wisdom and Evolution
In this final presentation, we will explore together two aspects of the relationship between consciousness and evolution. First, we will ask ourselves: if consciousness is part of 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 would it look like? Do we have examples of people who already experimented with being a conscious man or woman and what can we learn about it
