Religion & Science radio shows

There are some very interesting radio programmes on Religion and Science from Wisconsin Public Radio at http://www.wpr.org/book/061119a.html - lots to think about here..

(spotted via our friends in Florida at http://unfspb.wordpress.com/ - thanks)

D.

Can the mind exist independently of the body?

The University of Southampton has launched the AWARE project in a scientific attempt to determine what happens when we die. People often talk of having Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) but there are lots of rational explanations that can be givien for such experieinces, but what this new project is aiming to do is find more empirical evidence for NDEs. One experiment involves placing images in the hospital that can only be seen from above and then asking patients that have been in a 'flatline' state whether they 'saw' anything unusual in the theatre and to describe it. The results may prove interesting. Presumably if it turns out that thousands of people do report seeing these same images this would raise interesting philosophical issues concerinig the relationship between the physical brain and a seemingly non-physical mind?

What is natural?

Ok - we are about to head to Westonbirt again for our induction trip...

The topic to ponder is the question 'What does it mean to call something Natural?'

The term can be explored at http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=natural and follow the links from last year at http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2007/09/natural.html

Some pictures from last year can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/58244916@N00/ - the RPE Flickr gallery... The picture here is the cafe/teashop - where we can shelter if the weather lets us down...

Dave

New Academic Year

Well, another 'summer' has passed, and we are all running around getting ready to welcome a new cohort of Religion, Philosophy & Ethics students. The blog has been rather
quiet over the summer - but is ready to get busy for another year: new and existing students are very welcome to browse the archives - and even re-start old arguments and debates!

I found this picture at http://flickr.com/photos/charliebtuna/54336183 - presume it belongs to one of our students?

Well - let's hope FCH campus looks like this for Induction week (which starts 15th September) - new students looking for details of that event should go to http://resources.glos.ac.uk/newstudents/induction/fchinduction/index.cfm

Cheers,
Dave