Zombie consciousness

219581402_4cd89ec4cc_mWish I had time to go to this talk:

Thursday Jan 17th, 5 pm: Workshop on Zombies and Consciousness

Steven SchlozmanPsychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Is it OK to shoot that Zombie if it isn’t Consciously Human? Is it OK to shoot that Zombie if it isn’t Humanly Conscious? And How Can I tell the Difference?”

Abstract:

In this presentation, we will discuss the construct of the cinema zombie as means by which we can address fundamental issues of how we view what is permissable among humans, among conscious humans, and ultimately among things that we consider living or not living.  The cinema zombie presents an ideal substrate for these thorny ethical issues, and, given new developments in neuroscience, we can use what we scientifically understand about the experiences of self and other to desconstruct the rules and natural history that appear to govern the modern trope.

Dr. Steven C. Schlozman is Associate Director of the Residency Training Program in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital.  He also co-directs Medical Student Education in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, where he is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. Dr. Schlozman writes short fiction and has published one novel, The Zombie Autopsies.  This novel has been optioned for film adaptation by George Romero, creator of Night of the Living Dead.

Photo: Scott Beale / laughingsquid.com.

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