Life, Mind, and Consciousness

Life, Mind and Consciousness comprises the conference proceedings of a seminar convened by the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata between 16 to18 January 2004. The approach of this conference, like the previous conference held on 8 and 9 February 2002 and the next held between 13 to 15 January 2006, was to cultivate interdisciplinary dialogue on consciousness. Specifically, this conference sought to identify the link between life and consciousness through the experience of the mind. In spite of the challenges posed by such interdisciplinary forums – even for formulating a consensual definition of consciousness — it was hoped that such an interdisciplinary dialogue would enable researchers to hone their own research programmes by interacting with others working in the same field, but in different paradigms. This volume contains the eighteen papers that were presented at the eight academic sessions of the seminar, transcripts of the discussions following the paper presentations, the addresses of the inaugural and valedictory sessions, and the transcripts from the panel discussions.