CONSCIOUSNESS BLITZ!
Why Can’t the World’s Greatest Minds Solve the Mystery of Consciousness?
One spring morning in Tucson, Arizona, in 1994, an unknown philosopher named David Chalmers got up to give a talk on consciousness, by which he meant the feeling of being inside your head, looking out - or, to use the kind of language that might give a neuroscientist an aneurysm, of having a soul. Though he didn’t realise it at the time, the young Australian academic was about to ignite a war between philosophers and scientists, by drawing attention to a central mystery of human life - perhaps the central mystery of human life - and revealing how embarrassingly far they were from solving it.
The scholars gathered at the University of Arizona - for what would later go down as a landmark conference on the subject - knew they were doing something edgy: in many quarters, consciousness was still taboo, too weird and new agey to take seriously, and some of the scientists in the audience were risking their reputations by attending. Yet the first two talks that day, before Chalmers’s, hadn’t proved thrilling. “Quite honestly, they were totally unintelligible and boring - I had no idea what anyone was talking about,” recalled Stuart Hameroff, the Arizona professor responsible for the event. “As the organiser, I’m looking around, and people are falling asleep, or getting restless.” He grew worried. “But then the third talk, right before the coffee break - that was Dave.” With his long, straggly hair and fondness for all-body denim, the 27-year-old Chalmers looked like he’d got lost en route to a Metallica concert. “He comes on stage, hair down to his butt, he’s prancing around like Mick Jagger,” Hameroff said. “But then he speaks. And that’s when everyone wakes up.”
READ ARTICLE!
I am still extremely handicapped by computer-not. (I am hoping I can get this one post done tonight, w/o taking three hours to do). I have an endless organisation of bookmarks on my browser. Every time I 'save bookmarks', and then re-upload them into the browser, all those thousands of bookmarks are multiplied by about 10x, each time. Not only that, my hierarchicalisation of them is completely dashed to hell. I planned to use each group/theme of bookmarks in upcoming posts. However, what I am forced to do is just spit them out altogether, in posts - no theme-post written by me. (So I can delete the bookmarks). They will be filed away here under tag, "links - *', and under their subjects. So, you get to cherry pick from those link posts what you want to read. I can refer back to them when I want to do a post relevant to whatever subject.
Today's - the first - slew of links is on the subject of consciousness. Note there are a few re: life-after-death. (They would have been elabourated upon in a theme post. I.e., they are not here simply to support the idea of life after death):
CONSCIOUSNESS
A MADMAN TAG - Wisdom is the retention of innocence through adversity.
John Searle: Where Does Consciousness Come From? : NPR
John Searle: Where Does Consciousness Come From? : NPR
The Roots Of Consciousness: We're Of Two Minds
The Roots Of Consciousness: We're Of Two Minds (transcript)
Consciousness - How the mind alters reality
Scientists ‘prove’ that the soul does not DIE: It returns to the UNIVERSE - Fullact Trending Stories With The Laugh Mixture
While not necessarily reality, perception can cause reality to evolve
Self-Mastery and the Role of Consciousness in Creating Reality
The Next Big Bang: Human Consciousness & the Universe’s Ultimate Secret : Waking Times
Could there be life after death? Brain activity continues
Incredible Evidence of Reincarnation (Hard to Explain Away ...) | The Freedom Articles
Scientists use mathematical calculations to PROVE God is REAL | Ancient Code
Shocking discovery: Genes help Scientists confirm 'Life' after DEATH | Ancient Code
Definite Evidence (and Maybe even Proof) of Reincarnation
Experiments at Burning Man Test the Science of Collective Conscience
The following links were already included in a previous post, "The Illusion of Consciousness":
Daniel Dennett: ‘I begrudge every hour I have to spend worrying about politics’ | Science | The Guardian
Review: Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett | Books | The Guardian
Daniel Dennett - Wikipedia
From Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel C Dennett review - consciousness explained? | Books | The Guardian
One spring morning in Tucson, Arizona, in 1994, an unknown philosopher named David Chalmers got up to give a talk on consciousness, by which he meant the feeling of being inside your head, looking out - or, to use the kind of language that might give a neuroscientist an aneurysm, of having a soul. Though he didn’t realise it at the time, the young Australian academic was about to ignite a war between philosophers and scientists, by drawing attention to a central mystery of human life - perhaps the central mystery of human life - and revealing how embarrassingly far they were from solving it.
The scholars gathered at the University of Arizona - for what would later go down as a landmark conference on the subject - knew they were doing something edgy: in many quarters, consciousness was still taboo, too weird and new agey to take seriously, and some of the scientists in the audience were risking their reputations by attending. Yet the first two talks that day, before Chalmers’s, hadn’t proved thrilling. “Quite honestly, they were totally unintelligible and boring - I had no idea what anyone was talking about,” recalled Stuart Hameroff, the Arizona professor responsible for the event. “As the organiser, I’m looking around, and people are falling asleep, or getting restless.” He grew worried. “But then the third talk, right before the coffee break - that was Dave.” With his long, straggly hair and fondness for all-body denim, the 27-year-old Chalmers looked like he’d got lost en route to a Metallica concert. “He comes on stage, hair down to his butt, he’s prancing around like Mick Jagger,” Hameroff said. “But then he speaks. And that’s when everyone wakes up.”
READ ARTICLE!
I am still extremely handicapped by computer-not. (I am hoping I can get this one post done tonight, w/o taking three hours to do). I have an endless organisation of bookmarks on my browser. Every time I 'save bookmarks', and then re-upload them into the browser, all those thousands of bookmarks are multiplied by about 10x, each time. Not only that, my hierarchicalisation of them is completely dashed to hell. I planned to use each group/theme of bookmarks in upcoming posts. However, what I am forced to do is just spit them out altogether, in posts - no theme-post written by me. (So I can delete the bookmarks). They will be filed away here under tag, "links - *', and under their subjects. So, you get to cherry pick from those link posts what you want to read. I can refer back to them when I want to do a post relevant to whatever subject.
Today's - the first - slew of links is on the subject of consciousness. Note there are a few re: life-after-death. (They would have been elabourated upon in a theme post. I.e., they are not here simply to support the idea of life after death):
CONSCIOUSNESS
A MADMAN TAG - Wisdom is the retention of innocence through adversity.
John Searle: Where Does Consciousness Come From? : NPR
John Searle: Where Does Consciousness Come From? : NPR
The Roots Of Consciousness: We're Of Two Minds
The Roots Of Consciousness: We're Of Two Minds (transcript)
Consciousness - How the mind alters reality
Scientists ‘prove’ that the soul does not DIE: It returns to the UNIVERSE - Fullact Trending Stories With The Laugh Mixture
While not necessarily reality, perception can cause reality to evolve
Self-Mastery and the Role of Consciousness in Creating Reality
The Next Big Bang: Human Consciousness & the Universe’s Ultimate Secret : Waking Times
Could there be life after death? Brain activity continues
Incredible Evidence of Reincarnation (Hard to Explain Away ...) | The Freedom Articles
Scientists use mathematical calculations to PROVE God is REAL | Ancient Code
Shocking discovery: Genes help Scientists confirm 'Life' after DEATH | Ancient Code
Definite Evidence (and Maybe even Proof) of Reincarnation
Experiments at Burning Man Test the Science of Collective Conscience
The following links were already included in a previous post, "The Illusion of Consciousness":
Daniel Dennett: ‘I begrudge every hour I have to spend worrying about politics’ | Science | The Guardian
Review: Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett | Books | The Guardian
Daniel Dennett - Wikipedia
From Bacteria to Bach and Back by Daniel C Dennett review - consciousness explained? | Books | The Guardian