What's the newness "program" in the philosophical / brain science study of consciousness ... as in the school of "New Mysterions" (Nagel, McGinn et al.)?
What new possibilities for understanding consciousness will emerge by modeling it in a realistic virtual earth/virtual brains/bodyminds at the atomic, molecular, cellular and street view levels for many/all species?
It seems like we need to understand a lot more about genetics before we will be able to ask new questions about how consciousness or awareness "works" in humans, and in a variety of species.
Dear Victor,
Thank you for your interesting letter ~ http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/03/hello-dear-victor-and-angelaangelina.html. In addition to your interesting paintings and musings, I'm curious particularly about awareness as consciousness ... how is it that humans and other species are conscious? How does awareness work brain-wise - in
A) all the many many ways humans have experienced this subjectively, inwardly and deeply, to your yoga yogic-ally, to all the infinite qualia (infinite qualities) that humans experience {including the generation of new ideas and experiences of consciousness} ... to
B) our inability to explain consciousness from the third person, objectively, our inability to model it brain and bodymind-science wise?
These 1st and 3rd person experiences seem un-dovetail-able, irreconciable, unmeetable and un-joinable - again scientifically, brain and cognitive science-wise. And how far down the phylogenetic tree does consciousness go - sea slugs? bats? What is it like to be that blue whale in a pod in the south seas as scientific and philosophical humans, in English, think about and study this idea of consciousness (post Darwin, and with science-STEM) to co-constitute with language an understanding about a biological process which many species seem to have in common. It's a mystery ... a fascinating question ... a new mysterion (for some) ... philosophically, linguistically and scientifically and experientially. (Yes, there's
Colin McGinn's "The Mysterious Flame" (1999) -
Tom Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" (1974) - http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/activities/modules/ugmodules/humananimalstudies/lectures/32/nagel_bat.pdf - which address some of these questions ... see, too,
David Chalmer's Consciousness.net e.g. "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" (1995) by David J. Chalmers - http://consc.net/papers/facing.html and http://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/ - ... and a recent book about
Octopus consciousness -
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (2016)
by Peter Godfrey-Smith
New Yorker article -
DANIEL DENNETT’S SCIENCE OF THE SOUL
A philosopher’s lifelong quest to understand the making of the mind (2017)
re -
From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds 1st Edition
by Daniel C. Dennett
and -
Consciousness Explained
by Daniel C. Dennett
https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Explained-Daniel-C-Dennett/dp/0316180661 -
re my -
Consciousness still unexplained
(see, too, my -
"From atom to cosmos: Getting loving bliss INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY neurophysiology as brain chemistry "correct" on-off switch wise, /Consciousness still unexplained: eg "third-person explanations and first-person experience" not reconciled -Will modeling brain atoms help? ... "
http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/03/from-atom-to-cosmos-getting-loving.html) - which reiterates many of the intractable aspects of this fascinating question, which another "teacher" - from whom I also learned but he was more a philosophical dialogist than teacher - of mine, G.A. opened my mind to) ...
And yogically ... go in ... unite the inner ease with the outer explanations (not always scientific ones in Yoga's roots ... and I'm a little bit of a nontheistic f/Friend or atheistic Quakerly-informed ) ... if we are able to model the brain at the atomic, molecular and cellular levels and street view levels, and in all 7,097 living languages, what new interesting questions will we be able to pose to actually potentially understand how consciousness works in humans and other species? Here's the beginnings of modeling the brain in 3D and for learning purposes - https://scott-macleod.blogsp
I'm particularly interested in consciousness, for example, metaphorically as a computer application or program - from the third person - and its potentially to generate new ideas, new programs, new awarenesses (e..g language and conversation seem relevant here, in addition to thinking, and especially how consciousness emerges from genes) ... nevertheless, consciousness or awareness is a mystery ... a new Mysterion (See the book review in Nature, "Thinking about consciousness" by Paul E. Griffiths http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v397/n6715/full/397117a0.html from 1999, as well as Emotion and the problem of psychological categories - Paul E. Griffiths
https://philpapers.org/rec/GRIEAT-5 from 2001) ... mind experiment-wise. And actually conceiving of programming this is as unsolvable at this time as is this question of how consciousness or awareness works ...
https://philpapers.org/rec/GRIEAT-5 from 2001) ... mind experiment-wise. And actually conceiving of programming this is as unsolvable at this time as is this question of how consciousness or awareness works ...
So, in a way, philosophical and brain/bodymind science questions of consciousness are an amazingly beautiful flag for those who think about these questions, - since they are unresolved questions ... for us human primates, post-Darwin ... who enjoy y/our Yoga ... as well
Does this Aquarian modality you write of have any connection to the Age of Aquarius sung so beautifully about in the Hair: The Tribal Love Rock Musical from the late 1960s - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/Hair%3A%20the%20Tribal%20Love%20Rock%20Musical?
Hair "Aquarius" AND "Let The Sunshine In" (the original Broadway cast)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxonNvuCFRY
Aquarius lyrics
https://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/hair/aquarius.htm
While I'm inspired in ongoing ways by your Yoga, I'm also an appreciator of Iyengar's yogic vision of impeccability ... as well as missing my weekly ethnographic field work travels to Harbin ... which yielded this book ... http://bit.ly/HarbinBook and https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ... but which could begin again in May, if Harbin would like some copies of it for their bookstore ... and hopefully ... :)
L,
Scott
scottmacleod.com
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Dave, what interests you philosophically about questions of consciousness, and re - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2017/03/newnes-and-wolgan-valley-nsw-whats.html - (where I'm a little in the New Mysterion / and somewhat in the David Chalmers' schools relating to awareness / consciousness and brain science questions ... as well as the virtual world/brain modeling school (vis-a-vis Thomas Dean's at Google Research partial modeling of a fly's brain), - and which is my own new school re consciousness, I think - since modeling brains digitally at the atomic, molecular (see MIT's Scott Greenwald's recent "Electrostatic Playground" video), cellular and street view levels would allow us to address philosopher Tom Nagel's question - what is it like to be a bat (since we could/will conceivably be able to begin to experience the world digitally/virtually as a bat experiences the world) - as well as philosopher Colin McGinn's question about how can meat can be conscious - since virtually modeling atoms, molecules and cells - the "physical," and what meat is made up of - virtually, as bits - and in realistic multimedia {re the actual and the virtual - a focus of my Harbin book especially} will open avenues to understanding awareness emerging from the physical as consciousness.
Friendly regards,
Scott
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Sioux,
... And how can brain meat be conscious - and in many species?
Your vegetarian Haggis afficianado, :)
Scott
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