Week Six

Hey guys, hope you're all well. I've been under the weather this week, believe it or not vampires can get colds too! Being bed bound however I have been doing some interesting research into various topics and found our theme for class to be a good way to spend some time researching. So this week we had some really interesting topics raised that revolved around consciousness and the self. I would like to focus primarily on two men who discuss these topics very articulately and raised some interesting points.

The first is David Chalmers, an Australian philosopher who's tedTalk proposed various existing, theoretical ideas on consciousness.

 He began by stating; without consciousness nothing in our lives would have meaning or value. This I know to be true from a first person perspective but I don't know how effectively it leads into the rest of his speech which is much broader than that.
He states that consciousness is an anomaly we need to fit into our world view. This is interesting to me, I had never thought of consciousness as something apart from myself that has to be dealt with or processed, this theory almost suggests that consciousness is one standpoint and can be reflected on or acted on from another standpoint-but what would that standpoint be?
He then goes on to propose two ideas:
Consciousness is fundamental like space, time and math (this is self evident to me) and that consciousness is universal - every system is conscious, not just living beings, on a primitive level. This is really interesting-the theory states that even a rock, which has the capability not to think but has intelligence in the form of informational processing. This theory is supported by the first-if consciousness is fundamental that it stands that, like math, it's universal.
I found this to be a jam packed talk, at only six minutes that raises some really complex and expansive views on consciousness and our culture.

The second man I focused on was Daniel Dennett who discussed the standard idea of one 'self' per body and how restrictive that is. It seems he believes this idea is formed to aid humans in understanding ourselves but it neglects other apparent existences like dissociative identity disorder.
Dennet explains that what makes the self, is a collection of memories/plans-a psychological profile held together inconsistently, therefore when inconsistencies arise one 'self' will split from the other but remain in the same body.
He also discusses a term that is new to me: center of narrative gravity. It is used by humans faced with the complicated problem of our being we maintain that everything operates around a center of narrative gravity which operates like gravity: a mathematical point through which everything on earth acts through (but is a useful theoretical fiction).

This is a picture of Dennett sporting a fantastic beard and an endearing expression unphased by the heavy material he is discussing.

Both raise interesting points about consciousness that seem to encourage the idea of shared consciousness and certainly a consciousness far more complex than the standard 'I think, therefore I am'.  These ideas are relevant to the thought processes existing in our group as we primarily plan to focus on the effects of our futuristic present on our mental health as well as the automation of our future. It makes me wonder if we will have to accept moving forward that our ai have a much more complex consciousness than we have given them credit for. Personally I think we have only begun to scratch the surface of how far our 'selves' can reach, I strongly support the notion of collective consciousness so it's encouraging to learn that scientists are philosophers are placing an emphasis on exploring this area further.

We have been discussing designing a persona or brand in the online community-something we commonly faced with now moving forward and I must say the thought is quite boring to me. The whole notion that whatever you put out on the internet is going to reflect you as a person, that we are intractable and unalterable in our persona once we decide on it is quite troubling to me. That we must decide on a 'look' or a facade to present to the world that we will adhere to is quite an unnatural thought to me and one that I'm not sure I could live by. But I suppose this is something I will just have to live with, and I'm sure I can limit the amount of effect I have online versus in person.

Anyway, as always thanks so much for reading guys, I hope I gave you some good information to take away with you and would love to hear any feedback or ideas if anyone is reading!
See you next week,
Coldtoesies.