Reclusland Research Links

Dec
4th

Fri

(T)he net effects of Pax Americana have been generally positive, compared against every single previous era in human history.

— David Brin

The unnatural selection of consciousness

Biology does not tolerate anything biologically useless and, given that my brain consumes 20% of my energy supply, and quite a lot of this seems to be used by neurons that are supposed to be responsible for keeping me conscious, consciousness must have a use.
But how well-founded is this belief? Was it really natural selection that eventually brought into being creatures that could see that they were naturally selected? Was it the blind laws of physics that so organised the matter in us that it could see the laws of physics and that they were blind? If we are going to address these questions properly, we need to start far enough back to see them clearly. We need to ask by what means consciousness could have come into being – if it was not there in the beginning - and what advantages it confers.
Consider the emergence of sight from photosensitivity. Firstly, chemical or electrochemical sensitivity to light is not the same as awareness of light. Secondly, the content of awareness of light – brightness, colour, never mind beauty or meaning – is not to be found in electromagnetic radiation, which is not intrinsically bright, coloured, beautiful or meaningful. These secondary and tertiary qualities are not properties of the physical world and the energy in question. Thirdly, it is not clear how certain organisations of matter manage to be aware – of impingements of energy, and later of objects, and (in the case of humans) of themselves – when very similar organisations of matter do not have this property.
Computers, after all, do not get any nearer to being conscious as the inputs are more complexly related to their outputs, however many stages and layers of processing intervene between the two.
Indeed, the contrast between environment and organism already contains an embryonic hint of the differentiation between a subject and its objects; howsoever this might be concealed by treating organisms as physical systems. Without this fudge, it is difficult to see how energy exchanges between parts of a physical system would count as “inputs” and “outputs”.
But the question remains: How is it that certain configurations of matter should be aware, should suffer, enjoy, fear etc? What is there in matter, such that eventually certain configurations of it (human beings) pool that experience and live in a public world?
Why should consciousness of the material world around their vehicles (the organisms) make certain (material) replicators better able to replicate?
Think, after all, what unconscious mechanisms can achieve: the evolution of most of the universe; the processes that are supposed to have created life and conscious organisms; the growth, development and most of the running of even highly conscious organisms such as ourselves. If you had to undertake something really difficult – for example growing in utero a brain with all its connexions in place – consciousness is the last thing you would want to oversee the task.
Once you have a species that depends on consciousness, then it is essential for its members to remain conscious. But if we assume the materialist viewpoint and, unlike many evolutionary biologists, adhere to it consistently, and set aside an anthropocentric viewpoint that sees the entire evolutionary process as something that was always leading up to us or creatures like us, it seems highly implausible that, in an unconscious biosphere, consciousness, even if it were on offer, would seem like a good option.
Looking prospectively from the beginning rather than retrospectively, one could argue that an organism that has to plan, to deliberate, to rehearse possible courses of action, and has to see wholes so as to deal with singulars, in order to survive, is in a mess. Of course, once in the mess, it would be better off with better consciousness – and this applies irrespective of whether we are considering threats and opportunities from the material environment, other species, or competition from conspecifics.
And there is a serious difficulty with the notion of “better and better” consciousness that will compensate for the disadvantage of having to work through consciousness in the first place.
For some…the criterion for intelligence…is that the organism is more closely coupled into its environment. If that were true, then a silicate crystal, so hard-wired into its environment that no wires are required, would be just the thing to be.
Consciousness makes evolutionary sense only if one does not start far enough back; if, that is to say, one fails to assume a consistent and sincere materialist position, beginning with a world without consciousness, and then considers whether there could be putative biological drivers for organisms to become conscious. This is the only valid starting point for those who look to evolution to explain consciousness, given that the history of matter has overwhelmingly been without conscious life, indeed without history. Once the viewpoint of consistent materialism is assumed, it ceases to be self-evident that it is a good thing to experience what is there, that it will make an organism better able so to position itself in the causal net as to increase the probability of replication of its genomic material. On the contrary, even setting aside the confusional states it is prone to, and the sleep it requires, consciousness seems like the worst possible evolutionary move.

WOW. What a great point, and a great article overall.

Definition: a Greek word meaning “purification”, “purging”, “cleansing” or “clarification.” It is derived from the infinitive verb of Ancient Greek: καθαίρειν transliterated as kathairein “to purify, purge,” and adjective Ancient Greek: καθαρός katharos “pure or clean.

— Catharsis

We’re losing certain kinds of feelings. That’s exactly right. Just like certain species of animals. With all the things we’re getting from technology, it’s costing us certain values and feelings which are disappearing. Art can help keep that, store them, bring them back.

If it can do it from transforming the culture and not through escaping from it, that is, through media of say television. In other words, to sacralize these secular things.

— ibid

There’s such an idolatry about art and artists. Everybody’s an artist. A lot of us who are artists can start blaming ourselves. It’s not really going to help anybody. There’s a lot to be said for an artist being able to make his own living, to sell his things. I mean, there are many roots to this question too. Some artists feel that they are privileged people and that they should be supported and should be allowed to do whatever they want. There is something very unhealthy about a whole aspect of art which is self-indulgent. Maybe there are some techniques which are skillful, but what is sometimes being offered to the world is not good.

I think what we are talking about is, what is a salvational influence in society? What can help? It always starts with a small group. There are films sometimes which really touch something, books which sometimes touch something, that help people, give them hope. I think what art can do is give hope. Real hope.

— ibid

When I teach about Plato’s views about art, particularly about music. I play some different kinds of music.. It’s very hard to observe yourself honestly when you listen to music, but I ask my students to try. I play Country and Western, Beethoven’s Ninth, Hard-Rock, 1940’s romantic ballads, some sufi flute music, different kinds of Bach, schmaltzy romantic waltz music, just a few minutes of each one. And I ask, now, what did you see? We talk.

It turns out some of the students are really astounded at the emotions that these things are evoking in them. And that these are emotions they are living with, being brought up in. They are living, eating, drinking, breathing these emotions. For example, Country Western music is filled with self-pity joined to sexual desire. And we love it! The romantic music of the 40’s is a kind of sentimental… And the fact is music is shaping the psyche of young people. It’s an organic feeling that is being habituated. The violence, not just in words, but it’s the music. It’s poison.

— ibid

I remember I was a freshman at Harvard, in one of my first philosophy classes there. The professor started by asking—like I do sometimes, like professors do—what do you expect to get out of philosophy? I put up my hand and said, “I want to know why I’m living, why we die. Does God exist? What are we here for?” I went on an on like that, and I could see around me that there was this silence. My throat got dry, and I just felt awful. At first I’d thought that I was going to speak for the whole human race. And the professor, of course, was saying, “Yes. Go on.” He knew he had one. Finally I just couldn’t go on any more. Then he said, “Yes. But you see, that’s not philosophy. If you want to know those things, you have to see a psychiatrist or a priest. This is not philosophy.” It was such a shock.

I recovered quite well, but I had to find a few other people who shared my hunger. It is the hunger you’re speaking of. That is what Plato called eros—a word that’s come down to us which has taken on a sexual association. But for Plato it had to do, in part, with a striving that is innate in us, a striving to participate with one’s mind, one’s consciousness, in something greater than oneself. A love of wisdom, if you like, a love of being.

— ibid

The gift of language, the capacity of language, is that it is supposed to be able to connect to any part of the human organism. It all can feed into the power of speech or expression. It has access to all the parts.

— Jacob Needleman

Parking is free (but difficult to find)

Love the title, but is it still parking if the ground moves like a river?

Maybe more like “park and ride”? :)

Kevin Kelly on what technology wants

The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, no one fails entirely, but everyone says something true about the nature of things, and while individually they contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.

— Aristotle: Metaphysics (translated by W. D. Ross) (via fuckyeahphilosophy)

tumblrrinserepeat:

allcreatures:

The eye of a lion peers out from the inside of a dead elephant in Savuti, Botswana. Picture: STEVE BLOOM / BARCROFT MEDIA. via telegraph uk

wow

freshphotons:

Via.

Awesome.

Dec
3rd

Thu

realityisthatwhichdoesntexist:

it’s a research project about/around reality

Try doing the old “Magic Eye” stereogram/stereoscope trick. Does that mean she’s standing still? ;)

If you can get the stereoscopic image down where you can watch the middle image spin, wait until she’s going one way, then turn your focus onto the opposite color.

That is, once you can see both colors in the single joined image, she’ll seem to be turning one way. Focus on the color of the leg going in the opposite direction, and at some point your mind should just flip. Go back and forth for a while. After that, its much easier to see them turning correctly when focused on the two images separately.

Fun with brain hacking, all in a little animated gif. Thank you “realityisthatwhichdoesnotexist”!

Second truth: suffering caused by tanha—“Self-centeredness, grasping, and greed;

— Ken Cohen