Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 13

[Constance]

CLICK TO ENLARGE FURTHER

 

[smcder]

Thanks for posting that link, but I'd better say at the outset that I don't trust Simon Critchley to be sensitive enough to provide reliable insight into Malik's films based on his having entirely missed the point of Wallace Stevens's poetry. Critchley wrote a short book on Stevens's poetry which he titled, if I remember correctly, Things Merely Are. I found his reading of the poems as dry as dust and misleading for unsuspecting readers. He seems to be still stuck in the same mindset these many years later. I also think that Critchley hasn't read Heidegger to any extent or in any depth. I suppose I should try to find a youtube video of Critchley talking about something in order to confirm whether he is actually as alienated and dead in the head as I've thought. One other thing about Critchley's essay on Malik's films that bothers me: he sprinkles lines and parts of lines from Stevens's poetry throughout this piece without placing them in quotation marks to indicate that these are not his words. He seems to be the kind of person who lacks personal boundaries and intersubjective capacities for respect. Sorry to be such a downer about this essay.

Ok, I am remembering
now that Critchley wrote a series on Heidegger that I think I posted in these threads:

Being and Time, part 1: Why Heidegger matters Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley: How to believe: The most important continental philosopher of the last century was also a Nazi. How did he get there? What can we learn from him?

www.google.com

 

[smcder]

The biographical info on Malick from Critchleys article:

"

But if one restricts oneself to the biographical information that I have been able to find out, then a second banana skin appears in one's path, namely the intriguing issue of Malick and philosophy. He studied philosophy at Harvard University between 1961 and 1965, graduating with Phi Beta Kappa honours. He worked closely with Stanley Cavell, who supervised Malick's undergraduate honors thesis. Against the deeply ingrained prejudices about Continental thought that prevailed at that time, Malick courageously attempted to show how Heidegger's thoughts about (and against) epistemology in _Being and Time_ could be seen in relation to the analysis of perception in Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore and, at Harvard, C. I. Lewis. Malick then went, as a Rhodes scholar, to Magdalen College, Oxford, to study for the B.Phil in philosophy. He left Oxford because he wanted to write a D.Phil thesis on the concept of world in Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, and was told by Gilbert Ryle that he should try and write on something more 'philosophical'. He then worked as a philosophy teacher at MIT, teaching Hubert Dreyfus's course on Heidegger when he was away on study leave in France, and wrote journalism for _The New Yorker_ and _Life_ magazine. In 1969 he published his bilingual edition of Heidegger's _Vom Wesen des Grundes_ as _The Essence of Reasons_. [7] Also in 1969 he was accepted into the inaugural class of the Center for Advanced Film Studies at the American Film Institute, in Los Angeles, and his career in cinema began to take shape."

 

[Constance]

One more post on this subject for anyone who is interested and wants to know the location of the original satellite image of the location I've been posting about:

 

[Constance]

Ok, I am remembering
now that Critchley wrote a series on Heidegger that I think I posted in these threads:

Being and Time, part 1: Why Heidegger matters Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley: How to believe: The most important continental philosopher of the last century was also a Nazi. How did he get there? What can we learn from him?

www.google.com

Thanks for posting these Critchley blogs about Heidegger. Reading them now.

ps, I'm going to try to get a copy of Malik's translation of H's The Essence of Reasons from the library. You might find this book especially interesting since it places Malik's translation on facing pages to the original German.

 

[Constance]

Ok, I am remembering
now that Critchley wrote a series on Heidegger that I think I posted in these threads:

Being and Time, part 1: Why Heidegger matters Simon Critchley

Simon Critchley: How to believe: The most important continental philosopher of the last century was also a Nazi. How did he get there? What can we learn from him?

www.google.com

I think Critchley's blogs 6, 7, and 8 are the most interesting parts, though I find myself disagreeing with the ways in which he characterizes angst, guilt, and conscience in Heidegger. Critchley seems always to be fundamentally obsessed with himself, his own psychological condition, his own death. Thus it seems that he can interpret Heidegger as saying that in general we human beings only want to achieve conscience/conscientiousness toward others, not that these capabilities arise in us naturally out of our prereflective experience with others in our shared being-in-the-world. You have read Being and Time far more recently than I have, and partly in German. Do you read these aspects of it in the same way Critchley does?

 

[smcder]

Thanks for posting these Critchley blogs about Heidegger. Reading them now.

ps, I'm going to try to get a copy of Malik's translation of H's The Essence of Reasons from the library. You might find this book especially interesting since it places Malik's translation on facing pages to the original German.

I'll put in an interlibrary loan request too.

 

[smcder]

I think Critchley's blogs 6, 7, and 8 are the most interesting parts, though I find myself disagreeing with the ways in which he characterizes angst, guilt, and conscience in Heidegger. Critchley seems always to be fundamentally obsessed with himself, his own psychological condition, his own death. Thus it seems that he can interpret Heidegger as saying that in general we human beings only want to achieve conscience/conscientiousness toward others, not that these capabilities arise in us naturally out of our prereflective experience with others in our shared being-in-the-world. You have read Being and Time far more recently than I have, and partly in German. Do you read these aspects of it in the same way Critchley does?

I'll have to re-read his blog posts...it does seem like that came up when we discussed it somewhere in the threads above...it seems too he was writing to not only explain but to justify his profession...sort of a Heideggerean approach to self help, if you can imagine....

 

[Constance]

Neville Thompson has produced a gigamacro of the region imaged in ESP_014139_2070_RED that Gerald Turner worked with three years ago. This imaging was done in the HiRISE system by a satellite camera above the surface of Mars. This area was the site of a very large ancient river which at some later date, with river waters withdrawn, appears to have been developed and lived in. Look first into the area marked in a rectangle and magnify it in your browser. NOTE: once you are in the gigapan you can scroll left or right, upward or downward, and zoom in and out of areas that interest you.

GERALD TURNERS - ESP_014139_2070_RED

 

[Constance]

ETA, also scroll to your left beyond the rectangle to study the region shown there:

GERALD TURNERS - ESP_014139_2070_RED

Explore this 8.18 gigapixel image.ESP_014139_2070_RED Phyllosilicate Diversity North of Mawrth Vallis https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_014139_2070 GERALD TURNERS - ESP_014139_2070_RED GIGAmacro -...

viewer.gigamacro.com

 

[Constance]

Further areas of interest now highlighted in the above gigamacro. Now four boxes to enlarge and explore at:

GERALD TURNERS - ESP_014139_2070_RED

 

[Constance]

Added today by Neville Thompson ~~

 

[Constance]

Received a notice today that one of my posts has been deleted because the link it included failed. I would prefer, and others might also prefer, that instead you note that the link is not working for you, enabling us to attempt to post a better link. Otherwise, the entire reference to a relevant paper might be erased before it can be read. Randall, would you please also let me know which post of mine you have deleted? Thanks.

ETA -- flagging @USI Calgary

 

[Randall]

Received a notice today that one of my posts has been deleted because the link it included failed. I would prefer, and others might also prefer, that instead you note that the link is not working for you, enabling us to attempt to post a better link. Otherwise, the entire reference to a relevant paper might be erased before it can be read. Randall, would you please also let me know which post of mine you have deleted? Thanks.

ETA -- flagging @USI Calgary

I haven't deleted any posts in a very long time, so it either wasn't me or I don't recall it. If it was simply a bad link and no other content of consequence, then it may have been deleted as part of simple housekeeping. If you received a notice, then simply repost with a working link. It does no good to post dud links, or leave them on the board.

 

[Constance]

I haven't deleted any posts in a very long time, so it either wasn't me or I don't recall it. If it was simply a bad link and no other content of consequence, then it may have been deleted as part of simple housekeeping. If you received a notice, then simply repost with a working link. It does no good to post dud links, or leave them on the board.

There was no identification of the post that was deleted, only the notice in my notifications on Wednesday afternoon that a post of mine had been deleted because of a bad -- actually the word was 'dead' -- link. Who else would have deleted it? In any case, it's a bad policy not to identify the link to the poster before deleting it for the reasons I mentioned above.

 

[Randall]

There was no identification of the post that was deleted, only the notice in my notifications on Wednesday afternoon that a post of mine had been deleted because of a bad -- actually the word was 'dead' -- link. Who else would have deleted it? In any case, it's a bad policy not to identify the link to the poster before deleting it for the reasons I mentioned above.

Maybe Gene? I don't know. Anyway, just carry on and if anything else happens, let us know.

 

[Constance]

Another paper by an author we've recently discussed and found persuasive.

Farid Zahnoun, "Identity Reconsidered: taking a dual perspective on the Hard Problem of Consciousness"

Keywords:
Cognitive Science,
Functionalism,
Identity theory,
Philosophy of Mind (the hard problem of consciousness),
Mind-body problem

Abstract:

"Despite functionalism's long reign in philosophy of mind, it has never fully managed to carry off the older idea that the mind-matter relation might be a relation, not of multiple realizability, but of strict identity. Nowadays, we see a resurgence of identity-theoretical proposals in the so-called E-approaches to cognition, and especially in enactive and radical enactive approaches. Here, it is claimed that assuming a strict identity between certain physical structures and phenomenal consciousness isn't merely a viable option, it is perhaps the only way to avoid the Hard Problem of Consciousness. This paper wants to argue that the Hard Problem of Consciousness is a pseudo-problem that should indeed be avoided, rather than solved, and that this can be done by adopting a specific version of identity theory, one which isn't neuro-centric and which also avoids collapsing into ontological reductionism. This version of identity theory is based on classic work by Herbert Feigl, who provides one of the most elaborated, yet at the same time most overlooked identity theories. Inspired by his work, I will defend, what I will call, a dual perspective theory. The theory will be contrasted with, on the one hand, neuro-centric and reductionist identity theories, and, on the other hand, with other mind-body relation proposals such as supervenience, neutral monism and dual aspect theory. To explain the idea of 'dual perspectives', I shall rely on some of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological insights."

https://www.academia.edu/37116372/I...m_of_Consciousness?email_work_card=view-paper

 

[Soupie]

The Hard Problem of Breakfast - Issue 88: Love & Sex - Nautilus

Over the past century, scientists have unlocked many of the most profound secrets of bacon, eggs, oatmeal, and avocado toast, advancing…

m.nautil.us

 

[Constance]

@Gene Steinberg posted this announcement today of an interview on the Paracast with an expert on Edgar Cayce toward the end of the month:

Exploring Edgar Cayce with Sidney K. Kirkpatrick

 

[Constance]

Another paper by an author we've recently discussed and found persuasive.

Farid Zahnoun, "Identity Reconsidered: taking a dual perspective on the Hard Problem of Consciousness"

Keywords:
Cognitive Science,
Functionalism,
Identity theory,
Philosophy of Mind (the hard problem of consciousness),
Mind-body problem

Abstract:

"Despite functionalism's long reign in philosophy of mind, it has never fully managed to carry off the older idea that the mind-matter relation might be a relation, not of multiple realizability, but of strict identity. Nowadays, we see a resurgence of identity-theoretical proposals in the so-called E-approaches to cognition, and especially in enactive and radical enactive approaches. Here, it is claimed that assuming a strict identity between certain physical structures and phenomenal consciousness isn't merely a viable option, it is perhaps the only way to avoid the Hard Problem of Consciousness. This paper wants to argue that the Hard Problem of Consciousness is a pseudo-problem that should indeed be avoided, rather than solved, and that this can be done by adopting a specific version of identity theory, one which isn't neuro-centric and which also avoids collapsing into ontological reductionism. This version of identity theory is based on classic work by Herbert Feigl, who provides one of the most elaborated, yet at the same time most overlooked identity theories. Inspired by his work, I will defend, what I will call, a dual perspective theory. The theory will be contrasted with, on the one hand, neuro-centric and reductionist identity theories, and, on the other hand, with other mind-body relation proposals such as supervenience, neutral monism and dual aspect theory. To explain the idea of 'dual perspectives', I shall rely on some of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological insights."

https://www.academia.edu/37116372/I...m_of_Consciousness?email_work_card=view-paper

ETA: I've been through this paper once and will read it again when @Soupie and @smcder are available to discuss it. At this point I am interested in both of their perspectives on the author's argument, which I presently find unpersuasive.