Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[smcder]

World’s first head transplant volunteer could experience something "worse than death” - ScienceAlert

From speaking to several medical experts, Hootan has pin-pointed a problem that even the most perfectly performed head transplant procedure cannot mitigate - we have literally no idea what this will do to Spiridonov’s mind. There’s no telling what the transplant - and all the new connections and foreign chemicals that his head and brain will have to suddenly deal with - will do to Spiridonov’s psyche, but as Hootan puts it rather chillingly, it "could result in a hitherto never experienced level and quality of insanity".

 

[Constance]

This article discusses the hypothesis of 'cellular memory' in the effort to account for the variety of changes in attitude, interests, food preferences, and memory experienced by organ transplant recipients:

Inherited Memory in Organ Transplant Recipients

 

[Constance]

This is also very interesting:

Examples of Genetic Memory or Something Else?

 

[smcder]

This article discusses the hypothesis of 'cellular memory' in the effort to account for the variety of changes in attitude, interests, food preferences, and memory experienced by organ transplant recipients:

Inherited Memory in Organ Transplant Recipients

This is a whole HEAD transplant ...

 

[smcder]

This article discusses the hypothesis of 'cellular memory' in the effort to account for the variety of changes in attitude, interests, food preferences, and memory experienced by organ transplant recipients:

Inherited Memory in Organ Transplant Recipients

Ive read some about this and there was a movie too - on the topic, a heart transplant, I believe ... it is very interesting. I've thought a lot about who we are and what we do is far outside our scope in time and space ... we started becoming who we are a long time ago ...

 

[Constance]

Ive read some about this and there was a movie too - on the topic, a heart transplant, I believe ... it is very interesting. I've thought a lot about who we are and what we do is far outside our scope in time and space ... we started becoming who we are a long time ago ...

I think that cases of feral children raised by animals are important in understanding 'who we are' and what essential traits we share with animals, who often exceed our capacities for caring for and nurturing the young and helpless of whatever species. The following article is revelatory.

Feral Children - Raised by Animals and Wilderness

 

[Constance]

This is a whole HEAD transplant ...

Yes, that's astonishing. I haven't yet read the article you posted about it and will do so now. The individual who has decided to undergo this implant has surely been made aware by the physicians involved that his experience, if he survives the surgery, will likely be chaotic, at least at first. If he survives and his initial confusion is succeeded by increasing mental integration, we all will learn a lot about how living organisms make sense of the world.

 

[smcder]

More on Rick Roderick

Rick Roderick and The Self Under Siege | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

"A complaint I often hear from people averse to the subject of philosophy is that, as interesting as it can often be, it’s really sort of irrelevant to our daily lives. In such conversations Rick Roderick is always the guy who comes to my mind. It’s a criticism he himself made of certain philosophers from time to time, but not one likely to find much ground against his own style.

Roderick (1949-2002) was a professor of philosophy who taught at Baylor, University of Texas and Duke University, which he refered to as “one of the most de-eroticized places you could ever find yourself”.

While he authored many papers and reviews as well as a book on philosopher Jurgen Habermas, he’s best known for the three courses he created for The Teaching Company (now The Great Courses) in the early 1990s. These short courses (Philosophy and Human Values, Nietszche and the Postmodern Condition, and The Self Under Siege) are vibrant demonstrations of just how engaged with life philosophy can be.

While at times divisive, Professor Roderick is unflinchingly concerned with questions about the modern (and yes, the postmodern) self in the context through which they arise. His lecturing style is relaxed but passionate and deeply Socratic. Introducing his lecture on “The Masters of Suspicion” Roderick argues that a “deflationary” account of the self is deeply dissatisfying, and states as his goal to

“see if a conversation rooted in philosophy can help us find our way about”.

 

[smcder]

Philosophy with a Southern Drawl: Rick Roderick Teaches Derrida, Foucault, Sartre and Others | Open Culture

 

[smcder]

I think that cases of feral children raised by animals are important in understanding 'who we are' and what essential traits we share with animals, who often exceed our capacities for caring for and nurturing the young and helpless of whatever species. The following article is revelatory.

Feral Children - Raised by Animals and Wilderness

That is an interesting article, thanks for posting - I'd read about some of the historical cases but not the recent ones.

(I wonder why there are "trash species"?? But ... clearly, we are one.)

The dog children of Russia was disturbing - 2 million homeless in an area over run with feral dogs ... that's an indicator of progress in the world today ...

fascinating though that because of our ability to mimic, we can cross species lines in a way other animals can't. Wolves, dogs, monkeys and birds ... I think it was the psychologist Jordan Peterson who said that it's really human see, human do ... even the apes have a very limited capacity of mimicry but humans are astonishingly good at it in comparison. These cases do seem to show that we aren't currently able to get language started or that it's very limited after a certain point in development ... that's very sad to think about what life, inner life might be like for these people ... although it might not always be a negative.

It also brings to mind Stranger in a Strange Land - Valentine Michael Smith is raised by Martians and has a number of capabilities that "ordinary" humans do not ... the parallel cases would be those where a child was raised as a prodigy - of course many parents push their children's natural talents to an extreme like this ... and historical cases include John Stuart Mill.

 

[smcder]

And now for something completely different: Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds, by Bernd Heinrich, biologist and writer extraordinaire.


I think it would do us good to get closer to nature if we're going to contemplate the role of nature in consciousness and mind, and anything by Heinrich is a refreshing immersion in the natural world {which we could use after all this abstract talk}. I already have a copy, still unread, and have immensely enjoyed two other books by Heinrich. Used copies are not expensive. Try it, you'll like it. Maybe love it.

Did you have a chance to read the chapter by Lopez on the Raven I posted? I can't remember when I first read it ... but it was in a book my brother had. It made a very vivid impression on me ... I remember day dreaming about it in class and at night ... I had a song called "Crow and Weasel" I listened to about the same time and associate with Lopez writing and the images I saw in my head of the Raven and the Croaw ... let me see if I can find it ...

the Raven high on a mountain/mesa in the desert - it's eye gleaming, wiser than man. Wiser than me.

I am grateful for the place I live, the isolation and sense of distance and horizon. A thunderstorm threatened throughout the day - one of those where the clouds and the sun compete for your attention - and there is an air of anticipation before any storm - an achingly beautiful combination.

 

[Constance]

I don't remember the raven passage you quoted and hope you will quote it again. I like peace and quiet too and love nature. I also like rain and storms and we are about to get a week of them according to the weather forecast. Good thing the landlord replaced the roof of this townhouse last summer.

 

[smcder]

I don't remember the raven passage you quoted and hope you will quote it again. I like peace and quiet too and love nature. I also like rain and storms and we are about to get a week of them according to the weather forecast. Good thing the landlord replaced the roof of this townhouse last summer.

From Barry Lopez's Desert Notes
http://www.dickinsonclassroom.com/uploads/2/2/9/4/22944492/the_raven.pdf

 

[Pharoah]

Good grief this Heidegger is disappointing. I must be missing something. I will soldier on... It does remind me of searle's intentionality. One must follow the writer's prescriptive description... Absorb their worldview rather than understand the world by their view

 

[Constance]

Good grief this Heidegger is disappointing. I must be missing something.

What you're missing is presuppositionless reading of Heidegger's major texts on your own part. To comprehend what Heidegger and the other major phenomenological philosophers write will take time and patience. What is reading? What does reading need to be? In your case concerning the formidable texts written by phenomenological philosophers, reading seems to be an attempt to approach only snippets of texts with the goal of somehow finding in them support for the presuppositions you've absorbed from analytical philosophy of mind. You'll never get anywhere in understanding phenomenology this way.

 

[Constance]

From Barry Lopez's Desert Notes
http://www.dickinsonclassroom.com/uploads/2/2/9/4/22944492/the_raven.pdf

Steve, I haven't gone to that link and read what's there yet. I will do so tonight.

 

[smcder]

I think that cases of feral children raised by animals are important in understanding 'who we are' and what essential traits we share with animals, who often exceed our capacities for caring for and nurturing the young and helpless of whatever species. The following article is revelatory.

Feral Children - Raised by Animals and Wilderness

existence precedes essence ...

 

[Pharoah]

What you're missing is presuppositionless reading of Heidegger's major texts on your own part. To comprehend what Heidegger and the other major phenomenological philosophers write will take time and patience. What is reading? What does reading need to be? In your case concerning the formidable texts written by phenomenological philosophers, reading seems to be an attempt to approach only snippets of texts with the goal of somehow finding in them support for the presuppositions you've absorbed from analytical philosophy of mind. You'll never get anywhere in understanding phenomenology this way.

I know the project is a different one... It is you who is impatient. Hold back on the trigger. And I am well versed in being not analytical. It just got a bit turgid (hammers and leather etc) On the whole I have enjoyed it v much

 

[Constance]

You mean your project (defining and defending HCT to a philosophical readership) is a 'different one' from the usual reductiveness of analytical philosophy? Maybe so, and if so we'll see. In the meantime some of your casual remarks suggest that you are far from engaging and comprehending sources outside analytical philosophy which you state an intention to use in support of your previous thinking.

 

[Pharoah]

You mean your project (defining and defending HCT to a philosophical readership) is a 'different one' from the usual reductiveness of analytical philosophy? Maybe so, and if so we'll see. In the meantime some of your casual remarks suggest that you are far from engaging and comprehending sources outside analytical philosophy which you state an intention to use in support of your previous thinking.

No.. I didn't mean my project. I meant the phenomenologist's project is different.
Causal remarks... I'm just trying to rile a defence of the un-attackable sacred shrine.
“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”
― Richard P. Feynman