And with the continued discoveries in neuroscience, things are still buzzing as far as I can tell. You’ll have a jolly good time. -noman
Yes, I am really looking forward to it.
I think I told you previously that I have a book called
The Mind's I, which is a series of exercises on some of the perspectives regarding consciousness. Having been published in 1981, the more contemporary folks who are working on this question are not included, but the exercises still serve to guide how we may try to think about the consciousness "problem".
The appearance of complete subjectivity in the human experience of consciousness gives the impression that it is an "unsolvable" problem. But I think that part of the solution lies in our ability to use language at the level of complexity that we do. I understand that dolphins, ants, plants, and cellular life all communicate, but it may be that our human ability to not only communicate, but
share our thoughts may give us the necessary leg up on this question.
Another cool thing is that we live in the modern world of mass communication that is more free and open than at any other time in history. Scientists, philosophers, and forum participants can share their thoughts in a free way and help to inspire new ways of approaching the question. In the past, the deep thinker existed in a kind of consciousness vacuum that may only ever reach a larger audience in the form of books, scholarly articles or conferences. Now, we can watch the videos from TED
http://www.ted.com/ talks anytime we want, which may cause that tiny spark that leads to a firestorm of progress on a scientific problem. Cooler still...it may be an "average Joe or Josephine", like any of us, that may find the piece that leads to precipitous progress.
Thanks, noman, for the above quote and info on that book...I am going to add it to my list of books to buy right now!
"He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot." -Douglas Adams