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Attractive people are also likely to be more intelligent, studies find.
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Consciousness presents a “hard problem” to scholars. At stake is how the physical body gives rise to subjective experience. Why consciousness is “hard”, however, is uncertain. One possibility is that the challenge arises from ontology—because consciousness is a special property/substance that is irreducible to the physical. Here, I show how the “hard problem” emerges from two intuitive biases that lie deep within human psychology: Essentialism and Dualism. To determine whether a subjective experience is transformative, people judge whether the experience pertains to one’s essence, and per Essentialism, one’s essence lies within one’s body. Psychological states that seem embodied (e.g., “color vision” ∼ eyes) can thus give rise to transformative experience. Per intuitive Dualism, however, the mind is distinct from the body, and epistemic states (knowledge and beliefs) seem particularly ethereal. It follows that conscious perception (e.g., “seeing color”) ought to seem more transformative than conscious knowledge (e.g., knowledge of how color vision works). Critically, the transformation arises precisely because the conscious perceptual experience seems readily embodied (rather than distinct from the physical body, as the ontological account suggests). In line with this proposal, five experiments show that, in laypeople’s view (a) experience is transformative only when it seems anchored in the human body; (b) gaining a transformative experience effects a bodily change; and (c) the magnitude of the transformation correlates with both (i) the perceived embodiment of that experience, and (ii) with Dualist intuitions, generally. These results cannot solve the ontological question of whether consciousness is distinct from the physical. But they do suggest that the roots of the “hard problem” are partly psychological.
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Consciousness presents a “hard problem” to scholars (Chalmers, 1996). The “problem” is to explain how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience. How does the brain make a blooming rose feel lush and sensuous and snow seem still and silent? How can electrochemical signals invoke sublime glory when we hear Bach’s music?
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David Chalmers (Chalmers, 1996) suggests that such explanations are bound for failure: it is impossible to reduce a subjective phenomenal experience to the physical. This is not merely due to the cognitive limitations of humans or their current narrow understanding of physics or neuroscience. Rather, the problem arises from what experience is and how it relates to the physical world.
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THE MANY LIVES OF DABBA This story triggered an old memory. My maths teacher would brand students who failed to answer his questions, as ‘dabbas’. Looking back, I realized that this rude remark, meant to signify those he considered lacking in grey matter, has ever been turned on its head in Indian homes. My mum, for instance, stored her sewing paraphernalia in a big Britannia biscuit tin, our pencils and pens in an old dry-fruits box. Reusing these containers, otherwise rendered useless, made their existence purposeful, and returned prestige to the word, otherwise used to describe someone slow, empty. This legacy lives on in several flower pots in my garden that were once old oil jars, paint cans and grocery cartons. May there be no end of recycling on earth! Prafull Chandra Sockey, Hazaribagh
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Instead of saying “What are you doing?” my twoyear-old goes around asking in a haunting voice, “What have you done?” — @BESSBELL
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Every living being is under the governance of Maya (Illusion). To liberate him from the clutches of Maya and place him on the authentic, solid ground of the soul, to awaken his dormant spirit so that he might cover the distance from God, the Supreme Element, to enable him to perceive the Supreme Being through the divine touch, is the sole objective of the Spiritual path and this is known as Bhakti (devotion). Only in it lies the eternal welfare of the living beings. Lord Krishn said, ‘‘Arjun! Neither through the Veda, nor through Yagya, nor through offerings, nor through penance, I can be attained. I can be attained only through total Bhakti (devotion) depending on none else except Me.’’-
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Our reality, according to Chalmers, exhibits Dualism—the properties of our subjective conscious experience (hereafter: “experience”) are distinct from the physical. For this reason, experience cannot be explained by physical brain processes. The hard problem, then, ultimately arises from ontological Dualism. And the implications of this proposal are wide reaching. The possibility that some natural states are irreducible to the physical challenges the scientific understanding of matter and poses principled limits on the scope of scientific explanation.
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THE PATH TO BLISS, AS WISE MEN HAVE SAID, CAN BE FOUND IN THE ART OF NOT JUST LIVING, BUT ALSO OF GIVING
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Nearly a quarter of all bones in our bodies are in our feet.
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Open Invitation A man was invited to a wedding. When he reached the hotel, he found two doors. The sign on one said ‘Bride Relatives’ and the other ‘Groom Relatives’. He entered through the Groom door and found another two doors. One had ‘Ladies’ on it, and the other ‘Men’. Entering through the ‘Men’ door, the man came to a choice of doors called ‘People With Gifts’ and ‘People Without Gifts’. He selected the ‘People Without Gifts’ door and found himself back outside the hotel.
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My wife likes to keep the mystery in our relationship. For example, I never know what is going to arrive for her from Amazon today. @wildchargeart
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