Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Trying to Unravel The Consciousness Conundrum Pt. 1

Though this article from SEED magazine completely ignores the theory of consciousness survival, Nicholas Humphrey's observations posit an incredibly creative and perfectly thought-out theory on the evolutionary purpose and mystery behind human consciousness.

From the article...
"The philosopher Jerry Fodor recently claimed, 'The revisions of our concepts and theories that imagining a solution will eventually require are likely to be very deep and very unsettling.'

If you smell theoretical panic, you're right. But are the scientific answers really so far out of reach? Have people been beguiled by the marvelous properties of consciousness into asking for the moon, while what is at issue is really much more down to earth? Everybody says they are waiting for the Big Idea. But perhaps the big idea should be that consciousness, which is of such significance to us subjectively, is scientifically not such a big deal."
SEED article


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is the theory of consciousness survival?

Marcel Cairo said...

Thanks for the comment, Terren. I answered your question (sort of), in th e subsequent post.

Cheers,
Marcel