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The Problem of Consciousness* John R. Searle (copyright John R. Searle) Abstract: This paper attempts to begin to answer four questions. 1. What is consciousness? 2. What is the relation of consciousness to the brain? 3. What are some of the features that an empirical theory of consciousness should try to explain? 4. What are some common mistakes to avoid? The most important scientific discovery of the present era will come when someone -- or some group -- discovers the answer to the following question: How exactly do neurobiological processes in the brain cause consciousness? This is the most important question facing us in the biological sciences, yet it is frequently evaded, and frequently misunderstood when not evaded. In order to clear the way for an understanding of this Problem. I am going to begin to answer four questions: 1. What is consciousness? 2. What is the relation of consciousness to the brain? 3. What are some of the features that an empirical theory of consciousness should try to explain? 4. What are some common mistakes to avoid?

"2 million views for an old codger giving a lecture about arithmetic? What's going on? You'll just have to watch to see what's so damn amazing about what he (Prof. Albert Bartlett) has to say. When I saw this lecture at a conference in 1995, I came out blasted, thinking "This needs to be required listening for every person on the planet. Nothing else will matter if we don't understand this." The presenter is Albert Bartlett, a retired Physics prof. at U of Colorado-Boulder. The presentation is titled "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy," and I introduce it to my students as "The most boring video you'll ever see, and the most important." But then again, after viewing it most said that if you followed along with what Bartlett is saying, it's quite easy to pay attention, because the content is so damn compelling. If you forward this to everyone you know, we might actually stand a chance in staving off disaster in the global finance system, peak oil, climate change, and every other resource issue you can think of. Without a widespread understanding of what Bartlett's talking about, I think we won't be able to dodge ANY of those issues. BE ABSOLUTELY SURE you catch the parts about "the bacteria in the bottle" (in Part 3) and the list comparing things that add to the problem and things that address the problem. If we don't choose from that right-hand column, nature will choose for us. I for one, would rather we be the ones making the choice."

I suppose many of you have seen this video, at least the first one... The question is: will growth save humanity? Than answer is.... : Wrong question! Maybe it should be: What kind of growth should save humanity? Will pondering on this question bring us further? Einstein said once: The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. Albert Einstein, (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate How do we formulate Humanities problem?

The first chapter of what is for me a fundamental book that complements our learning here, and hints at how Social Media might contribute to creating a better World. The article elaborates on how new Social Theory brings new perspectives to finding and implementing solutions to the intractable problems of our time. These ideas originally developped by Mary Douglas, an antropologist, and have been further refined and developped into a fully integrated Social Theory, called Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability, anso sometimes called "Cultural Theory". The lead researcher in this field is Michael Thompson, co-author of this book and chapter. Here are some highlights I have jotted down: Why do well-intended attempts to alleviate pressing social ills too often derail? How can effective and efficient and broadly acceptable solutions to social problems be found? By making sure no voices are excluded. Contrary to the ideas on which current social thinking is based, new research has lead to new theory explaining social systems, showing how deliberative quality is key to sustainable policy-making and implementation. It shows that endlessly changing and complex social worlds consist of ceaseless interactions between four mutually opposed organizing, justifying and perceiving social relations. Each time one of these perspectives is excluded from collective decision-making, governance failure inevitably results. Successful solutions are therefore creative combinations of four opposing ways of organizing and thinking. They always seem clumsy compared to any of the 4 voices' elegant solutions. Yet being broadly acceptable to all they are sustainable and implementable A new way to look at pluralism in organizations, institutions, policy-making, democracy, technology, geo-politics and many other social fields is offered to us by multidisciplinary research and practice by leading political scientists, anthropologists, economists, lawyers, sociologists, geographers, engineer

Hi guys, this might be stuff that is of interest to you...

"The idea that computers are people has a long and storied history. It goes back to the very origins of computers, and even from before. There's always been a question about whether a program is something alive or not since it intrinsically has some kind of autonomy at the very least, or it wouldn't be a program. There has been a domineering subculture-that's been the most wealthy, prolific, and influential subculture in the technical world-that for a long time has not only promoted the idea that there's an equivalence between algorithms and life, and certain algorithms and people, but a historical determinism that we're inevitably making computers that will be smarter and better than us and will take over from us."

Adventures In Behavioral Neurology-Or-What Neurology Can Tell Us About Human Nature [V.S. RAMACHANDRAN:] I'm interested in all aspects of the human mind, including aspects of the mind that have been regarded as ineffable or mysterious. The way I approach these problems is to look at patients who have sustained injury to a small region in the brain, a discipline called Behavioral Neurology or Cognitive Neuroscience these days. Let me tell you about the problem confronting us. The brain is a 1.5 kilogram mass of jelly, the consistency of tofu, you can hold it in the palm of your hand, yet it can contemplate the vastness of space and time, the meaning of infinity and the meaning of existence. It can ask questions about who am I, where do I come from, questions about love and beauty, aesthetics, and art, and all these questions arising from this lump of jelly. It is truly the greatest of mysteries. The question is how does it come about?

This is a good summary of the goals of the work of Sagarika Bhatta in support of Nepali agriculture. It describe the idea of community based adaptation (CBA) to climate change and the Indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK).

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This is the first capture of the conversation from the thread "A New Culture of Learning". We'll see how this goes

I read the book almost cover to cover. It led me to think more about pushing what I've been doing closer to pure p2p. One of the co-learners in the latest Mindamp told me about "paragogy." That one is worth bookmarking.

Interview in Wired magazine describing an optimistic view of technology, used for good not evil.

A fundamental article on how new social theory brings new perspectives on how to find and omplement solutions to the intractable problems of our time. These ideas originally developped by Maruy Dougleas, have been refined and developped into a full theory, called Theory of Socio-Cultural Viability, anso sometil$mes called "Cultural Theory". The lead researcher in this field is Michael Thompson, author of this Workshop Report

Research at IONS From its inception, the Institute of Noetic Sciences has blazed new trails in exploring big questions: Who are we? What is consciousness, and how does it impact the physical world? What are our human potentials, and how can we achieve those potentials? What leads to personal and societal healing and transformation? Because limitations in our human consciousness underlie many of the problems we face as a global community, research at IONS focuses on exploring the fundamental nature of consciousness, investigating how it interacts with the physical world, and studying how consciousness can dramatically transform in beneficial ways.

Consciousness research with impact on societal and personal healing, worldview transformation with what personal and sociatal transformation effects and how extended human capoacities interact with the physical world... all good themes in our thinking about mind amplification, learning communities, and cooperation... What would you think?

I was the staff writer for IONS in the earl 1980s. An interesting outfit.

"Reason and Purpose Learning by Doing Designed to support the digital lives of young people and their capacity for learning, Quest to Learn is a school committed to graduating strong, engaged, literate citizens of a globally networked world. Through an innovative pedagogy that immerses students in differentiated, challenge-based contexts, the school acknowledges design, collaboration, and systems thinking as key literacies of the 21st century. Within an integrated, rigorous Regents-based curriculum students work with teachers to gain the skills necessary to meet these requirements, and even surpass them. On-going evaluation and feedback create opportunities for students to plan, revise, and reflect on their own learning. The overall curriculum is rooted in mathematical practices and the use of smart tools, with an explicit intent to innovate at the level of how students are assessed in context. Most importantly, teachers work with students to build individual and academic competencies and enrich youth identity development within contexts that are relevant and meaningful. The school has been designed to help students to bridge old and new literacies through learning about the world as a set of interconnected systems. Design and complex problem-solving are two big ideas of the school, as is a commitment to deep content learning with a strong focus on learning in rigorous, engaging, and relevant ways. It is a place where digital media meets books and students learn to think like designers, inventors, mathematicians, writers, and more. Q2L brings together teachers with a passion for content, a vision for helping kids to learn best, and a commitment to changing the way students will grow in the world. Quest to Learn has purposely responded not only to the growing evidence that digital media and games offer powerful models for reconsidering how and where young people learn, but also to the belief that access for all students to these opportunities is critical. We beli

Following the links ifrom ted's post in the gamification forum item... I bounced on this school. Always interesting to discover new ways of looking at traditional things...

I followwed Georges Siemens' advice on twitter Have a look at Collusion: http://bit.ly/pwcMSc Follow the directions to see how you are tracked across sites. Connections amplify insight I found the site "Collusion" ttp://collusion.toolness.org/ The fundamental problem of the web, and why the battle for web freedom will be so harch to win The site provides you indication which tools you might use to limit companies (and other services) tracking you See also Eli Parisels Ted Talk for his warning of not transparant behavior on the web, or read Jonathan Zittrain's book The Future of Internet

This is a great demo, I recomment you to follow and view, and learn and decide from it

"ISEE is a not-for-profit, member-governed, organization dedicated to advancing understanding of the relationships among ecological, social, and economic systems for the mutual well-being of nature and people. Ecological economics exists because a hundred years of disciplinary specialization in scientific inquiry has left us unable to understand or to manage the interactions between the human and environmental components of our world. While none would dispute the insights that disciplinary specialization has brought, many now recognize that it has also turned out to be our Achilles heel. In an interconnected evolving world, reductionist science has pushed out the envelope of knowledge in many different directions, but it has left us bereft of ideas as to how to formulate and solve problems that stem from the interactions between humans and the natural world. How is human behaviour connected to changes in hydrological, nutrient or carbon cycles? What are the feedbacks between the social and natural systems, and how do these influence the services we get from ecosystems? Ecological economics as a field attempts to answer questions such as these."

ISEE's Dedication: Advancing understanding of the relationships among ecological, social, and economic systems for the mutual well-being of nature and people: My question: Did this understanding ever exist. If yes, why was this understanding lost ??? If not: How come?

Radiolab: An Appreciation I marvel at Radiolab when I hear it. I feel jealous. Its co-creators Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich have digested all the storytelling and production tricks of everyone in public radio before them, invented some slick moves of their own, and ended up creating the rarest thing you can create in any medium: a new aesthetic.

Telling a story - capturing the attention and curiosity of people. Sparking our humanity.

"Social software brings groups together to discover and create value. The problem is, users only have so much time for social software. The vast majority of users with not have a high level of engagement with a given group, and most tend to be free riders upon community value. But patterns have emerged where low threshold participation amounts to collective intelligence and high engagement provides a different form of collaborative intelligence. To illustrate this, lets explore the Power Law of Participation:"

transcript of my blog Tim Wu author of Master Swtch, interviewed http://ow.ly/5G0ry . No doubt a must read book, and if you doubt, view this video. The one thing that bothers me in Tim Wu's speech is his deep belief that the two things that will NOT change are economics and human nature … Food for thought, questions for deep dialogue and inquiry. I belief we can come up with solutions to these two "invariables", who seem more "metaphores" or "myths" than inescapable fatalities. Should these deep beliefs remain however , inconsciously hidden in our minds, they might prevent us to look at things from other, more hopefull underlying beliefs systems. New ways of looking at things bring with them other possibilities for the future of the World. Let's hope we can achieve a stage of mental capacity so that we allow a World to emerge without Wars all-over, without undignified living conditions for the majority of Humans, without unequality all-over even in so called advanced economies, without destruction of nature. Let's aim instead on Freedom and Self-Determination for all, a belief in Homan endowment and possibility, a change in mental capacity, a return to conditions for our Systems Intelligenge to express itself. This might allow us all to raise our consciousness and to cooperate collectively to solving the intractable problems our ongoing mental models have created.

I believe this interview says a lot about what might happen if the proponents of open and free social media and internet loose their battle. It also shows that this battle is broader, is it inescapable that human nature and economic paradigms are invariable? Are we doomed to see unchanged economic pursuits (meaning money and concentration of wealth) combine with unchanged human nature (incessant and exclusive pursuit of more wealth and power). I believe not, this is the whole point of new paradigms for cooperation combined with the effects of Mind Amplification and social media

Very interesting video collection to understand the policy problems on the commons of education in California... I hear there very practical living testimonies which illustrate the dilemma of the commons, the opposint solidarities in Socio-Cultural viability Theory, the vested interest idssues, the democracy principles who are used as myths and metaphores that are influencing people's thinking... It is life policy making and activism in action

"This book offers the reader an engrossing and coherent introduction to what neuroscience can tell us about cognitive development through experience, and its implications for education."

"My energy rises when there's a challenge involved and I 'really have to think/draw' (thinking & drawing go together in my world). (#drawitout) Conversations where I don't know all the answers give me energy, for I find that it's usually a good question rather than an answer that propels me forward."