“Zen pretty much comes down to three things– everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.”
Category Archives: Philosophy
“awareness by the mind of itself and the world”
I don’t recall precisely when or how I became interested in consciousness. I’ve read a few (26) books on the topic and gave it some space here (104 posts). The reading has been a mix of scientific and spiritual (for lack of a better term). The concept showed up in a lot of my science fiction reading as well. And we’ll be hearing the term –however one defines it– more often in the next few years.
I like the idea that nobody really knows what the fuck it is or where it comes from. Thankfully, that won’t change.
What if everything is conscious?
That’s the headline of a pretty long article by Sigal Samuel at Vox. I’ve done some reading about consciousness and posted here with some frequency. The idea that everything is conscious has been around a long time. It’s called panpsychism.
Panpsychism, the view that consciousness or mind is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality, has a long and rich history in philosophy. From the musings of the ancient Greeks to contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, panpsychism has captured the imagination of a diverse range of thinkers. Luminaries such as Plato, Spinoza, Leibniz, William James, and Alfred North Whitehead have all explored panpsychist ideas, and in recent years the theory has seen a resurgence of interest among philosophers like David Chalmers, Galen Strawson, and Philip Goff. (Perplexity)
Consciousness shows up in most of my reading on quantum theory. (My incomplete reading list) I, for one, hope “the hard problem of consciousness” is never solved.
The Death Business
“Religions are in the death business: preparing people for death, pretending to send them off after they’ve died, making believe they know what happens afterward, and explaining to the dead person’s relatives where they think their loved one might be now. Without death most religions don’t have a whole lot to live for.”
— Sit Down and Shut Up (Brad Warner)