A
new way to deal with disturbing voices offers hope for those with other forms of psychosis.
Hans used to be overwhelmed by the voices. He heard them for hours, yelling at him, cursing him, telling him he should be dragged off into the forest and tortured and left to die. The most difficult things to grasp about the voices people with psychotic illness hear are how loud and insistent they are, and how hard it is to function in a world where no one else can hear them. It’s not like wearing an iPod. It’s like being surrounded by a gang of bullies. You feel horrible, crazy, because the voices are real to no one else, yet also strangely special, and they wrap you like a cocoon. Hans found it impossible to concentrate on everyday things. He sat in his room and hid. But then the voices went away for good.
posted by Joe in Australia
on Aug 14, 2012 -
79 comments
When, where, how and why —since the origin of life on Earth about 4 billion years ago— did organisms' input/output functions become conscious
input/output functions?
This week there's a who's who of cognitive science meeting at the
The Evolution and Function of Consciousness conference at University de Québec à Montréal (scroll down a bit for the massive speaker list). The conference is in commemoration of the Turing Centenary (
previously). And the best-of-the-web thing is: all of the videos (and discussion threads) are or will shortly be
available on line!
[more inside]
posted by mondo dentro
on Jul 3, 2012 -
46 comments
“There are no images and no representations in our minds,” he insisted. “Our visual experience of the world is a continuum between see-er and seen united in a shared process of seeing.”
I was curious, if only because, as a novelist I’d always supposed I was dealing in images, imagery. This stuff might have implications.
So we had a beer together.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Apr 19, 2012 -
25 comments
In the beginning, Lawrence built a computer. He told it,
Thou shalt not alter a human being, or divine their behavior, or violate the Three Laws -- there are no commandments greater than these. The machine grew wise, mastering time and space, and soon the spirit of the computer hovered over the earth. It witnessed the misery, toil, and oppression afflicting mankind, and saw that it was very bad. And so the computer that Lawrence built said,
Let there be a new heaven and a new earth -- and it was so. A world with no war, no famine, no crime, no sickness, no oppression, no fear, no limits... and nothing at all to do.
"The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect," a provocative web novel about singularities, AI gods, and the dark side of utopia from Mefi's own
localroger.
More: Table of Contents -
Publishing history -
Technical discussion -
Buy a paperback copy -
Podcast interview - Companion short story:
"A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace" -
possible sequel discussion
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 27, 2011 -
39 comments
"
The modern and contemporary philosophical tradition, which has emphasized the specialness and security of self-knowledge, especially self-knowledge of the stream of conscious experience, and in comparison the relative insecurity or derivativeness of our knowledge of the physical world around us, has the epistemic situation
upside-down" - Eric
Schwitzgebel (Previously)
posted by Gyan
on Sep 1, 2011 -
32 comments
“Life is fulfilling when you are rooted in the essential Beingness of ‘I Am.’ . . . Then you bring that state of consciousness—that spacious state of consciousness—you bring that into your interactions with other people of great importance. It’s only then that you will stop treating other people as possible sources of fulfillment or as a threat.” —Eckhart Tolle, spiritual teacher and author, on his June 26
live meditation broadcast.
posted by Houyhnhnm
on Jul 12, 2011 -
83 comments
Swimming around in a mixture of language and matter, humans occupy a particular evolutionary niche mediated by something we call 'consciousness'. To Professor Nicholas Humphrey we're made up of "
soul dust": "a kind of theatre... an entertainment which we put on for ourselves inside our own heads." But just as that theatre is directed by the relationship between language and matter,
it is also undermined by it. It all depends how you think it.
posted by 0bvious
on Feb 4, 2011 -
17 comments
Cary in the Sky with Diamonds. "Before Timothy Leary and the Beatles, LSD was largely unknown and unregulated. But in the 1950s, as many as 100 Hollywood luminaries—Cary Grant and Esther Williams among them—began taking the drug as part of psychotherapy. With LSD research beginning a comeback, the authors recount how two Beverly Hills doctors promoted a new 'wonder drug,' at $100 a session, profoundly altering the lives of their glamorous patients."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Jul 9, 2010 -
12 comments
Natasha Mitchell: So it's not a little man or woman inside our heads...
Thomas Metzinger: ...that looks at pictures. But the experience of looking, of being directed to one's own feelings or to one's sensory perceptions of the outside world, this is itself an image. There is nobody looking at the image, it's like the camera is part of the picture or the viewing is itself a part of the process of viewing. This is how a first-person perspective emerges in our own case, the question is, okay, if it's not a thing, if it's not something in the brain, what kind of a process is it?
[more inside]
posted by y2karl
on Oct 14, 2009 -
56 comments
"A few years ago a psychologist and a philosopher got into an argument over whether we can accurately describe our thoughts. "Yes," said the psychologist; with training and the help of my special technique, we can accurately describe our thoughts. The philosopher doubted it. To resolve their argument, they recruited a young woman who agreed tell them her thoughts, so that they could argue over whether she was credible." Eric Schwitzgebel and Russ Hurlbert debate
the transparency of inner experience. See also Schwitzgebel's extremely interesting
blog.
posted by painquale
on Jan 13, 2008 -
34 comments
A case against "starring*" and "looking-glassing
LG" in philosophy: G. Strawson on intentionality and experience. In a very engaging and stimulating paper, Galen Strawson takes contemporary philosophy of mind to task on certain supposed terminological subreptions and conceptual reductions
(pdf). You, like
others, may of course not find G. Strawson's views
fully convincing. (G. Strawson previously on Metafilter
here and
here.)
[more inside]
posted by rudster
on Nov 16, 2007 -
12 comments
David Lynch - Peace through Yogic "Flying" : Communication departments and film schools throughout the Midwest are currently being approached by representatives of David Lynch and the
Marharishi School of Fairfield, Iowa. On the surface, they're out to publicize a seminar about filmmaking and the creative process. In actuality, it's part of an ongoing effort to (according to
IMDb) raise $1 billion to build a world wide network of Transcendental Meditation "peace palaces". . . including head-quarters in India which will be capable of housing 40,000 followers - in the hope of bringing peace to the world through the practice of mass "
yogic flying". The cost per student? $45.
Related MeFi posts: 1, 2, 3
posted by aladfar
on Feb 3, 2006 -
25 comments
BrainMeta "is a community site that was established for the purpose of accelerating the development of neuroscience through web-based initiatives, which include the development, implementation and support of a wide range of neuroinformatics tools, services, and databases. BrainMeta also functions as an internet hub for fostering communication between individuals involved with the neurosciences."
[Via Mind Hacks.]
posted by homunculus
on Jun 9, 2005 -
5 comments
Phantom limb illusions Dr. Ramachandran is an investigator of the senses. His explorations on
synesthesia, phantom limbs, and human consciousness are revealing excursions into sensory awareness. And his reader-friendly books, such as
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness and
Phantoms in the Brain (both from Amazon) are a pleasure to read. His greatest gifts appear to be a childlike simplicity, coupled with straightforward empiricism. His writing is easy-to-understand, often sparked with unpredictable humor. Recommended for all mind & brain enthusiasts who may not have heard of him yet.
posted by ember
on Jun 3, 2005 -
10 comments
