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ps better yet

http://culturalneuro.psych.northwest...o_CON_2010.pdf

[!@#$%!]

okay.

bbt = an update on the Unconscious.

great and all, but nothing new really. columbus discovering the indians.

please note, if hunger is caused by inequality (not lack of resources) and inequality is caused by social hierarchy, and social hierarchy is caused by the brain, and the brain is ruled by the genome…

but no, i'm not naturalizing hunger. i'm NOT saying "this is the way it is and so let it be."

explaining our behavior as animal behavior does not mean this is the way it always has to go (although it will probably go this way for a very long time).

it only needs to mean: this is the real point of departure to try to change anything, because everything else is an illusion (e.g., "the sanctity of life").

of course, medically prescribing more empathy might lead to the extinction of the species.

sociobiologically, we need a balance between selfishness and altruism. it's applied game theory. tricky shit. especially with changing evolutionary pressures.

but i don't really know.

ps- im curious about his fantasy novels though

[dead_battery]

its not what you think
http://www.academia.edu/1502945/The_Last_Magic_Show_A_Blind_Brain_Theory_of_the_Ap pearance_of_Consciousness

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he explains why the search for the unconscious failed in one of the more recent posts.

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the fantasy novels are probably the best of the genre. also did the novel "neuropath" which is worth reading. it goes for pennies on amazon, well worth the money.

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the brain does not exist in a vacuum from the environment. its absurd to think that with the tech we're developing, we won't eventually solve the food crisis. brains can be hacked, likewise we've "hacked" nature and our hacking of it can be made to produce over abundances.

[!@#$%!]

here is an easy-listening version of bakkers paper

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/op...ooks.html?_r=0

of course this dumbshit, who is a journalist, is cautioning against it.

if you think about it for a moment, you'll see dawkins (the biologist not the activist, same body different eras) is saying the same thing in the selfish gene (did you read that?)

it's old news. bakker just rephrases it in a more stoner kind of way.

[dead_battery]

no, he doesn't. you need to read it first.

[!@#$%!]

i did. you haven't read the others.

[dead_battery]

i read that brooks pieces years ago!

and the tom wolfe piece he's referring to!

i linked you to the essay. either read it or dont. this isnt a dick swinging match.

i know what you think he is but he's not that, his theory is aware of and demolishes the ones you think it is.

[!@#$%!]

THERE IS NO SELF. CONSCIOUSNESS IS AN ILLUSION. THERE IS NO MIND.

we know that.

i get that he hypothesizes (not proves) how the theatre of consciousness, the now, etc, arises. i get that.

but in the end he's saying the same thing that buddhists have been saying for millennia.

this doesn't mean his theory isn't worth reading (it's a fun read).

but it's not new, and it's not a discovery.

you realize how hard, how really fucking hard is it to come up with a truly new idea? most of the stuff we do is update and repackage or at bess toss together like some salad bar.

the renaissance returns over and over.

the baroque returns over and over.

i bet you the buddhism we know about wasn't even the first one.

[dead_battery]

alright dude.

you need a symbol man thread, because this is absolutely tiresome and for some reason i can never resist the bait.

you're just not interested. im not interested in explaining it to you either, because this is not productive. its all there if you want to read.

i recommend that essay to EVERYONE on here.

goodnight and lets not do this over and over again.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by dead_battery

alright dude.

you need a symbol man thread, because this is absolutely tiresome and for some reason i can never resist the bait.

you're just not interested. im not interested in explaining it to you either, because this is not productive. its all there if you want to read.

i recommend that essay to EVERYONE on here.

goodnight and lets not do this over and over again.

where do you get the notion that processing the same text we are going to reach the same implications if we are different organisms?

what you demand negates that you actually understood the paper.

e.g. the notion that i'm baiting.

you demand complete agreement or else act narcissistically wounded.

as if this was about you! i get the thread title but i'm not talking about you. i'm only working with the material you present-- which is highly stimulating. but your demands for compliance are lolworthy.

[dead_battery]

the frame you are using to interpret it is not even relevant to it. it's not saying what you think it does, which is the same thing you've been saying for absolutely no good reason (as if i don't know about this possibility?) over and over again.

and its maybe just that im not that interested in hearing your responses.

not demanding agreement, just not interested in this "discussion" which is about you putting a rejoinder to everything declaring that you have the last word because i don't know about x.

because it just strings it all out for no good reason other than ego. and i'm not interested what you're saying most of the time tbh. this is the db thread, you're welcome to your own. im not interested in defending myself against things that don't have any content over and over again because you've got nothing better to do. and you don't seem to be saying anything other than "all of this is pointless because the big other knows everything already" which is never going to be something i will respond to, because there is no response possible to that. i get accused of utopian concepts that aren't there, or i get accused of saying things that you already know because you are so wise and helpfully enlightening me. please. the end.

[!@#$%!]

im not interested in "my own" thread-- or in having the last word-- or in preaching--or in my ego. here is where you project your own limits onto somebody else.

i just like playing ping-pong because it's a vaccine against various traps of autodidacticism---things like confirmation bias or bad sources or the perpetual reinvention of the wheel.

but if you enjoy your confirmation bias and unchallenged beliefs in this desolate corner of the internet then by all means have at them.

 

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

It may just be my bias as a spiritualist but I've always found the neurochemical theories explaining consciousness as being, well, boring. If there is no "self" in the existential sense, than what is there? I dont mean in the egoistic sense of self-importance either. Also, human biology requires mutual cooperation between individuals, competition does not benefit individuals. Our young and old, biologically speaking, require the help of other humans for DECADES of time,indeed for many the first and last ten years of life require almost total cooperative support. So its not an ethical or moral construct or ideal, rather for the survival of both individuals and the species as a whole cooperation is both a biological imperative and a key evolutionary adaption. As to consciousness, it has been argued that consciousness itself is an adaption, but my personal belief is that the opposite is true, consciousness is root of existence for all life.a

[dead_battery]

art is dead. By now, no artist lives here anymore. Everything is too expensive. The people of this city don’t know how to live. They are content to spend time to buy stuff and to work to pay for it in installments. By now I’m old. I’m dying. If I were twenty years younger, I think it would leave. I never go out. . This city, America, loves the successful sociopath and thinks it’s normal to dream of becoming like him. New York has become a city of repressed emotions. And this is a real tragedy. In general, what has today’s culture become? Naked women that sway their hips on TV and in the newspapers. All the theaters have disappeared, the places where artists and intellectuals could meet. Today everything has disappeared. When I first came here, this apartment cost only about one hundred dollars a month, which was very easy to make. You only had to go to the park down here and give someone a blowjob. Now nothing is happening and nothing will ever happen again. Money has taken away everything. Internet is sweeping everything away. The television is horrible. I think it should not exist. The technology leads to pathological addictions very quickly. Especially the screens. Almost worse than the desire to become rich and famous. I was writing articles because they paid me. he used his own body and his own intelligence to climb up to the highest social classes, so something is broken inside. As Gore Vidal once said, to see the face of a killer, just look in any mirror. In this city, either you’re rich, or it’s a trap.