Ike Jakson
JM
When I opened the Post the first thing I became aware of through my cognitive senses was that you have repainted your house inside out, moved all the furniture around and bought the plot with the trees next door to give you a bigger garden too.
I have gone the other way “smaller is better” so as to give me less “self-consciousness” to worry about.
On a serious note, what does science say about when “consciousness” first starts and when it ends? I once read somewhere they say that it ends at the moment of death [and I may accept that for the sake of a shorter discussion] but when does it start? Does the new-born baby have it that very second when he “comes out” or does he acquire it at two weeks, three months, one year or … when?
I sometimes wonder whether it is relevant to even consider whether “all the modern sciences” are based on the cognitive or the visual, though I must, of course, admit that I frequently look at it as satire, even when I should not misbehave in that manner.
You present these things like a decent fellow, like I would expect from my neighbor or my best friend, or like the “home gardener” looks at the soil. But is science still relevant? I mean, look at so-called space exploration; it seems to have no relevance at all when one needs a loaf of bread and some fruit to eat.
It is alive when you discuss it, and you make it something of value in your style; it is a joy to hear you. But I really don’t know whether it is relevant when the “know-it-all” space scientists and others start talking about mankind consisting of atoms and all that … goodness gracious me.
I have gone the other way “smaller is better” so as to give me less “self-consciousness” to worry about.
Morning, Ike,
Yes, I have repainted the villa but, mercifully, I don’t seem to have lost any of my comfortable, shabby, furniture!
As to when consciousness begins, I really am not sure. But, if we start from the concept of mind, I believe it is there from the moment of conception ; but it is entirely unconscious. Then, at some point the experience of living emerges into consciousness – maybe before birth. And later, those same kinds of experiences give rise to self-consciousness (and this seems to come about in early infancy).
The problem with studying this kind of thing is that those little babies can’t tell us anything of their experiences.
When I think about science, I am both joyful and rueful. Yes, science has given us some wonderful technology ; but also it has given us wasteful ways. But the greatest disappointment is that it has generated some disastrous attitudes.
Because science studies only the material world it can only tell us about the mechanical side of that world. And because science and her sister, technology, dominate our lives we now habitually think of all things in mechanical terms. Even our concept of people has been reduced to a machine.
Science has unwittingly stolen our souls – even in psychology!
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