178. Notes -

178a. 3 August 2019

       Mid-morning on a Saturday. You are waiting for Carol to complete her walk at Heritage Park, then a stop at Schneider's for a treat or so. You stopped and ate in the shade of the Otterbein faculty lot off West Park Street. Grove Street is closed for the weekly Farmers' Street Market. - Amorella

       You are home but reminiscing about your early days at Otterbein College as it was called then. Two of your favorite professors come to mind, Dr. Harold Hancock and Dr. John Coulter. Hancock was the head of the History Department and Coulter was head of the English Department. Within, they are the best of what Otterbein was while you were there. - mh

       Mid-afternoon. You are ready to do some more light metaphysics with Ms Havisham and the nature of consciousness. First, let's reinforce what metaphysics is in this blog. Begin, as almost always, with definition, which, in this case, I will edit. - Amorella

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metaphysics - plural noun [usually treated as singular] the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space . . ..

Metaphysics has two main strands: 1. that which holds that what exists lies beyond experience (as argued by Plato), and, 2. that which holds that objects of experience constitute the only reality (as argued by Kant, the logical positivists, and Hume). 

Metaphysics has also concerned itself with a discussion of whether, 1, what exists is made of one substance or many, and, 2, whether what exists is inevitable or driven by chance.

ORIGIN mid 16th century: representing medieval Latin metaphysica (neuter plural), based on Greek ta meta ta phusika ‘the things after the Physics’, referring to the sequence of Aristotle's works . . ..

[Metaphysics] later interpreted as meaning ‘the science of things transcending what is physical or natural’.

Selected and edited from the Oxford/American Apple Software

[no synonyms noted]

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       Consciousness continues, finishing the first section begun and responded to in Note 177. The selection Ms Havisham is responding directly. - Amorella

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Consciousness (continued)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about cognition.      

. . .

Western philosophers, since the time of Descartes and Locke, have struggled to comprehend the nature of consciousness and identify its essential properties.

Issues of concern in the philosophy of consciousness include whether the concept is fundamentally coherent; whether consciousness can ever be explained mechanistically; whether non-human consciousness exists and if so how it can be recognized; how consciousness relates to language; whether consciousness can be understood in a way that does not require a dualistic distinction between mental and physical states or properties; and whether it may ever be possible for computing machines like computers or robots to be conscious, a topic studied in the field of artificial intelligence.

Thanks to developments in technology over the past few decades, consciousness has become a significant topic of interdisciplinary research in cognitive science, with significant contributions from fields such as psychology, anthropology, neuropsychology and neuroscience. The primary focus is on understanding what it means biologically and psychologically for information to be present in consciousness—that is, on determining the neural and psychological correlates of consciousness. The majority of experimental studies assess consciousness in humans by asking subjects for a verbal report of their experiences (e.g., "tell me if you notice anything when I do this").

Issues of interest include phenomena such as subliminal perception, blindsight, denial of impairment, and altered states of consciousness produced by alcohol and other drugs, or spiritual or meditative techniques. In medicine, consciousness is assessed by observing a patient's arousal and responsiveness, and can be seen as a continuum of states ranging from full alertness and comprehension, through disorientation, delirium, loss of meaningful communication, and finally loss of movement in response to painful stimuli Issues of practical concern include how the presence of consciousness can be assessed in severely ill, comatose, or anesthetized people, and how to treat conditions in which consciousness is impaired or disrupted. The degree of consciousness is measured by standardized behavior observation scales such as the Glasgow Coma Scale.

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178b, 4 August 2019

       The rest of this introductory of 'Consciousness' in Wikipedia speaks of the scientific investigation into consciousness. Souls don't do science because there is no need. Science is a needed human activity for understanding how the physical world and the physical and mental body works and why. Souls protect and comfort the spiritual aspects of humanity, the heartanmind preferable as a single unit . . . like the tick and tock of a pre-digetial clock. I am speaking of the deeper heartanmind, the deeper consciousness within the unconscious, the Consciousness with a capital C as Plato would have it. A Spiritual Reality will do. The whole of matter is attuned to it, to the emptiness, the void, if you will; the Nothing between the tick and the tock. If science could take away everything else, there in the Nothingness, the Spiritual shines without a speck of light. Physics is driven to emulate it. Physics has no choice, neither does life. And, neither do I. - mh

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       2250 hours. No words are consciously or unconsciously forthcoming.

       Post. - Amorella