[from Tracy B. Harms (2009-06-28 21:43 Pacific)]
Of possible interest to CSGnet folk:
Consciousness Revolutions
review of
The Ego Tunnel
by Thomas Metzinger
http://www.naturalism.org/metzinger.htm
Some of the topics will be familiar from conversation within CSG.
[From Bill Powers (2009.06.29.0808 MDT)]
Tracy B. Harms (2009-06-28 21:43 Pacific) --
Of possible interest to CSGnet folk:
Consciousness Revolutions
review of
The Ego Tunnel
by Thomas Metzingerhttp://www.naturalism.org/metzinger.htm
Some of the topics will be familiar from conversation within CSG.
BP: A strange review. Lurking in the background, never mentioned as far as I could see, was all that scientific knowledge about the brain, neurology, and the relationship of representations to the world as it really is. I wondered, "How does he know all that stuff?" It was as if a whole area of discussion were walled off and operating unconsciously. Wasn't Metzinger aware that neuroscience is also a human invention residing in brains? Or is this just another instance of "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain?"
I don't think this is the answer to the questions about awareness or why we experience it as we do. If we put ALL theory aside, awareness is what we are left with: a world presented as if on a viewing screen, and an entity doing the viewing of one part or another of the presentation. Everything we know inside and outside of science is simply our attempt to explain why the world we are aware of behaves as it does. That world is the bottom level of reality, the given, the criterion of truth: the world of direct experience.
Until you discover that you have eyes, the world is simply there. But you find that to see, you must look, and to look, you must open your eyes. Then touch, sound, taste, smell, and other experiences follow; you can't see your eyes (except in an image of someone who looks like you), but you soon realize that you can see only through them. So you discover perception, and in that sort of experience you feel yourself perceiving. All the lines of projection point in your direction. You can't see where they point, because you're at the focus, receiving. But that's how you locate the Observer. You are it.
Does Metzinger ever talk about this?
Best,
Bill P.