Obituary 4 Digital Immigrants
I am not cursed: It is all in my head. I am a poser and a loser. Most mouths these days do not shape the words. We use our fingers to ‘talk’. Right now I am posing words and in your mind you are hearing them,,, With your eyes and fingertips we send out and take back the text.
We, any one of the many, who exist as a ‘normal’ in computer creation software and hardware are a dispersed family. I am seeking an authentic rush when I complete a upgrade or test on any one of the three operating systems. I have a human reaction to the events of sitting and thinking then wanting to get corroboration. I am doing my piece of the project alone in a space on the side of a hill in Oakland California. A collaborator is in Toronto and another in a tiny town in Oklahoma another in Boston and two groups I attend here in the bay area. Most often we do not live in the same house, or the same state let alone the same country. I have passion and respect for those that make my communication possible The way we say hey is by touching text! Which words travel on text and how they are received is the same text of nuts, that is kernels in shells.
Find Yourself In The Spin
There are a few who have a passion to be on the top of the hierarchal construct. They are well known and through publicity and sheer arrogance manage to attract a circle of contact persons. The Warm bodies who hover around the Passionate Ones, who people listen to, no matter whatever is on their minds because there is a ‘giveback’ benefit and added value or value added. Back then, where the rock and roll ‘groupies’ ,that freely gave of their flesh, for the pure thrill moment with the well known headliner are back. The other sort of creative digital giant shuns publicity and focuses his thoughts. His needle moves his or her mind as they fit the puzzels together. Open source angles who are on the point of the ganders beak braking the sound barrier and in full flight get goods for all of the ordinary terrestrials.
The quiet community types have rare conversations about their feelings. There are other qualities that function as typical of digital diasporas since there is a dream and thoughts of return to community. Build an opened network using cool tools.
Working the misery index
Since the very early days, the WALL relationships with other digital developers built and created the nervous system on which web communities are built. Computer created conversations, message boards, chat rooms, short sentences chirped became clumps now organized as ‘social networking’ . Not face time but typing around the globe yet in real time communication which appears on a screen. We are in the diaspora. Human signals as people, dispersed by whatever cause or choice, to live and work in more than one local lacking the of full assimilation to the host country.
This resource Is actively collecting all parts of the chain:
http://www.archive.org/details/computerchronicles
Most early discussions of diaspora were firmly rooted in a conceptual ‘homeland‘; they were concerned with a paradigmatic case, or a small number of core cases. What has not happened is a day of rest! A conceptual day of rest where the people around you could sit and have a conversation that was not about your projects or squeezing information out of you or the military intrusion in every day talk.
Coded Language” opens with the line “the missing link connecting the diasporic community to its drum woven past.” So Many Creators of tools, Programmers, Coders, Software writers of all sorts have lost touch with their own inside s. What do I feel when I see a sad event? I know it is sad so I have been programmed with the correct face organization yet I have not let myself conjure up the emotion in such a long time I fail to know what to feel, a man told me the other night.
Hearts are broken and people, wonderful loved people are committing the final act and removing their body from action on earth. I hear that some are just in so much emotional and psychic pain because of the lack of trust that people care about them. Those who have been their dearest friends for years tell me that they had no idea that they were depressed or sad or in anyway not just fine.
Perhaps a solitary Tapping would work for you if you are unable to choose a friend to share this process option
Even though I have this feeling I Am Good, I Am OK!
What is going on in the World?
Not Here: Depression
Standing next to the director was a thrill. I did have to tell him that though he thought it was unusual for me to come to lunch at a place where I did not work, there was a reason. I have been trying to sponge up on the emotional vibrations or radient emanations of really smart people. For me it is like watching the sultry heat waves rise from the black top along a quiet country road. There where the air is not moved much by the activity of life you can see the heat waves clearly. I was hanging out at this center to watch the emotional waves rise in a setting where not much outside movement happens.
As a non academic I speak in my ambling way. I tried to train my thoughts and fingers by taking a college level corse in Academic Writing. It felt like I was moving creators of concrete in my idea chambers between my ears.
Life happens: It is important to reach out to people when things are bothering and boiling in your feelings and thoughts.
Nature is balanced. There is a poise and a pause in the potential forward. This last week I have heard the soul searing stories of people who work in the myriad of different aspects of the highly focused digital world. It is a world apart with a mental modeling that the rest of us digital civilians rarely contact. The most common computer langues which do the heavy lifting have a component of the 4th dimension. I would call it LaLa Land. Like most thoughts, you cannot hug them though they are real.
People do not share that they are feeling blue and this builds up. The compacting of emotions in the core of a person is toxic. The generalized Blue become dark gray depression. The Darkness envelopes a person until they feel they have no options. There is no one to tell because the habit of sharing does not exist. I hear from a lot of people just in the past two weeks, that they imagine that there is no one who cares!
I want to let you know I care. The winter of the soul might come from hours of sitting looking at a computer screen or other kinds of activity that does not involve the social human component. As a human being I am and we all are animals and need the pack, herd and pod to feed both our bodies and souls.
I have a few easy exercises that I will share in more depth in my next posting. Ror this moment I suggest that you stand up and bend your elbows so that your wrists are at ear level and shake your wrists and hands so that your fingers flop and smack as you move your arms so that your shoulder blades contract! Good capillary circulation from the tips of your fingers has some good flow and you are looking silly too . Laughing is a great gift you give yourself. Love Love Love.
Let… The Geeks Die: Inside and out
Slouch and Mumble! Late into the evening, we stood on the side walk out side the Masconi Center talking about how so many real hard core hackers, ( ie workers in the digital spectrum) programers, developers, and cloud molecules are not able or willing to share how they really feel. Slouch!
A Brain in a ‘Head’ in a storage cloud has its inhuman cost. What is the effect of sitting staring at a computer screen typing in a language of machines on a machine? A Geek Brain is intelligent, cognizant, radiant, and always awake due to the influx of sugary soda, skittles, and snickers. If you know a geek you know this is true. Diabetes be dammed!
The langues of ‘on’ or ‘off’, that is, a one or a zero, has enveloped the natural gray matter of those at the helm. This focus on the short distance from the tip of your nose to the computer screen obscures sunlight. Life is lit by the electric gun waves shooting at one speed, the speed of the ‘one’ or the ‘zero’ beat. Because of doing this dance in one place and at one speed the thoughts that make us decidedly more human than machine the machine has created a brain slurry that scurries emotions. Mush man mumbles but cannot communicate the feeling of relationship. How does it feel to be all alone with no direction of your own?
Just as clouds can be shifted by a strong gust of wind to reveal the shining sun and wide-open sky, so, under certain circumstances, some inspiration may uncover for us glimpses of this nature of our feelings as directed by the same brain that codes. The glimpses of ourselves sitting and staring have depths and degrees of separation. Each day will bring some understanding about letting your friends know what it is to be you. To share the separation and reconnect with those who care. So often in our materialistic society the things we have and the process we use to get those things seem to carry more value. This is not true.
I was so deeply moved as this friend of a friend told me of the deep searing hurt in his heart that he DID NOT KNOW HIS FRIEND WAS DEPRESSED.
Who among us has a crystal ball to see into the heart of our friends? Sharing your feelings with your friends the very root itself of understanding the integrated connectedness of life.
The small size picture of two friends loosing touch because their eyes are on the screen is tough. But these geeks have given the Globe a new nervous system with the free flow of connected communication and sharing. I have conversations with a woman in Nairobi, another in Hawaii, and my brother on the other side of my United States of America with the speed that my fingers can press the alphabet on my computer keys. This past of my Geek life is in danger of being killed off by the corporate financed political congress. It is this same congress that has plunged the world economy into depression.
I attended a talk last night at the Long Now: “How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It,” Lawrence Lessig.
I came away with the oft repeated quote by Ben Franklin: Here is the Republic I hope you can keep it! Lessig has a lot of great things to say and a real plan of action that each of us can participate in reclaiming our Republic.
This was the first idea http://fixcongressfirst.org/ which morphed into a plan to attack the root of the problem and the the branches. Join http://rootstrikers.org/
Chris Perillo sent out an email to all sorts of Geeks: ”Sites across the Internet — from Google to Wikipedia — are reminding us why a free Internet (warts and all) is worth preserving. Is online piracy a bad thing? Of course it is. Should we all be punished for the misdeeds of the relatively small percentage of the population that chooses to partake in online piracy at the behest of corporations that pull powerful (and financially motivated) strings on Capitol Hill? Hell, no!”
We who wrote to our legislatures made history today: nothing like this has ever happened before. Tech companies and users teamed up. Tens of millions of people who make the internet what it is joined together to defend their freedoms. The free network defended itself. Whatever you call it, the bottom line is clear: from today forward, it will be much harder to mess up the internet.
The really crazy part? We might even win.
Approaching Monday’s crucial Senate vote there are now 35 Senators publicly opposing PIPA. Last week there were 5. And it just takes just 41 solid “no” votes to permanently stall PIPA (and SOPA) in the Senate. What seemed like miles away a few weeks ago is now within reach. http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/
PROTECT IP Act Breaks the Internet
Please sign this petition to stop a bill that’s so crazy that it could shut down Twitter and Youtube…
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YOU Whored Your Way Into America
Good Person: Self-control, Courage, Justice, Piety, and Wisdom
Imagine, how many people have had these words thrust into their ears and up on to their faces.
Honest and Hard Working
The Fresco from the Main Pompeii brothel a place of rest and relaxation prior to the Volcano Bang
I am filled with remorse when the Men belittle this ancient trade and those who bring pleasure into their everyday lives. I have no first hand experience of trading sex for cash. But, what could it mean, when a woman speaks against her femininity? Who was this woman’s tutor? Why she spoke at me today? How could she betray her gender and lash out at me and out against all mannered decent communication?
A harsh cut of 5 words to a human heart! Immigrants All! Why did she enter this Box?
The Native Americans are the only persons here who did not arrive on this soil from somewhere.
Peaceable Kingdom
Hicksites: 18th-century quietism, the followers of the Inner Spirit of Christ.
We all have to Embrace The Now. It is the ‘now’ that is the only important part of a life. Not whereyou, or your parents, or their parents, were born that moves mountains. But each individual by his or her actions and speech, working in the place on the globe where they find themselves at a particular time.
Broncos stun Steelers in OT
Today I sat across the table from a woman who hurled those 5 words at me as I sat in a circle of friends. It was a shocking epithet! To be called a Whore in public. Not Ho or some diminutive of woman on her back.. To be called a gutter word by another woman certainly raised eye brows of everyone in ear shot. The sports bar was packed with Pittsburgh fans and the game was in Over Time. The woman stood up and exposed her lack of self control.
I have been thinking about New Year Resolutions. This is a perfect Lucretius year. I am resolved to engage in embodying the Five Characteristics of a GOOD PERSON. Self-control, Courage, Justice, Piety, and Wisdom.
Self-control is seriously missing from modern discorse in every area of interaction. Today, as I sat across the table from a woman who hurled those 5 words at me there was a lack of understanding that we were in a circle of friends. The people were my circle of friends. She had come to this Pizza Sports Spot just two or three times. Her song was against every Socratic Cell in my being.
Socrates realized that the Mists of Delphi Oracle was correct, in that while so-called wise men thought themselves wise, yet they were not. Socrates himself knew he was not wise at all, which, paradoxically, made him the wiser one, since he was the only person aware of his own ignorance.
People ought to be worried about the “welfare of their souls” rather than the size of their pocketbooks, he said is the purpose of living a good life as a good person. The best known sayings of Socrates is:
“I only know that I know nothing“.
Socrates believed wrongdoing was a consequence of ignorance and those who did wrong knew no better. Socrates is convinced that virtues such as self-control, courage, justice, piety, wisdom and related qualities of mind and soul are absolutely crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy (eudaimon) life.
Today we come to believe that there are six important parts of a happy human life:
- Autonomy
- Personal growth
- Self-acceptance
- Purpose in life
- Environmental mastery
- Positive relations with others.
We can thank the person who had Titus Lucretius Carus book in a Pompeii home for the insight into the broad meaning of our limited mortal lives.
Lucretius was an Epicurean poet writing in the middle years of the first century BC. His six-book Latin hexameter poem De rerum natura (DRN for short), variously translated On the nature of things and On the nature of the universe, survives virtually intact, although it is disputed whether he lived to put the finishing touches to it. As well as being a pioneering figure in the history of philosophical poetry, Lucretius has come to be our primary source of information on Epicurean physics, the official topic of his poem. Among numerous other Epicurean doctrines, the atomic ‘swerve’ is known to us mainly from Lucretius’ account of it. His defence of the Epicurean system is deftly and passionately argued, and is particularly admired for its eloquent critique of the fear of death in book Three. (*http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lucretius/)
I Am Feeling The 'Chicken Of Courage' Of The Nature Of The Universe
The first and most important part of any success is Showing Up! I bought a copy of On The Nature Of The Universe for myself in my effort to learn the steps toward truly being a good person. Shall we form a Book Club?
Littering: Is This A Felony?
Should each of us be concerned that speaking up against
corporate greed could land us in Jail For The Rest Of Our
Lives?
I am reposting this story I was sent by http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/
I am in SHOCK! and though I have never been arrested in my entire life, I feel distrust of the governing bodies and the people who are administering local justice and all those in law enforcement. I feel that I am constantly being photographed when I walk down my streets which has become a part of global society. Still the idea of going to jail for trumped up littering charges is looming as a direction I do not want my World Citizenry to allow.
Protest Occupy Wall Street, Go to Jail for the Rest of Your Life
[Photo of the teepee that led to Wednesday's Occupy Oakland raid - via@geekeasy]
Khali Johnson was arrested for “basically littering,” which could somehow turn into his third strike and a lifetime in prison.
You may recall that I told you all about the situation with Khali last month, after his arrest during a December 16th Oakland Police raid. There was great concern because Khali had been held in detention unusually long, appeared at each court hearing severely bruised and didn’t have access to his prescribed psychiatric medication.
Intercourse Again
I'll Take One Of This!
In My Craw Phish: Inner Desire, My Dreams Tick A Time Bomb
I have to make trade offs, because there are only 86,400 seconds in a day.
Some questions just can’t wait. Tick Tick Tickkkk I have the sincere inner impression that this has been my problem since the Earth cooled! Grains of multi qualities of sand from beaches under the toes of those who have contacted me using the faceless port.
The Sky Is A Real Bondry To INFINITY Where Love Equals Enlightenment
I Do not know if the person is real, though I feel somethng. I do not get to ask the direct request: Will you call? How to clear this up?
Relationships Weather the Storm
I am so happy with my single decision. I want Help! Help for what I believe to be this underestimated overblown and backwards inability to post. It is harsh and it is mine. I have the very first and longest unanswered WordPress Big Pink Pop Up. Thee or four days two men and a geekette all sent me home.
Hi Ya’all LUG’s,
I cannot post on my Blog by going to blog and finding a link to post.
I have to type out the blog address with post for that page to load. I get a pink pop up on the blog page all the time. I have emptied my ’cache’ and restarted the computer yet the pop up did not go away! Can any of you help me? I will be coming to the Bobby G’s thank you, [then messages in the PINK Pop Up] “Could not retrieve ‘id’ for the specified page. Please verify correct href was passed in…. “
http://holykaw.alltop.com/geek-vs-nerd-infographic?tu2=1 {You Might Have to Cut and Past this link}
Where are my silver boots with the gold tassel? I feel out of the bondry, the usual safety circling area around my mind, heart. And the project Bondry, where on the inside are the people who could snap a key or two and put everything right. I am on the outside sloshing though in the face of my lines to the truth being cut.
I am the person focusing on doing what matters. It is important to let go and lose the snake of self small view sight of the inflated self. She who loses sight of their own happiness, loses sight of what they actually WANT. Loses sight of their individual, core identity. Definitely the dance that causes manipulation crushes spontaneity. Where will I go How will I drive there? Do I have the drive to ride into this adventure? Mixed Up Computer troubles AGAIN!
Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave. – Mary Tyler Moore
Avanti, Avanti, Avanti! Pronto
If He refuses to change I understand that change happens anyway, He will change now and have joy and enjoy his joy. What can the turning away trot turn toward? I have been innocent, believing a potentially non existant network would be the web that delivers. Nothing fragmente nothing RISKED there would be no action. I want to be wanted. I want to get phone calls. I want morning tenderness. I want not imagine this risk. It’s tough little computer problems entwined with tenderness of the heart and who can see how light and opened the process becomes when the flowers arrive
I place myself in your capable hands
I have a big problem with two rivers. I want the wordpress pop up removed and I do not know the back story able to cause a fix.
So, be yourself and do what matters. Come get in my Craw and lets Dance through life able to patch the WordPress together.
The Magic Puzzel Might Be A False Face
This is the road
Here’s my Idea of a Healthy Relationship
http://rulemyden.wordpress.com/?blogsub=confirming#blog_subscription-2
Here’s my depiction of a healthy relationship:
He might have issues, but he becomes increasingly aware of them and fixes them.
She might have issues, but she becomes increasingly aware of them and fixes them.
He doesn’t blame her for his issues, and he doesn’t expect her to fix things when he makes a mess. She doesnt blame him for her issues, and she doesnt expect him to fix things when she makes a mess.
He has a centered life and takes care of his fulfillment.
She has a centered life and takes care of her fulfillment.
He loves her. Almost unconditionally.
She loves him. Almost unconditionally.
He’s masculine.
She’s feminine.
He knows his strengths and weaknesses. He uses his strength to compensate for her weakness, and asks for help when he’s weak.
She knows her strengths and weakness. She uses her strength to compensate for his weakness, and asks for help when she’s weak.
He doesn’t abuse the terms of the relationship.
She doesn’t abuse the terms of the relationship.
His boundaries are healthy.
Her boundaries are healthy.
They share together more than they live on their own.
Their time together is mostly happy.
He supports her mission in life and is an indispensable part of it.
She supports his mission in life and is an indispensable part of it.
When everything else fails and life stinks, he has her. It brightens the world.
When everything else fails and life stinks, she has him. It brightens the world.
In poverty. In richness. In the bad. In the good. In the ups and downs.
When he loses his focus and wanders, she nurtures him so he can find himself again.
When she loses her focus and wanders, he supports her so she can find herself again.
He doesn’t doubt her.
She doesn’t doubt him.
He doesn’t lie to her, ever.
She doesn’t lie to him, ever.
He can get loose and relaxed around her in total trust.
She can get loose and relaxed around him in total trust.
He would jump on the fire to save her.
She would jump on the fire to save him.
Both would rather die than let the other burn, even if they could escape on their own.
If he fails and she succeeds, she stays with him.
If she fails and he succeeds, he stays with her.
What they share is bigger than each one apart.
They offer each other their true reflection. And with a look, they both are illuminated.
———————————-
So, I have never seen this, except once. My last relationship, the first couple of years, everything above clicked, but that was temporary. I don’t see people striving for it/this. The only “proof” I have that this is even possible is my inner desire for it and my past experiences with it.
I Have The Craziest Feeling About 2012
“If there is love, there is hope to have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost, if you continue to see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education you have, no matter how much material progress is made, only suffering and confusion will ensue.”
~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama
The truth is that when we live with our eyes opened, we can make anything that is dangerous, difficult, or depressing into a positive process for ourselves and for others.
Every day I come into contact with people who are unable to function in the manner that allows them to have the whole cookie and not just the crumbs. Have you noticed the widespread anxiety among the general public over the year 2012?
I Am Wonder Woman
Certainly this is going to be the beginning of a difficult decade, but today I have a line of credit with the moving molecules of everything we manage to understand. I have a friend who may or may not be my best friend first… I have a crazy feeling that this New Year is going to be very good for both of us.
New Year Resolution Light Filled Saturday
I am surprised! I slip in between the bubbles in the warm jacuzzi at the Downtown Berkeley YMCA earlier today. Most times I go to exercise, I sit in the warm water and do 10 minutes or so of stretches before I dig into my laps.
Yesterday there were 5 or 7 people in the pool and perhaps 3 in the whirlpool in the early afternoon. Today the bubbling spa was at full capacity. Men and woman sitting shoulder to shoulder, each in their own world. I feel the crowdedness that pushes against my personal space and I wonder if I am going to be ‘too’ close to the person sitting next to the entrance stairs.
I ease my spine against the handrail and bend my knees so I am sitting on my heels with my shoulders under the light aqua. Yes, the Latin word labels the true beauty of this serene wetness.
The Cool Azure Lightness
He is sitting on the tile bench that encircles the pool. I wonder in my mind how he feels about my arrival so near his space. Is my presence uncomfortable since he was in the spot first. I smile and say ‘The pool is certainly crowded today’! He smiles, I continue, ‘ You dont’t mind if I am here?’ ‘Oh No’, he has an easy warm smile and his words reach my ears with a soft attractiveness. I look up from my inner revelry and reply, ‘I wonder why there are so many people here today?’ I am told that this is the effect of the New Year Resolutions! People are coming in to move their bodies as part of a plan for the year ahead but that in two weeks the crowds will thin out as people revert to their habits of sloth, couch potatoism, and http://www.subgenius.com/
He asks me if I have a new years resolution? Actually I have been thinking for some time what I would like to change within my self which would manifest outwardly? Last week I started to wonder what it really means to be a good person. My New Years’ resolution is to be a Good Person.
I asked this gentle man if he had any ideas about what the definition of Good Person is and what it actually means to be a good person. I felt in my heart that actions as a ‘goody sweet two shoes’ would serve no purpose in actualizing the here and now Peace through Beauty, Peace being the inner condition and Beauty its outer result. Introspection is everything… ~ the greatest prison people live in is the fear of what other people think. ~ david icke ~
I belong to the Socratic definition of Eudaimon spectrum: Socrates is convinced that virtues such as self-control, courage, justice, piety, wisdom and related qualities of mind and soulare absolutely crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy (eudaimon) life.
This is True: Being A Good Person
Eudaimonia is an abstract noun derived from the adjective, eudaimon. This adjective is, in turn, a compound word comprised of eu, meaning “well,“ and daimon (daemon), which refers to a sort of guardian spirit. Therefore, to be eudaimon is to live well, protected and looked after by a benevolent spirit.
Have I Been Good For You?
Have you grown and filled out as the deepening of your self knowledge? Are you a stronger individual since you have been reading and communicating with me? Has the irritation and negativity shown itself in such a way that you are able to change your habitual lock step?
See The Sunshine Surrounding Me As A Blanket of Goodness
Watching hair or grass grow is a function of our short sightedness. Those of us who work for the 5 year plan find their nervous system, and their body which the nervous system energies, to be bumped around by the hard boundaries constructed, created, and channeled by their view of reality. The Long View allows both the flow and the spark of Consciousness to expand. This expanded View finds the best path through the forest. Of all the intricate paths over hills and across creeks grace and ease moves you when you live as the Long Sighted Imagination. Because of the structure of matter & of the chemical bonds that underpin every organism, evolution is not random at all. The word gullgubbe means “little old man of gold”, it is not able to be destroyed or a pushover as it has real value!
guldgubbar are art-objects
Just as your understanding of little things grows as you point your thought or heart on that site, so too your understanding expands to include the idea as ideal as the flow of life. We are, as light refracting particles, shimmering dust, or molecules, moving in space at the speed of light. As Bucky Fuller suggested we are pushed in the ever new forward direction traveling with out galaxy. Change is Constant! Beauty, all beautiful, from the most dusty to the most dense arrises in our line of vision as you and I stretch your eyes to the farthest focal just over the most distant pass. Point your thinking heart at the intersection. Choose to direct your body, mind, and heart, into a dance with all other life and you will start to see your consciousness in action.
When you taste even a droplet of the path of truth, then all you want to do is follow that sweetness both inside and out. Gradually you can see your consciousness assemble itself . It is a thought puzzel at a higher turn of the spiral that introduced itself to your thinking mind as you watched the Blue Grasses of Kentucky wave in the warm air moving in a souther summer afternoon.
Grass Growing Is An Example to Train Our Mind To Watch Our Consciousness Grow To Encompass Seeing The Flow Of Joyful Life
Consciousness
3D Structural imaging
Representation of consciousness from the seventeenth century.
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability toexperience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe that there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. As Max Velmans and Susan Schneider wrote in The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness: “Anything that we are aware of at a given moment forms part of our consciousness, making conscious experience at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives.”
Philosophers since the time of Descartes andLocke have struggled to comprehend the nature of consciousness and pin down its essential properties. Issues of concern in the philosophy of consciousness include whether the concept is fundamentally valid; 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; and whether it may ever be possible for computers or robots to be conscious. Perhaps the thorniest issue is whether consciousness can be understood in a way that does not require a dualistic distinction between mental and physical states or properties.
At one time consciousness was viewed with skepticism by many scientists, but in recent years it has become a significant topic of research in psychology and neuroscience. The primary focus is on understanding what it means biologically and psychologically forinformation to be present in consciousness—that is, on determining the neural and psychological correlates of consciousness. The majority of experimental studies assess consciousness by asking human 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 assubliminal perception, blindsight, denial of impairment, and altered states of consciousnessproduced by psychoactive 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.
