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No, no, Nano
Sadly, I've finally decided that I really won't be able to do Nano this year. November is really shaping up to be crazy month: I'm teaching an online class, Bill's coming back to SC, I'm travelling with my son for a week, the new monk is coming... I can see that 1600 words a day just wouldn't be happening. And actually, I don't really need another first draft novel right now. What I need is revision (still working on Alice) and more short stories. So I'll be a cheerleader for the rest of you this year--my pom-poms are all ready.
But next year...if I don't go to India, that is.
But next year...if I don't go to India, that is.
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On another subject entirely, I did a search for others on LJ interested in Julian Jaynes the other day, and your name came up! Small world, isn't it? I'm working my way through The Origin... right now.
Dub ;o)
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Just got back from a retreat where, oddly, I just recommended the Jaynes book to someone* (met with rolled eyes--the title is a challenge!) Actually, I think you and I talked about Jaynes once a long, long time ago, maybe at ATPO.
I think Jaynes (or my reading of him) shaped my world view a long time ago, though some people criticize his work as very speculative. Doesn't bother me!
What I don't know about is Chalmers (mentioned in your first comment)and his "hard question." Fill me in (with a reading recommendation, maybe?) some time--I'd be very interested.
*I had mentioned in a discussion that the mind uses the body for a metaphor (when we "see" things in our minds, we tend to locate them as if we had eyes in our brains, if that makes sense, whereas really the mind is not limited to that kind of POV), and then thought that I probably derived that kind of thinking in a haphazard way from Jaynes.
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Jaynes fascinates me, because there's definitely something there, despite all the criticism his theory has aroused. It has the ring of truth to it, and I can't dismiss it.
Dave Chalmers is quite famous for his "hard problem" of consciousness, and equally as controversial as Jaynes, in the field of philosophy of consciousness. His first, and basic work on the question is "The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory," Oxford University Press, 1996.
The hard problem is simple to state, but it revolves very much around the definition of consciousness that is being used, which is a much more complicated issue. Briefly, the hard problem is: Why did consciousness evolve?
On the surface, it would appear that Jaynes answered Chalmers a priori, but Chalmers dismisses Jaynes in a single reference on page 30: "...Jaynes (1976) elaborate theory of consciousness is concerned only with our awareness of our own thoughts. It says nothing about phenomena associated with perception and therefore could not hope to be a theory of awareness in general, let alone a theory of phenomenal consciousness."
...to be continued
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Well, obviously his argument is much more eloquent and detailed than that, but I hope that's enough to get you interested. He pretty much stands alone against the likes of Dennett, Searle, Hofstaedter, et al, and manages to hold his own.
You can't imagine how much I would adore having someone to discuss some of this with...
;o)
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And lately my concept of consciousness has been coloured of course by Buddhist theory, which I also don't know very well.
But it reminds me of a question that bothers me--how did aesthetic appreciation evolve? I can see why a ripe fruit or a potential mate or even a rainbow came to be seen as appealing, but music? a sunset? a jewel? What's the evolutionary advantage in seeing the beauty in those?
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Thank you! These are exactly the sorts of questions that fascinate me! What is "beauty?"
More later...
;o)
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I actually brought some things of mine to Tahoe for others to read. But I chickened out on actually asking people if they wanted to have them.
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And Alice--she may yet reappear, though not in Nano, of course.
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