David Chalmers?

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Anyone heard of him? I was just listening to a Ted video with him speaking to what he thinks consciousness might be and it was interesting to hear him start it off by informing the audience that he's a reductive materialist but then he goes on with his easy problems vs. hard problems and then the leaps he things might be needed to pierce the veil on consciousness as subjective or integrate it into something scientifically coherent: 1) he suggests the possibility that consciousness might be fundamental to the universe - not everywhere but just a fundamental form of energy and 2) the panpsychism view, of which he still seems to argue that he's more in favor of 1) but still.... that's a very different view of reductive materialism than most people would define it. The more bull-headed and stalwart 'it's a figment of our imaginations' that he mentioned Daniel Dennett proposing is a lot more of what I'm used to as being the hard line in the sand that would define reductive materialism as an ontology.

At the same time reductive materialism has been engaging and accepting electrical phenomena for centuries, in the last century it's been engaging quantum phenomena, add superposition and quantum entanglement to the list of acceptance and it seems like its a term coined more toward a general philosophy simply because as a proper term it seemed to fit the world of Newton and Democritus a lot better than the world of QM. What draws the line between this gentleman's perspective and...say... a mystic or panentheist who'd posit their name of 'God' as the self-aware sum-total of consciousness in all of nature?

For all I know this guy could be speaking utterly for himself, be a new-ager 'wolf in sheep's clothing' impostering as a scientist, and all of this could be a one-off blasphemy that I did the terrible disservice of spreading. It just surprised me a little for hear someone like that go right from reductive materialism into those terms because once you start talking about consciousness being fundamental you've taken what I would have thought to be the 'reductivism' out of reductive materialism and if one just wants to call matter the organized vibration of energy it's even worse off than it started because one would have to ask the question - what does the word 'materialism' even mean?

David Chalmer appears to be a philosopher with a back ground in mathematics and cognitive science with a PHD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science, as indicated from the link below:

http://consc.net/chalmers/

I watched the video and at this point it does seem more like philosophy than traditional science.

The idea that consciousness is fundamental at the core Universal level, is certainly not a new philosophical idea, and one that I do hold myself.

The idea that AI is conscious, I do not believe and do not think is possible, as it is emotions and other nuanced experience beyond the verbal and mathematical logical ways of life that make us fully conscious and integrated with relative free will, as I do find now on a personal level, after losing my emotions due to physical illness for five years, and gaining them back, with great artful effort.

The analogy as far as consciousness I can use is I had the consciousness of a vegetable, less than other social animal mammals, i.e. my cat, before, even though I retained my ability to do equation like language and mathematics.

The difference is one's view of reality and how small or how large it can be, and yes this does extend out much further into Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_ ... elligences

And also into the theory of what makes true genius as a synergy of all of these intelligences and not the narrow world view of just standard IQ measures of intelligence.

For example, through a one year wake to sleep practice of a Tai Chi way of balanced movement culminated in skills similar to a Kung Fu expert in movement, my physical intelligence including proprioception and the ability to feel my way around the world without eyes or ears has sky rocketed.

Before in my life, I was extremely and notably motor/visually spatially impaired.

But in effect, it was more a result of the fact that I did not exercise this real and improvable type of human intelligence in movement and proprioception.

And as another example my ability to tolerate cold and heat was extremely low, but adapting with the art of this movement in real life outdoors; my ability to control my internal body temperature and adapt to extreme temperatures has also reached an extreme level of proficiency.

There are many more skills I have developed by escaping culture, and all the worries that go along with that.

I find most of my previous life now to be a lie basically and illusion spoon fed to me by all of traditional culture from all media sources and human interaction of what the rest of the herd is fed to believe in culture, and of course the ludicrous heights that the insanity of the social norm can go as far as female genital mutilation in some countries or even circumcision still in this country; and that is just on the physical level.

The assaults to our psychology as a social animal not unlike other primates is extreme everyday in the way we live our lives in mechanical cognition over social cognition; words that have metaphors that are the similar for Yin and Yang; Systemizing and Empathizing; Science and Art; the metaphors for this duality of human nature go on and on but they are key to much of human suffering when the art and science of human being goes unbalanced.

And art is in movement and proprioception, just as it is on the painted canvas and poetry of free flowing communication not measured and chained by the rules of modern grammar and physical education of the secondary school and teams sports kind.

Yes, science is important but art is equally important, which makes the true philosopher who combines art and science, a rare commodity these days.

Mr. Chalmer appears to be one of those rare elements of human mind, and ironically consciousness too.

When they say that it is a myth that the average human today only uses 10 percent of the mind; yes it is a myth, based on the science of neurology and biology of the brain; however, the neurology and biology of the brain cannot measure the fully conscious effect of a brain with all intelligences employed in the synergy that can and will result if all areas of the brain are intensely stimulated.

My IQ measured during my illness was in the 130 to 140 range, and probably still is on standard measure of IQ.

However my real life abilities, have skyrocketed just by finally increasing my physical intelligence including proprioception.

There is synergistic effect, and even in standard measures of IQ, now science shows that physical exercise at the basic level, will increase standard IQ measures by as much as 10 percent just after one exercise session for the simple reason that exercise through dopamine and adrenaline neuro-hemicals/neurohormones brain stimulation are increased by physical exercise, thereby increasing the ability to focus the mind.

The athlete calls the high scoring test taker a nerd, and the nerd calls the athlete jock, but when the two come together along with other intelligences like musical intelligence and poetry intelligence, and other intelligences of art rather than just science, genius can and will appear in the proverbial school drop-out as is in the case with folks like Einstein.

And no, not likely that anyone but you will make it this far in my writing here, as they likely haven't been there and done it yet, and do not understand the places in conscious awareness I have been, as a result of my separation from culture.

But that's okay; it's part of the beast of culture, and what culture tells us is real.

It's all based on statistics; culture still tells me I'm weaker in my 50's than I was in my 20's per science, but no that is far from true, but based on average human statistics from people that sit around most of their life instead of moving.

Same with speed of reaction and ability to learn new things.

It's simple; use it or lose it.

We are evolved to adapt; not to sit still, and become a vegetable in relative potential ability in full conscious awareness employing these multiple intelligences that are real and learnable throughout the course of the life cycle for those who believe they can improve them.

For those that don't for whatever self or other person preached limitations and expectations, it is simply a self-fulfilling prophecy to use a philosophical term, that yes does have real life implications for neuroscience and biology.

The main issue is art and science; the Yin and Yang; again all those metaphors for the dualistic nature of our state of human being.

All parts must be exercised.

To make this thing called human being, work efficiently and in balance, like any other animal one finds in nature.

Amazing we have to use so many words to get to the bottom of it, but words are both the source of knowledge and the source of limits of human beings.

The problem is sifting out the BS and getting to the truth.

I never give up.

That is my only secret. :)

Relative Free will; another metaphor for it, that cannot and does not fully exist when any part of human intelligence is limited by repression or oppression, of these potential learnable abilities.

Of course, all in my self and culture educated opinion. :)