WEEK #4

Post #1 "A Glorious Piece of Meat"
This film was very fascinating to watch, and learn how and why we do certain things that we do. This film was mainly talking about our conscience and how it works.It basically says that our brain controls the stuff that we do on a normal day. For instance, eating and sleeping, we sleep and eat because of the neurons in our brains are sending information to do these things. This film was kinda tricky when it says that our conscience controls our neurons but the neurons dosen't stufy our conscience. So in that sense what does the neurons go off of? I think there might be something esle to it. Using our brain to control what we do is really interesting. A murderer kills somebody and are called psycopaths. It was always intersesting and fascinating to me about what was a psycopath thinking about or what was in his mind that made him commit murders. At the beginning of the films a lady by the name of Patricia Smith Churchland had said that our brain is just meat, and if we dont use it then nothing would change. Our brain is the commander and the captain of our body without it telling us what to do, there would not be me.

Post #2 "IS CONSCIOUSNESS PHYSICAL?"
Before reading this i though that it was physical. William james gives four characters in conscience. The first one, Every 'state' tends to be part of a personal consciousness. Second, Within each personal consciousness states are always changing. Third, Each personal consciousness is sensibly continuous. Lastly, It is interested insome parts of its object to the exclusion of others, and welcomes or rejects all the while. The first one i agree with the most in the sense that our brain can think of random mutiple thoughts all at the same time, and yet not even make any sense. Our personal conscious, would be our dreams. Where it it is kept only to us, and excluded from others. This book helped me understand consciousness more. It is still a mystery to how it actually really works, but i believe that part of it has to do with you soul.

Post #3 Steven Pinker on Evolutionary Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology is the study of the brain and how it all came about. Steven Pinker says that Evolutionary Psychology is the same as psychology and should be in the same field of study. I dont see any difference between the two, what i always thought was anything that is the study of the mind was psychology. One interesting thing that i liked about his lecture was the misconception of things people had, genes, and dreams. Pinker says that dreams are misconcieved. I kind of paused for a second and thought about it. Then came to realize that what he was saying was true. Usually after i wake up from a dream, i try to remember what i dreaming and try to figure out what it all meant. Then again, its kind of hard when your dream makes no sense what so ever. Pinker says that dreams might as well be screensavers, and have no meaning behind it, and also, they are just there just to keep our mind moving while we are asleep. Dreams that make no sense can either be a hidden message, or a screensaver, like pinker says. Ive recently been having dreams where i am on a mission like 007 or something. Really trippy and weird. Can't seem to find the meaning behind it.

Post #4 Gerald Edelman
After watching his lecture, It was a little bit hard to understand. The First few minutes of the video was kind of confusing. Gerald Edelman says that neural darwinism is our instinct, which is or survival on food or sex. He says since a long time ago the study of mind and consciousness have been separated from the study of science.
He also states that concepts that are study by philosophers, like mind and consciousness, now can be explained using science and the study of neurons. It started to get interesting when he talked about our brain and our consicous. He says that our brain is not like a computer. Although i think it does kind of work like a computer. Edelman says that you can't explain the steps of Darwinisn without including youself. Evoltion can be explained step by step but without including yourself you won't be able to fully explain it since you are part or the steps process.

Post #5 What is Consciousness?
Consciousness, can be really confusing and be misunderstood as something esle. It is a biological phenomenon. It should'nt be confused with knowledge, attention, and it should'nt be confused with self-consciousness. Cosciousness has something esle that other biological phenomenon dont have. "subjectively", there is a sense that a person has their own private conscious. Which is something like their own dreams, tickles, feels, and movements. The relationship between consciousness and the brain is actually relatively connected. The brain is like a captain in which it tells the body what to do. Conscious states are caused by lower level neurobiological processes in the brain and are themselves higher level features of the brain. The key notions here are those of cause and feature.

Post #6 Theory of Consciousness
This was an fun read.The four corners of the cosmos was very interesting,I thought they belong to another quadrant but they didn't. Intentional, behavioral, cultural and social were the four quadrants. The four quadrants were accessed by different types of truth ofvalidity claims. There are 12 theories for consciouness. Wilber explains them and says that consciousness is anchored in and distributed across all of the four quadrants. Cognitive science is consciousness as anchored in functional schemas of the brain and mind. I think that consciouness throught cognitive science is a real possibility. I also think that individual psychotherapy brings individuality to someone and that the consciousness is able to adapt to its environment and its surroundings.

Post #7 The Astonishing Hypothesis
Very interesting to read. Crick says, "The Astonishing Hypothesis is that "You," your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." It is really amazing to see that we can be shorten down into a small reasonable explantion. This article was interesting in the sense it talks about we have no soul. I do beleive that everyone on this earth has a soul. But Crick makes a good argument asking where does our soul come from in our body? He also believes that everything that appeared in our heads, or any thoughts that we have, are all produced by neurons. Crick does not believe that a soul is something that exist outside of science. Even though he has stong points and a good arguement, i don't agree with him. I believe that everyone has a soul and it isn't held in our body but in spirt. It doesn't have to be part of a body for it to be an individual, and unique.

Post #8 "why i don't eat faces" Vegetarians
It basically gives you the pros on being a vegetarian. How your life would be like if you are, or turn into a vegetarian. It says that being one can prevent heart disease, reduce of impotence andpreservation of the environment. I can't see myself eating straight veggies for the rest of my life. Meat to me tastes so much better and have much more flavor than vegetables. Even though it may lead to heart diseases, and knowing so, i still can't see myself as a vegetarian. This audio tells a story about a boy who turned into a vegetarian. He says he never liked the taste of meat, i can't see how someone might not like the taste of meat. Vegetarians are missing out so much on that juicy, much flavored than veggies, and delisious meat. This audio says that fish is considered meat. Vegetarians can't eat any seafood either? Wow that must sucks since fish is so good. All this is my own opinion, and i can see from a vegetarian's perspective on why they don't eat meat. Like for instance they are grossed out by it, or they are simply trying to save the enviroment. I eat way more meat than i eat veggies, and i know this is a bad thing. What this audio is trying to explain is that animals shouldnt be treated any different than humans and that if we eat animals then we might as well eat ourselves.

Post #9NUMINOUS LECTURES
This lecture was very boring but what really caught my attention was something that was said. The lecture says that even the men who are healthy and have a healthy mindset and live their life carefully by taking good care of their body, are just lucky that bad health and personal problems haven't happend to them. This is false in my opinion. I played basketball in high school and keeping yourself in good shape and health was an essential part of being on the team. It helped you keep your stanima up while playing in a game and it makes you feel better about yourself. While i was on the basketball team it made me feel more fit and healthy since every practice you are working out. It changed my personality and my attitude a little. I was more outgoing and not hesitant to speak my mind. After basketball season was over i wasn't working out as much and it my mood changed also. Keeping in shape and working out does something to you not only on the outside by also on the inside. And personal problems are just personal problems. You can't blame health for personal problems.

Post #10 Is my i phone conscious?
Is my i phone conscious? No, or is it? In reality, i think not. But in fantasy it might be since it can practically do most things that you would like it to do, almost like a mini robot or human. I still don't fully understand the full concept on how conscious works and what is it. Our dreams happen when we are unconcious and those are wierd. The argument put out in this article was far beyond my expectations. It was very well put. Their might be something out there that we cannot see. The part about the phantom limb seemed like good ammo for this argument. Ive always thought about this question, if my computer was conscious, or if my phone was conscious. This article just backs up my theory and makes me believe it even more.

Magazine Post "The Voyage within"
This was a very very interesting and entertaining to read. Throughout themagazine they talk about the effects that weed has on a persons vision and body.They say that you hallucinate when you smoke weed. My personal experiece is thatyou don't really hallucinate when you smoke weed. What i think is it depends onthe person also. So people that smoke weed might get very paranoid, and somearen't. Also, it depends on the type of weed you smoke. Some marijuana helps yousleep, and some gives you a more of a lightheaded feeling. Different people havedifferent effects when smoking marijuana. There are different reasons why peoplesmoke marijuana too. For instance , some people smoke weed because of medicalreasons, and some do it cause its "the thing to do". Alot of people saymarijuana is a drug and should be kept off the streets. Only if you abuse it toa certain extent. I think it should be compared to alchohal. Theres no harm insmoking a little bit of marijuana. I dont know how the hallucination part playsin with this. From what i heard, mushrooms and acid makes you hallucinate.