see: http://consciousnesscourse.blogspot.com/ for course details and to
register online at: http://foundationsofmind.org/register.html
Stuart Kauffman’s review of One Magisterium is now online at http://www.interaliamag.org/imagining-possibilities/one-magisterium-review-by-stuart-kauffman/
Stuart calls the book a "masterpiece"
I think this paper might be of interest as a prologue to the book as it explores
emanation and eschatology from a standpoint that I realize only now is
neoplatonic;
http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/262
So is this more technical article;
http://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/403
All these are free as is this extract;
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/61898
INTERVIEW is at http://consciouslifenews.com/search-consciousness-cynthia-sue-larson-interviews-sean-o-nuallain/
Cynthia: First, I'd love to thank you for organizing
the Foundations of Mind conference and seminars that I've so greatly enjoyed
attending this year. There's something truly extraordinary happening at this
time in history, that I most keenly sense when reading your books and attending
the Foundations of Mind events you've sponsored. I get a sense that we're on
the verge of a great intellectual revolution having to do with a whole new way
of comprehending consciousness. What most inspires you to explore the subject
of consciousness, and how do you feel this subject is important at this time?
Seán: About the times we live in, Jacob
Needleman put it very well in his blurb for my new book, "one
Magisterium" (CSP, Sept 2014); "From first page to the last, a sustained
and dazzling burst of light illuminating the fundamental questions and the
presumed “answers” within the scientific, philosophical and spiritual world now
radically changing before our eyes." Consciousness is one way into this
phenomenon of the "scientific, philosophical and spiritual world now
radically changing before our eyes." Scientists in general are naturally
uncomfortable with the subjective world; there is indeed a case that it is best
left to artists and spiritual guides. Yet we can say some coherent and
responsible things while remaining responsible scientifically.
Cynthia: You raise an important point that many
scientists are reticent to publicly discuss subjective experience, even though
their own subjective experiences are primary motivators behind the scientific
research they do. There seems to be a difference of opinion by many people that
if there is to be but "one Magisterium," or primary way of
comprehending reality, it will be based on science, while others feel it should
be primarily spiritual. Do you sense humanity is on the verge of finding a way
to reconcile these differences, perhaps starting with saying some coherent,
responsible things about consciousness?
Seán:Great question!
Of course, historically the magisterium is church teaching. The
Galileo incident put paid to that; not so much Galileo’s contemporary
clerical opponents, who were actually quite sophisticated, but the
retards who were pushing biblical geocentrism well into the 19th
century.
After SJ Gould, there is a consensus that Galileo’s contemporary
clerical opponents are correct; the magisterium of the Church is faith
and morals (“how to go to heaven”), and that of science external
reality (“how the heavens go”). As an Irish recovering Catholic, I was
particularly engaged in this debate; the fact that it still goes on is
attested by the recent movie “Cavalry” with Brendan Gleeson as a rural
Irish priest with nothing to offer eventually except his willingness
to die as an expiation for the rape of children by his church.
Ironically, it was a Belgian Priest (George le Maitre) who invented
modern cosmology with his notion of the singularity/ “primeval atom”.
Yet he vociferously protested against the Vatican’s adopting this as
proving the biblical account of creation………
On the other side, we have “thinkers” like Dawkins and Harris who
argue that science has advanced enough to come to moral conclusions.
Dawkins’ autobiography is interesting; it looks like he had the
makings of a decent computational biologist before the “selfish gene”.
On the other hand, there are too many kludges in his early
experimental apparatus for his results to be credible. The Harris case
is simpler; after Ed Vul, who spoke at foM, we frankly do not have to
believe any fmri results of the kind Harris adduces.
I leave this answer with a few more trends the book addresses;
- Why is it that the people who believe in a religious basis (from
Mother Teresa to Matthieu Richard to Fr Greg Boyle (G-Dog) toyes, Michelle Bachman) tend to
work hardest for others? The notion of an objective realm of morality
seems vital
- What of subjectivism in the arts? Currently, young Americans are
deserting the only sophisticated arts form created here ie jazz
- What of the mess Google and others are making of natural language processing?
The book and course put a lot of these issues together
Cynthia: I am very much looking forward
to reading your new book, "One Magisterium"! What I find personally
most significant about your previous books, including "The Search for
Mind" and "Being Human: The Search for Order" is the apparent
ease with which you bring ideas together from a multitude of disciplines to
create a cohesive holistic presentation of consciousness at a level that I've
seen few other authors match. There appears to be a larger picture view of
"how the heavens go" than some more narrowly focused scientists and
authors recognize. How would you advise those interested in getting caught up
to speed with new findings about the nature of consciousness to begin?
Seán Cognitive Science
and the circle of explanation in the sciences
Cognitive Science completes the circle of explanation in the sciences.
It can also hint at solutions to moral and aesthetic dilemmas, often
explained away through postmodernism/subjectivism. It must obey laws
of inheritance of facts and constraints; just as biology inherits
facts and constraints from physics, so must Cognitive Science inherits
facts and constraints from biology. These include conservation laws
(physics), chaotic dynamics (both biology and physics); it is likely
therefore that concepts like harmonic oscillators and bifurcations
should be pervasive in Cognitive Science.
Yet the situation is more complex. For example, the concept
“information” in physics has an energetic dimension (Landauer), a
spatial dimension (Susskind) and, as quantum theory teaches us, it
determines to some extent what we considered objective reality.
Likewise, it is arguably impossible to continue discourse about
biology without granting that codes/syntax are intrinsic to the
subject. Cognitive Science also inherits these constraints.
We must go deeper still. We find that mathematics, the most elliptical
and precise language with which we describe reality, constrains us in
certain ways. Tensors of various orders, from scalars through vectors
to the Riemann and Ricci tensors, are distinct with the latter two not
describable in terms of the former. Our explanation patterns in
Cognitive Science must honour this. So fmri, which specifies a scalar,
cannot be an explanation of mind, nor can vectors; it is a category
error to suggest they can.
Our explanation patterns in Cognitive Science must also honour what
we learned in the 20th century from Gödel, Church et al about the
limits of formal systems. This can paradoxically leave us open to
non-deterministic thought. So we can indeed, following Gödel,
Schrodinger and other greats, assert the existence of the spiritual
while remaining completely scientifically responsible. However, we are
not going to get a “solution” to the so-called “hard problem”, an
algorithm mapping all neural data to experience; that is also a
category error. We are going to be able to argue for a substratum of
subjectivity and indeed free will in conscious experience while
remaining scientific. The job of eliciting subjective states belongs
to great artists and spiritual leaders, of whom we have a decreasing
number.
Cognitive Science completes the circle of explanation in the sciences.
It can also hint at solutions to moral and aesthetic dilemmas, often
explained away through postmodernism/subjectivism. It must obey laws
of inheritance of facts and constraints; just as biology inherits
facts and constraints from physics, so must Cognitive Science inherits
facts and constraints from biology. These include conservation laws
(physics), chaotic dynamics (both biology and physics); it is likely
therefore that concepts like harmonic oscillators and bifurcations
should be pervasive in Cognitive Science.
Yet the situation is more complex. For example, the concept
“information” in physics has an energetic dimension (Landauer), a
spatial dimension (Susskind) and, as quantum theory teaches us, it
determines to some extent what we considered objective reality.
Likewise, it is arguably impossible to continue discourse about
biology without granting that codes/syntax are intrinsic to the
subject. Cognitive Science also inherits these constraints.
We must go deeper still. We find that mathematics, the most elliptical
and precise language with which we describe reality, constrains us in
certain ways. Tensors of various orders, from scalars through vectors
to the Riemann and Ricci tensors, are distinct with the latter two not
describable in terms of the former. Our explanation patterns in
Cognitive Science must honour this. So fmri, which specifies a scalar,
cannot be an explanation of mind, nor can vectors; it is a category
error to suggest they can.
Our explanation patterns in Cognitive Science must also honour what
we learned in the 20th century from Gödel, Church et al about the
limits of formal systems. This can paradoxically leave us open to
non-deterministic thought. So we can indeed, following Gödel,
Schrodinger and other greats, assert the existence of the spiritual
while remaining completely scientifically responsible. However, we are
not going to get a “solution” to the so-called “hard problem”, an
algorithm mapping all neural data to experience; that is also a
category error. We are going to be able to argue for a substratum of
subjectivity and indeed free will in conscious experience while
remaining scientific. The job of eliciting subjective states belongs
to great artists and spiritual leaders, of whom we have a decreasing
number.
Cynthia: I can see that you've
accurately identified some rather serious shortcomings currently being made by
many researchers and authors--that they are making category errors at critical
junctures. I love the work you've been doing with your Foundations of Mind
conference series and your new book, "One Magisterium" to help
people realize the importance of building upon sturdy foundations of knowledge
in philosophy, math, physics, biology, linguistics, and computer science.
Clearly there is no need for a high-tech new-fangled version of phrenology to
provide a solution to the so-called "hard problem" of why people have
subjective experiences of consciousness using fMRI. And clearly there is a need
to create and test scientific hypotheses for how free will and other cognitive
functions operate. How important do you feel it to be that cognitive science
and consciousness researchers adopt a common language, and how would you
envision such a shared common language being formed?
Seán:
In 1997 I published the book "Two Sciences of
Mind" (it precedes
Shambala's use of this phrase) to indicate the necessaity for a
distinction between what Needleman called "inner" and "outer"
(cognitive science ) empiricism
In my course, you'll find certain intersections; the
Noe/O'Regan/Freeman work on sensorimotor behavior, which is common to
cognitive science and
consciousness research. Yet that does not extend into domains like
the arts, where artists are using a much larger palette precisely to
specify inner states.
Cognitive science can tell us that jazz uses much more complex
computations than rap; in fact we can specify the stack in say
Beethoven's 5th, whose opening has a fractal structure. That may lead
us to suspect there is something more going on, the opening to
objective reality that Beethoven felt he was doing. And at that note
of opening to reality of I'd like to end this interview; it is
precisely this sense of an objective world to which we must conform
and which can edify us that we in the west have lost. To regain the
respect of fundamentalists like ISIS, we might consider this instead
of just bombs
Shambala's use of this phrase) to indicate the necessaity for a
distinction between what Needleman called "inner" and "outer"
(cognitive science ) empiricism
In my course, you'll find certain intersections; the
Noe/O'Regan/Freeman work on sensorimotor behavior, which is common to
cognitive science and
consciousness research. Yet that does not extend into domains like
the arts, where artists are using a much larger palette precisely to
specify inner states.
Cognitive science can tell us that jazz uses much more complex
computations than rap; in fact we can specify the stack in say
Beethoven's 5th, whose opening has a fractal structure. That may lead
us to suspect there is something more going on, the opening to
objective reality that Beethoven felt he was doing. And at that note
of opening to reality of I'd like to end this interview; it is
precisely this sense of an objective world to which we must conform
and which can edify us that we in the west have lost. To regain the
respect of fundamentalists like ISIS, we might consider this instead
of just bombs
Cynthia: Thank you, Seán, for making time for
this interview, and for sharing news of your new book and your course on
consciousness, Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind. I’m glad to
announce that this online course is available to students anywhere in the
world, and it starts this September 2nd. For a cost of $75 US, this course is a
bargain, since this is the same course taught for credit at Stanford University
by the same instructor, and students who complete this course will receive
certificates of completion. It includes video presentations from the entire
proceedings of the 2014 Foundations of Mind conference, and I encourage
all interested to learn more at: http://consciousnesscourse.blogspot.com/ and
to register online at: http://foundationsofmind.org/register.html
