Episode 38

The fifth of several episodes in which Juliet and I ramble conversationally around a mind map I made. The six topics we randomly selected (not all covered in this episode) were "'solar' v. 'lunar' consciousness", "animal communication", "the Mayan calendar", "singularitarianism", "faster-than-light communication", "the Uncertainty Principle". A seventh, "rogue", topic was "'scientism' and materialism".

Continuing to look at Julian Jaynes' theory on the origins of consciousness in the communication between brain hemispheres, then moving on to animal consciousness and the usefulness of fluid dynamics metaphors (in particular, individual identity as a kind of "eddy"). We begin to discuss materialism (both its philosophical and economic variants).

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Some relevant links:

• Julian Jaynes
• J. Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)
• brain hemispheres
• consciouness in animals
• fluid dynamics
• eddy
• Heraclitus
• The Jim Carroll Band, "People Who Died" (1980)
• philosophical materialism (the view that the universe consists only of organized matter and energy)
• economic materialism (the desire to acquire material goods)
• lichen