Introducing A New Philosophical Perspective: Earth Centrism (1/2)

 Inviting Intelligent Critique & Constructive Challenges:

Introducing a New Philosophical Perspective.

Peter Miesler, September 2022

Founded on a life time of learning through the findings of scientists.

Earth Centrism

Because Earth is our ultimate touchstone with reality and ourselves.

This insight leads to a realization that, for this complex living Earth that we experience, to exist at all, is proof positive that our Earth evolved down one particular pathway, no matter what we people imagine one way or the other. 

Ours is to figure it out and appreciate - not to presume to define it!

We appreciate that we are evolved biological creatures born of Earth’s processes, as expressed through its singular Evolutionary Pageant.

We appreciate the profound divide between physical reality, that is matter, biology, laws of nature, on the one hand, and on the other, our thoughts unfolding within our amazing minds, (or more descriptively, within the realm of our “human mindscape").  

We appreciate that fundamentally, awareness and life’s “consciousness spectrum” started over a couple billion years ago with the invention, then prospering, of the unbelievably complex organization of Eukaryote cells (some suggest guided by microtubules).  

Consider that in due time these cells created colonies of cells that demonstrated a sense of place and order and purpose or the organism would have dissolved into a chaotic blob.  Increasingly complex creatures depended, at every step, on increasing awareness, sensing, data processing, physical systems growth & maintenance, internal communication along with improving and refining manipulatory abilities.   

By and by, along came one particular clade the eutherians, small nocturnal insect eaters who gave birth to the class of mammalian animals, which begat the primates, which begat hominids, which begat our modern humankind species. 

Every stage required new refinements and developments within the complex sensing/body/brain system and the mind they collectively produce - refinements that are dependent on previous refinements and lessons.  Your Being is the sum total of all the days of Evolution that went into producing the human form you possess and live through, while your mind reflects the sum total of all the days you’ve lived and experienced.

I believe a genuine understanding of oneself starts with the realization that we are an evolved biological sensing creature, and that our consciousness is fundamentally the inside reflection of your body/brain dealing with itself and the environment/circumstance it is embedded within.  

This understanding leads to another inevitable realization, namely that our “Gods” are in truth creations of our minds, tailored by our self-serving egos. Which is okay, if one doesn’t take their God, or themselves, too seriously. 

 

“I Am, therefore I Think”

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Diary, May 14_dirty tricks at blogspot - re. Solms demystifying Chalmers “hard problem.”

I was rather shocked this evening by a message from “Blogger <no-reply@google.com>”

   “Your content has violated our Malware and Viruses policy. Please visit  

our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.” ???

Say what?  Nothing specific, I mean if someone’s installed malware into a blogspot post of mine, shouldn’t I be told were to find it?  You know, flag a potentially bigger problem?

But nothing like that.

Worse, no place to send an appeal or ask for details.

“Was flagged to us for review.”

Now I’m sitting here wondering who’s not liking what I’m writing and decided to start playing dirty tricks and a little back stabbing?

And since Blogspot seems to be hermetically sealed to its users, I’ve no other place to discuss this than right here.  I have reread Blogger’s guidelines, I have reread my article and the supporting references I added, I see nothing against Community Guidelines.  

My article was written in good faith, and is part of a larger project I’m willing to defend openly, to anyone honorable and honest enough to challenge me.

I am reposting the article since it is an integral part of my project.

If Blogger Moderators are asked to review this post again.  

I request that you inform me of specific perceived violations before pulling it this time.  If someone has hidden malware in there I have every right and need to know.  But, I’m pretty sure closer inspection will reveal no malware/virus, only a malicious trickster.  

Having someone at Blogger to respond to, would also be nice.

Thank you for your understanding,

Peter Miesler

Aka citizenschallenge

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Saturday evening, May 15th.

This morning I received the following:

This morning my original post was back up and I found this email.  Then this evening, I found it reverted to DRAFT status and I needed to repost it, so to honor the incident I've adjusted the title.

"David Chalmers "Hard-Problem" demystified by Mark Solms and colleagues."

 

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Dr. Mark Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness

Chance favors a prepared mind - and after nearly a year of dealing with “The Case Against Reality,” which, for me, was a collection of maddeningly dreamy philosophizing*; disconnected from physical reality; and dismissive of the known facts and Evolution, which is central to my understanding of reality.  *(on the other hand)

Learning is about providing us with tools and concepts we can work with as building blocks towards further developing our overall conceptions.  But Hoffman’s FBT theorem and ITP inspired “conscious agents,” was like a bad practical joke, offering little but frustration, luftgeschäft, irrelevance - no place to go with it once it's done.

As if on cue, YouTube prompted me with a suggestion that I might like this newly released talk:  "The Source of Consciousness - with Dr. Mark Solms" posted March 4th and they weren’t kidding.  Dr. Solms provides a way back to the solid ground of physical reality and serious science.

Students’ Resource: A representative cross-section of Dr. Mark Solms' scientific publications.

We're now into section five of a larger project that’s intended to be a ‘Student’s Resource for Defending Physical Reality.’  In this third chapter of my introduction to Dr. Mark Solms, Ph.D., ( #1, #2 ), I provide a bibliography of his insightful publications (books & scientific papers) which explain the basis for bringing the study of our human consciousness, and the so-called Mind-Body Problem, into the realm of sober, physical reality respecting, evolution appreciating, science.  (Incidentally, thereby putting the lie to the claim that meta-physical outside agents are needed to explain and understand human consciousness.)

This list is not complete by any stretch, but it is an impressive introductory sampling, and it’s intended to serve as a reference that’s guaranteed to inform, perhaps inspire, the serious student, along with serious enthusiasts of science.  People interested in better understanding how Earth’s evolution made us who we are. 

 …  (Continued at the end of this bibliography)

Dr. Mark Solms, PhD.

Professor of Neuropsychology

CURRICULUM VITAE Mark Leonard Solms

Born district of Lüderitz, Namibia, July 17, 1961

The International Neuropsychoanalysis Society

Co-chairs, Mark Solms with Cristina Alberini

Google Scholar list of Dr. Solms' scientific papers

Solms-Delta Wine Estate

Franschhoek Valley, South Africa

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Dr Mark Solms, Ph.D. (WITS)

University of Cape Town, Department of Psychology

Background and research interests

• Brain mechanisms of dreaming, emotion, motivation.
• Psychological mechanisms of confabulation and anosognosia syndromes.

Teaching responsibilities - Neuropsychology – Research and Clinical.

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Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute  |  Mark Solms PhD

Psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist.

Affiliations:

Dr. Solms holds the position of Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital (Departments of Psychology and Neurology) and is the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He is also Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association.

Dr. Solms founded the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 2000 and was a Founding Editor (with Ed Nersessian) of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. He is Director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, a Trustee of the Neuropsychoanalysis Fund in London, and Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Trust in Cape Town.

Dr. Solms’ Introductory Lectures in Psychoanalysis can be viewed here.

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Regarding Mark Solms South African Farm and dealing with a history social injustice

Jill Choder-Goldman interviews Mark Solms, August 2019.

“I started to realise that the first thing is not to impulsively, concretely enact something, but rather just sitting with it and letting it be the ugly thing that it is, until you start to see what the nature of the thing is,” says Mark Solms.

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What is Neuropsychoanalysis?

Turnbull Lab, Prifysgol Bangor University, Wales, U.K.

The term 'neuropsychoanalysis' was first used in the late 1990s by Mark Solms, as the title of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. 

The Other Side of Mark Solms PhD, professor, Freud scholar, farmer, vintner, humanitarian.

Recently, I virtually met an amazing man, Dr. Mark Solms, who’s many YouTube lectures do a superb job of walking students of human consciousness and the “mind-body problem” back onto the solid ground of physical reality based science, with a roadmap for constructive learning, through the new disciple of neuropsychoanalysis.  

You can watch a dozen of Mark Solms' lectures and find that each was worth it, for each offers unrepeated gems.

What’s he walking people back from?  The cliff edge of meta-physical philosophizing pretending to be serious science.  

Solms-Delta, South Africa

I mean, proclaiming “spacetime is doomed”?  Advocating that the search for our consciousness must look to out-of-body agents, because every puzzle hasn’t been solved yet?  Rather than continuing current fruitful “physicalists” research, such as that being explicated in Dr. Solms' talks.

Get serious, that’s evolved religion.  Hidden under all the pretentious words and inscrutable math, it’s all about protecting our ever so fragile human egos.  What about focusing on learning about this amazing fantastical planet, that created this amazing fantastical body, that created our amazing fantastical consciousness, to have and to hold for the duration of our short lives!  By the Grace of Earth!

Speaking of human ego.

All of us make first impressions of people we meet, in life or virtually.  Some we like, some we feel indifferent to, some we’re leery of, and so on.  Mark Solms impressed me from the start.  I saw solidity and a superb mastery of his topic.  As I watched succeeding videos red flags never showed up.  The fascinating talks captured me and though the topic overlaps, each talk is unique and refreshing. 

Then I started researching and learning about the man.  His list of accomplishments helped make sense of that inner solidity he radiates.  After a few days of absorbing nothing but Professor Mark Solms I had to take a break for a while, allowing it to percolate and settle some.

Recently to get warmed up and into the project again, I clicked on a short TEDTalk by Mark Solms that I hadn’t listened to yet.  I was waylaid.

David Chalmers "Hard-Problem" demystified by Mark Solms and colleagues.

May 15th, I had a dirty trick played on me and now I need to repost this.

Fortunately, my honor has been defended and I have my Google bill of good health:

It's a shame that open constructive debate, based on honesty and a mutual desire to learn has all but disappeared from our society.  What happened to only confronting problems with honesty and facts?  Nope, if they got nothing, all that's left is dirty tricks in the dark, so sad, so self-destructive.

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Dr. Mark Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness

Chance favors a prepared mind - and after nearly a year of dealing with “The Case Against Reality,” which, for me, was a collection of maddeningly dreamy philosophizing*; disconnected from physical reality; and dismissive of the known facts and Evolution, which are central to my understanding of reality.  *(on the other hand)

Learning is about providing us with tools and concepts we can work with as building blocks towards further developing our overall conceptions.  But Hoffman’s FBT theorem and ITP inspired “conscious agents,” was like a bad practical joke, offering little but frustration, luftgeschäft, irrelevance - no place to go with it once it's done.

As if on cue, YouTube prompted me with a suggestion that I might like this newly released talk:  "The Source of Consciousness - with Dr. Mark Solms" posted March 4th and they weren’t kidding.  Dr. Solms provides a way back to the solid ground of physical reality and serious science.

Among the speaker’s achievements, beyond being skilled as both psychoanalyst, plus neuropsychologist!  Dr. Solms is the Director of neuropsychology in the Neuroscience Institute of the University of Cape Town, an honorary lecturer in neurosurgery at the Royal London Hospital School of Medicine, and a pioneer in the scientific field of neuropsychoanalysis, being credited as first to use that term, along with being the recipient of many honors and awards.  He’s also credited with discovering and described the forebrain mechanisms of dreaming.

After I finished that first lecture, I had to listen to another one, then another, and another, two days worth of binging on Dr. Solms ensued before I was sated,... for the time being.  

Solms is an enthralling speaker and his ideas resonate with my own life time of learning about natural sciences and this body I inhabit, I couldn’t get enough of him explaining his findings and their implications and I intend to read a couple of his books plus listen to some of those talks again.  Lots to absorb.  

All that inspired me to put together this collection of lectures given by Dr. Mark Solms PhD, I'll be following up with another post highlighting a few of his many scientific papers.  

It makes a perfect transition between Hoffman's philosophizing and my own upcoming philosophizing.  Whereas I can only offer reasoning behind the perspective I believe in, Solms provides us with scientific physical evidence and clear cut justifications that are harmonious with my perspective and trust in science.

Solms deftly demystifies Chalmers’ “Hard Problem” of Consciousness, thus taking the air out of the wavy gravy meta-physical approaches to consciousness that removes it from fundamental evolutionary processes and physical reality as we know it.  It’s no wonder Hoffman never mentions Solms name, nor the promise of neuropsychoanalysis.

Among the points that resonated with my own understanding,