Menu
DEREK AUSTIN JOHNSON
  • Home
  • About
  • Bibliography
  • Contact
  • Maple Street Dispatches
  • Home
  • About
  • Bibliography
  • Contact
  • Maple Street Dispatches

Across the Interwebs 01/26/2014

1/26/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
There's something incredibly Ballardian about this piece from the BBC, which comments on the sudden dropoff on solar activity, and what it might mean for our own climate. 

"It's completely taken me and many other solar scientists by surprise," says Dr Lucie Green, from University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory.

The drop off in activity is happening surprisingly quickly, and scientists are now watching closely to see if it will continue to plummet.

"It could mean a very, very inactive star, it would feel like the Sun is asleep... a very dormant ball of gas at the centre of our Solar System," explains Dr Green.

This, though, would certainly not be the first time this has happened.
No, there's no reason to begin strapping "The End Is Nigh" signs over our shoulders, but I'm keeping my eye out for plants suddenly crystallizing, or perhaps human beings turn into Picasso paintings.
Picture

Christof Koch at Scientific American asks if consciousness is universal.  It's a question that causes him to consider the idea of panpsychism, and what such an idea might entail for human exceptionalism.  His assessment?

Given the lack of a clear and compelling Rubicon separating simple from complex animals and simple from complex behaviors, the belief that only humans are capable of experiencing anything consciously seems preposterous. A much more reasonable assumption is that until proved otherwise, many, if not all, multicellular organisms experience pain and pleasure and can see and hear the sights and sounds of life. For brains that are smaller and less complex, the creatures' conscious experience is very likely to be less nuanced, less differentiated and more elemental. Even a worm has perhaps the vaguest sense of being alive. Of course, each species has its own unique sensorium, matched to its ecological niche. Not every creature has ears to hear and eyes to see. Yet all are capable of having at least some subjective feelings.
(snip)
Taken literally, panpsychism is the belief that everything is “enminded.” All of it. Whether it is a brain, a tree, a rock or an electron. Everything that is physical also possesses an interior mental aspect. One is objective—accessible to everybody—and the other phenomenal—accessible only to the subject. That is the sense of the quotation by British-born Buddhist scholar Alan Watts with which I began this essay.

I will defend a narrowed, more nuanced view: namely that any complex system, as defined below, has the basic attributes of mind and has a minimal amount of consciousness in the sense that it feels like something to be that system. If the system falls apart, consciousness ceases to be; it doesn't feel like anything to be a broken system. And the more complex the system, the larger the repertoire of conscious states it can experience.
Picture
There's a lot of fascinating material in Koch's article, and a good deal of it appeals not only to the Buddhist in me but also to the lay transhumanist.  Is the Internet enminded?  What about the materials that, ultimately, would make up the hardware running Eganesque citizens?  Enminded fleshers want to know!

For better or worse, The Economist is recognizing science fiction.  In short, Jonathan Ledgard believes that it's time for science fiction to save itself from all of these vampires, zombies, and other elements of dystopia (?) in favor of a more optimistic, "planetary" writing.

Accelerating technological advances will rekindle hope that man can manipulate the atmosphere and genes to help lifeforms flourish. Stories will move away from howling and towards the possible. The new optimism will be most clearly seen in science fiction. The biggest successes in the genre in 2014 will be cheering tales set in the near future. That will mean more of Africa, more of equitable politics and, crucially, more of engineering solutions.
Honestly, there's so much wrong with this brief essay that I'm unsure where to begin.  Vampires and zombies are dystopian?  Really?  It's not the most asinine thing I've read all week--I think the Wall Street Journal managed that inglorious honor--but it still strikes me as self-serving and silly.  Fortunately, a number of the regulars sitting at the Locus Roundtable already are parsing it.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Derek Austin Johnson has lived most of his life in the Lone Star State. His work has appeared in The Horror Zine, Rayguns Over Texas!, Horror U.S.A.: Texas, Campfire Macabre, The Dread Machine, and Generation X-ed.

    He lives in Central Texas. 

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    June 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    August 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    July 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed