Now that the floodgates have been opened, the recalcitrant nature of consciousness can be viewed in a novel light. In a remarkable turn of events, the seemingly isolated phenomenon of consciousness reemerges within the structure of the cosmos itself.
Chalmers mentioned the notion of consciousness being fundamental above. Some scholars have tried to conceptualize around this idea. For instance, the eminent philosopher of science and systems theorist Ervin Laszlo. In his book with the title The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time (Laszlo 1996), Laszlo outlined a systems-based view of nature, based on over three decades of research. In essence, he advocated a complexity-oriented understanding of reality (see Chap. 6, especially Sect. 6.2). In 2006, Laszlo published Science and the Reenchantment of the Cosmos (Laszlo 2006). Peter Russell contributed an essay (Russell 2006, p. 144):
Meeting Fairies: My Remarkable Encounters With Nature Spirits Book Pdf
I waver between these two positions: at times gratefully dependent on this marvel, at other times horrified at what this dependence signifies. Too much concentrated in one place, too much accessible from one's house, the need to move about in the real world nearly nil, the rapid establishment of social networking Websites changing our relationships, the reduction of three-dimensionality to that flat screen. Rapidity, accessibility, one-click for everything: where has slowness gone, and tranquillity, solitude, quiet? The world I took for granted as a child, and that my childhood books beautifully represented, jerks with the brand new world of artificial glare and electrically created realities, faster, louder, unrelated to nature, self-contained.
Today, most of our connections are through the Internet. The closest haptic experience we have is with our keyboards or the magical glass of an iPhone. We Twitter, Facebook, Chat, IM, Google-Talk, and Skype. And there is even chatiquette to make sure we do it with, you know, appropriate decorum! As remarkable as these technologies are, and as wonderful as they are in enabling us to stay in touch with friends and family that live in other countries or even other states, they have caused a fundamental decline in our capacity for normal, face to face. They have, in a word, enabled us to be mindblind, insensitive to others' body language, to the way they hold themselves, and express feelings in an eyebrow or curled nose. Our capacity to connect through the Internet may be breeding a generation of social degenerates. 2ff7e9595c
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