Philosophy Overdose on David Chalmers

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My comment:

It depends upon whether you believe consciousness really exists. If you do then it's irreducible and the problem goes away. If you don't then you have a career ahead of you.

The more interesting problem in consciousness studies is what is it that narrows conscious experience to the extent that we start to believe that it is produced by the (human and other animal) brain. There sometimes seems to be a force in the modern world that separates consciousness into individual beings. This is not a natural force but it seems to be produced by human activity of a certain unhealthy (i.e. unwholesome) kind. I think there are physiological explanations that take in the health of society as a whole, including the whole ecosystem in which we live. I think that ecosystem in many places is itself in an unhealthy state. In Sweden this sort of approach to public health is taken seriously, and it works.


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I once had an opportunity to work with The Natural Step, founded by Karl-Henrik Robèrt at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm:

As head of the Division of Clinical Hematology and Oncology at the Department of Medicine at the Huddinge Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden and director of research at the Karolinska Institute, he conducted research and lectured widely on several forms of cancer, including leukemia, lymphoma and lung cancer. ...

From his study of cancerous cells, he realized that “cells are the unifying unit of all living things. The difference between our cells and the cells of plants are so minor that it's almost embarrassing; the makeup is almost identical all the way down to the molecular level.” The natural and the human worlds are both built of cells. His studies led him to realize that cancer rates and other threats to global health, would only increase with increasing concentrations of pollutants and other unsustainable mechanisms. His focus on toxins and their health implications, led him to see the link between these and a systems perspective on future health.

... but it all fell apart for reasons I don't understand. Maybe it was because I smoked too much?

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