Tag Archives: consciousness

Consciousness and Branes

Posted on January 18, 2009 by Strange Loops

Since Einstein’s work on relativity, we have come to think of our universe not simply as involving three spatial dimensions and one time dimension, but rather as a four-dimensional entirety, labeled space-time. Roughly speaking, instead of thinking there are different … Continue reading →

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I Am a Strange Loop

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Strange Loops

Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter has long been one of my favorite books. That book tackles what it means to be conscious and how consciousness or meaning could arise out of unconsious and meaningless elements (i.e. physical particles bouncing … Continue reading →

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In- and Out-of-Body Experience

Posted on January 26, 2008 by Strange Loops

Normally our bodies receive sensory input through eyes, ears, skin and other systems, and those inputs synch up in consistent ways, such that our brain can put it together into a coherent picture of the 3D world around and including … Continue reading →

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Monkey-controlled Robot

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Strange Loops

Researchers in the U.S. and Japan successfully synched up a monkey’s brain with a robot across the world, and after about an hour of practice the monkey could control the robot’s legs while it walked on a treadmill. First the … Continue reading →

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Death Gives Life Meaning, or Cognitive Dissonance?

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Strange Loops

The Singularity Institute (Oct 2007) posted a piece on how immortality can give meaning to a life, in much the same way people have argued that death gives meaning to our lives. The author, E. Yudkowsky, gives some common arguments … Continue reading →

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