November 2, 2022
In a group, whose humour centred around the study of consciousness. The surfacing of this tweet was too perfectly timed.
Best opening lines of a paper ever? pic.twitter.com/x2DvDrzfdn
— Erik Hoel (@erikphoel) October 21, 2022
See I found find the study of consciousness or phenomenology you will incredibly interesting. Its study somehow manages to expand from moral ethics to metaphysics and as such Annaka Harris, Selen Atasoy, Anil Seth and of course Chalmers, would be my go-to for discovering and understanding paradigms and understanding THE Hard Problem. However, in my months-long pursuit of a better understanding of the field, I can look back retrospectively and find the time spent humorous and complex. Why didn’t I spend valuable time learning something more concrete than “experience”?
Nonetheless, my commitments began to fill more of my time and I would lose touch with consciousness – the study of it if you will. However, you can imagine stumbling across this tweet and sending it to a group – for whom >90% of our jokes as a collective would be ironically jumping from physicalist theories that could lead one to assume water was conscious if you were reductionist enough to analogical theories that could discriminate on humans whom we thought were not conscious enough.
In our banter, I jokingly wrote the following in response to the tweet.
You achieve meta-consciousness by studying consciousness; escaping the simulation in which the impossible mountains exist, families and the care given to them reside; the simulation in which harm is even a thing. Studying consciousness is an escape from fake reality and a transcendence into what is actually worthy – tenure at Arizona State University!
A slight jab at academia and its ability to have students with their sights set high, quickly disillusioned and accepting of the grim professional futures ahead of them. Now, in my return to reality, I question philosophical institutions and the people who dedicate their lives to them.
First, looking at my experience – I can’t tell why I became so entrenched. The humanities were not something I had exposure to through the classroom. So, it probably makes sense why I veered towards understanding consciousness instead of reading the classic works of Aristotle and Descartes. But, it goes without saying that the interest was weird? However, it was the start of non-transactional education – true pedagogy. Taking time away from school work to read and write. Regardless, I did have some priors on the subject. I assumed pure philosophy was a career path for those making money was of no concern and in the times when being well-read was a mark of wealth – studying philosophy was reserved for the most academic.
Notes
This was very much a stream of consciousness written late at night and it shows, but I really like this post on the functions of philosophy from Gavin Leech