Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Time, Space, Consciousness

toyin, thanks so much for this really interesting article. it is daunting to try to imagine keeping up with ALL THE MATERIAL our there--and i'm retired. if i were still teaching, i'd not even want to think about it.

her piece, suggesting that consciousness is in all particles, resonates with me since the notions of physics that build on relativity ascribe the same forces that act on large entities also act on everything else. that means we have a basic connection, one generally called anthropic by hawking, and many others now. the linkage between the one who observes (necessarily w consciousness) and that which is observed (the experiment, say, or its apparatus) creates what barad calls the inter'act, the sense that the engagement between all entities is affected, in the encounter, by all the forces operant in the universe.

i don't know how much we would want to speculate on this--as you often invite us to do--without the understanding of the basic forces that we've been able to discern in the universe. i try to avoid descending into metaphors, yet i feel the earlier thinkers, like parmenides whom she cites, does just that. it's no good (for me, a non-believer) to pretend a poeticized account of anything material is of real interest, especially when we have experiments that demonstrate the workings of forces.

the piece you shared really takes us up to the limits of where our speculations can go.

i think it is very important that not only scientists work on these notions, that we in the liberal arts must try to understand and share their accounts as well. if we don't, we are ignoring the work of the brilliant minds of our times.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2019 5:32 PM
To: usaafricadialogue
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Time, Space, Consciousness

 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/spacetime-emergence-panpsychism-and-the-nature-of-consciousness/

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