What is a ‘stream of consciousness’? This presupposes that one knows what consciousness is, and how it differs from the unconscious, and from self-consciousness. Briefly, consciousness means an awareness of something, most broadly your environment. In this sense, even plants are conscious, as shown by the phenomenon of phototropism. Self-consciousness, by contrast, denotes not just […]
consciousness
Posted inGeneral, Tech
Gelernter: A dissenting voice in the field of artificial intelligence
The relationship between the human mind and body is something that has occupied philosophers at least since the father of modern philosophy, René Descartes, bequeathed his notorious “dualism” to his successors. For Descartes the mind was a different “substance” compared to the body – the former was a “thinking substance” and the latter an “extended […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Face to face with democracy
Being South African forces one to reflect and re-evaluate, sometimes daily, how to identify, in some general and particular ways with who we are. Sum of parts, or a sore thumb, the nearly two decade’s span of freedom is a precarious space for identity. Too black, too white, not quite right, we continue to grapple […]