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Henning
Aaager
Henning@Aaager.dk
Production
planner. Leader of public and private
organisations. Own service company. Teaches in
group dynamics. Didactic sexologist, university
degree. Promoter in several mercantile
development projects. Generate prosperity tours,
organisations self-knowledge and consciousness.
Textbook writer.
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Eva Larsen
Eva@Royal-Service.dk
Secretary,
Medical laboratory technician, Zone therapy, Body
therapy, Acupuncture, Homeopath, Lifeline
therapy, Relaxation of tension, Shiatsu massage,
Vegatate, Biofeedback, Mental development,
Self-fulfilment.
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What is the Problem of
Consciousness?
For
much of the present century, the various
phenomena related to human consciousness have
been ignored by many sectors of the scientific
community as unsuited to empirical investigation
and inappropriate for scientific study. Recently
this picture has been changing due to a variety
of cultural factors. Thoughtful people from a
wide variety of backgrounds and professional
disciplines from neurology to ethnology, from
psychology to molecular biology, and from
electrophysiology to mathematical physics are now
asking such questions as:
- What is
consciousness?
- What are
appropriate and potentially fruitful
methods for studying consciousness?
- How can the
advent of recent tools in
neurophysiology, PET scans, functional
MRI, and the like help to clarify the
nature of consciousness?
- What role
does our inner life have to play in the
theories of modern science?
- Is it
possible to reconcile our view of
ourselves as active responsible agents
with the different perspective on the
self emerging from cognitive science?
- What would be
the implications of such a reconciliation
for ethics and the orderly functioning of
society?
- Can the study
of consciousness provide any
clarification of the insights derived
from religious and contemplative
traditions and vice versa?
- Must the
purview of science be expanded in order
to capture the essential elements of
conscious phenomena, or are more
traditional approaches up to the task?
- To facilitate
a dialogue in an international community
of scholars, students and researchers.
This dialogue will be characterized by
openness, mutual respect, inclusiveness,
integrity, and synergy. We support the
development of an international and
interdisciplinary science of
consciousness, which would seek new ways
to express and understand the
relationships between mind and matter
through a variety of activities
including: international conferences,
Web-based information, and scholarly
publications in the Journal of
Consciousness Studies and elsewhere.
These
and related questions are stimulating vigorous
debates between proponents of what some call
'hard' and 'soft' approaches to the study of
mental phenomena. On the extremely hard side of
the debate stand those proponents of artificial
intelligence who claim that conscious human
experiences are merely epiphenomenal artifacts of
neural activity, which can be explained within
the reductive paradigm and will inevitably be
reproduced in computers. On the soft end of the
spectrum of current opinions are some dualists
who would argue that the essential nature of
consciousness lies beyond human understanding.
Others with various commitments to psychology,
psychiatry, humanism, and contemplative practice
are coming to believe that the purview of science
must be enlarged in order to capture the
phenomena of consciousness.
More information:
Center for
Consciousness Studies
University of Arizona
info@royal-service.dk
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