The Mask Behind the Face, the collection of metaphysical horror fiction by Teeming Brain contributor Stuart Young (see his column Sparking Neurones), was short-listed for the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection in 2006, and the title story — about brain disease, psychedelics, and the far outer and deep inner reaches of consciousness — ended…
Tag: Consciousness
Is the “brain as computer” metaphor dying?
Yesterday, Edge.org published a long and depth-filled conversation with Daniel C. Dennett — he of Consciousness Explained and Darwin’s Dangerous Idea fame — and it shows the renowned philosopher of mind and consciousness saying some things about the now-ubiquitous model and metaphor of the brain as a kind of computing machine that casts a whole…
Recommended Reading 33
Recommendations this week, spanning a vastly broad variety of trends, issues, ideas, people, and subjects, include: the pressure on American policymakers to adapt to increasingly wild weather; Daniel Pinchbeck’s analysis of the wild weather and other aspects of our current ecological crisis as a collective planetary-spiritual experience of initiation into higher levels of consciousness; an…
Recommended Reading 31
This week’s recommended reading includes: a warning about and meditation upon the possible dire consequences of the human species’ spectacular success in dominating the planetary petri dish; a profile of a literary journal devoted to injecting ancient wisdom into the wasteland of the modern cyber-soul; a beautiful explanation and defense of literature’s inherent resistance to…
A neurosurgeon on consciousness beyond the body: “The materialist picture is doomed”
Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, who has spoken at (for example) the Rhine Research Center, writes in the current issue of Newsweek about his personal discovery and conviction that consciousness exists beyond the body. His argument is especially intriguing because, although it is based on his own personal experience, it goes beyond the limp and lame argument…
Recommended Reading 28
This week: posthumously offered words of warning and encouragement to an America in decline from Ernest Callenbach, author of the 1975 classic Ecotopia; insightful meditations on the intrinsic value of the humanities and their inherent resistance to being explained (as in, explained away) by quantitative scientific methodologies and approaches; a 1908 essay by a French…
Book Recommendation: “Exploring the Edge Realms of Consciousness”
Readers of The Teeming Brain will find something of more than passing interest in the just-released nonfiction anthology Exploring the Edge Realms of Consciousness: Liminal Zones, Psychic Science, and the Hidden Dimensions of the Mind. This is indicated not only by the book’s heady subtitle, and not only by fact that it is co-edited by…
Recommended Reading 18
This week’s links, reading, and viewings encompass America’s apocalyptic obsession, the troubled future of America’s electricity situation, the continued rehabilitation of psychedelic research in academic and governmental contexts, the rise of America’s internal surveillance state, a worried critique of art’s monetization, the hijacking of social media by megacorporate interests, a warning from by-God Silicon Valley…
Recommended Reading 15
This week’s recommended articles and essays (and videos) include: the political battle behind climate science research; the rising push for a future where urban infrastructure is relocated underground; a look at Wal-Mart’s destructive effect on America’s middle class; the alteration of reading, writing, and publishing by the snooping technology that accompanies e-books; a brilliant, long…
Can dark matter, the multiverse model, and the observer effect help to explain UFOs and paranormal entities?
Here’s some fascinating, cogent, incisive, and subtle speculation/theorizing (marred in places by a mild stylistic clumsiness) from Kathy Kasten, whose accompanying bio describes her as “an experienced writer/researcher who delved extensively into the UFO phenomenon and related subject matter” and whose “resume includes acting as staff liaison on the Human Subjects Protection Committee while employed at the…