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anyone that's going to dig in to Dennett's explanation of consciousness should also consider two epistemological works by rudolf steiner:

The Philosophy of Freedom - Some results of introspective observation following the methods of Natural Science:

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/...

and

The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/...

anyone that's going to dig in to Dennett's explanation of consciousness should also consider two epistemological works by rudolf steiner:

The Philosophy of Freedom - Some results of introspective observation following the methods of Natural Science:

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/...

and

The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/...

Ruir is correct. Antibiotics do kill gut bacteria, resulting in food not getting processed, rotten food remaining in the system, building up and making the animal fat and heavy. This makes the animal tired all of the time, resulting in the animal doing less, and getting, well, fatter (same thing happens in humans - ever seen anyone with a big bloated belly, skinny legs, lazy, unhappy...). There is no such thing as a "low dose of antibiotics" for animals, because antibiotics are meant to kill bacteria. And when you give an animal an antibiotic based on a time frame, rather than a sickness, you can bet that the only bacteria that's even there to kill is in the stomach.

This whole idea of giving animals regular treatments of antibiotics is why we have a lot of the problems that we have in the food market today. See, animals have an extraordinary ability to eat correctly on their own, even medicate themselves with various types of grass (that they do not normally eat, think of dogs or cats eating grass) at times. Cows that are grass-fed, have their horns, and allowed to graze where they want are very healthy, almost always. Anyone really interested in this stuff should look up Rudolf Steiner's talks made into a book called "Agriculture". Fascinating stuff.

probably one of the most important books in western philosophy since kant's critique of pure reason — rudolf steiner's 'philosophy of freedom':

EVERYTHING DISCUSSED in this book centers around two problems which are fundamental to the human soul-life. One of these problems concerns the possibility of attaining such insight into human nature that knowledge of man can become the foundation of all human knowledge and experience of life. We often feel that our experiences and the results of scientific investigations are not self-supporting; further experiences or discoveries may shake our certitude. The other problem is Has man any right to ascribe freedom to his will, or is freedom of will an illusion arising out of his inability to recognize the threads of necessity on which his will depends, just like a process in nature? (Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy of Freedom)

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/English/RSPI1963/GA004_preface1.html

two books:

left brain — rudolf steiner — philosophy of freedom:
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/English/GPP1916/GA004_index.html

right brain — george macDonald — phantastes:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/325/325-h/325-h.htm

desert island keepers

Whenever I read about DRM, TCP, software patents, SOPA and such, the below quote comes into my mind
Disclaimer: From the top of my head, not neccesarly a precise quote!

"Es wird sein, nicht lange nach dem man das Jahr 2000 geschrieben haben wird, da wird die Welt seltsames zu beobachten haben. [...] Da wird nicht ein direktes aber doch eine Art von Verbot für alles Denken von Amerika ausgehen, ein Gesetz, das das Ziel hat, alles individuelle Denken zu unterdrücken."

Rough translation:

"It will be, not long after the year 2000 has been, that the world will have a strange thing to observe. [...] There will not be a direct, but still a sort of prohibition of any thinking spreading out from Amerika, a law which purpose it is to supress any individual free thinking."

This is a quote from a transscibed lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in 1918(!). He was what one today would probably describe as an avid mysticists and esotheric teacher and lecturer, albeit one of the lesser crackpottier ones. ... He insisted that there is a spiritual world, and it's basically 'more real' than the world todays humanity percieves with their bodyly senses. Basically, one of his main claims was that Platos Cave Metaphor or the hindu concept of maya is a true thing. ... Anyway, never mind. ... What does get to me however, that throughout his lectures he did, not often but at times, give prognoses of the future, sometimes close to the prophetic and, as far as I can tell, until now has allways turned out right. The above quote being somewhat of a point in case.

Some of his stuff is really way out there, yet his advice on mental and spiritual excercises is very down-to-earth and effective, as, for instance, his advice on education. .. And whenever stuff like this comes up, I always wonder if he was on to more than one might expect.

For anybody interested, here's an english translation of the lecture.
Be prepared, some of this is deep mystic/esotheric stuff.
You have been warned. :-)
I do recomment his written books on spiritual training though, well worthwhile, even for the casual reader. ... The closest you'll get to becoming a Jedi in real life. :-)

My 2 cents.

> A much more interesting top ten would be the myriad ways that civilization could end...

ya -- like consider the following... (burning humour karma indescriminately...)

It will be quite possible for the men of earth, if they so wish, to develop a more and more automatic form of intellect â" but that can also happen amid conditions of barbarism. Full and complete manhood, however, cannot come to expression in such a form of intellect, and men will have no relationship to the Beings who would fain come towards them in earth-existence. And all those Beings of whom men have such an erroneous conception because the shadowy intellect can only grasp the mineral nature, the crudely material nature in the minerals, plants and animals, nay even in the human kingdom itself â" all these thoughts which have no reality will in a trice become substantial realities when the moon unites again with the earth. And from the earth there will spring forth a terrible brood of beings, a brood of automata of an order of existence lying between the mineral and the plant kingdoms, and possessed of an overwhelming power of intellect.

This swarm will seize upon the earth, will spread over the earth like a network of ghastly, spider-like creatures, of an order lower than that of plant-existence, but possessed of overpowering wisdom. These spidery creatures will be all interlocked with one another, and in their outward movements they will imitate the thoughts that men have spun out of the shadowy intellect that has not allowed itself to be quickened by the new form of Imaginative Knowledge by Spiritual Science. All the thoughts that lack substance and reality will then be endowed with being.

The earth will be surrounded â" as it is now with air and as it sometimes is with swarms of locusts â" with a brood of terrible spider-like creatures, half-mineral, half-plant, interweaving with masterly intelligence, it is true, but with intensely evil intent. And in so far as man has not allowed his shadowy intellectual concepts to be quickened to life, his existence will be united not with the Beings who have been trying to descend since the last third of the nineteenth century, but with this ghastly brood of half-mineral, half-plantlike creatures. He will have to live together with these spider-like creatures and to continue his cosmic existence within the order of evolution into which this brood will then enter.

(A Picture of Earth-Evolution in the Future, R. Steiner, Dornach, May 13th, 1921; GA 204)

and here's an example of option C) John Davidson, Natural Creation or Natural Selection

i'm not saying his work is necessarily scientific (although he graduated cambridge with honours in biological sciences) -- but he interprets his science through the lens of buddhistic thought instead of judeo-christian creation myths. -- in doing so, he presents a radically different explanation of the fossil record which not only fits the with the facts, but also accords fully with indian philosophy.

then there's another, call it option D) -- and it doesn't necessarily contracdict darwin, but is based on a non-kantian epistemology -- theory of knowledge implicit in Goethe's World Conception - revision in Darwinian conception of time

it just seems that trying to even acknowledge the existence of any other stream of thought other than options a) judeo-creation myth and b) the darwinian version of evolution seems impossible with some people though.

> Many other religions believe that the universe was created in a different way.

i have always found it a poor choice between ONLY a) science (of the darwinian we came from frogs), or b) creationism (we came out of nowhere, with no proof, and you jus gotta believe).

why is there never any discussion of option c) d) or even something like e) the occult evolution of the cosmos?

no doubt, not many would choose option e) -- which both the creationists and scientists would think is just nuts -- but insofar as the number of possible theories examined, out of the many theories, it always only comes down to just two - ludicrous creationism, or ape science - other options aren't ever discussed, when there are other options. why are we caught in this polarity between the two ideas that have no overlaps in venn diagram...? :-P

Materialism can never arrive at a satisfactory explanation of the world. For every attempt at an explanation must of necessity begin with man's forming thoughts about the phenomena of the world.

Materialism, therefore, takes its start from thoughts about matter or material processes. In doing so, it straightway confronts two different kinds of facts, namely, the material world and the thoughts about it.

The materialist tries to understand thoughts by regarding them as a purely material process. He believes that thinking takes place in the brain much in the same way that digestion takes place in the animal organs. Just as he ascribes to matter mechanical and organic effects, so he also attributes to matter, in certain circumstances, the ability to think.

He forgets that in doing this he has merely shifted the problem to another place. Instead of to himself, he ascribes to matter the ability to think.

And thus he is back again at his starting-point. How does matter come to reflect about its own nature? Why is it not simply satisfied with itself and with its existence?

The materialist has turned his attention away from the definite subject, from our own I, and has arrived at a vague, indefinite image. And here again, the same problem comes to meet him.

The materialistic view is unable to solve the problem; it only transfers it to another place.

(from: The Philosophy of Freedom)

traditionally, science forms its hypothesis, and performs an experimentum crucis to test the hypothesis; rinse & repeat. it seems to me that 'the cloud' refers to a hitherto statistically huge number of samples of data points from which to extract our knowledge of the world -- a sort of broad collection of facts derived from constantly and systematically varying the experimental conditions -- an exploratory experimentation. goethe outlines a method of Exploratory Experimentation in the essay The experiment as mediator between subject and object.

"Theory-oriented and exploratory experimentation are not exclusive categories, but rather members of a spectrum of experimental research strategies. Which is more productive in a given context depends on many factors, including a field's state of development, the sort of knowledge (for example, underlying mechanisms versus phenomenal regularities) sought by the physicist, and the complexity of the system being studied. Our aim in emphasizing the exploratory path has been to bring to light an experimental style that has played an important, but hitherto underrecognized, role in the history of physics.

Physics Today Article

First Scientific Lecture-Course

The scientists who think of Nature in the customary manner of our time, generally have no very clear idea of what constitutes the field of their researches. "Nature" has grown to be a rather vague and undefined conception. Therefore we will not take our start from the prevailing idea of what Nature is, but from the way in which the scientist of modern time will generally work.

The scientist today seeks to approach Nature from three vantage-points. In the first place he is at pains to observe Nature in such a way that from her several creatures and phenomena he may form concepts of species, kind and genus. He sub-divides and classifies the beings and phenomena of Nature. You need only recall how in external, sensory experience so many single wolves, single hyenas, single phenomena of warmth, single phenomena of electricity are given to the human being, who thereupon attempts to gather up the single phenomena into kinds and species. So then he speaks of the species "wolf" or "hyena", likewise he classifies the phenomena into species, thus grouping and comprising what is given, to begin with, in many single experiences. Now we may say, this first important activity is already taken more or less unconsciously for granted. Scientists in our time do not reflect that they should really examine how these "universals", these general ideas, are related to the single data.

The second thing, done by the man of today in scientific research, is that he tries by experiment, or by conceptual elaboration of the results of experiment, to arrive at what he calls the "causes" of phenomena. Speaking of causes, our scientists will have in mind forces or substances or even more universal entities. They speak for instance of the force of electricity, the force of magnetism, the force of heat or warmth, and so on. They speak of an unknown "ether" or the like, as underlying the phenomena of light and electricity. From the results of experiment they try to arrive at the properties of this ether. Now you are well aware how very controversial is all that can be said about the "ether" of Physics. There is one thing however to which we may draw attention even at this stage. In trying, as they put it, to go back to the causes of phenomena, the scientists are always wanting to find their way from what is known into some unknown realm. They scarcely ever ask if it is really justified thus to proceed from the known to the unknown. They scarcely trouble, for example, to consider if it is justified to say that when we perceive a phenomenon of light or colour, what we subjectively describe as the quality of colour is the effect on us, upon our soul, our nervous apparatus, of an objective process that is taking place in the universal ether -- say a wave-movement in the ether. They do not pause to think, whether it is justified thus to distinguish (what is what they really do) between the "subjective" event and the "objective", the latter being the supposed wave-movement in the ether, or else the interaction thereof with processes in ponderable matter.

Shaken though it now is to some extent, this kind of scientific outlook was predominant in the 19th century, and we still find it on all hands in the whole way the phenomena are spoken of; it still undoubtedly prevails in scientific literature to this day.

Now there is also a third way in which the scientist tries to get at the configuration of Nature. He takes the phenomena to begin with -- say, such a simple phenomenon as that a stone, let go, will fall to earth, or if suspended by a string, will pull vertically down towards the earth. Phenomena like this the scientist sums up and so arrives at what he calls a "Law of Nature". This statement for example would be regarded as a simple "Law of Nature": "Every celestial body attracts to itself the bodies that are upon it". We call the force of attraction Gravity or Gravitation and then express how it works in certain "Law

The physicist Crookes concluded the temperature changes
had essentially to do with a kind of fourth dimension in space...

often, beliefs are based on emotions,
and when these are addressed with reason,
the debate don't click.

but what bothers me about such debates is how,
like many things it remains contrasted in such a dualistic way.
fundie creationists go against rabid rationalists,
and nobody hears the other side.

only a choice between A and B (which are already qualitatively
different) is given -- its got to be creation ex-nihlo or a big bang,
or something like that -- with no consideration for C -- synthesis.
i'm not a creationist nor an evolutionist; yet both. i'm still searching.
but at least i'm aware of an option C* -- and there must even be
other ways we can interpret the data science provides us.

but it is important to seperate the exact phenomenon
of the fossil record -- with our INTERPRETATION of it.

The weather conditions which have shown such irregularities through the
years, particularly recent years, do have something to do with conditions
in the heavens... When these irregularities are observed we must take
very strongly into consideration a phenomenon of which little account
is usually taken, although it is constantly spoken of.
I mean the phenomenon of sunspots.

But now there are also electric currents in the universe; for when we
generate wireless electric currents on the earth we are only imitating
what is also present in some way in the universe. Suppose a current from
the universe is present, let's say, here in Switzerland, where we have a
certain temperature. If a current of this kind comes in such a way that
it brings warmth with it, the temperature here rises a little. Thus the
warmth on earth is also redistributed by currents from the universe.
They too influence the weather.

In addition, however, you must consider that such electromagnetic currents
in the universe are also influenced by the sunspots. Wherever the sun has
spots, there are the currents which affect the weather. These particular
influences are of great importance.

(The Evolution of the Earth and Man and The Influence of the Stars)

there is a serious philosophic treatment on the subject of free will, here:

The Philosophy of Freedom

Is it possible to find a view of the essential nature of man such as will give us a foundation for everything else that comes to meet us -- whether through life experience or through science -- which we feel is otherwise not self-supporting and therefore liable to be driven by doubt and criticism into the realm of uncertainty? The other question is this: Is man entitled to claim for himself freedom of will, or is freedom a mere illusion begotten of his inability to recognize the threads of necessity on which his will, like any natural event, depends? (The Philosophy of Freedom, 1918 Introduction)

so true! -- why is this debate always discussed so polarically??
it is tiring to always hear of this framed as a false dichotomy.

either you're with darwin/evolution/science
OR you're with faith/belief/creationism/religion.

so often the phenomenon are mixed willy-nilly with
the theory of interpretation -- everything is seen
through the lens of one idea or another.

given the same phenomenon, is there an alternate
explanation?? -- where is option C ?

some years back, found a great book written by a scientist, JOHN DAVIDSON.
called: NATURAL CREATION OR NATURAL SELECTION? -- and he gives just such
an option --

    http://www.johndavidson.org/NaturalSelectionReview s.html

his basic premise being: 'Whatever changes or degrees of evolution
may appear are not just the result of outward causal influences,
but are caused from within... and this is because we are part of
the 'universal formative force'.

a couple years later, i found a similar idea
in goethe's 'organic and inorganic science'.

originally, kant thought that biology could not be subject to
the 'knowing' activity we have for physics. but today, many scientists
simply assume that biology must be studied from the standpointt of physics.

goethe sees another possibity -- he PRESUMES darwin's evolution,
but it requires a revision in our understanding of TIME.

goethe shares this idea of evolutionary development as
being not just a process of causal natural selection,
but rather as an INNER development -- and what leads this
development IN TIME is the TYPUS -- here's probably the
best single chapter on the subject:

    GOETHE'S ORGANIC SCIENCE:
    http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA002/English/GA002_ c16.html

regards,
j

trying to get smart without thinking is like to trying to
get into shape without exercising. the brain is a muscle,
and if you don't use it, you lose it. the more effort
you make to think, the stronger your cognitive ability will be.

here's another take on cognition...

--| Devotion Increases Cognition |---

In an epoch of criticism, ideals are lowered; other feelings take the place of veneration, respect, adoration, and wonder. Our own age thrusts these feelings further and further into the background, so that they can only be conveyed to man through his every-day life in a very small degree. Whoever seeks higher knowledge must create it for himself... Whoever, therefore, wishes to become a student of higher knowledge must assiduously cultivate this inner life of devotion. Everywhere in his environment and his experiences he must seek motives of admiration and homage. If I meet a man and blame him for his shortcomings, I rob myself of power to attain higher knowledge; but if I try to enter lovingly into his merits, I gather such power...

It is not easy, at first, to believe that feelings like reverence and respect have anything to do with cognition. This is due to the fact that we are inclined to set cognition aside as a faculty by itself -- one that stands in no relation to what otherwise occurs in the soul. In so thinking we do not bear in mind that it is the soul which exercises the faculty of cognition; and feelings are for the soul what food is for the body. If we give the body stones in place of bread, its activity will cease. It is the same with the soul. Veneration, homage, devotion are like nutriment making it healthy and strong, especially strong for the activity of cognition. Disrespect, antipathy, underestimation of what deserves recognition, all exert a paralyzing and withering effect on this faculty of cognition.

(How to Know Higher Worlds)

The will is not set upon a surplus of pleasure,
but upon the amount of pleasure that remains after getting over the pain.

This is the essence of all genuine will... It achieves its aim
though the path be full of thorns.

It lies in human nature to pursue it so long as the displeasure
connected with it does not extinguish the desire altogether.

(The Philosophy of Freedom - Chapter 13)