Rosie - sorry you didn't manage to get a ticket....hope you can still get one.  And don't forget that 'more performances to be announced' comment.....

Tickets for NTLive have now gone on sale at my local cinema - had to laugh because it's got an 'Xtreme' screening....which means it's an extra large screen - 'twice the size of a double decker bus'!  Xtreme damo....

Xtreme DaMo? sounds like a must fifi!

Sorry to hear you missed out on a ticket Rosie, I'll be keeping everything crossed for you.

Yay!

I just changed my flights. Had to pay little more but I don't really care, most important thing is that I'm going to make it! I would be ready to pay almost anything to get there and see Damien on stage. I'm planning my trip step by step and getting more and more excited!

So, we have not really discussed what 'The Hard Problem'is referring to, and is the underpinning theme of DaMo's upcoming play.

I mentioned at the beginning of this topic that the subject is something of great interest to me and thought I might share a bit of info for anyone else up for discussing it!

The play's title refers to "The hard problem of consciousness", defined by scholarpedia.org as follows:

The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example?

 

or more simply put, can consciousness be described in purely physical terms, or is there something else going on. Generally the former part of that question is discussed in the realms of psychology and the latter in philosophy.  The scientific, material world view, which the world has largely lived by for eons, is that consciousness comes from brain activity. 

 

For me personally, I tend to buck against any reductionist view of the world or of 'us', and dualist points of view. i guess if i were to agree with any 'scientific' approach it would would be the 'quantum theory of consciousness'. Or ultimately something more metaphysical.

Oh and here is a fab video, thought I'd share.

 

 

 

Thoughts?

When you're ready and in the mood for a philopsophical discussion fifi

Ooh domino, I was wondering about this when I read what was the play about. I really look forward to see what's happening in that play!

 

This is very interesting area to discuss, human brains are amazing and we are not fully sure why it does things it do. And is there connection between brain processes and experience? Well, there's many explanations but none of them are quite good enough to fully explain why. Is consciousness extent of brain processes, or another way around and is experience a side effect of these two?

 

I once read about human tasting experiences and when you eat something you ate when you were a child as adult, brains restore that memory along with the taste experience, especially if you have good memories connected to that taste/smell. And you can always remember that memory what did you do that day as child if you eat same food.

 

I know it might not be the same thing as "The Hard Problem" but that thing first came in to my mind. Why does our brains to that, is mystery. Is it somehow important survival instinct of what. Who knows.

 

When I was a kid, consciousness was meaning that we are alive and somehow it was the same thing as people having a soul (don't ask I was a kid!). And I always wondered about people who were in coma, that do they still have their soul cause they are not aware of this world anymore. And people told me that they are actually dead but machines keep them alive and I thought that was cheating of death. But then when I heard that people wake up from coma, I always thought that God might have been pitying these people and gave their soul back. That was my thoughts when I was a kid, silly, but it really was a "hard problem" to solve. I always thought that consciousness was the only thing that will survive when we die, our soul. That it will not disappear, and that's the part that goes to heaven. This might be result of adults explaining death, heaven and hell for me as a kid. But I realized if I try to explain same things now for kids, I would be lost.

It is interesting to read about this topic in the net, so many explanations and questions but few answers.

There's an interesting article in the February 2014 issue of National Geographic about research into the wiring of the brain. New technologies are enabling the scientists to see even further into the complexities of the structure of the brain.

Jozie, nothing to apologise for, I have similar beliefs as an adult! As a child I had out of body experiences from the age of four and had very real experiential awareness of what I felt consciousness to be.

It seems that the debates on the hard problem of consciousness are quite specific, I am interested in consciousness itself, or conscious awareness, that pre exists senses or translation. And, for being our own laboratory and exploring in a way western scientific viewpoints discredit and are seen as mystical or spirituality of religion - direct awareness. Personally i feel the human brain is a very magical thing in and of itself, and at the same time, fundamental and just human, simply unexplored and unevolved because the status quo directs it that way. and that there is so much more to the physicality of it that is not explained... but that would be straying off this very specific point into something else entirely.

fifi wrote:

---

Hate to break it to you guys....but you are, in fact, all just products of my imagination!

 

---

  How to summarise in one sentence. Love it fifi!

fifi wrote:

---

Hate to break it to you guys....but you are, in fact, all just products of my imagination!

 

---

 Hahaha quite true! And I have to say fifi, what a wonderful mind you have!

Good news domino, maybe those who missed a ticket may have another change!!

Possibility of more performances is great news.  But boy, Damien and his co-stars will be wrung out by the end... We'll need to send some fortifying coffee and biscuits!