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Do you like to discuss philosophical topics, such as:
- Consciousness,
- Entropy,
- That history and the future are just constructs of the ever-changing now,
- Panpsychism,
- Something else that you often find yourself mulling over?
In general, have you ever thought:
"Hmm, I wonder if that would work?",
But haven't have time to actually test out your theory?
Then come to the inaugural 'Applied Philosophy Discussion Group' where we discuss, and eventually try to test, novel philosophical ideas.
The first topic of the first meeting, or few meetings, in addition to just getting to know each other and discussing things that people are interested in, will be about testing methods to extend consciousness beyond the body.
More details about the first meeting topic:
Thought, or 'being alive', is not one thing; it is a collection of ever-changing qualia (qualia being indivisible instances of subjective, conscious experience) plus the agency to reason and act on this input. The objective of this meeting is to discuss ways we can extend this input and processing beyond the 'corporal corps capsule' that is our human body. For example:
- Is it possible to digitize an idea and have it directly converted back into thought by someone else?
(See "BrainNet: A Multi-Person Brain-to-Brain Interface for Direct Collaboration Between Brains", L. Jiang, A. Stocco, D. M. Losey, J. A. Abernethy, C. S. Prat, and R. P. N. Rao, Sci Rep, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 6115, Apr. 2019, doi:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41895-7 .)
- Is there a way to interface human thought with 'brains in a dish' organoids?
(See "In vitro neurons learn and exhibit sentience when embodied in a simulated game-world", B. J. Kagan et al., Neuron, vol. 110, no. 23, pp. 3952-3969.e8, Dec. 2022, doi:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.09.001 .)
- Can we test quantum theories of consensus by using a split laser of entangled photons, one going in someone's head and one going in a receptor?
- Or an even more far-fetched idea of using entangled photons coming from the sun and innervating into the body of two or more people? All these people would be unable to communicate except by the fact that they may have received entangled photons from the sun.
- Generally, regardless of the validity of current theories of quantum conscious, can we use the concept of quantum pseudo telepathy to communicate semi-telepathically?
(See "Quantum Pseudo-Telepathy", G. Brassard, A. Broadbent, and A. Tapp, Found Phys, vol. 35, no. 11, pp. 1877–1907, Nov. 2005, doi:
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-005-7353-4 .)
Possible First Project:
To create a mobile app that implements some possible thought experiments such as interactive games and have competitions to try and beat classical statistics while the participants are spatially spread out on a sunny day.
Also check out other Meetups in Amherst, Sports events in Amherst.
