Generally we assume that the world just exists – sitting there dead and meaningless – the object of our perceptions. The world doesn’t just exist – it shows up. It presents itself to us through layers of interpretation. William James talked about our experience of the world as being ‘thick’ – thick with layers of [...]
All posts tagged William James
The Transformation of the Present Moment
Posted by Jeff Carreira on May 24, 2012
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2012/05/24/the-transformation-of-the-present-moment/
William James and the Flow of Pure Experience –or– Why are two experiences better than one?
What you are experiencing right now is all there is – at least that is one of the implications of William James’ radical views on reality. William James was the first great American psychologist and one of founders of the philosophy of Pragmatism. The philosophical vision that was closest to his heart he called Radical [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on May 16, 2012
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2012/05/16/william-james-and-the-flow-of-pure-experience-or-why-are-two-experiences-better-than-one/
Did Modernism Isolate Us from the World?
The world doesn’t just exist, it shows up for us. It appears as the pure experience of the present moment. And one of the most amazing things about the world is that it changes – from age to age, generation to generation, over the course of a human lifetime, and through the duration of a [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on May 10, 2012
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2012/05/10/did-modernism-isolate-us-from-the-world/
Are we just Thinking Things in a World?
What do we really know about the relationship between the world and our experience of it? That is an important question and there are at least three things that we can be sure of. We all know that we have a subjective experience of the world. We all see, hear, taste, smell and feel the [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on April 12, 2012
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2012/04/12/are-we-just-thinking-things-in-a-world/
Cartesian Dualism and Brains In Vats
If you could put your brain in a nutrient bath so that it could keep on functioning outside of your body what would it (or would it still be you) experience? Would it still have your memories in it? Would it remember that they were yours? Would it still experience itself as you? Would you [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on April 6, 2012
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2012/04/06/a/
The Ego Tunnel and the Nature of Reality
Thomas Metzinger’s new book The Ego Tunnel weaves research in out-of-body experiences, lucid dreaming, phantom limbs and other extraordinary human occurrences with leading edge neuroscience to create a convincing picture of how neural activity constantly creates what we experience as reality. Our entire experience of what is; our bodily sensations, our identity and our experience [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on March 29, 2012
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2012/03/29/the-ego-tunnel-and-the-nature-of-reality/
The Evolution of Dissatisfaction
What moves us? Why do we keep going, always striving to better ourselves, our circumstances and the conditions of others? It isn’t completely rational. We all die in the end anyway so why does it seem so important for us to be here and give more and more? Why do we take life so seriously [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on December 22, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/12/22/the-evolution-of-dissatisfaction/
Everything Exists in Relationship
Things do not exist unless they exist in relationship with something else. In fact, things do not exist at all. Relationships exist. There are no individual things. The existence of anything is always contingent upon something else. When I was an undergraduate student I studied physics, but my favorite course in four years was one [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on December 15, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/12/15/nothing-exists-except-in-relationship/
We don’t create time – we freeze it in its tracks.
We have learned to see time as if it appears in chunks – minutes, hours, days, and years. But if time comes in chunks how do we experience past memories in the present? How does the previous moment’s chunk of time connect to the chunk of the present moment? Wait a minute. It will take [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on December 1, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/12/01/we-dont-create-time-we-freeze-it-in-its-tracks/
Experience and Understanding
There are two kinds of knowing – experience and understanding – and the confusion between them is the cause of all sorts of trouble for any thinking person. Experience is the knowing of things. It appears to our senses simply as what is there without us doing anything. It is immediately and directly present to awareness with [...]
Posted by Jeff Carreira on November 17, 2011
http://evolutionaryphilosophy.com/2011/11/17/experience-and-understanding/
