Introduction

[Brakeman]

Why not be interested in the study of consciousness? It's considered the "hard problem". What better problem to try to try to pursue, especially at a time in history where our technology is so rapidly advancing?

I went to Goddard College in VT, it's a "progressive" school. The design was such that in addition to meeting all of the requirements for my state licensing board (needed to do all the "traditional" course material), I was also able to focus in particular areas of interest under the guidance of mentors that were familiar with those areas of study.

http://www.goddard.edu/news-events/goddard-blogs

Holy Fuck! You aren't kidding!! That's soo twisted..

I went to more "conventional" universities, UT, LMU, USM. I didn't know places like Goddard even existed. I guess I learn something new everyday.
We're from different planets.

As for the consciousness question, The brain creates our consciousness, and the brain is composed of billions of individual cells. We can play with these cells with probes, drugs, and electrodes to create effects on our consciousness. There is no evidence nor any legitimate path of reason to think that our consciousness has any deviation from the obvious control of the brain cells. So what's the interest past that? This is leading into a discussion that would need to be moved out of the intro's though. If you want to talk about it more, feel free to start a new thread about it and I'll answer it.. Sorry, it's easy to get too far along in the intro's and the mods are very touchy with this zone.