Thursday, August 25, 2016

How I Freed My Mind From The Cult of Materialism

 
It is a curious fact that we have successfully used our minds to penetrate profound secrets of the physical universe; but when it comes to grasping the nature of our minds, we are baffled.[i] This is the famous mind-body problem, the “hard” problem being to account for our consciousness, which is utterly unlike anything physical.  The mind, it seems, has a hard time trying to understand itself.
In this essay, I describe how I evolved my view of the subject, which is deeply at odds with mainstream physicalism.  Without putting a label on my view, there were two kinds of crucial step I had to take, theoretical and empirical.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Is Psychiatry Driving Us Crazy?

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We live in an age of triumphant materialism. I use the word “triumphant” on purpose. America is the greatest and most expensive military power in world history.  We spend more money on our military than do the seven other leading  countries combined, including Russia and China.  Add to this the wonders of modern technology, the triumph of capitalism and consumerism, and the success of the American plutocracy (the one percent), and it’s clear how much we’re invested in a materialist culture.

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