Jaki's Comments on Human Consciousness and Computers.

Stanley Jaki in his book _Brains, Mind, and Computers_ considers the role of computers in understanding the brain but argues against physicalism and the notion of artificial intelligence.

One interesting consideration of Jaki's is the idea of David Hartley that W = F^2/L meaning that the magnitude of man's love of the world W is indicated by the relative strength of F man's fear of God and man's love of God L.  Jaki rewrites this as L = W X F^2 to show that man's love of  God is the product of man's love of the world and man's fear of God showing a contradiction.

Jaki also considers the role of computers and maintains that Godel's incompleteness results show that it is always possible for the human mind to "out-Godel" a machine by constructing a Godel sentence.  This demonstrates that human intelligence and the human mind cannot be reduced to mechanical algorithm.   This result was first discussed by Lucas.

Jaki considers the role of a series of intelligent machines each designing another intelligent machine.  Jaki maintains that such shows the necessity of a First Designer or an Undesigned Designer arguing in lines with Aristotle's and Aquinas's argument for an uncaused cause.

Cosmism and "Cosmic Loneliness".

Bertrand Russell describes philosophy as a means of alleviating "cosmic loneliness" in his _History of Western Philosophy_.  Indeed this cosmic loneliness was long revealed to man from his earliest existence in the wild of brute savagery.  It was long recognized that it was impossible to leave the earth, and until the voyages of Columbus and the explorers it was even believed that nothing existed beyong the oceans.  Pascal was horrified by the thought of wide open spaces filled with the void and thus sought solace in religion and mysticism.  Modern thought sees little hope for alleviating man's cosmic loneliness as revealed by his place in the universe.

Mysticism as a Natural State.

Mysticism can be understood in many respects as a union of the soul or mind with the Absolute, the Universe, the One, the All, Being, or God.  This may be felt as cosmic feeling of oneness, as a blissful "oceanic feeling" at the source of all Being.  This may be understood in terms of immanence and transcendence in the forms of animism, pantheism, panentheism, and divine union.  In quantum mechanics, there exists an interaction between the observer and the wave function.  This interaction indicates an interaction between consciousness and the universe at some fundamental level.  This interaction may be seen in the revelation of the universe to the human being through the Divine Source of all Being.  The prevalence of true mystical systems, as opposed to false mysticism seen in illusionism and nihilism, indicate a further development and unfolding of the universe.  The heat death of the universe my be understood in this manner as man achieves greater mystical awareness until the entire universe becomes a conscious entity.

Psychedelic Drug Use, the Mind, and Society.

The rise of a drug culture, and in particular the rise of conciousness expanding drugs, as it existed and developed in the 1960s signified a decline in the civilization of Western society.  In primitive societies, drug use had been common and the shaman served as the vehicle by which drugs were made available to society at large.  With drug use came a drug culture, a sort of hedonic version of asceticism.  This further indicates a case of cultural decline.

Existentialism as Final Philosophy.

The rise of existentialism and the philosophy of consciousness and possibility serves to indicate the development of a final philosophy.  This can be seen in the degradation of the world order through the process of entropy.  Primitive philosophy sought to understand the universe in terms of cosmic essences.   Existentialism maintains that existence is final and precedes essence.  This indicates a nihilisic approach to the universe and offers the final philosophy of the end of time, the end of history, the rise of socialism and the decline of man, and the heat death of the universe.