2008-04-05: Consciousness

[Robert]

Let's close out our 2nd monthly theme this week with a chat session on Saturday followed by the quiz on Sunday and a new theme for April starting on Monday. We'll have our chat on Saturday, April 5th, at 8pm GMT. The theme that we're bringing to an end is...

Consciousness

The idea of the monthly theme is to give a little more focus than usual to a single topic and aggregate our knowledge. We do that by discussing a topic for a month or so, chat about it on the second to last day, take our final exam the day after the chat, hand out awards to members with the highest scores, and start a new theme the next day. Each theme has a home page with all the information relating to the theme, including latest posts, reference links, quiz links and more stuff later on. The theme home pages will remain and expand over time and may be the theme in future months. Some reference links below.

1. Timezone Converter
2. Consciousness Home Page
3. Chat Room
4. Consciousness Forum

Timezone Information:

I have a countdown timer on the upper left of the home page below the welcome block. It should be accurate if your computer's time is correct. There is also a timezone convert available for you to convert the chat time to your local time. Once there, select the "Use The Following Date/Time" option,enter April 5th, 2008 as the date, 08:00:00 P.M. as the time, select "Etc/GMT" in the "From Time Zone" column, your location in the "To Time Zone" column, then click Convert. This will give you the time of the chat meeting in your own local time.

Hope to see you there! It's optional, but you're encouraged to select the appropriate option in the poll so we know who's coming.

--Robert

[neutralino]

I'm away this weekend, so unfortunately won't be able to make it (so it's not that I'm not interested, which one might infer from my vote on the poll!!). I hope you all have an enjoyable chat!

[Profpat]

I'll be there assuming I'm conscious.

Best to all,

Pat

P.S. Michael you had better be there.

[everymansmedium]

Hello friends:
I will not be there as I will be traveling for the next 2 weeks. Leaving tomorrow morning at 4:00 am April 4th.
Will return on or about April 20th.
This is not indicative of my interest in the subject material.
John.

[Robert]

Enjoy your trip John! Hope you're going on a nice vacation somewhere.

--Robert

[Robert]

Sorry guys, we don't really have enough committed participants to pull off today's chat. I've been working on several new additions/changes to the website that are taking up most of my time and wasn't able to promote the chat as I should have. Plus, having two chats two weeks in a row is probably not a good idea. Looking at the future, I think we should probably have one topic-driven or theme-based chat per month with an optional open-chat in between. Of course the chat room is open 24/7 so you can chat with whoever happens to be present any time.

I'll check in on today's chat off and on, in case others are present. The topic is no longer limited to consciousness; but should be treated as more of an open-topic chat.

--Robert

[Profpat]

Thanks Robert;

Even though the mix up on the starting time and the premature cancellation it was a pretty good chat today all the same.

Do you still plan on having a quiz or has that been cancelled.

Best to you,

Pat

[Robert]

Thanks Robert;

Even though the mix up on the starting time and the premature cancellation it was a pretty good chat today all the same.

Do you still plan on having a quiz or has that been cancelled.

Best to you,

Pat

Yes, it was a good chat and I was probably too quick to cancel. I did record the chat and I'll post the transcript later today. I think my countdown timer on the homepage has a bug in it because it was off by an hour and out of sync with the posted time in this thread. Also, I sent out a PM to all who where online when the chat started, but I got one name wrong so none of the messages went out. I didn't notice until after the chat ended I don't think we'll have a quiz because of the difficulty in finding enough questions that have definite answers. There does not seem to be much agreement on what consciousness is.

I'll start the next theme at the end of the week. I won't call it a theme of the month anymore, I'll just call it the current theme and give it a fixed number of weeks to run. I'll also add a new block to the homepage that states the current theme, the duration, links to the forum, theme page, etc. I'll have more time to devote to this next theme since I survived another near nervous breakdown on my day job and have more time now.

--Robert

[austintorn@aol.com]

Quiz:

1. What is consciousness?

a. Experiencing something.

b. 'What it is like to be'.

c. The Mind's 'I'.

d. That annoying time between naps.

[Profpat]

Quiz:

1. What is consciousness?

a. Experiencing something.

b. 'What it is like to be'.

c. The Mind's 'I'.

d. That annoying time between naps.

My answer Austin is e) none of the above.

Best,

Pat