CONSCIOUSNESS

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214 6. Culture and the Humanities 24 or 30 frames per second. ‘Suspension of disbelief’ is a concept in cinema theory used to describe the fact that audience members psychologically allow themselves to ‘forgive’ the fact that the images and story they are watching would, on the surface, appear to be unbelievable. If a cinematic image appears too realistic, audience members fail to experience suspension of disbelief, and therefore ‘disbelieve’ what they are watching. ‘High motion’ frame rates result in increased believability but decreased enjoyment due to the audience’s perception that the images they are viewing are ‘too real.’ We reject certain proposed theories that this is based upon cultural conditioning, and give examples as to why such an explanation is unlikely (examples include the Todd AO experiments in 50 frames-per-second film and British television drama). We propose that this phenomenon is a direct result of the number of conscious events per second in the human brain. C6 327 Art, Indeterminacy and Consciousness Robert Pepperell (Fine Art, Cardiff School of Art & Design, Cardiff, United Kingdom) One of the functions of the brain and perceptual system is to categorize data from the world into discrete meaningful chunks and so impose distinctions on the world that are consistent with the biological needs of the perceiver. However, under certain conditions such as deep meditation, when afflicted by particular agnosias, or when faced with visually indeterminate stimuli, these object distinctions break down or disappear altogether. The world can then appear as indeterminate, i.e. devoid of the objective distinctions that characterize our habitual engagement with the world (a mode of perception termed ‘nirvikalpa’ in Indian psychology). I will show that artists have long understood this contingent nature of objective distinctions and tried to create works that evoke indeterminate perception by dissolving the hard, deterministic boundaries around objects. This has resulted in varying degrees of visual indeterminacy in art movements such as impressionism, fauvism, cubism, and abstract expressionism. I will discuss my own paintings, which attempt to induce a visually indeterminate state in the viewer, and the collaborative work I have done with psychophysicists and neuroscientists to investigate the effect of indeterminate artworks on subjects’ responses and brain functions. This indeterminacy in visual experience is analogous to the inherent indeterminacy operating at quantum levels of reality, according to the standard Copenhagen interpretation. I will suggest that the viewer who interprets an indeterminate image is attempting to ‘collapse’ many potential states into an actual state in the same way states of quantum superposition are said to collapse during observation of sub-atomic events. This, I will argue, suggests a role for consciousness as the process by which the inherent indeterminacy of nature is resolved into the more determinate world we experience. I will close with the claim that the experience of trying to resolve visually indeterminate states demonstrates how the conscious mind acts to bring the world into being for us. C6 328 Do You See What I See: Commonalities in Synesthetic Art Carol Steen (New York) Although awareness of synesthesia has existed for over 300 years, until relatively recently scientists seldom studied it, believing it difficult to explore despite countless similar, though idiosyncratic, anecdotes. They asked can synesthesia be real when what one synesthete reports seeing has little resemblance to what another synesthete says they see when both experience the same ‘trigger’? For example, one synesthete might describe the sound of a trumpet as a biomorphic blue shape, yet for another, it would look like a red pinprick of intense, moving light. In the 1920’s, one of the scientists willing to do research on people who experienced synesthetic photisms, though only from having taken hallucinogenic drugs, was the noted experimental psychologist, Heinrich Kluver. He, among others, wondered if there were any commonalities in what people saw and asked them to draw or paint their visions. He discovered that people drew the same sorts of things and he called these basic forms of perception, “Form Constants”. However, the fact that researchers sought measurable evidence for synesthesia presented no obstacle to genuine synesthetic artists who literally perceive the world differently from individuals without synesthesia and who quietly use the commonalities they experience to create their works. Even if one is not aware of having synesthesia, these
6. Culture and the Humanities 215 “Form Constants” have a way of appearing unconsciously in the artworks of those who are synesthetic and these commonalities can be found if one knows what to look for. In my paper, I will show Heinrich Kluver’s “Form Constants”, as identified by him and others, and discuss various synesthetic elements that some artists, including David Hockney - who knew about synesthesia, and Charles Burchfield, who didn’t, used in their works. I will also explore how visual synesthetic commonalities can be used to investigate the possibility that some artists who are no longer living, like Van Gogh, were synesthetes. C6 329 The Virtual SEER [Self Extension and Experience Realization] in Phenomenological Self Exploration within the Creative Process Tonietta Walters (Center for Applied Aesthetics, NoumenArts Institute, Lauderhill, FL) The SEER [Self Extension and Experience Realization] Model of Creativity is a synthesis of Self-Type 33: Extended Self-Development and Mind Type 41: Experience Realization Forms (Greene 2001) from the extensive creativity meta-research by Richard Tabor Greene, Professor of Knowledge and Creativity at Kwansei University in Japan. The SEER Model both identifies a personal methodology in the phenomenological investigation of inner experience and brackets highly subjective portions within the creative process and aesthetic experience of an artist. The Virtual SEER Exhibition delves into the world of Xhyra Graf - the nom de souris of Tonietta A. Walters, artist and philosopher. The XhyraGraf was born in the MMORPG of Second Life where she putters around meeting people, doing things and going places. She takes photographs that chronicle her experiences, makes the occasional never to be seen in real life sculptures and rather disjointedly tries to maintain her studio and gallery space. Per Roy Ascott, British artist and theorist “Second Life is the rehearsal room for a future in which we endlessly create and distribute our many selves.” (Ascott 2007) The Xhyra- Graf documents the POP3D - Points Of Presence (Walters 2003) in 3D virtual reality of being in its freest form so far as extended into a freely realized construct that includes the physical representations of the color of her skin or the shape of her body and the social representations of the clothes worn, the land owned, the home studio or the entertainment and religious establishments visited. A 3D walkthrough within the Second Life MMORPG and immersive virtual environment adequately enriches the sensory perceptions and phenomenological aspects of digital display. The ‘art viewer’ would experience an immersive environment and a sense of spatial interactivity with the artworks as in a virtual reality game. Both 2-dimensonal and 3-dimensional artworks will be displayed including narratives in digital snapshots of Second Life experiences, virtual sculpture and Xhyra Graf’s reinterpretation of real life artwork such as Epistemai Logos (Walters 2001), A Phenomenological Approach (Walters 2002), Zone: Points of Presence (Walters 2003), Layers of Experience (Walters 2004), The Quality of Red- Bottom Up (Walters 2006), My Last Nerve: Pinpointing the Neural Correlates of Emotion (Walters 2006), Lead Weights: No Concept of Deep Structure Here Either (Walters 2006), and Axis Mundi (Walters 2006). The resulting installation of artwork, including narratives or reference information on supplementary papers and virtual exhibitions, creates an immersive virtual gallery exhibition environment documenting instances of Self Extension and Experience Realization that can be interactively experienced from anywhere in the world. Visit the Virtual SEER here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Flinders%20University/207/73/26/?title=Flin ders%20University%20Social%20Science A1 330 Exploring the Relationship between Affective Response, Psychological Presence and the Aesthetic Experience in a Virtual Environment Brandi Whitemyer, Jon M. Cefus, Kent State University, Stark Campus; Dr. Brian Betz, Kent State University, Stark Campus (Psychology, Kent State University, North Canton, OH) Affective response has been demonstrated to be a defining quality of the aesthetic experience (Freedberg & Gallese, 2007). Cognitive processes by which an individual judges such an experience also hold a reciprocal relationship with the affective response of the individual. Much of the processing of cognitive responsiveness and affective reactivity, particularly in relation to artistic content, results in positive and negative states of consciousness, often pro-
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TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS A
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3 WELCOME Welcome to the 2010 Tucso
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Olympus Corporation of America and
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7 PROGRAM OUTLINE TOWARD A SCIENCE
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Program Outline 9 THURSDAY April 15
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Program Outline 11 Evening 7:30 pm
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Program Outline 13 9:00 - 9:20 pm E
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Pre-Conference Workshops 15 9a Upda
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17 Tuesday, April 13, 2010 CONFEREN
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Program 19 C7 Hein Van Schie, Contr
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Program 21 C10 C11 C12 C13 Phenomen
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Program 23 Art & Media Installation
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Program 25 P4 Richard Blum, The Arc
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Program 27 P6 Augmentations of Cons
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Program 29 Friday, April 16 PL7 PL8
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Program 31 C20 C21 Michael Franklin
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Program 33 P8 Robert Mays, A Theory
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Program 35 P10 Ian O’Loughlin, Co
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Program 37 Herve Lambert, The Conte
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3.11 Cognitive development .. . . .
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1. Philosophy 41 conflict was prima
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1. Philosophy 43 and act. Conscious
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1. Philosophy 45 hood conscious min
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1. Philosophy 47 possess some kind
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1. Philosophy 49 undermine the robu
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1. Philosophy 51 21 Fine-Grained Su
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1. Philosophy 53 Thus, the ability
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1. Philosophy 55 the universe, are
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1. Philosophy 57 the examples, gene
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1. Philosophy 59 (VT), or logical t
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1. Philosophy 61 44 Kicking the Psy
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1. Philosophy 63 mistakes aside, ot
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1. Philosophy 65 consciousness in r
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1. Philosophy 67 1995). One need no
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1. Philosophy 69 positivism. But wh
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1. Philosophy 71 lating to, and thi
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1. Philosophy 73 and phenomenal-lev
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1. Philosophy 75 that consciousness
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1. Philosophy 77 as it stands, cann
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1. Philosophy 79 the CSP explanator
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1. Philosophy 81 potential to becom
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1. Philosophy 83 of thought and lan
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1. Philosophy 85 its properties, an
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1. Philosophy 87 well as it’s abi
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1. Philosophy 89 98 Varieties of Mu
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2. Neuroscience 91 this experience
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2. Neuroscience 93 systems. In fact
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2. Neuroscience 95 a gap junction-d
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2. Neuroscience 97 114 Baseline Bra
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2. Neuroscience 99 synapses of the
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2. Neuroscience 101 tion investigat
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2. Neuroscience 103 and lead to an
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2. Neuroscience 105 2.6 Blindsight
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2. Neuroscience 107 collaboration b
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2. Neuroscience 109 resent a potent
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2. Neuroscience 111 synchrony hypot
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2. Neuroscience 113 cesses on state
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2. Neuroscience 115 2.15 Specific b
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2. Neuroscience 117 is 3 times larg
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3. Cognitive Sciences and Psycholog
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4. Physical and Biological Sciences
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Page 165 and 166: 4. Physical and Biological Sciences
Page 181 and 182: 5. Experiential Approaches 179 resu
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Page 229 and 230: Index to Authors 227 Jungleib S., 2
Page 233 and 234: Study consciousness at home… Two
Page 235 and 236: APRIL 12-17, 2010 TUCSON ARIZONA No
Page 237: Notes
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CONSCIOUSNESS

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