Castle of Consciousness

About the Book

I. THE APPROACH

Sets the stage for looking at mind as node in an inevitable inter-human communication matrix. The book assumes a dualist stance asserting that mind should not be analyzed with the rules of the material universe discovered by science, and yet some metaphorical substantiation is required if we are to talk about it.        

II.THE CASTLE WALL: MIND AND MATTER    

Metaphors which will be used to discuss mind are couched in their proper frame as conceptual tools. A castle with an interior space standing in the midst of the external universe of other objects and other castles is posited.  Different kinds of openings allow different kinds of  traffic with objects and other subjects.

III.THE CASTLE WINDOW: IMPRESSION

The castle metaphor is used to explain the perception of sense data and the formation of the resulting interior phenomena- impressions.

A. Percept        

1. Percept and the Senses      

2. Percept and the Tenses      

B. Subject and Object Impressions    

C. Pseudo Subject Impressions

IV.THE CASTLE HALL: STRUCTURE OF INNER SPACE

How impressions are stored combined with preexisting impressions; how several impressions combine to form a concept; how several concepts combine to form a constellation; how the constellations combine to form domains.

A. Domains

Direct experience is distinguished from what we are told by others which in turn is distinguished by what we are told by media        

1. Object Domain      

2. Subject Domain      

3. Pseudo Subject Domain

V. THE CASTLE WALKS: DYNAMICS OF INNER SPACE    

A. Assimilation

A detailed look at the intake process; how incoming impressions are validated differently in each domain.  The problem of media impressions.        

B. Proximation

The preparation of various parts of the mind for expected experience        

C.   Integration

The relationship between what we experience directly what we are told by live communication partners and what we are told by media  

1. Integration and Assimilation Order    

2. Disintegration and Mass Media

VI. THE GHOSTLY TOWER:  WILL      

A.  Voluntary Retrieval      

B.   Involuntary Retrieval      

C. Recall of Dreams      

D. Imagination        

E. Evaluation

VII. THE DRAWBRIDGE: EXPRRESSION      

A.  Intent        

1. Attribution      

2. Facticity      

B.  Content        

1.   Violence      

B. Form

1. Development of  Form and the Generation Gap:    

2. Form and Sound      

a. Nonverbal Sounds      

b. Verbal Sounds      

3. Form and Light      

a. Static Visual Expression      

 (1)  Static Symbols    

 (2)  Static Image      

  (a)Wrought Static Image    

  (b) Captured Static Image    

b. Dynamic Visual Expression    

 (1) Dynamic Symbols    

(2) Dynamic Image

(a) The Responsive Dynamic Image : Multimedia

   (b) Virtual Reality    

VIII. CASTLE PRESERVATION      

IX.  MINDEX DIGEST        

A. The Siege of Science

About the Author

John Ciampa started out as a lawyer and then an award winning Hollywood screen writer. He was shocked into philosophy by the exploitation of mass audiences which he observed first hand. He blew up the bridge, his bridge to Hollywood, anyway, in a dramatic lawsuit over his emmy award winning series. Away from the entertainment industry, he began thinking seriously, and writing about media, philosophically. He founded the American Video Institute in New York and began teaching and exploring interactive alternatives to mass media at Columbia and NYU and MIT in the early 70’s. Later he joined the faculty at RIT where he founded graduate a program for Multi Media and a series of electives in Media Philosophy. The holder of two video technology patents, he has also authored two books and numerous articles dealing with media and how it changes who we are and what we are becoming as a species. Professor Ciampa teaches at Rochester Institute of Technology and has lectured extensively all over the world.