Toward a Science of Concsiousness.

We are pleased to announce that our abstract regarding Bourdieu's Demon has bee accepted for inclusion in the up-coming conference, Toward a Science of Concsiousness.

The Toward a Science of Consciousness (TSC) conferences are the pre-eminent world gatherings on all approaches to the profound and fundamental question of how the brain produces conscious experience, a question which addresses who we are, the nature of reality and our place in the universe. The conference is sponsored by The Center for Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona.

An over view of the abstract follows:

Bourdieu's Demon: An Empirical Study That Supports (and Interrelates) Theories Of Deacon, Dennet, Kauffman, Cooley And Rose.

A compelling study of three different types of strategies used by the affluent when expending discretionary time and money. Each strategy reflects a different model of the socio-economic environment (ther "field") and involves a continuous process of "quasi-economic" trade-offs that channel an individual's attention and resources and result in a self, and a personal and adaptive narrative. The authors begin by applying Bourdieu's theory of how the affuent convert money into social, cultural and intellectual capital. The analysis of actual spending patterns reveals three different strategy sets with three statistically different outcomes. Each strategy set demonstrates a linkage in the process from awareness through motivation to adaptive behavior. This conversion process results in adaptive outcomes consistent with and supportive of (the authors' interpretation of) theories proposed by leading contributors in TSC.

What the 5% do that's different

This is the information age. On the chart below it starts about 1950 with the development of Information Theory (Shannon), invention of the transistor and building of the first electronic computers. The impact of these developments unfolded slowly for almost 30 years (1980's) and then spread dramatically.
To be successful (as defined by earned income) in today's environment a person needs to be able to know which information to pay attention to and what to do with it once it is in hand.  Bourdieu's Demon summarizes research what we learned from extensive research among affluent Americans. The research is focused on understanding what the top 5% do that enables them to be more effective.

What we learned is summarized in the book and will soon be available in workshop format.  In fact within the 5% there is an even smaller percent (Green Strategy Group, in the chart, below) ) who do much better than the others over a long period of time. Please follow this blog to get more information about the research and about the up-coming workshop.