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Coding/Fibonacci suggest a creator. Are there mutations? Yes, Fall of....
A creation can only express from it's point of view.
We've been able to place a brain in vat for sometime, seems we should've localized the exact point of consciousness long ago.
Coding/Fibonacci suggest a creator. Are there mutations? Yes, Fall of....
A creation can only express from it's point of view.
We've been able to place a brain in vat for sometime, seems we should've localized the exact point of consciousness long ago.
lmao. This is a good base line axiom. I use something like it myself as I stated in an earlier post.
Coding/Fibonacci suggest a creator. Are there mutations? Yes, Fall of....
A creation can only express from it's point of view.
We've been able to place a brain in vat for sometime, seems we should've localized the exact point of consciousness long ago.
Its an interesting subject that's for sure.
Last edited by Sophronius; 08-29-2014 at 12:36 PM..
But maybe I don't get your point. I took it as stating that "humans" don't really create things. I have yet seen one thing we have "created" that the universe didn't do already or have more of.
I can be called a humanist based on its definition. And finding things out just to talk about it is not my thing. Finding things out to make stuff is my thing. But I am more of an engineer than a philosopher. I am lucky.
As usual your bias against my spiritual beliefs colors your entire approach to my non-spiritual views . . . which are quite well-explained by Gaylen . . . to absolutely no effect. That lack of effect is what makes my point for me. It has nothing to do with my faith-based theory. My big regret is that my early efforts in this forum gave the impression you repeatedly bring up . . . "that everyone is either ignorant or misguided unless they agree with me." It never was true and still isn't . . . but first impressions are indeed lasting ones. My 30 years as Professor did not serve me well in communicating in this forum early on. And try as I might, I still seem unable to remove the demeanor sufficiently from my posts. But let's get real . . . when the facts are that people are NOT getting something that is so well-explained . . . there are few positive conclusions that can be drawn from it.
Hey PhD,
All these long post get me confused. I am sorry for that. what was you main point? And I know how you feel, sometimes I tend to just spit out known stuff and since I don't like writing it oftn comes out wrong. They take it in a different way then I write it. Cause I suck at writing. But I have to say I like this site very much.
I think your posts are pretty good and you seem to have some expertise - or maybe it only looks like it since I don't.
I'm sorta done with it as I said, though Gaylen's excellent explanations often provoke some more thought. But I really think that I have heard all I need to from the pov of an atheist and the topic.
Why. consciousness is an evolved reaction - evolved to problem -solving level.
How, neurons, and ganglia and electronic messages in various bits of the brain...we know all that
Unexplained. is Unexplained. maybe in time it will be explained. In the meantime there is no reason to suppose that anything 'Something Else' is involved.
And I still see no good reason why something as near intelligence as makes no difference shouldn't be put in a mechanical device. How to simulate stuff that helps humans to reason is one for the problem -solving engineers.
I haven't made it through the entire thread yet, so I'm not sure if it's been mentioned - but the movie Ghost in the Shell (1995 and its sort-of, kind-of 2004 sequel) is a very good examination of these issues. It is very critically acclaimed because of this, and many films have taken their inspiration from it (the Matrix and its green-hue for one famous example, among other features).
It touches on issues such as gender, identity and consciousness and how such concepts have to be re-examined with the advent of AIs and even cyborg bodies. What does it mean to be one's self, if the only "humanity" you possess is your previously-human consciousness in a cyborg body? And how does consciousness arise in the first place, from an evolutionary standpoint? It certainly isn't a prerequisite to survival, and in some instances can be an enormous hindrance. And can AIs claim to have a consciousness, if they ever grow to be self-aware?
The film has the basic plot of Motoko Kusanagi, who works for a government agency - which basically owns her cybernetic body (the financial and technological upkeep of such a body would be out of reach for a normal person not affiliated with such an agency, it is stated) which consists of her consciousness alone, and how she deals with her humanoid and gendered-in-form body, despite having grown up without being what we would call a normal "human". At some point, a computer AI which has been navigating the Net becomes self-aware and achieves consciousness, at which point "it" applies for political asylum.
I am not doing justice to the film, but it's truly a great film to explore the topic of the OP. Watch it NOWWWWW.....
Anyways, aside from the film - I find the problem of how consciousness arose in the first place an interesting one. Hopefully, when I make it through the thread it has been touched on, but if not - what are your thoughts? Why consciousness as an evolutionary trait?
From the sequel: Innocence, the opening. Pretty cool stuff.
Maybe if you get through the whole thread you'll get my angle on it - consciousness evolved in life -forms along with Life. As critters got more active and reactive, awareness, consciousness, problem -solving and in the end reasoning evolved along with it.
The clues to 'How' are surely to be found in examining the most basic forms of 'conscious' critters, plants, viruses and indeed crystals.
The ideas or illusions of self, are (I have a feeling deep down inside) to be seen as just another survival mechanism. I have the idea that - if we have it, it is because we evolved it as a survival mechanism. If it wasn't needed, we wouldn't have it. Language, art, dance, mating rituals (birds have those as well) fear of the dark (oh yes ) and - yes - religious faith , all are evolved behaviours intended to help us survive and out -survive those without those things.
Trying to work out what the perception of self is without taking the wider view is like trying to work out what the sun is with no knowledge of astronomy. I know that is not the same thing as the rather elusive experience of blue, or red or sweetness or self -identity, but that, I believe is the way to get answers, not in trying to argue it out purely in terms of philosophic constructs.
If I perceive a problem in philosophy, it is ivory -towerism.
Notice the difference between what you've said and what the premise of the story about Mary:
Arequipa: Mary has somehow got access to everything we know about 'Red'.
Gaylen: Mary knows everything that she can objectively know about red (i.e., by studying other people's brain activity).
One other problem with this idea. To know everything she can objectively, she'd also have to use whatever objective methods used on other people brain's when they're exposed to red on her own brain while exposing it to red. In the process, she'd experience seeing red. That makes it impossible for her to learn all there is to know objectively without triggering the subjective experience that's she's presumed not to ever have experienced.
Just another reason that the premise can't actually happen here in reality.
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is involved. 
) and - yes - religious faith , all are evolved behaviours intended to help us survive and out -survive those without those things. 
