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Post by Clockwork on Apr 27, 2012 23:54:43 GMT
Yep
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Post by priok on Apr 28, 2012 1:30:04 GMT
It is all about being able to feel while you are a live.
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 28, 2012 2:05:39 GMT
it's what makes you, you man.
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Post by ganondorfchampin on Apr 28, 2012 15:06:34 GMT
Its what makes me me.
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Post by Zrined on Apr 28, 2012 15:53:17 GMT
Actually, those are characteristics minus pRiok's post.
Consciousness is the awareness of surroundings and the ability to process information about your surroundings in order to experience them.
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Post by noodlesoup on Apr 28, 2012 18:57:07 GMT
Define "awareness". Those vacuum cleaner robots have some degree of "awareness" in their surroundings, and its definitely stored into memory (i.e. "experienced"), but they obviously don't have consciousness.
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Post by Zrined on Apr 28, 2012 19:05:09 GMT
No, experiences require senses. Robot do not have senses.
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Post by Qwerty on Apr 28, 2012 19:43:08 GMT
Why not? They sense stuff. They've got cameras and memory banks just like we do.
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 28, 2012 22:47:09 GMT
Well, here we go... Consciousness is what makes you, you. It's very difficult to describe something so painfully obvious and yet so abstract. There aren't words in the English language to really describe it. So I'll try the best I can. When I say it "Makes you, you". Well. Imagine you had an exact clone. This clone's body was exactly the same as you but it was in a different position. Would you be able to experience what it is feeling? No, your neurons aren't attached. Why wouldn't you be this person, though? Why wouldn't you be him instead of you. If this exact clone existed and you died would your "consciousness" move to his body? This is what consciousness really is. It's what makes you, you. But not your personality, no, it's much more abstract than that. Your consciousness is specifically what happens in your neurons and the fact that you're aware of it, but not of anything else. We can't describe consciousness as the working of the mind with electrons because if we had an exact clone, our consciousness wouldn't move to his, or we wouldn't share experiences, or control our clone. Would we move over to his body once we died? Probably not. With this in mind (Pun not intended), we must prove what consciousness really is. It isn't just the moving of neurons and it isn't being aware of your surroundings. No, those are your thoughts that take care of that. Consciousness isn't our thoughts. Consciousness is the experience of existing. Do chemical reactions or robots have this experience? Probably not. Why is the experience not shared? We're not connected? If each individual person has a consciousness then what's to say computers don't have their own form of consciousness. Why is consciousness constrained to exist within the chemical reaction that is, "Life". Consciousness in a way, is being aware of your surroundings. If we admitted that is was this, however. That would mean computers are conscious. The thing is, you cannot prove, scientifically, if anyone else is conscious. You can only observe yourself being conscious, merely by existing and thinking about it. It's a paradox to some extent. Whilst we must admit, machines and computers can have memory. We can represent memory in a majority of ways. Let's say we have a series of glasses on the table. The order of the glasses represented some code which explained the details of it's surroundings. Does that make this series of glasses conscious? Not at all. Neither do computers, albeit being more complicated, I doubt computers have consciousness at all. If we can represent consciousness with any arbitrary amount of objects and their positions relative to each other, then we can assume that all computers are conscious. I think it is most wise to say in this instance that computers are not conscious for this very reason. So, what makes us (me) conscious? I cannot prove you are conscious, but I believe it so. I know I am conscious but you cannot see if I am. If you say you can, we have conflicting definitions of the term. Consciousness is not our synapses firing. No, that would be tantamount to our glass method of representing the awareness of our surroundings. The truth is, we don't know what makes us conscious. You can't represent something unique to all individuals by saying it's their individual neurons, that would mean any way of saving and processing information would be conscious and aware of it's surroundings in a certain way. You can always transpose the meaning of information or data, and you can always transpose the style of writing of data, and therefore, you can always look at different ways of recording data. A seemingly infinite number of ways. While I wholeheartedly believe that we would not be conscious without our neurons or our nervous system, I do not believe that the consciousness and the reactions of our body are the same, or at least exactly. I believe that something else gives us our consciousness. That consciousness is our very existence. What if no one was conscious but these reactions happened regardless. Would there be meaning to the universe? No, there wouldn't. Perhaps there isn't a meaning now, but we can experience it and it gives at least some meaning to existence regardless. Define "awareness". Those vacuum cleaner robots have some degree of "awareness" in their surroundings, and its definitely stored into memory (i.e. "experienced"), but they obviously don't have consciousness. Some may argue they do. In which case, hats off to you for having stoner thoughts. As I've said, you can represent the environment and how it changes in any number of ways. So at which point does that become consciousness and not just plain reaction? Never. No, experiences require senses. Robot do not have senses. Some, myself included, would argue that robots do have senses. They can be input data about their surroundings. They can be inputted any arbitrary and random data and it could be construed to be valid data about a virtual environment. Or a real environment and accurate data. A camera processes information of an image and records it into memory, does that make it conscious? Is there some abstract construct simply being inputted data, experiencing it, but cannot do anything about it. Is that something's existence? If you believe that the brain and it's reactions are what constitutes as consciousness, then yes, it is. Or if you're like me and feel that the the very idea of any set of data being processed or recorded in any number of ways is preposterous (and there are an infinite ways to do this).. Then no, there isn't some being that experiences the menial workings of a camera and then disappears from the universe for eternity.
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Post by Fringe Pioneer on Apr 29, 2012 0:53:40 GMT
If I may quote Nagel in his "What Is It Like to be a Bat?" essay, consciousness is what it is like to be something. Of things that have consciousness, I may correctly say that there is something it is like to be someone, but that there is nothing it is like to be a piece of paper. To ask what it is like to be a lightbulb or scissors or paper or computers along the lines of the Apple Lisa makes no sense, but it seems very clear that there is an answer if I ask what it is like to be, say, the person sitting next to me and studying for finals.
It would seem necessary (not sufficient) for something that has consciousness to have senses and experiences, i.e. if something has consciousness, then it is able to sense things. I believe that, if we could all agree that something had consciousness, it would have some manner of sensing things. Homo sapiens supposedly has consiousnesses, and so they must have senses; indeed they do - they can interpret with two eyes the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and ultraviolet electromagnetic radiation as "visible light," they can interpret the collision of particles when such collisions have a frequency between 200 cycles per second and 200,000 cycles per second as "audible sound," they can interpret a wide spectrum of force per square area along the surface of most of the organs and skins of the body as "touches," and so on. It is quite obvious that computers equipped with sensory apparatus can have senses, since through those apparatus they too can interpret certain phenomena as some kind of information - it's just that they aren't necessarily sentient or empathetic. It seems that the converse of my previous assertion that senses are necessary to consciousness is not true, i.e. senses are not sufficient to consciousness, i.e. it is not true that, if anything has senses, then it has consciousness.
I should now point out that there is an entire philosophy of mind dedicated to whether consciousness can be reduced to physical phenomena, i.e. saying that consciousness is merely how electrical signals in the neurons of the brain move along, or not. This is the question of Duality: to what extent are mind and brain the same? I can say that we have no proof in either direction, but there are many philosophers who believe that they're exactly the same, completely different non-interacting things, and nearly every other possibility in between those two extreme theories. Of those philosophers, there are three of whom I read, and coincidentally all three of them believe that mind is separate from brain to some extent - Rene Descartes, Thomas Nagel, and David Chalmers. Of them, Rene Descartes was the most radical. I suggest reading Descartes' Discourse on Method, Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?," and Chalmers' "The Logical Possibility of Zombies."
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Post by Vertigo on Apr 29, 2012 0:58:10 GMT
Edit.
I don't know what I was thinking before, but consciousness is in the brain. It doesn't matter how mystified we humans feel about it, that doesn't mean we won't be able to explain it. Even if science can't explain consciousness, then that's the fault of our scientists. Science has the potential to explain all the inner workings of the brain, we just need to approach it the right way.
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 29, 2012 1:08:25 GMT
We can't scientifically prove whether one thing or another is conscious. We can't prove we are conscious, but we know we are if we know what it is. One cannot share the experience, one cannot define it. We can only lead one to it, or attempt to.
An undefinable, improvable, concept and feeling that is the most apparent thing in existence for any human being on this forum.
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 29, 2012 4:48:56 GMT
I've gotten messages that my first text wall was a bit difficult to comprehend. Let me try to fix it with some editing...
What is the human consciousness? Something so painfully obvious and yet so abstract! The human consciousness is something that when realized, can only be described as the most apparent experience. I cannot describe it in words. Perhaps there isn’t a single word to really summarize the feeling. Indeed, consciousness is not able to describe it, because some cannot see it. Consciousness is often described as, “awareness”. What are you aware of, if you are conscious?
Imagine a clone; this clone is unlike a biological clone, such as when we clone a sheep. This clone would be the exact same genetically. It would be the exact same in every aspect. Would you share experiences with this clone? No, you would not. But this clone has the exact same neurological makeup and structure as you. This is what the consciousness is, it really is what makes you, you. For instance, what is the difference between you and a chemical reaction? Life is simply a multitude of individual chemical reactions. Does this mean chemical reactions are conscious? Or is it the processing of storage of data?
Some argue that consciousness is merely a side-effect of the complex neurological processes which makeup the human mind. If this is true, then a computer could attain consciousness, but all computers do is take input data, process this data, and either save this data to memory or output data. No matter how complex we make a computer, at the end of the day it can achieve thoughts that you and I ponder about but it will never be conscious.
If it does, then that means any arbitrary set of data could be construed to have meaning behind it. The relative movement and positions of particles could represent an environment’s conditions and therefore would be aware of its environment. This “awareness” could also be construed as consciousness, but again, this isn’t what consciousness really is. This is simply a misconception of the word consciousness. Only one who knows what consciousness really is knows the definition. Once cannot define it. One cannot prove it between individuals. For instance, I cannot prove I am conscious to others yet I know I am because I experience it. You cannot prove you are conscious to anyone else, nor do you know that anyone else is conscious except for yourself, because one only experiences their consciousness. Consciousness isn’t one thing, nor is it the same between individuals. If it were, we’d exist and experience collectively. This cannot happen because we our nervous systems are separated.
Some may confuse the complex neurological processes inside the brain and consciousness together. Remember back to the clone analogy. If the neurological structures are the exact same, if you died at the exact moment the clone was constructed, would your consciousness “move” to the clones new body? This is often viewed as the problem with transportation. Especially in Star Trek, you are effectively destroying your body and merely constructing an exact replica of it somewhere else. Would your consciousness move over to the new body?
When it comes down to it, the nervous system is a circuit. What gives this specific process consciousness? If any set of data which represents anything, which it can, any meaning of data can be transposed to mean anything different, like a cipher. Does this mean anything? Does this data which can represent the environment mean anything? Remember the relative distance and position of sand in a desert mean anything? Does that make these dust particles conscious? Perhaps that example is too bizarre. Imagine, instead, a camera. This camera has senses, it is inputted data about it’s environment. So does that mean some construct, possibly the camera itself, is conscious? Is there some consciousness experiencing the input of data and being aware of that data inside the camera? If the inter-neuron reactions are the root of our consciousness, then we would have to admit that a camera would be conscious.
Perhaps simply receiving input does not give an entity consciousness. Is life what gives consciousness? Nay, that is incredibly self-centered. The human mind and the consciousness are not the same, but are deeply related. The consciousness itself, however, is a different thing to a certain point. The human consciousness is more of an experience of being aware. Can other things be aware? The human mind can be represented as a circuit, that’s all it is. It’s a computer, albeit a very powerful one. What gives us the “experience” of being a human. Are there entities in this universe which have the experience of being a computer? Who can say for certain. Science will never prove the exact cause of consciousness. Primarily due to the fact that we can’t directly observe other’s consciousness. We can’t scientifically prove that others are conscious. Even then, we must also take into account that some people have conflicted definitions of what consciousness really is or means.
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Post by noodlesoup on Apr 29, 2012 6:35:35 GMT
Imagine you had an exact clone. This clone's body was exactly the same as you but it was in a different position. Would you be able to experience what it is feeling? No, your neurons aren't attached. Why wouldn't you be this person, though? Why wouldn't you be him instead of you. If this exact clone existed and you died would your "consciousness" move to his body? This is what consciousness really is. It's what makes you, you. But not your personality, no, it's much more abstract than that. Your consciousness is specifically what happens in your neurons and the fact that you're aware of it, but not of anything else. We can't describe consciousness as the working of the mind with electrons because if we had an exact clone, our consciousness wouldn't move to his, or we wouldn't share experiences, or control our clone. Would we move over to his body once we died? Probably not. Well, to begin, I'll make the assumption that a god doesn't exist, and transitively, neither does the "soul". Also, I'm going to write as if what I'm saying is my opinion of fact, so I don't have to repeat "I think", "I believe", etc. throughout. The first question ("...experience what he is feeling?"): I agree. Your body wouldn't experience what it is feeling past the point when it was made. The second question (..."why wouldn't you be this person...?"): That simply cannot be taken as fact. Say you were that person. You (clone) would never be able to recollect what it was like when you (clone) were you (you), which still creates the illusion that you (anybody) were the same you (same anybody) the whole time. I'm going to further extend this because it might seem like there's the assumption that consciousness is some sort of entity that can move through bodies. While this might seem plausible if souls existed, my argument assumes they don't, so I'm going to say that consciousness isn't an entity and I'm going to try to explain how it can still exist by saying that the "entity" of consciousness exists in everything at once, but is and is only felt by things which respond to stimuli, which, by the way, brings us closer to defining it. That is, consciousness is merely a byproduct of the "moving of neurons" and "chemical reactions". You say it is not simply reactions that make it, but I say it is. Why do I make this claim? Because reactions are all we are. We may have the state of existence, but because something simply is, doesn't mean anything: existence is the meaningless state of something being something, inherent in everything. So back to what consciousness is. I just stated that reactions are all that make consciousness. We humans, because our brains do nothing but react, feel consciousness. Now imagine a brain that exists, and it is in all ways like ours': there are chemical imbalances, electric signals, etc, and it exists in our poor patient Jeff. Jeff lives in the year 123456789 and he is finally turning 100, but some of his neurons have stopped functioning. He goes to the doctor and the doctor replaces the dead neurons with machines that do the exact same thing. Jeff does this until all of his neurons are replaced, which is on his 200th birthday. Along the way, some of his braincells were dying in some part of his brain which is arbitrary to this argument, but he gets those cells replaced by chemical machines which perform the exact same function, even die. Eventually, the entirety of his brain is replaced by machines. Sure, the brain might be a different color, made of different materials, etc, but its function is unchanged. Jeff still has the exact, unchanged memories he had before, and still more or less responds to things the same way (he has grown in intelligence throughout the span of his 200 years). Jeff's brain has become a "computer". Is he conscious? I say yes, as the actual function of his brain had been preserved exactly. Now with that established I will return to the question: "What is consciousness?". It is the byproduct experienced by a system that performs some reactive function; but instead of saying what causes it, what is that byproduct itself? Maybe it's just an illusion created by the limited amount of information that is within a system. At least that answers the thought "what makes me me, and nobody else?" And that is my onion. Also sorry for the late post. I kind of just let this one sit for a while.
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 29, 2012 15:15:06 GMT
When I imply soul, it would imply that soul and consciousness are indeed the same thing. To say the soul doesn't exist is tantamount to saying your consciousness, also, doesn't exist.
Let's take Jeff. If Jeff had no consciousness, he would be unchanged to us. He would appear, react, and talk the exact same way. Seemingly, if you did not have a consciousness, you yourself would not be aware of anything. You would not exist. Your body, however, would perform these reactions regardless. It would do the same thing, but without "you". The entire argument that a consciousness exists seems to be unexplainable by a net of neurons. So to say a god doesn't exist might seem a bit early. You try to explain these things with logic and reason. You can hardly explain the sensation of consciousness with logic and reason. Because we can't actually test any of these anecdotes. I do not believe that my exact clone would have my consciousness. Ergo once I die, I will go over to his vessel instead and be aware of what he is doing, or at that point, what "I" am doing. However, I cannot be sure. We can't scientifically test any of these scenarios. The same goes for a god, but that is another debate and I think a god is even more abstract than a consciousness.
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Post by Fringe Pioneer on Apr 29, 2012 17:28:50 GMT
Well, to begin, I'll make the assumption that a god doesn't exist, and transitively, neither does the "soul". * Moderate snipping courtesy of General Veers.* I'm going to further extend this because it might seem like there's the assumption that consciousness is some sort of entity that can move through bodies. While this might seem plausible if souls existed, my argument assumes they don't, so I'm going to say that consciousness isn't an entity and I'm going to try to explain how it can still exist by saying that the "entity" of consciousness exists in everything at once, but is and is only felt by things which respond to stimuli, which, by the way, brings us closer to defining it. I have something I want to point out: even if I accept your assumption that there is no such thing as a soul (the definition of which is in itself another philosophical question), that doesn't necessarily mean that consciousness is not also some sort of "entity" that can travel through bodies. Why do you assume that only the soul has the property of being a non-physical thing that can move among bodies?
The rest of your argument, especially your logical conceivability thought experiment of hospitalized Jeff, is quite an interesting argument with which I see no immediate faults...
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 29, 2012 17:38:32 GMT
...Other than the immense difficulty in gradually replacing each individual neuron with more durable parts...
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Post by Fringe Pioneer on Apr 29, 2012 17:53:57 GMT
Yes, it might be practically impossible, but it's logically conceivable without contradiction - just because we don't actually have the time, expertise, or resources to do what M4 described in his thought experiment doesn't mean someone/something that hypothetically did could not. Just because we don't actually have the time, the events, or the special Boolean light device to resolve a paradox of simultaneity doesn't mean that people who could hypothetically set up Einstein's thought experiment concerning lightning zapping both sides of a moving train car and making the light turn red or greed depending on whether the light from the lightning hit the light simultaneously or not could not. The thing about a thought experiment is that it postulates an experiment that would practically be near impossible to do in order to demonstrate a concept and show its possibility. This is exactly what M4 was doing. Speaking of which, it's exactly what your own argument below could use to strengthen it - as your argument stands, it begs the question of whether consciousness can be reduced to functional phenomena or not. Let's take Jeff. If Jeff had no consciousness, he would be unchanged to us. He would appear, react, and talk the exact same way. Seemingly, if you did not have a consciousness, you yourself would not be aware of anything. You would not exist. Your body, however, would perform these reactions regardless. It would do the same thing, but without "you". Why do you presume that philosophical zombies are possible? Why do you presume that, without consciousness, Jeff would still be functionally equivalent? If this argument is to prove that consciousness cannot be reduced to functional phenomena, you're doing so by assuming that consciousness cannot be reduced to functional phenomena and ergo commit the fallacy of begging the question, i.e. of assuming the truth of what you intend to argue in order to argue for its truth. Now, you can improve this argument by taking Chalmers' route. His argument essentially rests in asking if others think that philosophical zombies are conceivable without contradiction and then arguing that, if they believe that philosophical zombies are conceivable without contradiction and that consciousness can be reduced to functional phenomena, then they must necessarily be contradicting themselves and ergo prove for Chalmers that consciousness cannot be reduced to functional phenomena...
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 29, 2012 17:56:51 GMT
I presume he would be the same because we can explain our actions with neurons, but not our consciousness. You first have to understand what the consciousness is, or more importantly what I perceive it to be, in order to fully comprehend that excerpt. Philosophical zombie? Hardly, it would be you, but you yourself wouldn't exist. I think the easiest way to describe it, is the teleportation anecdote.
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Post by Fringe Pioneer on Apr 29, 2012 18:06:10 GMT
A philosophical zombie is an exact physical and functional copy of you, except without consciousness. That's exactly how you described Jeff, other than the irrelevant detail that no copying actually took place. It has nothing at all to do with Hollywood zombies or Treyarch zombies or Valve zombies.
Just because we currently can explain our actions with neurology and not by means of a consciousness does not mean we will never be able to explain our actions in terms of consciousness. Maybe one day we can better understand what consciousness is. You are free to assume that consciousness cannot be reduced to physical phenomena, you just can't prove the very thing you assume.
Anyhow, for the sake of letting others in the thread know what the Teleportation Problem is, could you describe the problem and then draw your conclusions from it?
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Post by noodlesoup on Apr 29, 2012 18:47:31 GMT
Edit: This was in response to reply 14, with the unconscious Jeff analogy. I still haven't addressed GV's question about whether or not it is okay to assume the soul isn't an entity, so the below argument still relies on that.
Going to comment on the first few lines of that: the "soul" I mention and consciousness would not be equal, not by my definitions. When I say soul I also imply consciousness, but I add to the definition other characteristics you'd find in religious texts, importantly, the "fact" that the soul is moving, and is some sort of entity. I assume that there is no "soul", but even I can't deny that I am conscious, so when I say there's no "soul", I'm only negating the other previously said characteristics, leaving it to be consciousness and only consciousness.
As to poor Jeff, you shouldn't assume right off the bat that he has no consciousness. At the beginning of my analogy, he was human, and so I think it's safe to assume that he had consciousness (whether or not you can prove that any other regular human has consciousness is another debate). What isn't explained in your unconscious-Jeff analogy is how he loses his consciousness, for people don't just lose consciousness while seemingly being unchanged. Do you mean he loses it by small degrees as his brain is slowly replaced?
The first assumption made in your analogy is that Jeff is now unconscious. Restated it says: "Let's assume your conclusion is wrong," (In the conscious-Jeff analogy my conclusion was "Jeff is still conscious") without actually explaining how he came to be that way, and actually stating that everything is the same, so I will elaborate as to why Jeff's consciousness cannot just be taken away if everything else is left unchanged. In my analogy I used reasons to argue why Jeff's consciousness remained the same from human to machine: brain functionality was preserved exactly from cell to cell. Thus I equated the consciousness of Human-Jeff to the consciousness of Machine-Jeff. By saying that Machine-Jeff's consciousness can just be abruptly taken away without changing brain functions, transitively states that Human-Jeff's consciousness can also be taken away without changing brain functions, which is simply false, (I am) assuming that you can't make a normal human unconscious without changing him otherwise.
And yes, it is too early to decide on the god issue, but for this debate, a side ought to be taken, for what causes consciousness is essential to knowing what it is. I chose the atheist stance because I don't want to get into anything involving magic. But the debates should be separated, so those debating assume the same initial conditions.
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 30, 2012 2:15:24 GMT
We have to assume that right off the bat he has no consciousness. One can only determine if they, themselves have consciousness. Because we cannot scientifically prove that anyone actually has consciousness because it can only ever be observed by one person.
And wouldn't that magic just be a term which represents something we don't understand?
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Post by noodlesoup on Apr 30, 2012 3:33:40 GMT
Would it have been better if I replaced the word "Jeff" with "you"?
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Post by Clockwork on Apr 30, 2012 12:32:29 GMT
My point is that since we're unable to prove our, or anyone's consciousness to anyone else. Replacing "Jeff" with "Me" wouldn't help either, only I would be able to observe whether or not I had consciousness. And if I did I would be unable to tell, or really know, seeing as I may be unconscious.
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Post by Fringe Pioneer on Apr 30, 2012 14:03:22 GMT
You do realize we're unable to prove just about anything, don't you? You know how there are some dreams that seem so real that, when you wake up, you have trouble identifying what was real and what was from the dream? Do you also know how, despite how unrealistic some dreams can be, you don't really give any second thoughts to the dream being unrealistic until you're awake and reflecting back upon the dream? You raise your hand in front of you with deliberation and stare at it, just really stare at it, and you then focus on the warmth of the fireplace as you continue to lounge in bed, and you think to yourself yes, this can't be a dream, for I feel these things deliberately, and then it occurs to you that you have had dreams where you also did similar deliberate things. The dreams were so convincing while you were dreaming, although the dreams seem to be nothing but imaginative streams of thought as you reflect upon them now. Then you add two and two together: what if you're dreaming right now, but think you're awake for the same reason you don't realize you're dreaming when you're dreaming? This can't be, you think, for I'm sure I'm awake now - I can see these things, and feel other things, and can perceive in what I believe to be a most deliberate way that can't be done in dreams, but you argue back against yourself, but I never believed myself to be dreaming while I was dreaming, and I could see and feel and otherwise perceive things just as well in dreams and never come to the conclusion that I most definitely am dreaming or waking, so just how exactly can I be sure? You realize the horrible problem at hand: how can you reliably distinguish between dream and reality? What could you do to convince yourself that this is indeed reality, and not a dream, or what could you do to convince yourself that you really were in a dream while you actually dream the next time you go to sleep? The problem is not that you definitely are asleep and can't tell that you're asleep, nor is the problem that you definitely are awake but can't tell that you're awake - no, the problem is much worse. The problem, put succinctly, is that you don't know in which of the two situations you are and have no way to know beyond any reasonable doubt.
Oh, you comfort yourself, just because my senses could be deceived and any a posteriori knowledge I may have had may be cast in doubt doesn't mean that my reasoning and any a priori knowledge is! I can use logic to figure things out. Ok, technically I can't, but I have the capacity to use logic to figure things out! Having fooled yourself into certainty for the moment, you take comfort at the thought, but no sooner thought than another one comes. What if there exists some deus deceptor, some evil genius, as powerful as Christians imagine their God to be but as evil as God is good? What if such a being, having full control, manipulated your very thoughts so that, when you add two and two together, instead of getting the correct answer, you actually get an incorrect answer of four but imagine yourself as being right anyways? What if math as we thought we knew it was wrong all along because this evil genius, this deus deceptor always made anyone who dared to reason about math make the same mistakes every time, all the time? What if any or all of logic suffered the same way - what if this all powerful, all evil being made us err so that all our proofs actually are terribly unsound and not at all proofs, but we thought ourselves to be correct and to have made sound proofs that work? Why, what if this evil genius actually made us think any and all of the things that we think?
Woe is me, you cry to yourself, for I cannot ever argue that I am or am not being controlled in such ways if indeed this monstrosity makes me err every time I attempt logic itself! Whatever am I to do? Is there nothing I know? Nothing at all? The point is, since we can't know anything at all beyond a reasonable doubt and just sink deeper into the problem the more we attempt to struggle with the problem, we do something called "making assumptions." We assume that logic ultimately works. We assume we exist. We assume physics works. We assume physics will continue to work. We can assume pretty much anything we want. I'll explain further, but I must leave for class now if I don't want to be late (assuming there is a class, and that I am in trouble of being late, and that the concept of time as I believe in it is indeed how I believe it to be, and so on and so forth)...
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Post by Clockwork on May 2, 2012 10:47:20 GMT
You do realize we're unable to prove just about anything, don't you? You know how there are some dreams that seem so real that, when you wake up, you have trouble identifying what was real and what was from the dream? Do you also know how, despite how unrealistic some dreams can be, you don't really give any second thoughts to the dream being unrealistic until you're awake and reflecting back upon the dream? You raise your hand in front of you with deliberation and stare at it, just really stare at it, and you then focus on the warmth of the fireplace as you continue to lounge in bed, and you think to yourself yes, this can't be a dream, for I feel these things deliberately, and then it occurs to you that you have had dreams where you also did similar deliberate things. The dreams were so convincing while you were dreaming, although the dreams seem to be nothing but imaginative streams of thought as you reflect upon them now. Then you add two and two together: what if you're dreaming right now, but think you're awake for the same reason you don't realize you're dreaming when you're dreaming? This can't be, you think, for I'm sure I'm awake now - I can see these things, and feel other things, and can perceive in what I believe to be a most deliberate way that can't be done in dreams, but you argue back against yourself, but I never believed myself to be dreaming while I was dreaming, and I could see and feel and otherwise perceive things just as well in dreams and never come to the conclusion that I most definitely am dreaming or waking, so just how exactly can I be sure? You realize the horrible problem at hand: how can you reliably distinguish between dream and reality? What could you do to convince yourself that this is indeed reality, and not a dream, or what could you do to convince yourself that you really were in a dream while you actually dream the next time you go to sleep? The problem is not that you definitely are asleep and can't tell that you're asleep, nor is the problem that you definitely are awake but can't tell that you're awake - no, the problem is much worse. The problem, put succinctly, is that you don't know in which of the two situations you are and have no way to know beyond any reasonable doubt.
Oh, you comfort yourself, just because my senses could be deceived and any a posteriori knowledge I may have had may be cast in doubt doesn't mean that my reasoning and any a priori knowledge is! I can use logic to figure things out. Ok, technically I can't, but I have the capacity to use logic to figure things out! Having fooled yourself into certainty for the moment, you take comfort at the thought, but no sooner thought than another one comes. What if there exists some deus deceptor, some evil genius, as powerful as Christians imagine their God to be but as evil as God is good? What if such a being, having full control, manipulated your very thoughts so that, when you add two and two together, instead of getting the correct answer, you actually get an incorrect answer of four but imagine yourself as being right anyways? What if math as we thought we knew it was wrong all along because this evil genius, this deus deceptor always made anyone who dared to reason about math make the same mistakes every time, all the time? What if any or all of logic suffered the same way - what if this all powerful, all evil being made us err so that all our proofs actually are terribly unsound and not at all proofs, but we thought ourselves to be correct and to have made sound proofs that work? Why, what if this evil genius actually made us think any and all of the things that we think?
Woe is me, you cry to yourself, for I cannot ever argue that I am or am not being controlled in such ways if indeed this monstrosity makes me err every time I attempt logic itself! Whatever am I to do? Is there nothing I know? Nothing at all? The point is, since we can't know anything at all beyond a reasonable doubt and just sink deeper into the problem the more we attempt to struggle with the problem, we do something called "making assumptions." We assume that logic ultimately works. We assume we exist. We assume physics works. We assume physics will continue to work. We can assume pretty much anything we want. I'll explain further, but I must leave for class now if I don't want to be late (assuming there is a class, and that I am in trouble of being late, and that the concept of time as I believe in it is indeed how I believe it to be, and so on and so forth)... Oh dear...
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Post by Qwerty on May 3, 2012 1:07:25 GMT
A+ post, would read again.
Okay, fine. Have a video:
It describes consciousness, yeah, but it also explains how it is perfectly explainable. Last I checked you were missing a few steps in your logic, this should help fill the gaps.
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Post by Clockwork on May 3, 2012 1:44:08 GMT
That's a fantastic video but that's exactly what I posted in chat the other day while you were trying to go off about some computer (cleverbot analogy insert here). Great video though, it's basically a mash-up of everything we've already covered.
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Post by Qwerty on May 3, 2012 1:50:37 GMT
It's not exactly what you said. Either that or you were explaining it very poorly indeed. What you said is that consciousness isn't explainable by science, and what this shows is that via various diseases it is indeed explainable, we just don't know the explanation.
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Post by Fringe Pioneer on May 3, 2012 3:39:16 GMT
Please forgive me for my ignorance, but where in the video did it show that consciousness is "perfectly explainable"? From what I saw in the video, consciousness still remained as mysterious as ever and still doesn't seem to give either Dualists or Materialists any ground. Indeed, the video only brought up more questions rather than answering any, except perhaps for giving a definition of consciousness...
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