I meant fundamentally different, just as I specified later in that very post. And how do we justify thinking human "care" is anything different from a computer with a "care"-flag which informs its behaviour?
Wrong question, obviously. What you should be asking is how anyone can justify thinking the "care" flag is anything like the caring of an amoeba for its own survival - never mind the sort of caring that is unique to humans - without looking like an imbecile.
Note that I have not made a claim for consciousness being either the same as a computer or different to a computer. I see no justification for either claim, and so, I want to look closer at the claim you make, not the claim you don't make. We already agree on the answer to the question you ask here, why are you dancing around the part where we disagree?
Then you cannot help but agree that the question I was responding to is retarded... ...but evidently you are oblivious to the fact that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.
No, I think both questions are just as valid, one of them just didn't address the issue I was trying to get at, nor had anything to do with your initial statement.
are you always prone to nonsensical responses? My bad, I meant "consciousness", not conscientiousness. Nice strawman. who knew that getting lost in creative thought is all about self aggrandizement and not caring about other lives. No, its my first, hence my question. Unfortunately text cannot add the intonation for a mixture of incredulity and amusement regarding such a nonsensical response.
Actually, since my response was perfectly on point, which clearly cannot be said for what I was responding to, the question is irredeemably retarded. Hope that clears things up for ya. On the contrary, it's a perfectly reasonable inference from your claim that being lost in thought requires sapience. Speaking of strawmen... Well I can hardly expect a perfectly cogent response to make sense to anyone is clearly under a compulsion to claim I said what I never said, claim he never said what he did say, and ignore his own hidden premises.
"perfectly on point", does not eliminate the fact that it was nonsensical. But given your obvious expertise on irredeemably retarded, perhaps you can provide a description of how you arrived at such an insight? Yes. It requires the ability to reason, it requires knowledge, it requires creativity, it requires intelligence. In fact, to the best of my knowledge only sapients can get lost in thought. Er, quoting your response directly isn't a strawman. A compulsion? that's a good one. It seems we shall just have to disagree on what a "perfectly cogent response" is in this instance.
Happily, no such fact exists, so no elimination is necessary. Prolly could, but I'm nowhere near dumb enough to waste that kind of effort on someone who's not the least bit interested. Thanks for admitting your claim of "strawman" was a lie. To be sure, bearing in mind that a sapient (granting arguendo its dubious utility as a noun) is reasonably defined as a creature with the capacity for wisdom, not one which employs said capacity unwaveringly. Certainly it wouldn't be, but of course that's nothing like what you did.
Some type of meditation can help toward realizing self awareness. Something as simple as sitting still and concentrating on one's own breathing to the exclusion of all else is a time tested technique. Maybe some kind of action that tends to focus most or all of one's consciousness such as (but not limited to) sports, music, art,etc. can IMO also act as a meditative. It is difficult to become self-aware because of all the sensory input we receive while conscious. It all must be processed, categorized, saved and/or relegated to obscurity in our brain. I also believe that sleep is a semi-meditative state where we can 're-live' sensory input safely that may have escaped our waking, conscious mind and, because we are normally paralyzed during rem sleep, the physical consequences of our actions is minimized however I believe it does allow us to resolve it (the sensory input).
Never been. An argument should be subjected to all possibly kinds of scrutiny, but the obvious ones I can work out for myself, I only need you to answer the hard ones and the ones I don't think add up. But since me asking about it doesn't seem to cut it, I'll repeat it and make it a bit more specific. You claim that there is a fundamental difference between self-reference in a computer and a human self. I claim that while I have no opinion on the matter for the purposes of this discussion, I think the claim you make is not sufficiently supported by the information you have given. There are other questions, such as "Is there a good argument for the opposite position?" or "why isn't there mouse-flavoured cat food?" but they are not relevant for the argument I'm trying to make.
You understand it's something we fall away from rather than something we achieve, right? That's not where the difficulty lies, because all that processing is automatic. The difficulty lies in the proclivity to become fascinated with certain processing outputs, such as, for men, the image of a woman in a short skirt. This is not interesting. I'll be the judge of that. No it isn't, because I have no use for bland assurances with no basis in fact.
How easily you dismiss inconvenient fact. Nice evasion, but I am always interested in gaining an understanding of how others arrive at their perspectives, no matter how dumb they may be. Thanks for admitting your claim of "strawman" was a lie. I am unaware of any human that has the capacity to employ wisdom unwaveringly, but that does not in any way take away from human sapience. You said: I replied: . do you always deny your own statements, when they are demonstrated to be ridiculously dumb?
No effort is required for the dismissal of vacuities. Please, I wasn't born yesterday. And as everyone can see, the two quotes are substantively different. No doubt it pleases you to cast the discrepancy as trivial, but clearly you sense, at least on an unconscious level, that you cannot find fault with what I actually said, so you are compelled to pretend I said something else. But of course that's the sort of conduct that can be expected from those who have abandoned their self-awareness. Seeing I can't recall ever doing such a thing, I can't answer the question. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Self awareness requires one to 'fall away' from all the 'noise' that would distract from focus. Not sure if we agree here though. OK PROCESSING OUTPUTS then....They7 still have to be dealt with as with your 'short skirt' metaphor. BTW, difficulty is part of life as is being fascinated with sexual proclivity. We still have to choose what tasks to put our conscious mind to.
that's only cause the human capacity to understand complexity is limited. Our brains (and even bacteria) are far more complex than our minds can ever understand. Because our minds are unable to understand such complexity, we are unable to understand how such complexity can result in properties such as consciousness. But that does not mean that such complexity cannot result in consciousness, just because our minds are too feeble to understand it. Certainly, the circumstantial evidence (ie the evidence that we have without having a full understanding of the complexity) does suggest that consciousness (and indeed all functions of the human brain) are entirely biologically based.
I am not surprised you have difficulty in differentiating fact from vacuity. No, I am sure it wasn't yesterday, but it seems not long enough ago to comprehend that understanding how others arrive at their perspectives is a fundamental concept in communications. A field I was rather successful in over my 35 year career. The two quotes are not substantively different. My statement is simply a logical inference from your definitive statement of cause. Getting "lost in thought" especially when problem solving (sometimes creative inspiration can come at the most inopportune times) is not motivated by self aggrandizement, unless the person is a giant walking/talking sociopathic sphincter. I guess you haven't met many mathematicians or other scientists in your life, nor gotten off on a purely intellectual challenge. Maybe as you get older. Getting lost in thought has nothing to do with how much an individual may care about the lives of others. What a completely idiotic statement. . I suppose one could describe suicide as abandonment of self awareness as the only humans without self awareness are dead or brain damaged. denial of the denial. I see a pattern emerging here. No inconvenience, but certainly a modicum of amusement, thank you.
You asked for our opinion and you got it. But very well, then I proclaim your thread start uninteresting.
"Falling" obviously means a lowering of one's elevation WRT some frame of reference, in this case a spiritual one; so here you succeed only in confusing the issue. There seems to be an objection here, but its specific nature is a complete mystery to yours truly. So you don't understand complexity, but you have faith that it accounts for sentience nonetheless. Pretty much got that bang on, haven't I? As if "understanding complexity" had any meaning to begin with. I suppose it might be interesting to others to know how bad toilet training might have led you to adhere to such a disgracefully idiotic perspective, but this is hardly the proper environment for such an exposition even if I had any reason to give a damn. No doubt it appears that way to the sophistically inclined. Only in the shallowest sense of the term. And an unwarranted one, obviously.
Well lets investigate this. We do have an understanding of some functions of the human brain. Human vision, for instance, is completely understood - we understand the exact neuronal structure of the parts of the brain that are responsible for vision. We do have a complete understanding of human motor and sensory function. Those parts of the brain have also been mapped out. We have some understanding of human memory. But what we don't have is an understanding of human consciousness - probably because this is a much higher order function, and requires a complex interplay between several parts of the brain. We do know that a certain pattern of brain activity is associated with consciousness, but we don't know exactly which parts of the brain are responsible for what. So that's what I mean when I say - we don't understand the complexity behind consciousness. But we can make a few deductions. We do understand the biological basis for several functions of the brain. We also know that consciousness can be manipulated with only chemicals - I can alter your level of consciousness simply by manipulating the chemical environment of the neurons in the brain. Given all this, it seems highly likely that consciousness is nothing more than a property of the neuronal structure of the brain. Certainly, this is a reasonable conclusion, and far more reasonable than any other conclusion that one can dream up (ie that consciousness requires some supernatural forces - like spirits or whatever).
This is a very, very important point. Only wen we realize that people are important will we realize that people are important. Self awareness is selfishness to the extreme. It's been marketed as otherwise. Self awareness is definitely selfishness.
