Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 11:26am PT
|
Because you are a human being like myself and I am conscious.
so we agree because we "behave" like we are humans?
so the definition of consciousness is restricted to humans.
Don't you ever have the feeling, when your car is doing failing in some complicated way, that it has some sort of "consciousness"?
If I hit you on your big toe with a hammer and ask you if it hurts, I believe you and I will conclude that you're conscious...especially after you punch me in the face. The same can't be said of the car if I were to hit it with a hammer. But this is a crude experiment and only measures for human consciousness.
yet there are some anesthetics which would allow you to hit my big toe and I wouldn't feel the hurt, yet I am "conscious," "awake" and looking at you do it... or a doctor digging into my body somewhere...
in your example I am not "conscious" yet I seem to be conscious...
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 11:38am PT
|
so we agree because we "behave" like we are humans?
so the definition of consciousness is restricted to humans.
I didn't say the definition of consciousness was restricted to humans. I saw your question as being restricted to yourself, I then asked myself "so how do I know that Ed is conscious, relative to a car."
|
|
jstan
climber
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 11:48am PT
|
I'm just asking anyone here, how do you know that I have consciousness and that the car does not.
We know a car does not have "C". If it did it would move away when I try to get into the driver's seat. As yet, this has never happened to me and I have not heard of it happening to anyone else.
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 11:49am PT
|
If it did it would move away when I try to get into the driver's seat.
Hahahaha
|
|
STEEVEE
Social climber
HUMBOLDT, CA
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 12:18pm PT
|
in your example I am not "conscious" yet I seem to be conscious...
Yes. As I said it was a crude experiment. Everything you wrote in your reply to my post I agree with. There are different levels of consciousness that you and I can agree with, one being that if you and I were sitting across from one another and having this conversation I would agree that you're conscious...and I would believe you would agree that I was conscious.
I have worked with patients with TBI's and schizophrenia. We have done functional MRI studies on them to determine how their brain functions differently than a "normal" brain. What I've always wondered was how that 3 Tesla magnetic field skews the results, because we already know that everybody exposed to a 3T field suffers short term memory loss, although short live once removed from the field. Once we start to measure and observe something it becomes separated from everything else. It becomes it own reality so to speak. I know that "who" someone was before a brain injury is different from "who" they are after, at least in terms of behavior. The brain, although complex, is still a crude piece of equipment. Yet, its ability heal itself, its plasticity are maybe the "mind" we should be looking at. Why does the brain heal, even if its patient wishes to die? Why does the patient wish to live even though the "voices" in their diseased brain tell her to die? I don't know and neither do the people smarter than me.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 12:32pm PT
|
I saw your question as being restricted to yourself, I then asked myself "so how do I know that Ed is conscious, relative to a car."
I'll let you in on a little secret... "Ed" wrote a SuperTopoChatBot that posts when he's away or otherwise uninterested... but keeps his "place" as it were... when he is out climbing or otherwise posing.
The STCB is not so complicated... but it responds to this particular STForum thread.
As Largo points out, the STCB doesn't have "experience," but Ed has distilled the thread down into a theory and programmed the STCB to respond as if it were Ed.
How would you know?
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 12:47pm PT
|
how do you know that I have consciousness and that the car does not.
I am having deja vu.
This reminds me of a question that came up a couple weeks ago about what is 4th class climbing. I remembered Oplopanax having posted a good definition years ago but could not find it lately. I did find Oplopanax pointing out where others err in their attempts to define 4th class climbing. Oplopanax is a smart guy. Or simulates one.
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 01:25pm PT
|
How would you know?
That's why I prefaced my earlier reply with the caveat "my short answer".
I fully realize I am not only making an assumption about the nature of " Ed" ---but I am also investing in an epistemologically-based assumption as regards the term "know".
I make these assumptions because the only information I had at the time was a simple garden-variety Ed ---who like myself ,to the best of my knowledge when the question was posed-- is a human being---while fully entertaining the notions that Ed could perhaps be an ET,or an AI robot, or part of a cosmological simulation.
This whole thing reminds me of a question I posed way up thread when I asked how can a person know in the context of a casual encounter , such as in a grocery store, that a flawlessly appearing android was or wasn't capable of self-conscious thought.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 01:52pm PT
|
This whole thing reminds me of a question I posed way up thread when I asked how can a person know in the context of a casual encounter , such as in a grocery store, that a flawlessly appearing android was or wasn't capable of self-conscious thought.
I think the answer is: you cannot.
Not only that, but you cannot know if the STCB or "Ed" has consciousness, either. Our agreement on behavior is based on the assumption that if I am a human, I share something in common with you, and since you experience consciousness, and I am a human, than I experience consciousness too. That is the limit of the test, it seems. Our faculty to anthropomorphize conveys human qualities on non-human things, both animate and inanimate. But we cannot actually determine if the person next to us has consciousness or not... they behave, for the most part, as if they do. And we agree that that behavior implies the property of consciousness, even though we cannot define what consciousness is, at least not to everyone's satisfaction on this thread.
Largo would allow that a human has consciousness. If he is interacting with an unknown entity that he assumes is human, he will allow that entity the property of consciousness. If he learns that the entity is not human, a machine, he would revoke the possibility that the entity has consciousness.
Largo would be in the minority of people so doing, as it seems that, at least in "experimental philosophy," that participants in surveys have a broader acceptance of the possibility of what can have consciousness. To invoke "common sense" with no concept if that "sense" was "common" is yet another pitfall in sitting by yourself thinking things through...
Largo will reject the possibility that the STCB exists, based on his unsupported presumptions.
|
|
STEEVEE
Social climber
HUMBOLDT, CA
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 02:09pm PT
|
But we cannot actually determine if the person next to us has consciousness or not... Have you tried to determine whether your belayer is conscious or not?
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 03:22pm PT
|
sure, and usually we agree that we are both conscious...
but it is an interesting to ask how we come to that agreement. It's not based on any rigorous test, it's based on a rather loose set of criteria that are not very well defined.
while we may give a large latitude to our fellow humans condition of consciousness, there seems to be a larger reluctance to give it to other things.
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 04:21pm PT
|
We are certainly conscious when we are engaged in difficult rock gymnastics, but temporarily not self-conscious, consciousness implying the ability to cope with a difficult problem - perhaps machine consciousness (MC). Awareness vs consciousness? When in MC mode we don't speculate about the consciousness of others.
Question for EDBOT: How do you determine whether or not I am a JOHNBOT?
;>)
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2015 - 04:56pm PT
|
There are a lot of Muslim men who expect those virgins upon flying off to paradise. And a lot of Christians who are certain they will have eternal life. And they may be right . . . but these are beliefs, not proven facts.
The experiential adventures cannot ever be conflated with belief-based religious groups claiming things about virgins and so forth. This is the purest foolishess.
Experiential adventures are all technique-based - you shut up and stop calculating and cultivate this no-mind - and never mind the content that comes up, who the hell is experiencing and what is this presence we live moment to moment. The whole idea of placing this exploration into a place where you are right or wrong is to falsely try and graft a -proof-based discursive skein over the top of what is based on staying present with no-thing, including virgins LOL.
Also, the idea that there is no sound way to verify or test what occurs is also not remotely based on anything but speculation. But since the testing is not numerical, those knowing no other mode cry foul. Fair enough. But when you speculate per what it means and does not mean understand that you are into flapdoodle and woo. Again, just notice how this conversation continually loops back to a strand of scientisim at most every turn.
As difficult as it is to try and objectify the subjective, note how hard it is to shut up and stop calculating. Most people can't get past the vestibule. The delusion is that they could if "only I choose to." And so we have people conflating experiential adventures with flying virgins. Content with no-thing.
Mercy...
JL
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 05:01pm PT
|
Modern science has no clue what consciousness is.
Consciousness is the source of all living entities life force.
It's the most shameful that modern science has no clue of the life force of all living beings.
Even a simple amoeba and blade of grass exhibit consciousness.
Because of their clueless-ness, modern science is engaged in so much destructive materialism and completely neglects the living entities life force.
You should be very ashamed ....
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 05:38pm PT
|
JL:
But since the testing is not numerical, those knowing no other mode cry foul.
Who are those knowing only the numerical mode of testing?
You are out of your water and your vision is compromised.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2015 - 06:07pm PT
|
Dingus, both QM and the experiential adventures are perhaps the only two disciplines that take a studied look at the undifferentiated. The end games of bot are totally different - QM uses human awareness, instrumentation and numerical-based systems to probe objective content (the phenomenon) "out there," while the experiential adventures use human awareness to probe subjective sentience/presence and the fundamental nature of observing. Different games entirely, and maybe the two will yield some similar fruit so long as we don't get so foolish to make sweeping statements about, say, sentience based on mere numbers, and vica versa.
And Ed wants to know if we can "prove" that he has sentience and the car does not.
First, I would ask Ed what he means by "sentience?" What is IT that he wants me to prove?
Second, we can bet our bottom dollar that the "proof" Ed asks about is some thing or behavior or content that we can objectify as a thing, get back to measuring, dash off some experiments and "prove" some thing we call sentience does - or does not - exist.
Problem is that "mind" or consciousness is not a thing or an object we can objectify AND STILL STAY WITH MIND AS AN 'EMPTY,' undifferentiated PHENOMENON. The moment we DO objectify mind, it is perhaps like measuring at the quantum level, when energy or particles form up or at any rate seem to appear, at least in ways that allow experimentation and the ability to predict what said energy/particles will do. When we objectify sentience, we automatically jump up into the macro world and start talking about intelligence, or memory, or stimulus response mechanisms.
Now I have said we cannot objectify consciousness itself as we can a turtle or a star, and so there is not "thing" we can prove or disprove as Ed is asking. This does not mean sentience does not exist, any more than photons (which are NOT objects) don't exist. It's just that photons are not objects - and neither is sentience. Sentience is not a thing that has properties. There is no thing - only the properties.
So perhaps the question is - what are the properties particular to sentience which are NOT things or objects or phenomenon we can prove or disprove. There is nothing closer to human life than sentience - of that we can be sure. So what is it?
JL
|
|
MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 06:33pm PT
|
The moment we DO objectify mind, it is perhaps like measuring at the quantum level, when energy or particles form up or at any rate seem to appear, at least in ways that allow experimentation and the ability to predict what said energy/particles will do. When we objectify sentience, we automatically jump up into the macro world and start talking about intelligence, or memory, or stimulus response mechanisms.
Live by the metaphor, die by the metaphor.
|
|
Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Jun 19, 2015 - 07:57pm PT
|
Fruity that was a great link. They went right to the tricky stuff.
Now dig this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLt9Yy6FIvE
While Spira has ideas that do not square with my own experience, he is lucid with some pretty slippery material. His pregnant pauses feel precious, but the ability of the guy to press the buttons of those who simply cannot shut up and stop calculating, and wig out if calculations are not forthcoming, is mirrored in the nigh violent responses to a rather harmless creature.
The rabbid replies:
Interesting, he opens by criticizing an Oxford professor of "word salad" and then goes on to talk about how "finite objects are being lifted out of infinite consciousness". This is by definition word salad. It doesn't explain anything concretely, and obfuscates what he actually means (if anything). He's literally professing entirely in abstraction -- cheesy one-liner after cheesy one-liner -- without actually answering any scientific questions.
This is very speculative. There is no difference between his statements and those of other myths. He makes an assumption about reality and then argues from that assumption. But one must proove the assumption otherwise the rest is hogwash. You cannot make claims about reality, nature of universe, on your subjective experience. All you describe is your experience, but ones subjective experience can never say anything else but what your subjective experience is.
Just would ask Rupert why he felt it neccesary to publish on his webbsite a question about the sad death of Nathan Gill. He even says that he doesn't usually do this. In his response to the question he intimates not to subtly (but too subtly for his own awareness of his ego perhaps) that there are levels of realisation which caused me to think that he was implying Natan was not on the same level as the great guru Rupert. I really think the worst thing a person can do is start talking about this stuff unless they are asked. Rupert talks (With the soft insincere voice of a country vicar)and creates only concepts. Silly.
JL
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Jun 19, 2015 - 08:33pm PT
|
no Largo you're deflecting...
Ed is not looking for proof, just asking the question: how do you know I have consciousness?
or sentience, or mind...
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!