Help - I think I am GOD and thus NOTHING

[knock]

^ Still doesn't mean that cells, energy and chemicals are not the only things that make consciousness within humans..

Basically.. there is NO evidence to suggest that consciousness is anything other than the building blocks of a brain, apart from people thinking there must be something more..

No. Basically the subject is not open to discussion. Words are symbols, symbols are models, models of subjective experience cannot exist.

It's not possible to construct any explanation for our subjective existence, an explanation is also a model, a representation, and thus orthogonal to subjective experience.

However it IS possible to experience subjective experience, and have fun doing it!

 

[rickolasnice]

Sorry you're losing me with your philosophical mumbo jumbo..

I thought we were talking about consciousness.. not a subjective experience..

 

[knock]

Sorry you're losing me with your philosophical mumbo jumbo..

I thought we were talking about consciousness.. not a subjective experience..

For most people this is the same thing.

For robots like you, I don't know.

 

[rickolasnice]

^ Oh my gosh how hurtful..

Are you saying that a mouse is not conscious because surely we could never know.. not being able to ask it an all..

Have fun believing you are something more important than what you are..

 

[knock]

^ Oh my gosh how hurtful..

Are you saying that a mouse is not conscious because surely we could never know.. not being able to ask it an all..

I am saying it's not possible to understand anything about consciousness, aka subjective experience. The world of mice is no exception!

Have fun believing you are something more important than what you are..

And at no point did I raise the matter of importance! You did that!

Interestingly I find your shift from consciousness to importance troll-like.

 

[rickolasnice]

Then how do we alter consciousness by altering chemicals / cells within a brain?

What about if (when) man creates consciousness..

I'm not saying we fully understand consciousness.. but we do to some degree.. and what we know points to consciousness is nothing more than chemicals, energy and biological cells.

I could cause you to subjectively feel a certain way by altering the chemicals in your brain, no?

 

[knock]

For You My Darling I Shall Repeat Just Once

Consciousness (for non-robots) is synonymous with "subjective experience".

Science models the world.
A model is a representation.
Subjective experience is by definition the experience of being the original thing and not a representation of it.

Consciousness is not amenable to modelling and therefore not available to scientific inquiry.

All your talk of chemicals, cells, brains etc. is fine and dandy as a description of some objective phenomena but there ain't no understanding what goes on in folk's heads.

 

[rickolasnice]

but there ain't no understanding what goes on in folk's heads.

Yah. There is.

 

[knock]

Yah. There is.

To a point, yes, but not beyond that point.

 

[rickolasnice]

^ Yet.

And again.. even if we could never fully understand consciousness.. that isn't to say it is not simply the 3 blahs..

 

[pharmakos]

again i feel the need to bring up the idea of corpses...

all of the building blocks of a brain are there. and yet it has no conciousness.... that kinda stops the whole "we're just cells" argument in its tracks...

 

[rickolasnice]

^ They died for a reason..

And no not all of the building blocks for the brain are there.. the elcetrical impulses have stopped.

 

[pharmakos]

^ They died for a reason..

of course they did but i don't see your point.

And no not all of the building blocks for the brain are there.. the elcetrical impulses have stopped.

but what is electricity other than the flow of electrons? all of those electrons are still there as well...

 

[rickolasnice]

Read edit..

 

[pharmakos]

back atcha

 

[knock]

and yet it has no conciousness....

How can you tell?

 

[rickolasnice]

To be honest i don't know.. but the chemicals stop being released, the electrical impulses stop, the cells die..

 

[pharmakos]

How can you tell?

shhhhh we weren't supposed to get to that part yet really we have no way of telling whether or not it has consciousness... the safest assumption might actually be to assume that the consciousness that it possessed hasn't actually disappeared (where could it have gone?)... but none of us will ever know for sure until we actually do kick the bucket.

 

[pharmakos]

To be honest i don't know.. but the chemicals stop being released, the electrical impulses stop, the cells die..

yup, even though all of the parts are still there. obviously there's more to consciousness than physical stuff.

 

[rickolasnice]

^ The parts have stopped working / they're not doing what they should be / the electrical impulses have stopped, meaning the release of chemicals have stopped..