On the socialization of children

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

It might save a lot of arguing if we agree on which viewpoint we should use when talking about it first.

Well, in that case we should probably be clear about what question we're asking... What happens to the body, or what happens to I/consciousness/self.

What happens to the body seems like an observable sort of thing, well answered with scientific models.
What happens to consciousness/I/self seems like a really difficult question to answer with scientific models.

[LMNO]

Perhaps we should even go back so far as to ask what we consider consciousness to be in the first place.

After all, if I consider it to be a confluence of electrochemical processes in my body, then I may be of the viewpoint that when those processes stop, so does my consciousness.

[Doktor Howl]

Perhaps we should even go back so far as to ask what we consider consciousness to be in the first place.

After all, if I consider it to be a confluence of electrochemical processes in my body, then I may be of the viewpoint that when those processes stop, so does my consciousness.

I reject that line of reasoning.

I am entirely too sexy to just vanish when I die.

[LMNO]

It was just a hypothesis.  I have yet to come to any conclusion.

[Doktor Howl]

It was just a hypothesis.  I have yet to come to any conclusion.

Available data:

1.  There is only so much sexy in the universe.

2.  Dok is one sexy bitch.

3.  If Dok is allowed to cease existing, there will be less sexy in the universe.

4.  If this is the way things work, the universe would have turned into Michael J Fox somewhere around 1600AD.

QED.

[LMNO]

I gotta admit, that's about as scientific as it gets, folks.


IT IS PROVEN.

[Cosine 5]

Only if you philisophically consider "YOU" to be more than the sum of your physical parts.

You are making an untestable hypothesis before you even ask the question.

Being more than the sum of its parts is what Emergence is all about.

And it's not really all that untestable.

It is, however, really really complex.

Take the knotted rope, is it more than the sum of its parts? I would consider a knotted rope to be "more" than a not knotted rope, but it still has the same parts.

Similarly, an anthill population 5000 I consider "more" than an arbitrary collection of 5000 ants.

If I might throw in my own two cents here - what is the difference between an anthill population 5000 and an arbitrary collection of 5000 ants? The difference is only in entropy: in the anthill, you still have 5000 ants, but they are arranged in an orderly way. This order is what makes you think that it is somehow more than the sum of its parts, but it's really just an illusion.

Human consciousness is a completely different thing altogether from that. Reading through this thread, the word 'consciousness' seems to have varying definitions whenever it is used, so I'll clarify for myself - I'm talking about human awareness, that substance that Kilgore Trout once made travel faster-than-light between the stars. This faster-than-light characteristic seems to hint that it's not something merely confined to the physical world. And indeed, why would anyone even speculate about metaphysics if we ourselves have no metaphysical reality?

The question is whether the metaphysical requires the physical to exist. Those parameters are harder to define...

[Doktor Howl]

If I might throw in my own two cents here - what is the difference between an anthill population 5000 and an arbitrary collection of 5000 ants? The difference is only in entropy: in the anthill, you still have 5000 ants, but they are arranged in an orderly way. This order is what makes you think that it is somehow more than the sum of its parts, but it's really just an illusion.

Bullshit.  If there were nothing more to it than an illusion, the ants would all die.

[Doktor Howl]

Human consciousness is a completely different thing altogether from that. Reading through this thread, the word 'consciousness' seems to have varying definitions whenever it is used, so I'll clarify for myself - I'm talking about human awareness, that substance that Kilgore Trout once made travel faster-than-light between the stars. This faster-than-light characteristic seems to hint that it's not something merely confined to the physical world. And indeed, why would anyone even speculate about metaphysics if we ourselves have no metaphysical reality?

Sorry, I didn't realize you were an idiot.  Carry on.

[Nast]

Only if you philisophically consider "YOU" to be more than the sum of your physical parts.

You are making an untestable hypothesis before you even ask the question.

Being more than the sum of its parts is what Emergence is all about.

And it's not really all that untestable.

It is, however, really really complex.

Take the knotted rope, is it more than the sum of its parts? I would consider a knotted rope to be "more" than a not knotted rope, but it still has the same parts.

Similarly, an anthill population 5000 I consider "more" than an arbitrary collection of 5000 ants.

And indeed, why would anyone even speculate about metaphysics if we ourselves have no metaphysical reality?

Because their heads are as mushy as the meat they're made out of.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Quex, Kilgore Trout?

What are you on about?

[Doktor Howl]

Quex, Kilgore Trout?

What are you on about?

Kurt Vonnegut character from Breakfast of Champions et al.

He's proposing Vonnegut as a physicist of some sort, I think.

[LMNO]

He's mishandling a theory that information may travel faster than light.  This would solve the QUIP problem, but no one's sure exactly how to deal with it.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Quex, Kilgore Trout?

What are you on about?

Kurt Vonnegut character from Breakfast of Champions et al.

He's proposing Vonnegut as a physicist of some sort, I think.

Oh.

Yes. Quex- please to note that as far as we can tell, this is not a book.

[Doktor Howl]

He's mishandling a theory that information may travel faster than light. 

BALLS. 

He's trying to conflate "awareness" with "information".  Taking "quantum tunneling" and shitting some Zen garbage all over it.

DANCING WU LI MASTERS, YOU'RE ON IN 5!