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Thought Club

Started by The Wizard Joseph, February 03, 2020, 01:43:50 AM

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Doktor Howl

Quote from: altered on February 25, 2020, 09:47:24 PM
Quote from: LuciferX on February 25, 2020, 09:43:23 PM
Quote Point of order: I know that precisely One (1) consciousness exists in the universe: mine.


There goes another one concerned about its own existence, see, there not like the other ones.

He's fucking right, though. And he pointed out the solipsistic trap in the very post you quoted. So you're treating PD like Facebook, mocking people with out of context quotes for the respect of your peers, and you should feel bad and commence the self-flagellation.

Don't be a dipshit. Or an asshole. Oh, that's right: too late.

The only reason I didn't comment on that was because it was obviously a set up on the part of LMNO.  He does things like that, you know.

Molon Lube

Frontside Back

Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 25, 2020, 09:40:29 PM
Quote from: Frontside Back on February 25, 2020, 09:38:28 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 25, 2020, 09:31:44 PM
Quote from: Frontside Back on February 25, 2020, 09:29:04 PM
The way I see it the mind can reach way out of the body. This text is outside my mind, mere pixels on a screen but still carry consciousness within. Just like a rock.

Information is not consciousness.

I was saying that you would have no way of telling that a thing was conscious if the consciousness wasn't leaking to it's enviroment.Of course you could say that the stuff you smell in the air around people was some kind consciousness residue, but that doesn't explain emergence.

This is kind of wrapped like a cigar and then shoved up it's own ass.

Consciousness doesn't leak.  It stays in your head.  Communicate all day long, you aren't imparting consciousness, you are conveying information (of whatever value).

This is a combination of a category error and a fixed gear bike.
Okay wait yea that was stupid. Let me backtrack a bit. Stone and a human is at least as conscious as the human if not more. Stone in flight is not anywhere close to being conscious in a way you are, but it's more conscious than stone in rest. It might have a goal in mind.
"I want to be the Borg but I want to do it alone."

minuspace

Quote from: altered on February 25, 2020, 09:47:24 PM
Quote from: LuciferX on February 25, 2020, 09:43:23 PM
Quote Point of order: I know that precisely One (1) consciousness exists in the universe: mine.


There goes another one concerned about its own existence, see, there not like the other ones.

He's fucking right, though. And he pointed out the solipsistic trap in the very post you quoted. So you're treating PD like Facebook, mocking people with out of context quotes for the respect of your peers, and you should feel bad and commence the self-flagellation.

Don't be a dipshit. Or an asshole. Oh, that's right: too late.


I think I was more trying to convey what I also thought the the distinction was between being conscious and not, but have at it.

altered

Apologies, it sounded like "lol solipsism checkmate uneducated yokel" to me. I can see your meaning now.

In my defense I have had THREE people try and pull that fucking move on me in a discussion the past month and a half, so I'm primed to see it.
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Frontside Back on February 25, 2020, 09:49:17 PM
Stone and a human is at least as conscious as the human if not more. S

Whatever, dude.
Molon Lube

minuspace

All good here, yeah, sorry to hear about that uprising. At least it wasn't an episode of Resistentialism.

Frontside Back

Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 25, 2020, 10:18:33 PM
Quote from: Frontside Back on February 25, 2020, 09:49:17 PM
Stone and a human is at least as conscious as the human if not more. S

Whatever, dude.
It also works other way around. Pants have negative effect on consciousness.
"I want to be the Borg but I want to do it alone."

altered

Quote from: Frontside Back on February 25, 2020, 10:31:20 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 25, 2020, 10:18:33 PM
Quote from: Frontside Back on February 25, 2020, 09:49:17 PM
Stone and a human is at least as conscious as the human if not more. S

Whatever, dude.
It also works other way around. Pants have negative effect on consciousness.

I'd argue consciousness is binary. Intelligence is not.

If you decrease someone's consciousness, they're knocked out or dead. (Date rape drugs could do either while the victim is awake, I can't be sure without having taken them and then taken notes on things while on them.)
"I am that worst of all type of criminal...I cannot bring myself to do what you tell me, because you told me."

There's over 100 of us in this meat-suit. You'd think it runs like a ship, but it's more like a hundred and ten angry ghosts having an old-school QuakeWorld tournament, three people desperately trying to make sure the gamers don't go hungry or soil themselves, and the Facilities manager weeping in the corner as the garbage piles high.

Frontside Back

Quote from: altered on February 25, 2020, 10:45:22 PM

I'd argue consciousness is binary.
That works too. I can become more conscious about self by making a half assed forum post as in awakening to the thing/fact, but it doesn't change if I'm responding to the environment generally or not.
"I want to be the Borg but I want to do it alone."

rong

I forgot about thought club
"a real smart feller, he felt smart"

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: rong on February 25, 2020, 11:17:32 PM
I forgot about thought club

We all forgot about Thought Club
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

The Wizard Joseph

Quote from: LMNO on February 25, 2020, 07:18:56 PM
Quote from: The Wizard Joseph on February 25, 2020, 04:16:20 PM
Quote from: LMNO on February 25, 2020, 03:50:27 PM
I still don't think you've made your case for a cosmic consciousness, though.

If nothing else I would say that even if I'm wrong, and I don't believe that I AM, then WE ARE that consciousness as well as every other living creature and every object bearing the marks of such consciousness.

I merely assert that consciousness is present throughout the cosmos. It's not an unrealistic assertion. We are literally the evidence of it.

Point of order: I know that precisely One (1) consciousness exists in the universe: mine.

To prevent the inevitable insanity the conclusion of this line of thinking leads to, I prefer to assume pointillist consciousness in others, based upon no definitive proof whatsoever.  The universe I experience tends to favor this approach.

It does not, to me, necessarily lead to the conclusion that the universe is conscious.

Tries to wrap brain around pointillist consciousness...
Fail. Will continue, but what do you mean by the term?

It seems to me that given I know of my own consciousness, as you do of yours, we together may have a good case for eliminating solipsism entirely as a paradox that obliterates meaning much like presuming non consciousness. If you are truly the only being that's conscious then you can never actually be understood by a conscious other, you merely are deceiving yourself into thinking other folks exist. BUT THEY DO EXIST. The barstool can prove this handily, but if you actually were the one freak consciousness in the cosmos then nothing can understand you, If you understand yourself you know you will die and take all of consciousness with you, there can be no meaning. Solipsistic thought is profoundly immature, even infantile. Less because as soon as an infant begins to suckle the presence of the Other is felt and is, emotionally and materially supportive. Solipsism is vain madness and if it were true would obliterate all meaning, so we must discard it.

It takes two
To tango,
Three or more
To limbo,
At least five
To mosh pit.

You sometimes
Dance alone,
But must dance
With others
To Get It!


So at this point both non consciousness and solipsistic consciousness are eliminated as factors for our purposes here so what's left? What happens when you KNOW that you are not only conscious, but so is everyone else, and just maybe everything else?
You can't get out backward.  You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting.  If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation."
- Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality :lulz:

"You program the controller to do the thing, only it doesn't do the thing.  It does something else entirely, or nothing at all.  It's like voting."
- Billy, Aug 21st, 2019

"It's not even chaos anymore. It's BANAL."
- Doktor Hamish Howl

Cramulus

if consciousness is binary, where in the evolutionary chain did it appear? Did an unconscious parent give birth to a conscious child?



as for the questions of the conscious universe ---
I think the first question is - is the universe alive? Would you consider it an organism?

what about the world--the planet Earth? is it living or nonliving?

If you say living,
Could it be that organic life on earth is its sensory organ?


I'll also offer that these kinds of questions can provide a lot of material for consideration, but yield little fruit if we approached too literally, too academically. These are "the soldier and the hunchback" thoughts (to borrow from old man crowley). The part of you that's curious, that's interested in what selves are, that wants to understand -- it's alive. We have to be a little on guard for quick answers that halt the train of thought, wrap things up neatly, and beat the hunchbacked questioned mark into an exclamation point, a conclusion.

The MYSTERY of consciousness is fertile: there is boundless territory to explore, an endless battlefield of soldiers and hunchbacks. Soldiers which eventually doubt and bend into question marks. And thank Goddess for that.


Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cramulus on February 26, 2020, 01:46:22 PM
if consciousness is binary, where in the evolutionary chain did it appear? Did an unconscious parent give birth to a conscious child?



One of two arguments I've heard is that tool making drove language, and language might drive consciousness.

The other argument I've heard is that pack-based pursuit predators almost have to develop consciousness.

Both of these sound too convenient for my taste.
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cramulus on February 26, 2020, 01:46:22 PM
what about the world--the planet Earth? is it living or nonliving?

Non-living.  The only actual argument is whether the biosphere is somehow connected outside of the normal food web model.  I doubt it.

QuoteWe have to be a little on guard for quick answers that halt the train of thought, wrap things up neatly, and beat the hunchbacked questioned mark into an exclamation point, a conclusion.

Boom.
Molon Lube