[DrCaleb]

Biblesmasher wrote:

Seems pretty evident that its simply the inevitable result of superior intelligence. If it wasn't it would seem like an awful coincidence that our self awareness seems to wax and wane at almost the same levels as our ability to say do math. When I'm first waking up I'm about as capable of existential musings as I am of doing Arithmetic. Consciousness is just your brain looking in on itself it seems. So make a computer bright enough and with all the 'right' parts and you'd have consciousness.

So, is your consciousness a function of the complexity of your brain? If so - several moments after the big bang, when every particle that has even been and ever will be (including the particles currently deciding to be your brain and mine) were all very close to each other - in that instant was the Universe briefly conscious?

There's a mind fu** for you.

Canadian_Mind wrote:

lol
I am a spiritual person. I don't believe in any specific god, or follow any rules as laid out in a book. I have come to the conclusion that within each and every one of us is a being that isn't in control, but merely observing the actions we take in the first person... Giving the illusion of decision making.

You believe you are just a collection of matter that the Universe decided would be you for a short time, and uses to gain some experience and insight into itself. I can relate.

I believe everything I do goes toward the Universe understanding itself more completely through experiences. Evolving itself through experiencing everything it can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTuv90PiLbg

I like Miceal Ledwith's perspective on Morality there.

[Biblesmasher]

Canadian_Mind wrote:

lol

I have come to the conclusion that within each and every one of us is a being that isn't in control, but merely observing the actions we take in the first person...

Based on what evidence?...What evidence that cant be as easily attributed to intelligence. In fact more easily since as I started to lay out "consciousness" seems inseparable from our ability to think in general. Ever been drunk or stoned out of your mind(thats what I figure 'consciousness' is like for cats btw )? If you start claiming some mystical "being" (that you haven't any evidence for)whats to say there is no ghost in the machine for Gorillas, Dogs or even amoeba? Where does it end? Do viruses have beings? Even further when does this being enter the body? At conception? Or does it wait till theres a brain to chill out in. Meh...Cmon people!

Canadian_Mind wrote:

My question is, can this happen in a machine? I don't see why not. But if so, how can we prove it? We can prove humans have conciousness because we are human, and we have a conciousness, so why wouldn't all the other humans have conciousness aswell?

This assumes the premise that there is some extra "being" which I don't. So I'd say hell yeah a computer eventually will have consciousness. certainly not in 10 yrs though.

[Biblesmasher]

DrCaleb wrote:

So, is your consciousness a function of the complexity of your brain? If so - several moments after the big bang, when every particle that has even been and ever will be (including the particles currently deciding to be your brain and mine) were all very close to each other - in that instant was the Universe briefly conscious?

There's a mind fu** for you.

Well...no since consciousness requires a brain and there's no evidence there was an alignment of matter that would have resembled a functioning brain in anyway.

[Guy_Fawkes]

No but the material and energy was still there, we really are all made of stars.

[Biblesmasher]

Guy_Fawkes wrote:

No but the material and energy was still there, we really are all made of stars.

Ha...yes raw material but no assembly.

[DrCaleb]

Biblesmasher wrote:

DrCaleb wrote:

So, is your consciousness a function of the complexity of your brain? If so - several moments after the big bang, when every particle that has even been and ever will be (including the particles currently deciding to be your brain and mine) were all very close to each other - in that instant was the Universe briefly conscious?

There's a mind fu** for you.

Well...no since consciousness requires a brain and there's no evidence there was an alignment of matter that would have resembled a functioning brain in anyway.

I wouldn't try to even define consciousness, but there is no evidence it requires a brain.

And, yes, there is great evidence there was an alignment of matter, in our current understanding of the formation of the Universe since the Big Bang. There is also the problem of Quantum Entanglement; that if the Universe did indeed become conscious due to it's complexity, Entanglement may mean that it still is conscious.

[Lemmy]

[Yogi]

Choban wrote:

Great, soon no one will ever have to think for themselves.
Seriously folks, does anyone but me see a problem developing an artificial brain before we even lean to use our whole minds?

'Ottawa' seems to be getting by alright with what little intelligence they can muster amongst themselves!

[Biblesmasher]

DrCaleb wrote:

Biblesmasher wrote:

DrCaleb wrote:

So, is your consciousness a function of the complexity of your brain? If so - several moments after the big bang, when every particle that has even been and ever will be (including the particles currently deciding to be your brain and mine) were all very close to each other - in that instant was the Universe briefly conscious?

There's a mind fu** for you.

Well...no since consciousness requires a brain and there's no evidence there was an alignment of matter that would have resembled a functioning brain in anyway.

I wouldn't try to even define consciousness, but there is no evidence it requires a brain.

And, yes, there is great evidence there was an alignment of matter, in our current understanding of the formation of the Universe since the Big Bang. There is also the problem of Quantum Entanglement; that if the Universe did indeed become conscious due to it's complexity, Entanglement may mean that it still is conscious.

Oh yes there is evidence that consciousness requires brains, since the only things we know that have 'consciousness'...have brains. And that the phenomenon happens in the brain. Point me to an example of consciousness without brains and we're having a conversation.

Since when does complexity automatically=consciousness. No offense but this sounds like new agey talk.

[DrCaleb]

Biblesmasher wrote:

Oh yes there is evidence that consciousness requires brains, since the only things we know that have 'consciousness'...have brains. And that the phenomenon happens in the brain. Point me to an example of consciousness without brains and we're having a conversation.

There is? Must be new evidence. Can you point me to it? "Because they say so" isn't evidence by the way, it's called 'appeal from authority'. A logical fallacy.

I don't know that I am conscious, I certainly don't know if you are. If this phenomenon happens, then there is no evidence it occurs anywhere in the vicinity of the skull. Think of it like this; in all our experience with brain injuries we've mapped out a great deal of what they brain does by testing what happens to people when they injure parts of the brain and lose function in that area. Nowhere have we yet discovered anywhere that corresponds to 'consciousness'.

Biblesmasher wrote:

Since when does complexity automatically=consciousness. No offense but this sounds like new agey talk.

I asked you that. Is your claim to having consciousness, in your opinion, related to the complexity of your brain? If so, is an amoeba concision? A cat? A computer? If you can be concious, can they be? Can the (infinitely more complex, of which you are a subset) Universe be?

No offence taken. It may sound like 'new age talk' (whatever that is) but if you don't leave your comfy chair, you'll never experience anything worthwhile.

[Lemmy]

DrCaleb wrote:

No offence taken. It may sound like 'new age talk' (whatever that is) but if you don't leave your comfy chair, you'll never experience anything worthwhile.

You can order-in hookers and pizza, Doc.

[Canadian_Mind]

never did I say I believe in one supreme being.

Anyways, what makes us go? there is the construct, which is the brain... But even with the brain, you need it fuctioning, which requires energy. Maybe energy is the key to conciousness? Meaning that everything around us has a conciousness of some sort, however big or small, but the conciousness is limited to the way the material it is within functions. So a brain has something super-complex going on, while plant matter may not have a conciousness as imaginable by us, but has one of some kind.

Just more food for thought.