Fear of death.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/17/DoorsofPerception.jpg/200px-DoorsofPerception.jpg

uh oh you brought up the "G" word. i wont touch that but yes you could call it a kind of "virtual" reality. i am basing a lot of this on the notational theories of George Spencer-Brown and Charles S. Peirce (or my interpretations thereof), but the essential idea is that self-organization is always a product of a separation (even a "falseness") from an environment.

"What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain" is a classic essay along these lines:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/946105/What-the-Frogs-Eye-Tells-the-Frogs-Brain-Lettvin-Maturana-McCulloch-Pitts

thanking u

if you've ever done some absent minded thing like take soup out of the microwave, then go to fridge to get some milk and leave your soup in the fridge, would you count that as being conscious? what if you spend the whole day doing stuff like that?

there's some interesting topics in psychology that touch on some of this stuff. like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)

Interested in late great's response to the super computer scenario

evan we have no way of knowing, just as we have no way of knowing at what point a person starts or stops "feeling" the world

whether that supercomputer is a consciousness like ours, that's a chinese room problem. if you can convince yourself the chinese room is wrong, you can then think of it as a semantic question. if a computer had a human soul would it end the same way as a human soul? and your answer would be yes, and computers could have souls like ours. we still haven't answered whether we've got a soul or if you want to call it some qualia that continues, and no there's no proof of that, but this is the absurd scenario you created doesn't prove machines consciousness can't continue after death either

"you created and it"

iow i think the supercomputer is a canard

no wait, not a canard

a red herring

How is it so absurd? Someday I think a computer will exist that will spark debate about whether it has a consciousness, because it will be able to react to stimuli and form ideas and express them on some level. When that line is crossed, are you saying it comes down now to your belief in a soul?

Or say it is only hypothetical- do you believe this advancement can never be achieved?

you're asking me if we can ever build a human computer. i'm saying sure, even if we did, we'd be back where we were arguing from in the AM about whether there were any conscious qualia that could continue after death, you were saying people who did were selfish or something

jordan is that a lil b line?

― the late great, Thursday, September 27, 2012 5:02 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

haha

It isn't a red herring because 1) It's as possible, if not way more, than the existence of an afterlife 2) It is partly a metaphor for my assertion that the brain is only a very complex mechanical system that produces consciousness

isn't there a more fundamental question to answer what constitutes conscious qualia for living people? i feel like even a not-so-supercomputer could get a lot of traction by pointing out people zoning out all the time doesn't present for a good case that they're conscious either.

the supercomputer is a distraction, sure if the brain is a complex mechanical system that "produces" consciousness, that system breaking down doesn't remove the consciousness, necessarily, nor is there much reason depending on your semantics to consider it continued

you never proved the consciousness was there in the machine in the first place?

from this TRS-80 or Tandy or whatever robot that's on trial's perspective, it's humans who haven't yet proved they are conscious.

Yeah I wasn't trying to prove it had consciousness to you but that at what point would in it's complex human simulation would you think it has a consciousness of its own?

I love Ryan's recent posts here!

Let's say this super computer has found more and more efficient ways of calculating/existing. The Kurzweilian theories point to quantum computing being a real possibility for breaking some technical barriers such as the speed of light. I don't think it's absurd to think that a believably conscious computer would have to be somewhat self-built. For instance i don't really think it's possible to build a computer brain, but conceivably one could build the systems that would self-grow a brain, in ways that really wouldn't be feasible to build from the ground-up. Such a system would likely use DNA or quantum computing; more abstract systems that have fewer limits, are more efficient, but the workings of which are probably going to not be fully comprehensible to us. This highly advanced computer consciousness would be a collection of self-aware energy patterns. Maybe then a form of consciousness would grow from within the matter.

This is all obviously conjecture BS but it seems to make sense.

And what happens, in your opinion, when you shut such a computer off?

what happens when people go to sleep? non-REM i mean.

to sleep perchance to dream

And if the computer is destroyed?

then we're back to the human question

In what sense

what happens to human consciousness when the brain computer stops working

That post-electronic computer consciousness i described pretty much won't be able to be shut off. It'll have evolved to grow itself, possibly computing through energy patterns far above what runs our modern computers, and using more abstract and decentralized processes. Especially if the computer wants to be more and more efficient.

But if you destroy the computer at that point, does it have an afterlife?

it might and it might not, just like a human might or might not

Fair enough. See I presented it to see if you would still equate the possibility of the afterlife with an absolute end. My theory is that these two possibilities are equated because the afterlife is attractive, imaginable, and personal, ignoring the much lower probability of it being likely.

I love Ryan's recent posts here!

^^^, always

my names is barthes and I don't fear and fear death

odi et amo

I hope I didn't burn anyone out on this topic.

it might and it might not, just like a human might or might not

you're clinging to the "we can never know for sure" line of argument, which obv cannot be refuted. But what is likely vs what is what we'd like to believe. there's no reason to think consciousness exists after death other than a) you never know! and b) wouldn't it be sweet if it did?, neither of which are very compelling scientifically

thank you I felt alone on that point, at least during this round

My "fair enough" was me giving up.

in no way can we imagine not existing since existence and our personal perspectives are one in the same

This is what convinced me of life after death as a kid- just the fact that I couldn't imagine what it would be like to not exist. Of course now I'm older and I realize there are lots of times when there's nothing that it's like to be me - ie., when I'm unconscious. Still there's something weird to think about not existing ever again.

― o. nate, Thursday, September 27, 2012 4:42 PM (Yesterday)

Sorry I bypassed this earlier, nate. Your logic as a kid is what I'm saying is the reason people, at the core of the issue, hold on to a belief of an afterlife. More specific reasons branch off from that sub-conscious basis of perspective.

that's argument against motive though

What do you mean?

I'm saying it's why non-existence after death is denied, I think, at the core of it. The motivation comes as justifications to believe in an afterlife from there.

If you're responding to my comment to nate

that's argument against motive though

which is a logical thing to turn to when the counter argument has no concrete support for it but is very appealing to the emotions

There isn't just one conception of the afterlife, though. Or existence, for that matter. Yes there is a simplistic and pandering version of the afterlife which many believe in. But a discussion on fear of death should not simply focus on this one aspect. A holistic and more fluid way of looking at the cycle of life and death -- as a complete process informed by a personal philosophy on life as well as death -- is less cut and dry.

And one could argue the psychological reasons behind wanting to say there is no afterlife and that anything beyond our consciousness is meaningless. That these motivations are not brought up indicate just as unshakable a belief in one's philosophy. That you are special and your life is one of a kind and unconnected to anything past your experience can be a very self-gratifying way of looking at your place in the grander scheme.

I don't think Evan or I are "wanting" to say there is no afterlife (nor are we even saying that). Merely that there is no evidence for it and it just doesn't jibe with all that we have learned about the world (yes, there's a lot we don't know, but that fact on its own is not reason to support something. only a reason not to dismiss it). And so for a logical person to lean towards there being one makes one think there must be some emotional factors at play.

it just doesn't jibe with all that we have learned about the world

this part i think i disagree with

Consciousness can be completely altered by subtle changes in chemistry and/or electricity, no? Isn't that evidence that it is an electrochemical process, and once those electrochemical reactions cease, consciousness does as well?

nah