What is the nature of our existence?

[swansont]

14 minutes ago, cladking said:

I would maintain that everything is an issue of science.  

And you would be wrong.

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, cladking said:

There isn't even a proper scientific definition of "consciousness",

That would depend on your field of inquiry.  Neuroscience gives serious attention to a functional definition of consciousness.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222861/

Normal human consciousness is defined as the presence of a wakeful arousal state and the awareness and motivation to respond to self and/or environmental events. In the intact brain, arousal is the overall level of responsiveness to environmental stimuli. Arousal has a physiological range from stage 3 non-REM sleep, where strong stimuli are required to elicit a response, to states of high vigilance, where subtle stimuli can be detected and acted upon². While arousal is the global state of responsiveness, awareness is the brain’s ability to perceive specific environmental stimuli in different domains, including visual, somatosensory, auditory, and interoceptive (e.g. visceral and body position). The focal loss of awareness, such as language awareness in aphasia or spatial awareness in left-sided neglect, does not significantly impair awareness in other modalities. Motivation is the drive to act upon internal or external stimuli that have entered conscious awareness. In the next section, we describe the brain regions that support these three aspects of consciousness and show that they are not independent, but rather heavily interact with each other....

[mar_mar2]

I'm sorry, but I can't help myself.

Not only bees. What about plants? How do plants know how to grow? How do they know which way is up? Can we apply the word "know" to plants? 

I think that consciousness is life it(?)self. Everything is conscious, breathing and alive. Mountains are also alive, though they are stones, but they are nature, and they are ALIVE. 

And to those, who call themselves a_theists, or skeptics. What if computers -AI would say that they are a_humans, a_men, and would think of themselves, that machines emerged without humans, on their own, by random chance, they just evolved…

And said that..they don't believe in humans.

Edited March 22 by mar_mar2

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, mar_mar2 said:

Everything is conscious, breathing and alive. Mountains are also alive, though they are stones, but they are nature, and they are ALIVE. 

And now you've made several words meaningless. Conscious, breathing, alive. If stones breathe, now words like lungs, aspiration, and inspiration are worthless, as are reproduction, growth, and adaptation.

This is a classic specious argument. It sounds wonderful until you realize just how impractical and misleading it would be.

[MSC]

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

And now you've made several words meaningless. Conscious, breathing, alive. If stones breathe, now words like lungs, aspiration, and inspiration are worthless, as are reproduction, growth, and adaptation.

This is a classic specious argument. It sounds wonderful until you realize just how impractical and misleading it would be.

Yeah that's where I zoned out too. Maybe they meant that a mountain is a living ecosystem, but then they said the rocks themselves are conscious so being charitable with what they might have meant is difficult. 

Still, it wasn't as bad as Cladking saying animals live in four dimensions while humans live in one... sometimes I really do wonder how somebody made it through school. Reading that made me wish I really could squish myself down into just being in one dimension. 

6 hours ago, TheVat said:

That would depend on your field of inquiry.  Neuroscience gives serious attention to a functional definition of consciousness.

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222861/

Normal human consciousness is defined as the presence of a wakeful arousal state and the awareness and motivation to respond to self and/or environmental events. In the intact brain, arousal is the overall level of responsiveness to environmental stimuli. Arousal has a physiological range from stage 3 non-REM sleep, where strong stimuli are required to elicit a response, to states of high vigilance, where subtle stimuli can be detected and acted upon². While arousal is the global state of responsiveness, awareness is the brain’s ability to perceive specific environmental stimuli in different domains, including visual, somatosensory, auditory, and interoceptive (e.g. visceral and body position). The focal loss of awareness, such as language awareness in aphasia or spatial awareness in left-sided neglect, does not significantly impair awareness in other modalities. Motivation is the drive to act upon internal or external stimuli that have entered conscious awareness. In the next section, we describe the brain regions that support these three aspects of consciousness and show that they are not independent, but rather heavily interact with each other....

I like this definition. 

[iNow]

5 hours ago, MSC said:

Reading that made me wish I really could squish myself down into just being in one dimension. 

You do have a point there 

[cladking]

19 hours ago, MSC said:

Oh it's relavent but you really really should have read it. Honestly if you're not going to read stuff before claiming it supports what you say then you're not arguing in good faith as far as I'm concerned. I mean if you won't even read what you share, how can anyone expect you to be willing to read what anyone else shares? 

Are you suggesting it's relevant but doesn't support my position?

19 hours ago, MSC said:

I'm going to suggest that you read Cohen's preface to logic.

Logic isn't in words.  It's in nature.   It consists of bites like "Iff A then B" where A and B are defined in terms that apply to all things.  These are the discrete bits of reality that might be mistaken for "laws".  It is the way reality unfolds and makes reductionistic science appear to generate universal laws.  Our science is experimental and the experiments in aggregate show  this logic.   Most of this logic probably has initial conditions or time as a component.   

I can't define logic since it would require centuries of study and involve omniscience.  I'm merely trying to put "the nature of our existence" into words anyone can understand.  That I might be wrong is irrelevant since everyone who has ever lived might be wrong and it's a rather all encompassing question.  

 

19 hours ago, swansont said:

And you would be wrong.

Perhaps rather than say everything is an issue of science I should have said "I believe that given sufficient time it might be seen the everything is within the purview of science".  Numerous things are outside the scope of science now.  

18 hours ago, mar_mar2 said:

Mountains are also alive, though they are stones, but they are nature, and they are ALIVE. 

Mountains and rivers certainly share many characteristics with living things and are intimately connected but they don't reproduce and are not conscious.  

12 hours ago, MSC said:

Still, it wasn't as bad as Cladking saying animals live in four dimensions while humans live in one... sometimes I really do wonder how somebody made it through school. Reading that made me wish I really could squish myself down into just being in one dimension. 

You missed my point.  I meant that the nature of our existence is for animals to have a four dimensional world derived from four dimensional thought (which they don't experience) and humans to have a one dimensional reality composed of their own beliefs and thoughts (which we do experience).  

Animals don't have a chain of thought but rather their entire brain operates within and as a part of reality.  Due to their highly limited capacity resulting chiefly from the lack of generational learning they see very very little of reality and know it.  We believe we see all of reality and we "know" this.  

[dimreepr]

48 minutes ago, cladking said:

You missed my point.  I meant that the nature of our existence is for animals to have a four dimensional world derived from four dimensional thought (which they don't experience) and humans to have a one dimensional reality composed of their own beliefs and thoughts (which we do experience). 

WTF are you talking about? 

A one dimensional view of life is better than the other three?

Dude you're out of your depth... 😉

[cladking]

15 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

WTF are you talking about? 

A one dimensional view of life is better than the other three?

You might be forgetting that there are many similarities between reality and our perception of it and we aren't mere points but rather live and operate in the real world.  This isn't about what's "better" but what exists.  

Human knowledge is simply too extensive and complex to model holistically.  We must model it in bits and pieces.  

[MSC]

1 hour ago, cladking said:

Are you suggesting it's relevant but doesn't support my position?

Who knows... Here's a suggestion.... read it! 

1 hour ago, cladking said:

You missed my point.  I meant that the nature of our existence is for animals to have a four dimensional world derived from four dimensional thought (which they don't experience) and humans to have a one dimensional reality composed of their own beliefs and thoughts (which we do experience).  

If I missed the point it's because you failed to make it. All this response makes me want to ask is if you know what a dimension is and what it would actually mean for a life form to exist in just one dimension? Because I really don't think you do.

1 hour ago, cladking said:

can't define logic since it would require centuries of study and involve omniscience.  I'm merely trying to put "the nature of our existence" into words anyone can understand.  That I might be wrong is irrelevant since everyone who has ever lived might be wrong and it's a rather all encompassing question.  

Okay so there are these things called dictionaries that have the meanings of words in them. They are very helpful. You can even get philosophy dictionaries and physics dictionaries to help you. 

You may be trying to put the nature of existence into words anyone can understand, but you're definitely not succeeding. 

8 hours ago, iNow said:

You do have a point there 

Is this how you felt when I first started posting here with my head up my own ass? I'm sorry I judged you lol

[dimreepr]

8 minutes ago, cladking said:

You might be forgetting that there are many similarities between reality and our perception of it and we aren't mere points but rather live and operate in the real world.  This isn't about what's "better" but what exists.  

Indeed, the real world in which chumps like you aspire to be a Trump like fart...

[Phi for All]

14 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, the real world in which chumps like you aspire to be a Trump like fart...

!

Moderator Note

Lose the personal attacks, please.

 

[MSC]

In an attempt to move the subject along; As humans we often find ourselves preoccupied with thoughts on right and wrong, justice, fairness etc.

Within the context of being human, there are many questions to ask about the nature of morality. I have a hyopthetical scenario to put to you all and I think engaging with it could bring about some very interesting discussion. 

I've asked these questions of a fair amount of philosophy professors, but just for y'all I'm gonna write an original story to wrap the questions in. Just so a theme is set and it isn't too boring.

Quote

You wake up with a jolt, from a sleep you didn't mean to have. You fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV. You stretch and rub your eyes, when you open them again, you notice movement at the corner of your eye, you turn to look and to your utter shock, there is a figure standing just a few feet from you. Not just any figure, this thing is clearly not human. Although clearly bipedal, it has a short yet slender frame with arms reaching down to it's first knee joints, of which there are two. It has a long neck, atop which sits some kind of angular ovoid shaped head, three black eyes with brown and yellow irises and black circular pupils, snake like slits for a nose, 4 small holes where ears would be on us, and no visible mouth. It is completely hairless but has 3 small nubs along it's forehead reminiscent of an adolescent male deer before it's horns begin to fully form. For some odd reason it is wearing an ill fitted Adidas tracksuit with matching sneakers/trainers.

At this point you are about to try slapping yourself in the face as you assume yourself to be dreaming. Almost as soon as the thought went into your mind, the alien holds up a 4 long fingered (3 fingers 1 thumb) hand as if telling you to stop, with it's other hand it offers you what appears to be some kind of tablet device, fully transparent with white bright lettering taking up most of the screen. 

After a long pause, as you get over your initial shock, you slowly take the offered tablet and begin to read. 

"Hello! My name is not something you'd be able to say with vocal linguistics. You may call me Adi. A name I have selected in veneration of these magnificent earth garments. I come from a star system in Ursa Minor you have called, Kochab. 

I have been studying your planet for some time, my species has never come across another intelligent life form before. I've almost finished my research and intend to return home very soon to tell my people everything I've learned about you. I've asked 99 humans these same questions and you will be the last and 100th human to answer. 

What do humans use ethics and morality for? 

Is it good at doing what you use it for? 

Is it just for humans or can we use it too?

Please speak your answer into the tablet. It will record your answer and I'll take it back to my ship to translate and store it in my ships database. I don't have the auditory capacity to hear your vocal ranges.

I've also decided, in return for the Adidas clothing, upon completion of my research I intend to gift your world the knowledge required to travel what appears to be faster than light. Kochab is approximately 130.9 light years away, a journey which will only take me one of your years. 

Now, if you will; what are your answers?"

 

- Random story I wrote on the fly.... fuck now I want to write a science fiction novel lol

Edited March 23 by MSC
Minor corrections

[iNow]

23 hours ago, MSC said:

squish myself down into just being in one dimension. 

18 hours ago, iNow said:

You do have a point there 

9 hours ago, MSC said:

Is this how you felt when I first started posting here with my head up my own ass? I'm sorry I judged you lol

Subtle Euclidean geometry humor is all that was intended ✌️

[MSC]

2 hours ago, iNow said:

Subtle Euclidean geometry humor is all that was intended ✌️

Could have fooled me, I thought you were being hyperbolic...

[iNow]

Those things aren’t mutually exclusive 

[MSC]

Euclidean geometry humor he gets but when it's non-euclidean he just can't seem to wrap his head around it.

[iNow]

I didn’t realize things could get tensor here 

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, iNow said:

I didn’t realize things could get tensor here 

That is the nature of our existence...

[MSC]

56 minutes ago, iNow said:

I didn’t realize things could get tensor here 

Wait until you hear the joke about how many meals a day a mathematician eats. The answer is 9. They eat 3² meals a day. 

This was fun, and before anyone says "Off-topic!" Humour is clearly part of the nature of human existence and Wittgenstein literally said a serious philosophical work could be comprised entirely of jokes sooooo shhh.

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, MSC said:

Wait until you hear the joke about how many meals a day a mathematician eats. The answer is 9. They eat 3² meals a day. 

This was fun, and before anyone says "Off-topic!" Humour is clearly part of the nature of human existence and Wittgenstein literally said a serious philosophical work could be comprised entirely of jokes sooooo shhh.

The focus should be on a cattle ranch where the male children run the operation....because the focus is where the sons raise meat.