Life

Cyracuz wrote:

pararover wrote:
I believe that consciousness is simply the awareness of one's own existence, and of the choices that one can make.

That definition negates the possibility that animals have consciousness. Even the ant tries to flee when someone means it harm. This bears witness of self awareness, if only instinctive awareness.

Is animal instinct the same as human consciousness?

Cyracuz wrote:

And I'm pretty sure we can say that dogs have consciousness even though they are not aware of the choices they may make.

Why do you say this?

Cyracuz wrote:

Some animals can recognize their own faces in mirrors.

So while I think the beginning is good with... 'consciousness is simply the awareness of one's own existence' ...I think the rest of is irrelevant in determining consciousness.

Perhaps there is more to 'consciousness' than simply being self aware.

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real life wrote:

Perhaps there is more to 'consciousness' than simply being self aware.

word game.

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Is it?

Well, perhaps the fault is mine, if my post wasn't long enough to carry the context of what has gone before in this thread. My apologies.

Terry was willing to tell us what she thinks consciousness 'is not', but hasn't yet given us a definition of what consciousness 'is'.

Do you consider consciousness and self-awareness to be synonomous?

If so, how is human consciousness different from that of some animals?

Do you use a different term to describe it, in order to clarify the distinction?

Jump on in, Diest. I am interested in your input.

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A way of looking for answers is to question. The trick is to ask apple - apple questions, not apple - orange.
Questions:

Is a newborn born delivered with a blank mind...
what does an embryo know...
When does it begin to learn....
Who/what is the source of the information...

That should do it ....

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real is "real" good at asking apple-cumquat questions.

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I get it

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real life wrote:

Is it?

Well, perhaps the fault is mine, if my post wasn't long enough to carry the context of what has gone before in this thread. My apologies.

Terry was willing to tell us what she thinks consciousness 'is not', but hasn't yet given us a definition of what consciousness 'is'.

Do you consider consciousness and self-awareness to be synonomous?

If so, how is human consciousness different from that of some animals?

Do you use a different term to describe it, in order to clarify the distinction?

Jump on in, Diest. I am interested in your input.

I'm more interested in what if else consciousness is composed of if not exclusively self awareness?

consciousness = self awareness + X;

If you can solve for X, I'd be interested in seeing you prove that...

self awareness =! X;

because if you can't, then

consciousness = self awareness + self awareness = 2*(self awareness);

which really just means that

self awareness = .5*(consciousness)

which I'd simply interperate as us only being able to half aware of ourselves... I could go for that. But honestly, if we are only half aware, why do we assume that what we are unaware of is more of the same?

suppose that it was even more complicated...

consciousness = self awareness + sum(Xn), n=1, inf;

so if Xn, Xn+1... etc is just synonymous with self awareness

consciousness = self awareness + self awareness + ... = n*(self awareness);

Which ultimately would mean that

self awareness = (1/n)*(consciousness)
if you investigate this, the the more things (n) we allow to substitue for self awarenss, the less aware we are of ourselves. If you take the limit as n-->inf you see that we eventually are competely unaware of ourselves.

Summary: we become more aware of ourselves when we allow the universe to simple (Akim's razor <-- bad spell?). The harder you to try to prove there is more to cosciousness than being self aware (or insert singular term here) the more you lose your own self awareness.

Why assume there is so much you are missing.

(this is easily, the oddest post, and oddest way, I have ever tried to explain anything, about anything, ever. LOL)

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Yes, it's an odd post because it has no evidentiary basis.

If personhood were a mathematical equation, it might make sense.

However, there is no reason to treat personhood as a 'zero sum game'.

Stating the 'consciousness' is more than simple 'self-awareness' doesn't make us somehow 'less self aware'.

(But I will concede that you may be completely unaware of this.)

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RL - I see you don't understand. What you read above is a proof, so calling it has no evidentiary basis, is just ignorant. It IS evidence. It's a logic puzzle. This isn't a mathamtical evaluation for peronhood, it's a evaluation of conciousness as it pertains to the question as to what it is composed of.

If you refer to any concept as being composed of other components you are making a sumation.

self awareness/conciousness may be a part of something great in complexity, however idividually one does not absorb the other. It is my conclusion that they are synonyms, hense my post of:

"WORD GAME."

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diest wrote:

I'm more interested in what if else consciousness is composed of if not exclusively self awareness?

Consciousness is an ongoing process. It's key purpose is information exchange and interpretation. In the sea of information, consciousness is the flea hopping from page to page, trying to find coherency in it's environment.

After thinking about it a little, I wonder if a good definition of consciousness is 'the ability to seek that which pleases us'.

Then all living things, even plants, are conscious to some degree. Plants react to light and strech their limbs towards the heat. Consciousness to some extent?

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