Vivian on 17/4/2008 at 12:49
You're both saying the same thing in increasingly obtuse ways, far as I can tell.
Epos Nix on 17/4/2008 at 16:49
In order to have a concept of self, wouldn't you need a reference point to determine that you are, in fact, a unique being? The reason I don't believe newborns have a concept of self is because for the first 9 months of their existence, they are actually their mother.
Another reason I think self is a learned concept rather than an intuitive one is because we can unlearn it. I know this is true because I am in the process. Mind you this doesn't mean I wish to cease existing or anything similar to that, but merely that I've come to grips with the idea that I am not separate from the rest of existence, I merely observe it.
Ben Gunn on 17/4/2008 at 17:22
Scientists use a simple way of checking self-awereness in babies (and also in chimps and other animals)- they present to them a mirror. In one such experiment I heared of, they took babies in varying ages, smeared their noses with a bit of red paint and watched to see what the baby is doing. If he tries to wipe his nose clean it's a sign that he has a grasp of himself, a self-sense so to speak. If he tries to touch the mirror- he doesnt have it yet.
I dont know if it proves something but it's largely accepted by scientists as a sound way.
I cant quote results but I think that they support Epos/buddhistic view of the learned self-awereness, rather than Tocky's innate model. In any case I think it's a very legitimate arguement and for the life of me I cant see how anyone who considers himself intelligent can see it as obtuse or even worse- as a non-arguement.
Nicker on 17/4/2008 at 23:52
Self awareness is both innate and learned. Recognizing the self is a natural stage in our growing, total awareness as a child but how we interpret that self is learned from the examples in our environment and culture.
Our will is constrained by our humanity. Even if we achieve some sort of perfected state of humanity, our will can never be freer than the bounds of our perception. The universe is also constrained, limited. And since it appears lawful within itself, the case for free-will looks bleak.
But our awareness is not merely the result of biochemical interactions - it is something far more subtle and complex. Not apart from the biochemical and mechanical but overlaying it or infused within it. Our awareness is at least one order of magnitude greater in complexity than the information processing capability of our brain and body.
Consider this - going on a road trip is an interaction fuel and engine, rubber and asphalt - and the sights and sounds are a result of the interaction of electromagnetic, chemical and mechanical energies being interpreted by the biochemistry of our brains. All seeming very deterministic.
But if, as the car rounds a curve, the light through the clouds over the mountains stirs a childhood memory, the voice of your companion evokes a poem long forgotten, the smell of pine air suggests a brilliant colour - and you are inspired to paint that, or sing it or dance it - can you really say that this sort of creative abstraction is purely mechanistic and predetermined?
The painting is not contained in the canvas and tubes of pigment. Nor is it solely in the mind of the painter - it is in the combination of both and greater than either.
I guess I am saying that art is proof of free will.
BEAR on 18/4/2008 at 00:47
This thread has moved into a discussion with lots of statements with very little fact, but at least it doesn't force me to write huge passages anymore. I think its interesting to concider trying to comprehend our own conciousness in human terms. We make up things that feel good or feel right like "sunshine and rainbows remind me of bunny rabbits and thats why humans are concious" but it goes very little into really understanding it. Philisophical arguments like this without a scientific basis are what you do when its 3am and you're drunk and the night is winding down.
Epos Nix on 18/4/2008 at 02:45
Quote:
This thread has moved into a discussion with lots of statements with very little fact, but at least it doesn't force me to write huge passages anymore.
I'm not sure that lack of facts ever stopped you from posting in this thread before. :angel:
Renzatic on 18/4/2008 at 03:05
Oh good god. Are you implying that a cat smearing paint on a wall is the same as a Picasso, a Michelangelo, a Matisse, or any of the other famous old masters? I hope you're not that dense. Please tell me you're not that dense.
Nicker on 18/4/2008 at 03:07
So you are saying that only humans have self awareness and will (free or otherwise)?
I was speaking of human art but it matters not to me what creature created it. I think you have roundly misunderstood and misrepresented my points but you're "free" to do so - right?
The question of free-will and awareness is not entirely the realm of facts, certainly not of the binary kind.
Tocky on 18/4/2008 at 03:16
It seems to me that the experiment with a mirror is less a qualification of internal self and more one of external self recognition. The touching of the mirror is a learning of the function of a mirror foremost, an observation of the identical properties of the one hand to the reflected one then follows or not. I am in that thing realization. The recognition of observed hand and where it connects is amazing enough but that isn't really what I was talking about. I do understand that some see no division between external and internal sense of self but I am both IN and of this flesh and bone by my reckoning. All those synaptic impulses are me mentally beyond the mechanisms that produce them ALTHOUGH definately tied to them. Can't it be that the me that we first know was THAT me? Awareness, sentience, whatever.
Sentience is a difficult concept to express for me (and after I've had a few be) but I haven't seen it adequately expressed except in circular terms by either the scientific community or religion. If we can't break that down and duplicate it then how can we impart it to AI? A universe of intricate circular C-prompt wont create volition. Ah but there is no volition right determinists?
We simply do not understand our most basic being when this prompts that and that was prompted by this other but yet the first life elemental had to be self prompted. First came those organisms which fed on the minerals of the earth and in those I can see no need of self sense but then one thing ate another. From that basis I can see how awareness might need to evolve for survival but the why survive beyond it can stumps me. For that matter what prompted that first thing to gather together and be? Mathematical inevitability? A utility concept of our own devising prompted it? It was meant to be? I don't know.
Perhaps I am obtuse. But I'm glad to be alive and unique if only to me. And I can't believe you read all this shit.
BTW babies kick independent of mother and you could call that one of the first I AM moments. Even before the eyes open and recognition of external self or parts thereof.
