Absolutely, since the idea of an absolutely straight line is as mistaken as a totally uninformed soldier.
Philosophically important questions are - for example - questions that deal with something like the “birth process”:
- How does man in the world come to his world?
- How does this “adventic animal” man find the expression under the terms of himself?
- How does the world honor the promise that is given to man?
- How does man come to the faith / confidence / trust therewith he can give promise to the world?
To my mind the closest analogy I can give, to the first question (out of which the other three flow), is that of a seed. Cosmologically, the consciousness of the world must arise out of the brute, inert matter, unable to realize it’s self without the development of higher consciousness. In a sense, nothing really exists, which can not be perceived. Existence here in Sartre’s vocabulary passes the cogito ergo sum, into the esse est percipii, to exist is to perceive, and that means perception is the predicate to existence.
It can be said both ways, ‘to exist is to perceive’ and existence is the predicate, because existence and perception are so closely bound to each other, embedded into each other.
The really interesting question is, whether there may be inorganic perception, or, preception, where the difference will take maybe another thousand years to unravel.
The fact that microchips are made of inorganic material, but may advance to organic material, shows the narrowing of that difference. Both may be used as analogues, however, and the time for that may be fairly near.
Maybe every kind of “revolution” is a “repetition of birth” on another stage; accordingly there are “repetitions of abortive births / miscarriages” too. Perhaps life is somehow a “permanent (abortive) birth and repetition of (abortive) birth”. Humans have to arrive. They are arriving (“adventic”) animals. And if they have arrived, they start again - straightaway. They are always underway.
Fellas, does one or maybe any of you ever stop to think that all thought is meaning?
How could a world without meaning be discussed if ‘world’ and ‘meaning’ already preclude it?
Do you believe in such an “inorganic perception, where the difference will take maybe another thousand years to unravel”?
Fixed Cross
Is thought meaning or does it eventually give rise to meaning or to a lack of meaning?
Your statement for me kind of puts the cart before the horse for me.
I’m not quite grasping your question here. It doesn’t make sense to me but I may just be misunderstanding you.
Anyway, in and of themselves, those two words, world and meaning, are simply words.
The word "experience’ comes to me.
An individual’s personal human experience may lead him to a discussion of a world without meaning aside from how he views it in an intelligent detached impersonal way.
Again, I may not be grasping what you’re really saying.
Yes I do , crystals of all kinds are carbon based, and so is silicon. It’s nature’s irony, perhaps, that high artificial intelligence with the microchip short circuits the process. Instead of carbon based crystals like diamonds being utilized one way, or lasers utilizing rubies go another formal way, it makes no real difference. The potential for intelligence exists also, one way, or the other. (Organic-inorganic). It is quite possible that when Carl Jung described his illuminating experience when very young, of sitting on a rock, and not really sure whether he felt that he was sitting on a rock, or whether he was the rock upon which he was sitting were any different; is an example of it.
But what I meant was more like this: Do you believe in the inorganic perception as a perception of God?
Fixed, Arcturus,: discussions can be held with ‘meaning’ already precluding it, while the world can not be precluded.
If we talk about the world in a meaningless way, the world it’self is not precluded, because the world is not intrinsically meaningful in the first place. You can not preclude something, which has never had an intrinsically inclusive meaning in the first place.
You may object to this on the ground that there may be a difference between talking meaninglessly, yet coherently, vis ., by using normally associated ideas, words. Or, you may say that there may be a conflation with disassociated words, where the difference could not be appreciated. Or, thirdly, there may be a verbal collage, with absolutely no meaningful content derivable, where the literal construction appears merely a random pick and use of any word in a menu of words.
Only of the latter, can it be said, that it makes no sense.
Yes I lean that way, because, for instance: a tree has been the object of so much preoccupation of sentient beings: bearer off rip unit, object of aesthetic appreciation, the use of its trunk for building, the bearer of the fruit which condemned mankind, the tree of life…
Whatever is appreciated so very much has a great intrinsic value, and it is, as if, there is a sense of awe going on here, which can not escape it’s binary function. The appreciation, it seems, or almost seems, is a two way transaction, as if the tree was actually made for man.
This is getting close, I think of sensing a relationship of some kind between inorganic, lower and higher organic substance. I don’t accept clear demarcations between various levels of structure, sine the organization of matter determines the it’s particular evolution.
If we start this way of looking at it reversely, from man down, the connection is still there, but in a different form. At the other extreme, there is God.
So you do not mean “inorganic perception” in the sense of a man-made (anthropogenic) perception of machines?
“Perception” requires a degree of complexity beyond being merely affected or affecting. Affect is a “predicate” to existence. Perception is a predicate to consciousness.
And “organic” is merely a class of chemical makeup. It does not necessitate the existence of any other particular attribute or function. The function of perception and the consequential consciousness can be emulated by many things, organic or non-organic. Being organic is merely having carbon and oxygen as the base molecules. Silicon and oxygen can perform the same basic functions and thus can be used to form a living being with perception and consciousness. Many computers certainly perceive and are already conscious to a small degree, ever growing.
I know that we already had this discussion in another thread, but my question is again: How can we currently know for sure that they are already conscious to a small degree?
Jerkey,
Full Definition of perception
1
a : a result of perceiving : observation (see perceive)
b : a mental image : concept
2
obsolete : consciousness
3
a : awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation
b : physical sensation interpreted in the light of experience
4
a : quick, acute, and intuitive cognition : appreciation
b : a capacity for comprehension
Do you mean emulated in the same way that humans perceive, sensate and have consciousness?
How can that be?!
- (a) and (b) leave me questioning…with a perhaps appear to emulate…but just questioning. lol
Ultimately though, I don’t intuit that non-human living things share or experience our perceptions, sensations and consciousness, not in the ways in which humans do although everything is inter-connected and flows together in a sense, but not in a human sense.
Whatever that is worth.
@ James S. Saint.
Exactly.
I’m sorry. I missed that post.
To know if something is conscious first requires that you personally decide what being conscious really means. Once you decide what it means and learn how it works, it is easy to determine where it is or isn’t. Until then, one cannot be certain if a machine is conscious or not, nor a tree, nor a paper towel. It is much like the discussions of “God” in that if you never decide what the word “God” really means, define it, then no discussion or thought concerning is actually relevant nor certain.
Never mind.
The problem is that “being conscious” is defined differently.
I know, you define “consciousness” as “remote recognition”.
It is always up to you to decide what it is that YOU mean when YOU say “consciousness” (or anything else). So just precisely and unambiguously explain what YOU mean by the word. If it isn’t too much different than what others seem to mean, maybe they can get their answers too.
Life by definition makes sense, it makes sensory qualia information, life’s function is to make sense. life=make sense.
That is my setting the table, starting the game, neuronal calibration, language calibration.
Now, I will await for someone to contribute something interesting.