Guest posts by Ozymandias

1

Philosophy / Re: Is the Universe Sentient?

« on: November 02, 2011, 07:26:01 am »

well, i meant that maybe a computer could perform self analysis without it feeling anything.

i mean, things could analyze things without feeling anything. 

i mean, consider a circuit, with a switch a battery and a lightbulb.    the light being on results from a property about oneself, namely switch position
however, no one would say that it could 'feel' the difference between on and off, right?
so, add some complexity.
what about something that adds a to the circuit a second lightbulb rigged to a solarpannel. now, it lights up because its switch is connected, but the second light bulb lights up based on simple analysis about if the first one is lit up.  now, unlike the first one, this is clearly a simple form of analysis, introspection even.   However, it seems pretty obvious it still doesn't feel anything. Like, it doesn't have two emotions- power and now power.

and all computers are just combinations of cirucits and stuff.   as you go from one step to another, is there one magical extra wire that makes it wake up and go 'i can suddenly feel things'   i don't think so.

2

Philosophy / Re: Life

« on: November 02, 2011, 07:19:00 am »

Um, guys? I don't think this is talking about life. I mean, if we are arguing about if evolution is required for something to be life, that is one thing, but if we are arguing about whether or not it can happen in what could be considered one generation or could be considered multiple that doesn't change the fact that there is evolution i mean for a computer virus, it doesn't matter if it can evolve in one generation or several, it still evolves and that is what we said matters.


also, what about that synthetic bacteria?   

i remember in biology, they said that one of the things about life is that it comes from other life. no on mentioned that so far, i don't think

3

Philosophy / Re: Is the Universe Sentient?

« on: November 02, 2011, 06:30:57 am »

For the computer example, is it really conscious or just following rules for example you could make a program that compares a picture to a picture of a toaster and tells you if the pictures look the same, and if it looked at itself, it would be thinking about itself, but i would really not want to call that sentient. even if a computer is doing complex analysis of itself are we really willing to call that the same thing as consciousness? i mean, it might have the same effect, but is the computer actually aware? I mean, from the computers perspective how does it feel, and does it even have a meaningful perspective to think of?

4

Philosophy / Re: Life

« on: November 02, 2011, 05:42:19 am »

Hey, I just thought of something. you said that life has to be able to reproduce, and that an organism is the smallest unit that meets those three criteria thingies.   so wouldn't a an organism be two humans, one of each gender?

idk. I'm new, and probably a noob. Ignore me if you want.