Re: BArt: I don't know if saw this below or not so.................

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: : Bart: Once again I apologize for the delay--very busy. I didn't mean to cut my response in half as I did--I had to go back to work at that moment and so I posted(thought I had said I'd finish later, but obviously I didn't). I am not going to go through and answer all the little irrlevant tangents in the post because as I noted previously if a person doesn't agree with another on certain fundamnetal issues then no other issues will be agreed uopon either and all that will occur is wasted writing. My views concerning Human identity and existence are very specifi and very different from yours so I'm just going to state what exactly thoseviews are and it should basically answer all the tangential turns our discussion took. : : In a nutshell: : : Our consciousenss--our self-awarenss, ense of identity--is what makes us Human. I use the word"spirit"(just becasuer I like the sound of it) to desxcribe our consciousness, our identity, our will, our PERSON9as you reffered to it). I am not relgious; I do not use spiirt in those terms. You are very incorrect--if you take away a person's spirit--their identity--they no longer exist. : Maybe the person no longer exists (depending on your definition of "person"), but SOMETHING exists, and that something is conscious, if not self-conscious. : : Their BODY exists but WHOOPEE-DOO(as they say). The body is merely a physical construct--without the spirit--the iD--there, the body is a NON_SENTIENT vessel--yes, it may still have the five senses, memory storage and emotional impulses but they are meaninlessWITHOUT AN INDENTITY TO INTERPRET THE DATA. : The "identity" is simply MORE data. Everything that I am is information, from my senses to my sense of self. My thoughts are simply the information that composes them. My sense of self is just a feeling. If it represents anything other than that, then by definition I do not know that it is, since this other thing is not information. : : tHEY CALL PERMANNET COMA VICTIMS "VEGETABLES" FOR A REASON. : Yes, they can't speak or think or move, just like vegetables. What's your point? : : Memories, emotions, sight sound taste, dmell--don't mean a damn thing if there is no consciousness to interpret them(had to re-emphasize that). : Memories, emotions, sight, sound, taste, and smell ARE consciousness! Self-consciosness is not the only part of consciosness! World-consciousness also exists! : : As for free will, you're missing the entire point: free will means acting feeely within whatever context you are acting. It doesn't amtter if you have motivations for doing what you do;Those MOTIVATIONSA RE A PART OF YOUR WILL, YOUR IDENTITY. i CAN'T REALLY EXPALIN IT ANY CLERAER THAN THAT--YOU JUST HAVER TO REALLY THINK HARD ON THIS ONE--BELIEVE ME IF YOU ARE DILIGENT ENOUGH COMPREHENSION WILL OCCUR.(DIDN'T MEAN TO CAP ALL THAT AND i'M TOO BUSY TO CHANGE SO JUST IGNORE IT,PLEASE). : I had already thought hard about it before I entered into this debate. Those motivations are indeed a part of your will and your identity. My point is, they are not FREE. What happens as a result of them is determined by what they are. If I am angry, I will act angrily, and I have no choice but to do so. If some other motivation tells me to stop acting angrily, and that motivation is greater than the anger, I am unable to do anything to prevent NOT acting angrily. If I deliberately make myself act angrily, I had a reason for doing so that overrided the second motivation - I wanted to prove that I COULD make myself act angrily. The way you act is determined by your thoughts and your emotions and your deeply held beliefs and your "hunches" and your instincts. If I missed anything, include it for me. The key word is "determined"! Everything you choose to do is determined by some reason, often within yourself. If it is NOT determined by any reason at all, it is random, by definition. : Summing up, you have a will, but it is not free. : : ------------And members of certain religious societies would tell you that they would like to be spared the weight of money. For them, more money is worse, despite its effectiveness, and less money is better, despite its disadvantages. : : The weight of money those people wish to be spared is the weight of temptaiton(to splurge and spend and bask in materislm)and/or the weight of obligation(having to pay taxes, bills etc.) And the reason for their denial of money and materislm is precsiely due to RELIGION. They bekleive money would conflict with beliefs--the only reason they se it as a burden is becasue they PERCEIVE A POSSIB:LE WEAKNESS IN THEMSELVES. I would do just fine with a million dollars and my spiritualisn wouldn't be compromised.At any rate, they refer to PERSOANL possession of money--it would conflict with their ascetic lifestyle.. BUt I guarantee you that they would absolutely jump at the chance of owning a million dfollars if they could use it to promote their reklgfion or contribute to some other casue. : Probably they would jump at that chance. The reason for their doing so would NOT be that they think money is good, though - they will probably do it with distaste, if they are truly faithful. The reason for their doing so would be the effects of their using money - the promotion of their religion. : : : : -----------I forget which one it is (maybe the Shakers?), but one religious group believes that a person's worth is only measurable in terms of his obedience and submission to God. For these people, neither a high IQ nor a low IQ is better; neither is an advantage or a disadvantage. Just because a majority of people believe that better = more effective does not mean that everyone does. It is a matter of opinion. Can you prove to me that "more powerful" is the same thing as "better"? "Good" is a synonym for "desirable". If and only if, given the choice, you would choose to have something over not having it, then that thing is "good". Nowhere in this definition is anything about "more effective", "more powerful", or "more intelligent". If some people would choose to be more effective, powerful, and intelligent, if they had the choice, then the state of them being more effective, powerful, and intelligent is "good" for them. However, if other people, given the choice, would choose to be stupid, weak, and helpless, then the state of them being stupid, weak, and helpless is "good" for THEM. : : What's "good" for a person is not determinded simply on the basis of that individua's choice. What you said above is the equivalent of saying that if Jack Frost(hey, it's cold outside) decides that shooting himself in the foot is good for him, thenit IS good for him. For crying out loud, spare me Bart. That stance wouldn't hold up in any court of law or in any sane discusion on the subject. Lots of mentally deranged people will happily tell you that being released would be good fro them, but why don't we release them. Becasue we know that it wouldn't be good for them(or us for thast matter).Nature dictates the law of survival--it is the very nature of living things that they strive to survive. That means antyhting that will help in that endeavour would be seen as good becasue it IS good. Anyone who decided that they wanted to be "weak and helpless" is scr : : up. If you can't undertand this--or if you choose to purposely ignore the point as you seem wont to do at times--don't bother responding to it becasue I don't ahve time to refute frivolous responses. : You really made me think on the second example. Thanks for the challenge. I will have to respond to it later, since I have not yet reformulated my thoughts so I can present them in a coherent manner. However, although I cannot yet present MY case, I can present a countercase against yours. And, I promise that at some indefinite point in the next few weeks, I WILL present my case, and whether or not you have forced me to change my view on good and bad. Anyway, here's the challenge for you: : Every human on Earth has been abducted by aliens and put into incredibly advanced life support systems orbiting Venus that will keep them in suspended animation for an indefinite amount of time. These life support systems have awesomely powerful computer-controlled weapon systems affixed to them, so there is absolutely no chance of a sudden destruction of the systems. The entire setup could destroy Venus if it looked like there was no other way to keep the two objects from crashing together. At some time, long after the universe has undergone heat death for all practical purposes, the life support systems will run out of whatever near-magical fuel the aliens have created for it, and the preserved population of what was once Earth will die in a short time as the systems crash. In terms of human experience, it will seem as if no time passed between the alien abduction and the failing of the life-support systems quadrillions of years in the future, so after they have been abducted, all each person will feel is an excruciating pain for a few seconds as the temperature drops to near the absolute zero of the space outside, and then death. Let's also assume that a hail of mars-sized bodies of rock are on collision courses with the solar system in thirty years, so that even if the Earth totally missed colliding with one, it would be certain to be flung out of orbit and either crash into the sun or freeze in interstellar space. Given all that, would you call the alien abduction a GOOD thing? I would rather live to a full extent for thirty years than survive for an incredible amount of time without experiencing more than a few seconds of terrible pain. Yet, since the human race would be surviving for such a long time, according to your definition the alien abduction is much better than the death by hail of planet-sized rocks. : : --------And I'm very proud of that definition. The definition of "good" and "bad" is one of my main accomplishments, right up there with my belief-oriented description of the world. : : Well, with my above argument I think I pretty much destroyed your bizarre "defintion" of "good" so I wouldn't be so proud after all. And how exactly is it an accomplishment? Have you managed to inject this into mainstream society without my knowing it? Otherwise, you haven't accomplished much except to adopt a belief system--something evryone does. Belif-oriented description of the wordl? Elaborate please. : I don't think you destroyed it, I just think I have to either think about exactly how it might apply to the situation you described, or put a conditional on my definition. I just have a feeling that my definition will live through this largely untouched. And I did more than adopt a belief system - I created one. Even if I managed to get a lot of people to adopt my way of thinking, I think that the creation of my way of thinking would be better than the proliferation of it. Taking the issue to extremes, would you rather be as smart as Einstein but have nobody accept what you think, or would you rather be an average scientist who makes a variety of minor discoveries, all of which are accepted by the scientific community at large? I would much rather be as smart as Einstein than be popular. : : ------ : our sense of identity, our morality. Animals lack all those things. : : I've presented my case against this. : : Really? I don't recall it. Please repeat it or refer me to the post you presented it in. : It was way back when the discussion started, I remember saying, among other things, something about swans, and I remember Isaac saying something in support of my POV, too. : : Really, you shouldn't even bother--Ill destroy any argument you may have right now: Animals dfo not have identity or moraltyn as Humans do. In no other species is there a moral code of conduct. : You have absolutely no proof of this. How do you know how ants, for example, feel about serving the good of the nest? Perhaps they have a vague sense of morality about it, and feel that they are doing just what should be done. It's very hard for us to guess at the feelings of things that don't look much like we do. : : Dolphins are cionsidered to be the most advanced specises next to Humans--their altruistic actions at times(saving Humans) casues Humans to anthropomorphize them eroneously. When dolphins save Humans or whatever, they are merely acting on the nurturing impulse or even jsut the play-time impulse(look! A ball!). Alot of peopel freak out when they find out that saintly dolphins ea often eat their young(humans don't do that). : One would assume that these dolphins had some good, evolutionary reason for doing so - probably they were starving, so the young would have died too from starvation if the dolphins had not eaten them first, prolonging at least their own lives. Or perhaps it's for some different evolutionary reason altoghether. I don't know enough about dolphins. That's the first I heard about them eating their young. Anyway, people also must have an evolutionary reason for NOT eating their young. Presumably, kids are almost always worth more than the muscle that is edible in them. I don't think you want to compare behavior of humans and animals, though - humans have, among other things, organized warfare, cannibalism, BRAIN cannibalism, organized crime, religious warfare, bribery, rape, adultery, domestic violence, murder, mass murderers, pedophiles, biological warfare, nuclear warfare, pollution, hackers who think it's funny to cause ten million dollars worth of damage with a virus, people who run stop-lights, drunk drivers, torture, and killing animals for no reason other than fun. Now, there are non-human animals who do many of these, but humans are unique in their quantity and variety of sick deeds. : : At any rate and this is the clincher, if animals have identies in the same sense we do, then why aren't they communicating with us? : Pretty weak clincher - they can't think as well as we can. Some animals actually can communicate with us, too - what was the name of that gorilla? Koko or something? : : And for that matter, why are you an accessory to the slaughter of million s of such animals every year?(McDonald's anyone?) : : -------Rocks have equal status, in my view of things. This does not mean that they need to be treated as humans; they don't have the same needs of humans. I don't really have much of an idea what the needs of rocks are. When have you ever seen an unhappy rock? Hmm. That's a tough one to think about. Metamorphic emotions. : : That last phrase was intended as humor; sorry if it's a little stupid. : : NO problem--I admire the attempt, considering the context. : : Your response indixate the primary difference between us--your a fatalist/reductionist, while I beleiev that the sum--in a Human's case--is more than the parts. Rocks have no life, no consciousness--they are not equal to us. They cannot do what we can do. You can basically divide the universe into two categories--life and non-life and more specifically : The definition that we have of life is not based on anything logical of itself. We arrived at it by looking at all the things that we consider to be alive, and finding similarities. Now armed with this definition, we can say that rocks are not alive, because the definition says they are not. The definition was constructed for the purpose of saying that only the things we usually consider to be alive are alive! : : --and tellinglyu--non-conscious and conscious(plants live but they are much closer to rocks than they are t Humans). Conscious is better than non-conscious(why do you think people don't want to cease?) The very rerason conscious is better is becasue we are conscious to say so.. Non-conscious things don't give a damn that they exist precsiely becasue they don't know they do. : You do not know whether any one thing is conscious or not. You know that YOU are, but that is all you know. For all you know, I could be a consciousnessless biological automaton, along with every person in the world besides yourself. Dividing lines about consciousness are not based on logic. The way I draw it, by the way, DOES happen to include rocks and plants. : Here's the way I draw it: consciousness is cause and effect. It is interaction. It is communication. Cause and effect = communication = interaction = consciousness = sensation. I do this because I looked at all the things that I am sure have perception - my nervous system, my nose, my eyes, my skin, my tongue, etc. - and I checked what they have in common, according to science. The sense of smell is derived from an interaction between the molecules in the air and my nervous system. Sight is an interaction between the photons in the air and my nervous system. Similar things are true for the other senses. Thought and emotion are interactions between my nervous system and itself. I decided that it was silly that any particular compound or set of compounds, such as those that make up nerves, could have the property of intelligence. I just don't like the idea of a particular element being the essence of consciousness. So, what's left in common? Interactions! Everything that is part of my consciousness is perception, and perception is an interaction between one thing and another thing. Consciousness is a system of cause and effect, according to me. : What is YOUR definition of consciousness, and where do YOU draw the line? : : We do. We love life, we love consciousness. In a way, you could say that the universe thinks cosnciousnss is better becasue that is what it is striving to be through us(and whateevr beings like may exist). : : -------What? That's it?? No apology for your statement that a healthy 5 with a infinitely powerful mind is the best state and your denial of your making that statement? : : I don't apologize for statements I didn't make--you took my words out of context as you do so often. I never once used the phrase"infinitely powerful mind" . : I was paraphrasing. I was NOT taking it out of context when I quoted you, though. : : As for the best state, I said the best state was TRANSCENDACE, nmeaing incorporating all of the types and becoming more th\an them. : That's one thing you said. You did say things about intelligence too, though. : : I said the best state IN TERMS OF THE ENNEAGRAM--was a healthy 5 and I stand by it for the reasons I previously stated. : Yes. They are the MOST REASONABLE. Magnitude of intelligence does indeed count, according to you. : : --------I apologized about the insult when I thought I had no ground to stand on, and I expect the same of you. Nothing on the issue of reason vs. intelligence, and what exactly you mean by "reason"? : : ---On the contrary, I stated several times what I meant by reasonand how it differed from intelligence. Go check. : Yes, and I used Webster's Collegiate Dictionary to show you that intelligence is considered by many people, at least to the dictionary writers, to be a synonym for reason. You claimed that your distinction was that reason is just a state of present vs. not present, and not a scalar quantity. But then you went on with arguments about people bettering themselves with education. The only thing that they would be making better is their intelligence. You used this while talking about reason, so you definitely had the definition of reason in the back of your mind as a scalar quantity, just like intelligence. : : : : ----------about biblical and/or humanoid Gods? We had an entire discussion here! : : I don't recall this one--please elaborate and I'll be happy to respond. : Remember, I was trying to get you to disprove the existence of a humanoid, all-powerful God without assuming anything else about him? And you went on to assume that I meant a <i>biblical</i> God?

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