Hi.

Hello.

 

Existence precedes essence.

 

how is "perceived consciousness" dependent upon an "understanding of time". and do humans really have any such thing, as "an understanding of time".
i get that what you mean by "an understanding of time" is an awareness of personal mortality.
but are either of these "understandings" even remotely accurate?
on what objective basis are we able to verify that they are? is there any? really?

all we can observe, is that organic and mechanical life, are subject to entropy.
is this any more an "understanding of time" then an observance of it flowing in one direction?

as for essence, is it not the root, but the root that cannot be observed, at least not objectively and externally?

(and would not sapience occupying a mechanical rather then organic form, be just as able to make the same observation?)
(and on what objective basis are we able to claim our sentience is the only sapient sentience on our planet? is there actually any?)

 

Perhaps the purpose of DNA is for us to be beautiful, like the Angels.

Perhaps the universe itself is pain, and our bodies are a relief from the monotony.

 

Reality without dreams is just somebody's nightmare,​

And dreams without reality are someone else's fantasy,​

When time is the fire within which burn,​

And memory the ice within which we freeze.​

The present can be a ripple on still water,​

When there is no pebble tossed nor wind to blow,​

The past can vanish like steam or clouds dispersing,​

And the future can appear slippery or all too real and certain,​

Such as when falling off the Empire State building. ​

Stay awake long enough and you will hallucinate,​

Because our dreams always catch up with reality,​

Just as reality always catches up with us in our dreams.​

Be careful what you wish for, contentment comes at no price.​

He who knows when to stop, shall long endure.​

 

Blaze420...

I think you hit the nail on the head.

 

That is an interesting theory...one which I have not heard before, but I must ask you.....what is so angelic about human beings?
To me, trees are more angelic....they provide oxygen, shelter....don't kill anything to eat....don't kill anything....only if they fall on something or someone , and this is not their fault.....live on sunlight and water.....and are givers not takers.

 

Forcible evolution to what end. Angels sound like a good endgame.

 

They aren't angelic now, but will be when they learn to embrace Satan. He is the lord of lords and the lord of the angels, he embodies beauty wisdom and strength.

The Hindus have the genes of the angel.

 

We may not understand time in a scientific sense, but we do have an a-priori understanding of time.

In terms of a perceived consciousness--in my philosophy I use Husserl's concept of 'retention.'
In other words, that we have a retention of the past in order to make sense of the present. For example, when we listen to music, we retain the tune that we've heard so far, in order to make sense of the music, enjoy it, and even anticipate what is coming. Retention is not simply a dynamic of perceiving consciousness, but actually a dynamic of perceiving all the phenomena of our reality.

Except that we do construct, and understand time, in units such as seconds, minutes, days, months. If a man is given 6 months to live, he understands his expected remaining units of life. More exact is a man who has been sentenced to death with a date and time. he has a definite understanding of time in terms of the finality of his existence---existence as he understands it.

Exactly---dig that.

As to your first question here is my answer based on my own philosophy: a mechanical existence would not be a living existence and therefore could not experience true sentience. AI can mimic sentience, but it does not experience retention. Yes, it has memory banks, and works so quickly that it can appear to work with multiple subsets of data at the same time. A quantum computer, once developed could even conceivably work with multiple sets of data simultaneously. But it is still not true retention, let alone a retention of a myriad of external phenomena to which it can freely choose which phenomena to focus upon, and which to repress. It can only respond to programming, and the mode of input structured into it.

The next problem with mechanical existence is that even a programmed retention of sorts, does not translate into the qualia of emotion. A computer has a mechanical sense of time in terms of an internal clock. We could input the data or programming that it will cease operating at a certain date and time. The computer does not have a retention of this as the clock ticks down the time, and therefore has no emotional experience of the fact that it will permanently shut off at that time. We could program such a response but it would not be authentically experienced. At the set time, it would immediately just shot off. It is pure objectivity without any subjective experience.

As to the question of whether or not we are the only sentient existence--I believe that we are not. The DNA referred to in the OP can be looked at in terms of Sartre's facticity---it is what makes us who we are in terms of inherited traits and the inherited aspects of our body. This includes inherited traits to how we are sentient, but I don't believe it determines sentience.

It is a physical manifestation of quanutm information---or more exactly, a collection of quantum information. Every subatomic particle manifests in the position and form that it does because of quantum information. In other words, there is an intentional object---a purpose in why it manifests where and how. In the same way, thought is the manifestation of an intentional object---Brentano's 'intentional object' referred to the fact that thought is always a thought of some thing (the object). There is therefore a positioning of thought---or what we understand as sentient focus. In a reflective or passive manner this is perception of phenomena. In an active or non-passive manner this is seen as intention or volition. But passive or non-passive, it is all an intentional object. But this is more than focus in a conscious sense, because not all intentional objects are perceived, for example, intentional objects of the subconscious are typically not consciously perceived even if they influence our conscious perception.

Things have form, an appearance of concrete or material position and physicality because of where and how the subatomic particles manifest. It represents information—a nonphysical thing—just as mind does. Within that information is intention, meaning, value. The facticity is the proof that out of the quantum field of that subatomic particle, i.e. the superposition that places it everywhere across time and space as a wave/field, that there is purpose in it collapsing into that single position in space-time in the way that it does.

A subatomic particle may not be sentient, but it does meet the basic definitions of life—able to perceive phenomena (the phenomena of information), able to carry that phenomena (have a memory), process it, and can pass that information on (generate phenomena). This is no different than life as it exists in a virus, or in a cell, or as DNA.

I would add to this an additional requirement to life (based on my philosophy)—that the information is nonphysical (as in the mind, by definition is nonphysical) as opposed to the constructed information (data) that is programmed into a computer. This nonphysical information is the intentional object of mind. The constructed information that is manipulated mechanically in a computer is a human construct (we could say, originating in the human mind). Even as it is carried by electrons, or held in magnetic fields, or what have you---this information (to borrow from structuralism) is a signifier, as opposed to the signified. A binary code, or digital information pulled off of a disk, for example, does not represent the actual object (the signified), but is only a code (a human construct) representing that object i.e. it is a signifier or sign of that object. If the intentional object is a phenomena of mind—an object of mind, it is nonphysical by definition. In other words, we could argue that the intentional object is a nonphysical object (A nonphysical signified).

 

If DNA alone was the source of mind, then, as DNA, would be a key part of human essence, this would be true. As you may have gathered from the last post I disagree with Sartre and existentialism on this point.

I argue that essence precedes existence. You can see my argument---a rough draft of it per se, in the thread, A Quantum Mechanical Argument for Essentialism.

 

or perhaps almost the exact opposite. i'm somewhat fonder of the universe then i am of the human physical form.
though i do believe humans, have the potential shared with sapience on other worlds, to reject neither logic nor the universal wonder of strangeness.

 

"a mechanical existence would not be a living existence and therefore could not experience true sentience. AI can mimic sentience, but it does not experience retention. Yes, it has memory banks, and works so quickly that it can appear to work with multiple subsets of data at the same time. A quantum computer, once developed could even conceivably work with multiple sets of data simultaneously. But it is still not true retention, let alone a retention of a myriad of external phenomena to which it can freely choose which phenomena to focus upon, and which to repress..."

what you are talking about here, is the machine itself. this was not my question or propisition.

if, a machine were so constructed, as to have the capacity to host a sapient soul, would not soul still be a soul, neither more nor less, then when it is hosted by an organic living form?

i fail to see the limitations of mechanical constructions as we know them, as applying to this conjecture.

perhaps this is because i do not see the host, as imposing its identity on the true self, which is not the shell, but the 'ghost' in it.

 

I was thinking about retentionality last night, how memories are simultaneously in the past and present to give us context to reality.

However I don't see any evidence as to why AI cannot be sentient. So I will be requesting a ban on developing AI until we have a concrete evidence that they cannot trap consciousness within them. It might not be pleasant to be an AI so AI should not be allowed to develop. However, robots for factories I fully approve and endorse.

My best hypothesis would be that water is needed for consciousness, thus machines probably cannot be sentient.

Also, my question to you is Why am I in my body when I could have be born into your body?

 

I think for AIs to be truly sentient they would require a nervous system,so would have to be a hybrid of biology and machine.This may be technically possible in the future,but serious moral questions need to be asked if this is desirable.

 

Well you would have to be a bit over 2,000 years old to have my body----that's how long I've had it---Many years ago I told people I was nailed to a cross, I thought it was pretty funny, but then everyone got crazy and started some kind of religious thing over it. Then things got real weird when they started using this religion to justify conquest, and I'm like, WTF?!

All joking aside----


This is actually a good question---it is somewhat similar to the problem I tackled early on, after I had experienced my 'proof' that there was a spiritual side to reality, and I realized that the question was not, 'is there a mind-body duality, but, how is there such a duality? For example, if mind (or soul) is spirit, how does it stay connected to the body. How is it possible that I can take off in a commercial airliner and accelerate to somewhere around 300 mph, and yet I don't leave my soul somewhere back behind me, because it is, after all, nonphysical. No matter how I move, or what happend to me, my nonphysical soul seems to stay contained within my physical body----and yet we think of such spiritual entities as being able to move through physical things such as ghosts through walls. In fact, it is widely accepted that a nonphysical thing should not have any causal effect on physical things, and that physical things should not be able to have a causal effect on nonphysical things; i.e. a physical body should not be able to contain a nonphysical soul.

This was quite a few years ago, but I remember trying to rationalize a solution to this problem as I sat at my computer somewhere between 3:00 and 4:00 am. I was getting real sleepy, and the next thing I knew I was crouched over on my keyboard and fast asleep. It was then that I had a very lucid dream in which I saw that the mind or soul (however you want to refer to it) penetrated into the 3 physical dimensions at the point where our body manifests in a physical sense. In other words, our soul does not attach to our body, it is not contained in our body---our body is the physical manifestation of our mind---our image of who we are. It is not just a conscious image, but also a subconscious image----a total image consistent with our own facticity---our history and the reality around us. It is also influenced by how others see us--but only in so far as we allow others to influence us (which brings Kierkegaard's existentialist philosphy into the mix----and the problem of how much we control our own reality free of the influence of others, as opposed to how much control we give to others). That was the starting point of my philosophy of Archephenomenalism.

My philosophy actually posits that time is a human construct. In our physical reality, only the present exists. There is no past, no future in a physical sense. This is an a priori experience of reality, because there is no evidence of a physical past--once it has happened it no longer exists. There is no evidence of a physical future either---if it hasn't happened yet, it doesn't exist. There are cosmological models of the universe that incorporate Einstein's theories to make it 'appear' that depending on our direction and speed that we move forward or backward in time relative to distant points of the universe---in other words that our 'Now' can equate to a point on the far side of the universe that is simultaneously either a future now or a past now depending on our speed and direction relative to that point. I disagree, arguing that it is the same Now clear across the universe, but that this now is perceived locally, so while we can mathematically argue that our time may seem relative in such a manner across great distances of the universe, in truth there is only one Now. (Actually my philosophy integrates a holographic model of the universe and my position about a single Now does not violate that).

If physical reality only exists in the present, then the mind must transcend physicality, because of Husserlian retention. We remember the past, perceive the present, and anticipate the future---connecting one present moment to the next. To this I add the concept of 'Material Retention:' the illusion that physical reality continues from one moment to the next. You think that your computer, for example, consistently exists from one moment to the next as the same computer---I say that it does not. The computer you are looking at now is no longer the computer you looked at 5 minutes ago... wait, that computer is gone--I mean the one Now... Oh no its gone too---Now! That one!----Oh, you missed it...

Seriously, I think you know what I mean----the only thing that is consistent is the Quantum Information, but it is a nonphysical thing just as the thoughts within your mind. This nonphysical information--essence--is what transcends the physical present.

This is another part of my argument as to why AI can never be sentient. The physicality of the computer only exists in the present. The quantum information of the invididual subatomic particles transcends that present, but the AI programming itself is an abstract human construct--it is physical programming and nothing more. It is therefore limited to the present.

 

you sure make a lot of spurious assumptions.
why do you assume humans are driven to evolve faster than any other critter?
can you provide actual research to support that assumption?

you assume time is wholly human construct/perception.
than why will many pets know when their owner is coming home from work?
is it environmental cues or an awareness of time? most assuredly it is a combination of both.

you also don't seem to allow for the enormous number of our behaviors that are fully rooted in instinct, same as other non-human critters.


lots of assumptions not supported by the facts or reality.
and MVW, no we don't need to meander off into a multi-paragraph dissertation about it, the OP is operating under numerous assumptions, some of which are nonsensical.

LOL.....

 

All things are physical. Taste vision sound and touch all physical. It is a matter of the transforming. Vision+touch gives the sense of something having "weight" and solidity. Thoughts are fluid and watery, same with imagination. In Earth terms, they associate "real" and "physical" with something with lucid vision and touch. Taste is physical though, it is just a transforming. The transforming process is unknown...How is a brain, seen with visual, and spatial properties, transformed into the sublime taste of taste? Unknown, but still physical.

Conscious trapped in the brain because consciousness is physical, just not visually detected by sensors outside of itself, such as computers or it's own eyes.

Time/Consciousness is also in the past and present, it is a gradient sphere, it is not a point, it is not only in the present, since a point does not exist and contains no substance.

 

Yes, I agree, there are some assumptions which are unsupported and stepping out of the bounds of academics.