Patterner

I would say you describe the scenario very well. :up:

If it really is the case that everything that happens couldn’t help but happen and people’s choices aren’t truly free, then those who believe life is ...

Old riddle. It takes three men two hours to dig a hole. How long does it take them to dig half a hole?

Heh. I don't dislike them, but I'm no good at them, and never did any beyond Little League baseball and CYO basketball as a young teen. Enough was eno...

What about things other than games? Have you ever learned something that was difficult? That took a lot of time and effort? And, when you finally got ...

I don't know if I'm correctly understanding your position. If I am, then I would say you are insisting on conditions that are counter to our nature. E...

I wasn't speaking in absolutes. no, every instant of our lives does not need to be a struggle. But I did not coin that phrase. The struggle very often...

I think we have a need to strive. To struggle. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. We don't appreciate what we don't work for. The problem is, it seems the...

I don't know how much greater awareness/consciousness/minds can be than ours. I assume there is plenty of room for growth. And I don't know what the l...

True. But this is just a thought experiment, to see if we can come to any conclusions about the self/mind that we can be reasonably sure of. Imo, we c...

I imagine there would be extremely few circumstances where we would have any confidence of our accuracy. But language? Out of the question. If such a ...

I quite agree with about it being weak. Assuming the brain at birth is as it would be if eyes had been present, sure, there could be electrical activi...

How could a being that never had a sense of sight have a visual hallucination? If that was possible, would we not be able to describe vision to people...

What type of hallucination might be possible? It couldn't be visual, auditory, tactile, or dealing with taste or smell.

I understand. But that's not the scenario Nemo suggested. Nemo did not say "without sense perception." Nemo said "prior to sense perception." But you ...

I don't understand. You just told Nemo that you "would still be able to think and have emotions and have a personality and have values."

Being unable to perceive anything, so not being able to tell what is beneficial or harmful. Not being able to interact with anyone or anything. How do...

Ues, if you lost your senses after your self developed. But your self wouldn't develop if you didn't have the senses from the beginning.

:up:

If non-biological clumps of matter can be conscious, I have no doubt the consciousness would be different from ours. After all, ours is very different...

Is there a reason we can't see consciousness in either context? Not necessarily now, but in principle?Are we certain that it is only when particles ar...

My bad.

Which book? Do you mean Mind of a Bee Mind of a Bee Mind of a Bee Mind of a Bee Mind of a Bee ?

Mind of a Bee is pretty cool.

It seems like cause for concern... Lol

It is possible I have gotten a glimpse of your position. The human without language is good. But don't you think every human without language associat...

I do not think it does not. It is, indeed, a matter of degree. A spectrum. Your dogs are a good example. Even different breeds of dog, though all are ...

:up:

Is consciousness the capacity to feel? Do we not need to be feeling to be conscious? What I mean is, if we're not feeling, are we conscious? Also, if ...

I'm seldom more than barely awake. I would like to blame it on apnea, but that's probably a bit dishonest.

Chicks. Am I right?

Expanding on my answer. My experiences are real in all cases, all scenarios. If I knew I was experiencing VR, I would have a real experience of a real...

Richard Bach also wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Illusions is excellent, and only takes me, a very slow reader, a couple hours to read. Excellent!...

Oh, no, I didn't mean that. I was just saying I wasn't going to try to pick apart your analogies. They didn't seem right to me, but I suspected the pr...

That is not correct. We could not be conscious if the possibility of consciousness was not present in all things, and from the beginning. We are, afte...

If I am alone practicing a card trick, there is no illusion. I know and see exactly what is happening with the cards. The illusion only exists when th...

No worries. I didn't think you were attacking. I didn't even think you were necessarily expressing your own view. Just saying I'm not in that category...

I do not agree. It came about naturally, through nature, through natural processes. It couldn't be otherwise. My opinion is that human consciousness i...

You had not quoted me. I just jumped on. :grin: It exists, and serves a function, but is an illusion? What is the definition of "illusion" that it all...

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. But I think a problem is thinking the self is not real, or is an illusion, if it is not a physical o...

The idea is, if you want someone to believe the things in a book you read are true, then you should give some specifics about what the book says. We c...

I suppose, theoretically, I could have my brain removed and put in a jar that keeps it alive, and is wired to sensory apparatus so I could still perce...

Does the definition of "entity" not allow a process to be an entity? I really don't know, but I wouldn't approve of that limitation. The entities we c...

I'm not voting for any off those. The first should be reworded: The self is generated by the brain. The self vanishes when the brain dies. That's what...

I can understand that. But I can see patterns without knowing their meaning. Without even knowing if they mean anything at all. Give me two ten thousa...

those of you who have been at this longer than I have, and know more about it than I do, correct me if I'm wrong about any of this. At this point, it ...

First glance I thought it was Marty Feldman. Which would explain the pronunciation of "Igor" in Young Frankenstein.

Yes, of course. But we can come to understand as much as we can. Newton didn't know how gravity came to be. Mendel didn't know what DNA is.

Because mind is of the nature it is, I don't think the same limitation applies that does to eye and hand. A minds thinks, examines, theorizes. No reas...

Odd that I didn't get a notification about you quoting me. Oh well, maybe just a one time glitch. Me? I love the book. At least the half I've gotten t...