I didn't bring up consciousness in the context of a debate on evolution. I just wanted to know your guys' opinions on the topic.

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I know you don't like to talk about creationism, but if aging, diseases, etc. was not originally encoded in the DNA, then how did these massive mutations (that kept everything else about humans intact, nonetheless) come about within a single generation ? I think the only answer would be some sort of "recall action" by god. Thus in the end it comes out the same way, whether god created humans faulty or made them faulty later on.



You mean, it would still be God's fault, or am I not getting what you're saying? God said, "If you eat that fruit, you can be sure you will die." It doesn't get much more clear than that. Adam ate the fruit, so he brought it on himself. Doesn't mean that God is heartless, it was 'our' choice.

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I sure hope we dont have a Cingular consciouness.. i use Verizon.



Oops.

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Our brain produces a model of the outside world, and produces an image of ourselves within this model. This model is required to survive in the jungle, and gives us the illusion of a consciousness.



Sounds like a copout to me. I mean, imagine molecules (what we are) being able to consciously comprehend and understand the world. Sounds rather curious to me.

What is the illusion being provided to? This sounds more like a way to just explain consciousness away as an 'illusion' which I don't think it is.

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The materialist point of view: Consciousness (or "the soul") exists. It is a new quality that automatically comes into existence in a complex enough brain able to reflect on itself.



A much more reasonable explanation. Not really one that quite fits my way of looking at consciousness. I don't know. There's so many ways to go with this, its hard to really even comprehend what consciousness is. I mean, how do I describe my consciousness? I think that, say, a fish can see its predator, but I don't think it 'sees' it the same way we do. Certain visual stimulations can cause the fish to behave differently.

Another interesting question is, since I don't remember anything from early life, was I even conscious within the first few years?

I'd also like to be able to turn off whatever part of my brain tells me to recognize people as people (maybe that's just a consequence of experience) and see what people look like then. That would be interesting.

Last edited by Irish_Farmer; 04/23/06 04:15.
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