Extrapolating Consciousness

[Mole]

We extrapolate our consciousness upward to supernatural beings; and we extrapolate our consciousness downward to other animals.

And so we come to believe supernatual being exist, and we come to believe some other animals are conscious beings.

There is no evidence supernatual beings exist, and the neurological evidence shows other animals are not conscious beings.

So the beief in supernatural beings or the conscious being of animals is superstition.

 

[WALMART]

Conscious - aware of and responding to one's surroundings; awake

Hrm.

 

[Mole]

Conscious - aware of and responding to one's surroundings; awake

Hrm.

Other animals respond to their surroundings but do not have enough neurons to be conscious.

And other animals have emotions so they look as though they are conscious. But it is an illusion.

Of course we wish other animals were conscious just as we wish there were supernatural beings.

This is called wish fulfillment.

 

[WALMART]

Other animals respond to their surroundings but do not have enough neurons to be conscious.

And other animals have emotions so they look as though they are conscious. But it is an illusion.

Of course we wish other animals were conscious just as we wish there were supernatural beings.

This is called wish fulfillment.

I believe there is some degree of what occurs for us occurring within the animal mind. Mass parallelism of neural interconnectivity is the scientific explanation regarding the disparities of our obvious superiority.

The emotions are primal. There is no large degree of mass parallelism required to generate the perceptions provided by emotions.

The only difference between ourselves experiencing fear and animals experiencing fear is that our minds operate in such a parallel fashion we can both experience and classify the phenomenon at hand. Experience is unchanged.

 

[Cellmold]

I think I'm consciously extrapolating my supernatural upwards to your being.

 

[RaptorWizard]

There's a website here called "Process of Ascension" - http://www.angelfire.com/ct3/ascension/processofascension.html

It has a lot of content supposedly channeled from supernatural entities, be they angelic or demonic in nature.

 

[Infinite Bubble]

It's not simply the case that beings are either conscious or not. 1 or 0. It's more like a spectrum. Decimals exist.

 

[Mole]

I believe there is some degree of what occurs for us occurring within the animal mind. Mass parallelism of neural interconnectivity is the scientific explanation regarding the disparities of our obvious superiority.

The emotions are primal. There is no large degree of mass parallelism required to generate the perceptions provided by emotions.

The only difference between ourselves experiencing fear and animals experiencing fear is that our minds operate in such a parallel fashion we can both experience and classify the phenomenon at hand. Experience is unchanged.

It is only very recently neurologists have been able to measure the number and size of our neurons as well as the neurons in other animals.

And it turns our our neurons are much smaller than the neurons in other animals including the primates, and it turns our we have vastly more neurons particularly in our pre-frontal cortex than other animals.

This is bad news for those who believe the dog they love is conscious.

The good news is that we can love and be loved by conscious beings. And as far as we know, the only conscious being are homo sapiens.

It is conceivable there are other conscious beings in other parts of the universe, but we have no evidence of this.

So really we are returned to humanism from theism and animalism.

How strange both theism and animalism fall into the same category of projected consciousness.

 

[WALMART]

[MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION]

I feel you have not refuted any point of my assertion.

I am curious about the neuron thing. Last I studied, neurons of all animals were indistinguishible from one another (Michael Gazzaniga, Human), though I thought the quantity thing was about solidified. Do you have any peferred reading on the subject?

 

[Mole]

[MENTION=3325]Mole[/MENTION]

I feel you have not refuted any point of my assertion.

I am curious about the neuron thing. Last I studied, neurons of all animals were indistinguishible from one another (Michael Gazzaniga, Human), though I thought the quantity thing was about solidified. Do you have any peferred reading on the subject?

You only have to go to Youtube, mate, for the latest finding on neurons.

Of interest is that the neurons of homo sapiens are smaller than the neurons in other animals including primates.

This means our neurons require much less energy to operate and so provide an advantage. And as well we have many, many more of them.

We are a marvel of natural selection, and we have been selected for consciousness. And we have been selected not only for consciousness but for inter-subjectivity. And it is our inter-subjectivity that makes us the most powerful animal on Earth.