On 8/14/2014 5:56 PM, LizR wrote:
On 15 August 2014 12:24, meekerdb <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
wrote:
On 8/14/2014 4:58 PM, LizR wrote:
On 15 August 2014 06:51, meekerdb <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 8/14/2014 6:45 AM, Pierz wrote:
That is a weird assumption to me and completely contrary to my own
intuition.
Certainly a person born and kept alive in sensory deprivation will be
extremely limited in the complexity of the mental states s/he can
develop, but
I would certainly expect that such a person would have consciousness,
ie.,
that there is something it would be like to be such a person. Indeed I
expect
that such a person would suffer horribly. Such a conclusion requires no
mystical view of consciousness. It is based purely on biology - we are
programmed with biological expectations/predispositions which when not
met,
cause us to suffer. As much as the brain can't be separated completely
from
other matter, it *does* seem to house consciousness in a
semi-autonomous fashion.
So how did you suffer in the womb?
But there's a lot of environmental interaction in the womb. You're
undercutting
your own case! To do a 180 degree, it would make more sense to claim that
consciousness requires an environment because even before we're born we're
already
getting plenty of stimuli.
A fetus does get some environmental interaction, but I don't see how that
proves it
is necessary.
I imagine it could be used as part of a case for it being necessary (and your comments
about kittens and wolf children indicate that you do, too). I haven't yet grasped the
case for environmental interaction being necessary myself, so I may be missing the
point, but FWIW there are a few points I can see here...
You responded to Pierz's suggestion that a brain could be conscious without having
experienced any external stimuli by saying "So how did you suffer in the womb?"
To which I would say...
First off, your comment is phrased as though it answers Pierz's point. That is, it
appears to be a riposte, especially given that you start "So..." Your question is
phrased to suggest that if Pierz /can't /tell you how he suffered in the womb, his
suggestion is invalidated.
I was suggesting that his idea that sensory deprivation would be terrible was an
unjustified intuition based on how */he/*, as an adult, would feel if he were deprived of
all sensation. And while the womb does not produce complete sensory deprivation I think
it is close enough that Pierz the adult would feel very deprived - but I don't think he
would find it horrific.
But actually I have another reason for thinking it's not horrific. Back in the 50's
sensory deprivation was a fad and a lot of people paid to sit in sensory deprivation
tanks. I guess they still do; you can buy the tanks. At the time Richard Feynman had met
John Lily inventor of the sensory deprivation tank and he tried it. Like most things
Feynman investigated he wanted to push the limit. He wanted to experience hallucinations
and he did. But he didn't report anything bad about the experience.
https://www.dmt-nexus.me/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=51786
The comments I made, and am about to make, are predicated on the assumption that my
understanding of your comment (as I've outlined it here) is correct.
In my opinion your comment fails to adequately answer, or even address, Pierz's point
for two reasons. As I already mentioned, the womb isn't an environment involving sensory
deprivation; and your (apparent) assumption that Peirz should be able to tell you how he
suffered in the womb relies on him being able to remember his experiences in the womb.
But as we know nowadays, the infant brain is more or less completely rewired during the
first year or so of life, so it's unlikely that many memories of the womb survive to
adulthood.
Which would also imply that whether sensory deprivation was bad or not would depend on how
your brain was wired. I don't know whether a fetus or even a baby is conscious or not. I
think human-like consciousness is partly dependent on language, but I also think, unlike
Bruno, that there are degrees and kinds of consciousness and a fetus or a newborn may be
conscious like my dog is conscious.
Brent
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Everything List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
