On Wednesday, February 4, 2015, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 2/3/2015 9:12 PM, Jason Resch wrote: >> >> Well the question "is something conscious?" is binary, like "is something alive?". However there is a great spectrum of possible living entities, and a massive gulf that separates the simplest life forms from the most complex life forms. I think the same is true of consciousness. The mars rover might be conscious, but its consciousness might be as simple as a bacterium's biology is compared to a human's. >> >> That seems inconsistent with being "binary", like "being alive". First, being alive isn't "binary". Are viruses alive? Prions? Cigarettes? > > Any of those things are either alive or they aren't (according to some theory of liveness). > > So you simply define "alive" to be all or nothing by invoking some "theory of liveness" - however arbitrarily you have to draw the line. Not a very defensible position.
What are we arguing about? We both accept consciousness may come in many different forms. Alive / Dead, Conscious / Not conscious It's like Positive / Non positive in regards to the natural numbers (non negative integers). A natural number is either 0 or positive. If a number is positive it says nothing of its magnitude other than it is not 0. So it is with consciousness. Do you agree? Jason > > 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. > -- 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.
