As sentient beings, what keeps us going with a dream of the good life (which I think was the focus of the thread.) Sure, living things will recoil from danger, including single cell life that may or may not have the ability to think. But life is all around us in myriad forms. What keeps us going in the life? What keeps the life going? Is the dream dead? Or can we influence it?
On May 14, 11:02 am, gruff <[email protected]> wrote: > " ... On May 13, 7:50 am, Chris Jenkins <[email protected]> > wrote: ... " > > > 'Life' has definitely become a tricky word to define these days. A rock is > > inert, passive, possesses no active systems, is incapable of reproduction, > > is inorganic, and thus my scientist's brain rules it out. Questioning what > > is sentient has become a whole new conundrum, as both many species of > > animals (long thought insentient by many schools of thought), and some > > complex AI systems are capable of displaying traits of self awareness and > > subjective perception. Combined with the long running argument of 'What is > > consciousness?', it tends to make it difficult for a rationalist to come to > > an easy answer. > > Tricky indeed. That's what comes of leaving a definition open-ended, > yet I see no other way given the discoveries of the past six or seven > decades. Our space explorations, limited though they may be, have > opened up the possibility of life forms such as we cannot conceive. > Silicon based life for example? Yes, we have to admit to it's > possibility even though we could not easily conceive of how that might > be and the form it would take. > > Sentience is yet another matter, as you point out. How best to > describe it, to capture it in a nutshell. I still lean toward my > earlier description of the ability to feel or perceive subjectively. > Even the simplest single-celled entity has shown itself to recede or > draw back from danger and draw closer to that which supports it's > life. Flowers turn toward the sun. Could sentience be better > described by example? Anything that purposely tends toward survival, > for instance? > > Sentience seems to be not a static trait or characteristic but rather > possessing various levels of accession which implies a scale of > sentience from the simplest to the most complex and highest order, the > latter being human beings until we discover otherwise. Think what > ye? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
