>From Jed,
... > Sentience, I think, is somewhat easier to define. > It means having sense perceptions, but I meant it > in the narrower sense of being self-aware; knowing > the fact that you are an object in the real world, > and one object among many. Goodness gracious me! "Easier to define"? For thousands of years scholars, philosophers and religious figures have tried to tackle that quandary with questionable degrees of success. As always a fascinating [off] topic discussion. Oh, what the hell. If Jed can try, why not i. <My $0.02> I would conjecture that "sentience", aka "self-awareness" involves something a bit more (and paradoxically something less) than perceiving one's sense-of-self as "...an object in the real world", an "...object among many." I tend to think such conjecture has a tendency to put the cart before the horse. Let me try to clarify. While I'm guilty of attempting to personify the mysterious ways of Nature's whims, I would suggest that She probably has valid reasons for experimenting with "self-awareness". We notice that "self-awareness" tends to crop up in certain large-brained species like simians, cetaceans, elephants, as well as a few of our own beloved pets. Of course, some of us have debated the wisdom of why Nature chose to experiment with this self-awareness thing. Mark Twain certainly lampooned his personal misgivings, such as his conjecture that God probably created man because he was disappointed in the monkey. A smattering of religious oriented Genesis tales tend to dwell on a concept where we long to return to an existence akin to a perfect "dream world". We long to return to an existence that could be described as a realm of Absolute Eternity. We are taught: It's a place, an existence where our fractured isolated psyches can once again be restored to a state of Unity and perfect health for the rest of eternity. Not surprisingly many of us long to return to this ancient mythic existence, sometimes called "heaven", precisely because we had been taught that we had actually inhabited this mythic place long ago - before someone had the audacity to take a bite out of that dammed apple. Alas, as the moral tale goes, once we took that fateful nibble we were forced to confront the sin of our own "self awareness". We noticed our self-awareness - which in turn caused us to perceive a profound sense of separateness from Everything Else. We feel cast out into the unknown, left to our own wits that all the self-aware creatures must endure. We have been forced to manage a plethora of choices and all the foibles that come with those choices. It's odd in a way how certain religions particularly from the western POV tend to describe the inception of self-awareness as something akin to a really bad mistake that someone forced on the rest of us a very long time ago. Meanwhile, it would seem that other religions, particularly those of a more eastern flavor, tend to view self-awareness less harshly. For example, self-awareness is occasionally alluded to in esoteric literature such as a concept called, "The Great Chain of Being". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being The highly respected late Joseph CampBell expounded on aspects pertaining to TGCOB. He created volumes of literature pertaining to the world's mythologies which in turn explored aspects of TGCOB as described in certain eastern religions. But even here it would seem that "self-awareness" tends to end up being described lavishly - something akin to a massive bureaucratic organization. Perhaps it's easy for the essence of self-awareness to get lost in the translation. * * * What I really wanted to put out into the Vort Collective is the simple premise that maybe we really don't need to try all that hard to define what self-awareness is really all about. I know I've never been able reason out a rational explanation as to why I am here or for what reason. One day while preparing to shave, while looking at the growing stubble on my chin in the mirror, I suddenly confronted a scandalous realization. I realized my consciousness, my awareness of "self-awareness" had absolutely nothing to do with a construct called "Steven Vincent Johnson". I realize I could never really put a finger on what it was that seemed to be staring back at me in the mirror. I knew I could never point to what it was that "I" am. And yet there "I" was... but was not... but was... but was not... All too often I suspect we tend to get wrapped up in a belief that that our self-awareness is somehow intimately bound to a collection of objects, or concepts, or even a collection syllables pertaining to a name. Within the deep recesses of our psych most of us I suspect realize (maybe even fear) that all of these objects, all these constructs are nothing more than convenient reference points in which to move our sense of awareness around in a 4-D space/time continuum. I would suggest that when we become suspicious of this realization, that's when we can start giving ourselves permission (albeit perhaps unconsciously at first) to consider the possibility that even after all that we had been taught in Sunday School, perhaps we haven’t left Eden after all. In my view "self awareness", needs no justification for its existence. Nor does self-awareness need to be bound to any kind of external object or concept. Simply becoming aware of the infinite choreography these illusions play out in front of our self-awareness is all that is necessary. Through conscious practice and experience, as we begin to gradually acquire an inkling of this dance in time and space, we become less inclined to feel the tenacious need to bind, in an absolute sense, our perception of self-awareness to any of these external constructs. At the same time, as self-awareness becomes more comfortable simply observing all the constructs from a somewhat detached perspective we can still feel a passionate desire to participate in the dance. We still enjoy participating in all the steps – and perhaps even more than before. The only justification needed is the simple innocent joy of the dance itself... that and of course being occasionally surprised by unexpected move someone occasionally conjures up. To extrapolate on one of Jed's conjectures, I hope that if I were to eventually confront an exquisitely designed machine-being, a mechanical creature who proclaims a sense of self-awareness, a "soul" nevertheless constructed out of countless algorithms forged from the labs of artificial intelligence, if such a machine were to ask me out on the dance floor for a Do-Wop Loop, I hope I would allow my own self-awareness to look beyond all the gears and wheels and flashing lights. I hope I would allow the combinations of our self-awareness to simply be what we are to ourselves and to each other. Let the dance proceed unhindered with the need to define and analyze who or what we are. I hasten to add that I'm still taking countless dance lessons. I'm still practicing, day after day. I've noticed that on some days, when I allow myself to simply be in the moment, it seems a tad easier to inculcate all the choreography that must performed. As each day goes by I hope the dance is performed with a tad more grace than perhaps what I had stepped through in the past. Perhaps that will be the ultimate heritage self-awareness returns to the open arms of Nature regardless of whether such choreography is played out in combinations of carbon and oxygen - or that of metal and silicon. </My $0.02> Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
