[Thomas An.]

For example our equations were able to properly identify a planet (named Mars) or a moon named Titan. Plot a trajectory. Send a vehicle ... and actually find something there. This is a case where observations and theory worked synergistically and then verified by the existance of the subject in question.

Experiencing such a thing requires being donated with senses, ability to see, ability to hear, etc ..just one or more of them but it's not possible without any of them. Why we're so used to trust our senses too much? Strange but, if there's no human left in the universe, what would make it stay real or what would make it measurable? Who would measure, who would develop science etc? Would it be still valuable just because there would be chance of re-existing?

You are making the basic reasoning that "if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound" ... the answer is yes: The tree will produce an atmospheric disturbance regardless of who is there to witness it. That "disturbance" will be perceived as sound if you were to place a human there.

About sensory, it is very real and very important. Try to close your eyes and run ... you will eventually bump against a wall or fall off a cliff... at that point you are being punished for not being perceptive to reality.

And yes, there was a time that there were no humans ... just about the dinosaur times.

[tom]

About sensory, it is very real and very important. Try to close your eyes and run ... you will eventually bump against a wall or fall off a cliff... at that point you are being punished for not being perceptive to reality.

How would you run without your senses? How would you feel punished by hitting a wall that you can't feel you hit? It is not possible to perceive anything* without senses. I mean the guilty is our senses. Because they made us perceive all this universe in a limited way. The cage is the senses. If you don't give this idea a chance, what would happen? Easy! You'll experiment and discover within this boundary forever. But once if you could hack out of this, things may start to change. Some people try neural plugins like alcohol, drugs, etc. but they are not successful either.

[Thomas An.]

No matter what the origin was ... we are still here...

If you were out of senses, you wouldn't be thinking like that and it wouldn't make sense even if the other ones which you cannot feel know you exist. Just like it's not possible to talk about the relative existance of things we are not able to perceive other than using our senses. Here, infrared etc (things beyond our perceptions limits) cannot be examples because we don't experience them as long as something don't transform them into something possible to perceive by us. Anything else* which cannot be identified with the current transformation technologies is being tagged as "non-existing" things. Million years ago we were not aware of waveforms but they were there, however if we couldn't discover them, they would remain tagged as "non-existing". It's highly possible the discovered amount of existing things is quite less than what is really exisiting or maybe everything is made of nothingness which we fabricate and tag as they are existing. Kill the 5 senses first and retry.

How do you explain it was possible to "become" aware of infrared if we have no sensors to perceive it. Now that we are aware of it in the theoretical sense, its existence can be proven as we can use its properties to create physical changes (as for example we can use microwaves to heat food).

[jdp]

How would you run without your senses? How would you feel punished by hitting a wall that you can't feel you hit? It is not possible to perceive anything* without senses.

how could you say it? if there is no brain to perceive and there was no evolution, maybe it is imposssible to perceive, otherwise I think none can say it...

[tom]

How do you explain it was possible to "become" aware of infrared if we have no sensors to perceive it. Not we are aware of it in the theoretical sense, its existence can be proven as we can use its properties to create physical changes (as for example we can use microwaves to heat food).

Easy again.. Because you used your senses again for perceiving the food is heated. In other words, you transformed the microwaves into something can be experienced by your senses.

[Thomas An.]

About sensory, it is very real and very important. Try to close your eyes and run ... you will eventually bump against a wall or fall off a cliff... at that point you are being punished for not being perceptive to reality.

How would you run without your senses? How would you feel punished by hitting a wall that you can't feel you hit? It is not possible to perceive anything* without senses. I mean the guilty is our senses. Because they made us perceive all this universe in a limited way. The cage is the senses. If you don't give this idea a chance, what would happen? Easy! You'll experiment and discover within this boundary forever. But once if you could hack out of this, things may start to change. Some people try neural plugins like alcohol, drugs, etc. but they are not successful either.

Senses evolved as a means to keep creatures alive. If you had no senses then you would not be in existence at all. The mere fact of having neural connections between organs and the brain is a "sensory". Taking away the sensory implies no brain, no intelligence at all.... but what is your point in all this it seems like you are making a huge detour.

[Thomas An.]

How do you explain it was possible to "become" aware of infrared if we have no sensors to perceive it. Not we are aware of it in the theoretical sense, its existence can be proven as we can use its properties to create physical changes (as for example we can use microwaves to heat food).

Easy again.. Because you used your senses again for perceiving the food is heated. In other words, you transformed the microwaves into something can be experienced by your senses.

How did you know microwaves existed in the first place ? before you started using them ?

I know where you are going with this, but you are still incorrect (IMHO). Basically you are saying if something is beyind the range of all our sensory and it stays beyond that range for ever, then we would never know about it.

The thing is that all aspect of reality are interconnected in one way or another. If something exixts *at all* regardless of how illusive it might be, it always leaves a signature or an impact in its surroundings. This causes a cascade reaction effect (one thing causing another) and eventually the effect trickles down to something very subtle (just a ripple, or a subtle inconsistency) that is compatible to our sensory. At that point, we become aware of it and we try to include it in our calculations.

[tom]

How did you know microwaves existed in the first place ? before you started using them ?

Again with transforming...

In 1888, Heinrich Hertz was the first to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic waves by building an apparatus that produced and detected microwaves in the UHF region. The design necessarily used horse-and-buggy materials, including a horse trough, a wrought iron point spark, Leyden jars, and a length of zinc gutter whose parabolic cross-section worked as a reflection antenna.

If you or something else (naturally I mean) can't transform something into another thing that is valuable for our input channels, we won't know it's existing, therefore it's non-existing. Just like we reject (or find suspicious) the things we are unable to measure/detect at the moment.

[JDHill]

Thomas, do you feel that consciousness is 'other' to logic, or is it logic taken to its' fullest?

[aitraaz]

"For whether, indeed, thought is regarded as a mere function of the brain and the state of consciousness as an epiphenomenon of the state of the brain, or whether mental states and brain states are held to be two versions, in two different languages, of one and the same original, in either case it is laid down that, could we penetrate into the inside of a brain at work and behold the dance of the atoms which make up the cortex, and if, on the other hand, we possessed the key to psycho-physiology, we should know every detail of what is going on in the corresponding consciousness.

This, indeed, is what is most commonly maintained by philosophers as well as by men of science. Yet it would be well to ask whether the facts, when examined without any preconceived idea, really suggest an hypothesis of this kind. That there is a close connexion between a state of consciousness and the brain we do not dispute. But there is also a close connexion between a coat and the nail on which it hangs, for, if the nail is pulled out, the coat falls to the ground. Shall we say, then, that the shape of the nail gives us the shape of the coat, or in any way corresponds to it ? No more are we entitled to conclude, because the physical fact is hung on to a cerebral state, that there is any parallelism between the two series psychical and physiological. When philosophy pleads that the theory of parallclism is borne out by the results of positive science, it enters upon an unmistakably vicious circle ; for, if science interprets connexion, which is a fact, as signifying parallelism, which is an hypothesis (and an hypothesis to which it is difficult to attach an intelligible meaning[1] ), it does so, consciously or unconsciously, for reasons of a philosophic order : it is because science has been accustomed by a certain type of philosophy to believe that there is no hypothesis more probable, more in accordance with the interests of scientific enquiry."

[Thomas An.]

Thomas, do you feel that consciousness is 'other' to logic, or is it logic taken to its' fullest?

The second. (Consciousness, logic, emotions being cerebral atributes working synergistically each having an important function).

[JDHill]

Interesting. Is it then possible, in your view, that a computing device could theoretically attain what we would term consciousness?

[tom]

I would begin to suspect...

[Thomas An.]

Interesting. Is it then possible, in your view, that a computing device could theoretically attain what we would term consciousness?

Theoretically, yes.
More theories can be extracted from this as well.

For example: If it is theoretically possible to construct a complex enough computational system that attains consciousness, then at that point "man" has become a "creator".

Taken this to it logical generalization, we can:
- place "man" at position N (on a mathematical line)
- place "man's" creation at potition N+1
- we can also extrapolate that the N+1 consciense can theoretically produce an N+2
- working backwords, the N conscience could have been produced by an N-1 conscience and simililarly the N-1, by an N-2.

However, again, this also introduces the aspect of infinity and it is not solving much. As a matter of fact, it even brings the possibility that existance N-1 might have inferior attributes to the existance N ... by the reason that we always develop tools to enhance our innate capabilities (devices to outperform our own computational capacity, machinery to outperform our own strength capacity, or locomotion capacity ... etc). So in effect if each next conscience was produced as a "tool" from the previous conscience, then the "tool" is designed deliberately to possess superior attributes in order to achieve things not previously possible.

[tom]

If you had no senses then you would not be in existence at all. The mere fact of having neural connections between organs and the brain is a "sensory". Taking away the sensory implies no brain, no intelligence at all.... but what is your point in all this it seems like you are making a huge detour.

It's possible, when I'm dead I have no senses but I should be still existing deformed/disassebled, don't I? But in anyway, it wouldn't mean anything to my disassabled composition, so everything would become non-existing to me myself.

If something exixts *at all* regardless of how illusive it might be, it always leaves a signature or an impact in its surroundings. This causes a cascade reaction effect (one thing causing another) and eventually the effect trickles down to something very subtle (just a ripple, or a subtle inconsistency) that is compatible to our sensory. At that point, we become aware of it and we try to include it in our calculations.

Aha! This is the thing I'm trying to say. The possibility of staying hidden. But I wonder what makes you so sure about this... Can you give a reason?

...a complex enough computational system that attains consciousness...

Is consciousness really a result of enough complexity or the complexity turns it into something convincing enough that we say it's conscious just because it can fulfill/or mislead our senses at that level? ... or maybe our masterpiece consciousness is just the result of the complexity of our neural network? If yes, there's no real consciousness, too.