Gee wrote:
I keep saying this, but one more time. All life is conscious, this is not disputed; all life does not have a brain, this is not disputed. All life possesses self, this is also not disputed because it is not considered. What is considered is that all life has 'instincts', which are 'behaviors', but what causes this 'behavior'?
You can say that your turds smell like spring roses and taste like prime rib all you want, but don't start a restaurant that features your dorsal output. Saying and reiterating doesn't make it so.
That all life is conscious is strongly disputed except by New Age religionists.
Throwing in a couple of irrelevant but true comments (life does not have a brain) is a neurolinguistic ploy-- a tidbit of obvious truth added to the paragraph to establish a "truth" that is irrelevant to the paragraph, in hopes that readers with 2-digit IQs will not see the ploy.
Your "all life possesses self.." is a comparable piece of irrelevant nonsense. Why include something that is not considered into a statement that you want to be considered? You should apply for a job as B.O.'s scriptwriter. Given your complete absence of intellectual integrity, you'd fit right in.
Your final comment about behaviors is off your own point and irrelevant to it, unless you want to answer your own question. "
Digital Universe-- " does that, of course, but your personal opinions will prevent you from getting there.
Gee wrote:Let us take the universal "survival instinct". All life has a survival instinct and will do everything that it can to ensure it's survival; again, this is not disputed. So what is it trying to preserve? How about the "fight or flight instinct"? When it chooses to fight or flee, what is it trying to preserve, if not itself?
In his book, "
The Selfish Gene" Richard Dawkins (of whom I'm not a fan) explained what "life" is trying to preserve-- its DNA. "Itself" is an irrelevant concept (ask any lemming).
Gee wrote:
You can think about this all day long, but if you have any intelligence at all, you will conclude that all life has a self and does whatever it can to cause that self to continue. Self is an attribute of consciousness.
Playing the old "agree with me or don't get laid" ploy is woman's bullshit, and it only works when the woman is sharing space. You aren't and will never be.
Did you get your "if you have any intelligence..." line from your local Democrat party nits? Must be. Genuinely intelligent people would never attempt to intimidate anyone from a platform tottering beneath them.
Before you try to present yourself as intelligent, learn to read a dictionary.
I apologize, not to you, but to everyone following any of our shared threads for taking so long to recognize you for the nincompoop you are. Henry Quirk and his neurolinguistic programming helped me to recognize you for one of the same.
You have devised your own definition of the word "consciousness," and have cleverly applied it to conversations in which other participants used common definitions. For you, the term means whatever you want it to mean. Let's get clear on the meaning, not for your benefit because you'll not accept corrections to your beliefs, but for the clarification of others who might peruse this thread.
Googling "consciousness definition" brings up this watered down definition of consciousness:
con·scious·ness
ˈkänCHəsnəs/
noun
noun: consciousness
the state of being awake and aware of one's surroundings.
"she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later"
the awareness or perception of something by a person.
plural noun: consciousnesses
"her acute consciousness of Mike's presence"
the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.
"consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain"
While this is a weak definition no doubt created by the considerable confusion surrounding notions of consciousness created by nitwits who want to push their own opinions, no part of it includes your broad definition, which amounts to New Age religion. The weak definition relates consciousness to human beings, not to other critters.
In "
Digital Universe.." I was careful to use a specific definition of consciousness throughout the book. This is definition #1 from page 289 of the Random House Webster's College Dictionary, copyright 1991:
conscious adj. aware of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc.
The word "consciousness" is, of course, defined as the state of being conscious. This is a strong, unequivocal definition, the kind of definition that men use when discussing ideas.
No part of this clear and straightforward definition supports the attributes that you wish to append to the definition, to suit yourself.
I see no point in engaging in further communications with someone who is intellectually dishonest. Thank you for some previous exchanges.
Greylorn