Spend some time around dolphins. If you still think they're not as capable of self awareness it will have to be by a slim margin.
Evolution is completely blind about anything that comes in the future. We got here by a long series of questions that were all "what works right now?"

If that's just your opinion you're basically holding the opinion that the world is flat and has four corners.

Why produce so few species with humanoid bodies and so many that have clearly gone for the smallest brain that still gets the job of moving their limbs around done?

Where did the smallest consciousness come from?





You obviously wrote that for some reason. It is not an explanation that works, it is either an observation or opinion that does not solve the question of how we evolved from non-conscious and non-intelligence to conscious and intelligent. At what point in our evolution did we suddenly become conscious and intelligent? I contend that it was a gradual process, but one that arose from an very small degree of conscious intelligence. (awareness potential.)A dog is a little bit of both of those. A fish is a smaller bit of both of those. A worm is very slightly intelligent and very slightly conscious. Bacteria are so little of those things it's easier to say they aren't either but depending on what you mean by intelligent and conscious they may have very slight degrees of those.

*Many bacteria basically have a nose they use to steer themselves. Would you say moving towards something that smells like food is intelligent? That smelling it at all is conscious?


Why does it take a designer to make them? Variation and selection are what lead a species to become something else. Variation can't be avoided and selection can't be avoided.

For variation of your genome you only need to be duplicating the strands. For the chemistry reason I went into you get (very stochastic) non-duplicates.

For selection making more babies means you eventually squeeze out the opposition and if there's a disaster more of your offspring will be left around while maybe all of the other guys' will have died. Babies that are more likely to survive in general have the same effect.

So why should trial and error take a designer? We've got everything happening without any guiding force other than that whoever stays alive isn't dead.



Yes, but what's your point??
If they help something stay alive and make babies like themselves where is there room for a designer? Staying alive isn't like auditioning and getting a rose so you go on to the next round; you either get enough food/water and avoid being killed or you don't.

Are you saying without the designer plants and animals wouldn't starve to death or get crushed by rocks or catch on fire?
*trees can starve. Because they are stationary if they managed to sprout and last through their first year they're in a place with enough to "eat" but they definitely don't always get that.

How is it not alive?

Shoku,

A computer virus is not alive.



I would say so, yes.



Consciousness flows through them. Consciousness is the designer of them, and they contain consciousness. They and the designer are one.

This you will never get.

Awfully cold of you. I don't think I could so heartlessly look such a person in te face and tell them they were just not succeeding at the game.

So if someone saw a picture of an ostrich with a flowing poking out of it's butt and exclaimed "brilliant!" wouldn't it start to become clear that aesthetics are kind of meaningless in this context? If we automatically just look at the range of what we see and label the high end of that range "profoundly aesthetic" won't aesthetic really only mean that people are present?

Nobody likes a game that was an MMO one second and then the next there are a sponge in a fire.

Or at least they don't like if for more than a few minutes off of drugs. Games at least need a consistent rule about what they're doing.

"unlimited supply of raw materials for individuals"
Fix that phrase if you want me to accept that you meant what you just said.

So then you would say Earth is the starting area and after we're kicked out of it the real game starts?

Most games are almost exact copies of other games with a new label slapped on it and some redone artwork. Game design has had very little innovation since the earliest genres were set up.

It was at least as good as your reincarnation being extra lives thing.

"You will eventually get tired of playing with that sand. Roughly about when you know how to control it."

The barriers in a sandbox are understanding the rules. After that you exhaust your ideas quickly by either doing them or seeing that they can't work in that sandbox. Play Scribblenauts and tell me how many words you use throughout the course of the game.

How many people do you know that have dueled anyone for fun?
The random events have to give you something or you get the same reward from experiencing them as you would from imagining them and if you can just imagine it all you don't need the game anymore.

Achieving the same goal over and over would make life like the original Super Mario Brothers. You run around and jump on the evil brown mushrooms while eating the red spotted ones and rescuing the mushroom hats guys and eventually princess from a spiky turtle and it's neat the first time and the second and third but eventually you've got it all memorized. It would turn into a hellish existence if you had to keep doing it over and over.

Ultimately reincarnation as extra lives must eventually become such an experience. Most of us recognize that carnal pleasure is a fundamentally empty experience in forty to sixty years and in about half as many years we recognize that serving a community isn't anything that would keep us happy indefinitely either.

People think about and often wish they could do life over but think about it- how many times would you really want to go through being an awkward teenager? You may look back on it with fond memories but that's looking back; only douchebags were really very well off in high school.

And potty training? It's bad enough going back to diapers at the end of a long life but having to do it infinitely many times would be utterly wretched.

It's mostly the shooters where you fight other players. They kill you and then about ten second later you pop up at a respawn point if it's a mode where you can die multiple times. Usually in those it's a set amount of time and you try to get more points than the other team.

Actually no. We know full well that both are "wrong."

The Earth is flat is wrong. The Earth is pretty close to flat and no matter how far you walked you wouldn't notice the curve but if you're standing at the ocean you can see ships sink below the horizon a certain distance out.
So the Earth is a sphere but that's wrong too. There Earth is spinning and much of it's surface is water so it bulges at the equator.
Naturally you can tell that I'm going to say "sphere that bulges at the center" is wrong as well. The northern hemisphere has a lot more land so the tidal bulge of water is stronger in the south.

At this point we've gone down to a level of detail where almost nobody would care about the now tiny deviations from the general statement but we know that the general statement is just that: general. If you look into smaller and smaller details none of our descriptions tell the whole story. F=ma tells about 90% of the story and relativity tells all of that and about 90% of what was left and quantum gravity will probably tell about 90% of what was left and so on.

But JB says there is order without a God and abra says there could be no order without a God. Abra says there are only 100 atoms and JB says we're part of our designer.

The similarity seems to only be that you all use the word designer.

Why not? What does life have that it doesn't?

Well ya but only because when I asked if you were saying we were our own designers you told me you weren't saying that.

Which is it? Are we or aren't we?

Show me where I said that.



Life has will. Life has consciousness.

So if someone saw a picture of an ostrich with a flowing poking out of it's butt and exclaimed "brilliant!" wouldn't it start to become clear that aesthetics are kind of meaningless in this context? If we automatically just look at the range of what we see and label the high end of that range "profoundly aesthetic" won't aesthetic really only mean that people are present?And that they are perceiving and evaluating their perceptions according to what they deem to be aesthetic, yes.

That’s easy enough. I’ll just put it back the was it was before you altered it…

“unlimited supply of raw materials for individuals to shape new forms and plots to serve their own personal, functional and esthetic needs and desires”

I don’t know. But I do know that people have changed the output of Random Number Generators. So how would you classify that?

I just have one question. Can you conceive of anyone every having a sandbox related goal, which would fit within the context of our discussion?

If you want to start getting personal, I'm done.

That we're both or that we're not both?



Life has will. Life has consciousness.How would you even know if a computer virus had those things?

So you're not alright with looking at someone in the late stages of starving to death and saying this is just a game? Showing some empathy is a good thing. I'd say it's part of being a decent human being n_n

So it's alright for you to do but not anyone else. I get it.

If you say so.

Go to IRCL.org and see for yourself.

I never said it was.

Sky wrote:



A single thing does not exist, does it? I fail to see the relevance to what I wrote. Given your expressed thoughts added to my partial description, I can see why you would think that about my understanding of meaning. I think your equivocating between things which are manmade, and thus have manmade – subjective - meaning, and that which is not and does not.

Now, I very well may be wrong here... ... but, I think that there are both intrinsic meaning - which is displayed by properties of behavior - and subjective meaning - which is dependant upon a person's point of view. Those things are not necessarily the same.

My last post only made the distinction between objective properties and subjective meaning in order to demonstrate exactly why only the objective, intrinsic properties can be used to identify a thing - in and of itself. I showed how and why subjective meaning does not necessarily correspond to an object's intrinsic properties, and therefore must not be considered a reliable means to assess an objective existence.

That post should have driven a wedge establishing the possible difference(s) between what an object actually is - in and of itself - and what the subjective meaning may be. I meant to demonstrate that difference, because that must be kept in mind while assessing what a thing actually is, rather than what it's name may mean to someone. This is especially true for a conversation concerning the inherent properties which we use to identify things in this universe. Subjective meaning is irrelevant to the identification of what something actually is(or means) - in and of itself.

I did not take enough time to hash out the differences between intrinsic and subjective meaning, and that alone is a formidable task. I believe there is an important distinction between the two, and yet those differences are often not taken into consideration when discussing the meaning of certain behavior(s). It does not always apply, because all properties of behavior do not always indicate nor reflect one intrinsic meaning. Only when examining cases like that(one possible meaning) can we even attempt to establish any intrinsic meaning behind exhibited actions/behaviors. It is only possible when such an objective display always represents but one thing.



That is what must be used to objectively assess the physical universe, because only the intrinsic properties identify it - in and of itself. Intrinsic meaning is displayed by properties belonging to objective behavior(s) as well. The properties of behavior that have an intrinsic meaning also fit the above description and exist regardless of whether or not they are observed, thought about, or compared with anything else.



Neither one - property or behavior - is a meaning, it exhibits the intrinsic meaning, because it displays that which is had - in and of itself.My smile and a cat's tail held straight up are objective properties of behavior which indicate an intrinsic meaning, that of which we call 'happiness'. The label 'happiness' does not cause the meaning to exist. The meaning is intrinsic to such behavior because my cat feels that way with or without having a name for the meaning which is responsible for causing that behavior. The cat knows what it means without thinking nor uttering a word about it, because it is intrinsic. The behavior displays the meaning - in and of itself. Therefore, in a case like this, we do not determine the meaning by naming it, rather we label that which already exists. We identify the intrinsic meaning. Those behaviors have intrinsic meaning. I smile because I am happy(I cannot fake it). A cat hold it's tail up straight because it is happy.

That is intrinsic meaning, and just like objective properties, it does not depend upon our recognition, assessment, comparison, nor label to exist.

Subjective meaning comes into play when we label things. As soon as we label it 'happiness', the intrinsic meaning displayed obtains a subjective description. The name 'happiness' begins to mesh with all of our other associations existing for the word which may or may not equate to the original intrinsic meaning being identified.



I agree that the notion of 'better' is dependent upon comparison and therefore the meaning of the term(label) is also subject to one's idea of 'worse', and those ideas vary from person to person. That is also a value assessment, and I am not claiming that those have intrinsic meaning.



A cat's tail which is being held straight up means the same thing, whether or not that particular cat ever sees a person. A cat's howling while in heat also has intrinsic meaning. A rooster's crow. A dog's growl. Etc.

While the our acknowledgement of these meaningful displays does require associative measure, the intrinsic meaning behind them does not. Acknowledging intrinsic meaning does not establish it's existence in and of itself. It recognizes and identifies that which was already established independent of our observation. The display is full of meaning because it is intrinsic, not because another thing has given it a label by which to reference it. A consequence of self-awareness and the need to understand the world around us can skew our perspective in such a way that we unconsciously project ourselves onto the rest of the world. In doing so, we can fail to realize that we are not the only creatures with a sense of meaning naturally intact.

Well no, I was praisingyou for having some compassion there, though that's on the assumption that you can't dismiss people's agony. Am I assuming correctly?

As I've said the universe is expanding out to heat death. Eventually any new "players" would start with nothing to work with unless they were lucky in which case they might get a single particle.

Says that's not a valid link.

But you're saying it's one that we "get to" play forever? Or do we only go through like four or five lives and that's it?

That would depend on how you want to define or understand the term "universe."

I imagine that "Reality" exists in many different frequencies. "Physical" is within a certain frequency. Yes, I imagine there are other "realities" that are not physical that exist in different frequencies. Whether they are part of the same "universe" I would not know.

But I imagine and it could be possible that other very different universes exist. And again it would depend on how you describe "universe."

fair nuff. in that case i'd like to define the term "universe" as it is understood by the physical sciences as it is the only universe that is supported by physical evidence. there being no evidence to suggest the existence of other universes.



firstly, imagination is imagination. reality is reality. secondly, i'm confused with your use of the word "frequency" here. frequency as in reoccuring? radio? electrical? sound? cannot comment without understanding what you refer to.



well as you suggested that i define the term, let's talk possibilities with science upermost in mind. scientific methodology. evidence that can be tested using scientific methodology.

I'm going to throw in some clarification to that. The definition of universe is that of a closed system. It is everything that interacts with anything that we interact extending out however many steps.
So if there is basically another Earth with intelligent life on it but all of the stars in their sky don't send out light to anything that could ever be a part of a chain that reaches us then they are not in our universe. If God reaches through some barrier and pokes a rock until it falls over God is part of the universe. If particles of light leave our universe to go into some eye of God then God is also part of our universe that way.

If you had a perfect box that didn't transfer any kind of energy through it's walls and the inner surface of it's walls had no interaction (direct or indirect,) with the outer surface of it's walls (redundant but I want to make sure the concept is clear,) and we were outside of the box and could see it or go up near it or whatever but had no way of having any kind of interaction with things inside the box the things inside that box would not be part of our universe.
You don't see anything like that because it there's no way to stop gravity from reaching into the box.
And even if there were how could you have a box where us pushing on the outside with enough force wouldn't move the whole box including the stuff inside of it?

But still, if you had a box that got around those problems the stuff inside it would be part of a different universe as per the definition.

I found something interesting:

Then I will concede that there is only one "physical" universe that I know of, under your restrictions of "physical science."

But if you recall, your question was "Is there a universe that is not the physical universe."

Yes, I believe there is.--No, I can't prove it.



(First "Reality" is what we collectively decide it is, but lets not get into that discussion.)

Frequency is vibration. Light and sound, and all objects have frequency. It is a vibration. Everything in this physical reality has frequency.



If that is what you want to do, then you are talking to the wrong person. I am not a scientist of that kind.

Just call me "delusional" and move on. You can learn nothing from me. Nothing at all.

But if you want to learn more about frequency as it relates to 'science' perhaps that is where you should look. Frequency (sound)weapons are being developed that can reek havoc on objects and on the mind.

Other realities:

To give an example, an astral body is not considered to be "physical." There is also an "astral" reality.

But this is not necessarily to be considered a separate "universe" as it is actually part of and very connected to this physical universe.

As far as I know, our physical (popular and public) science has not recognized the astral world and astral "material" as even being "real."

Therefor, a discussion about them with someone who insists on remaining within the boundary of physical science would be quite pointless.