[ryan2006]

You have consciousness right? Then there must be a higher consciousness right? You can anwser no I do not to the first if you don't understand what consciouness is and yes or no to the second if you answer yes to both of these questions the you except an intelligence one that knows something and one that knows everything. Yes to the first indicates that you accept yourself. Yes to the second accepts God. If you say no to the second than you are saying that you can not create nor destroy energy which would then mean that the universe was endless, but not accepting an eternal afterlife in religions points of view. I have answered yes to both questions, but believe the eternal worlds are combined so that an eternal cosmos exists and eternal life according to most doctrine of religious thought in the western hemisphere. If I say an eternal cosmos exists I am saying that life after death does not exist since you can not create nor destroy energy thereby defeating the premise I started out with but still accepting God in a cosmological sense just not adhering to religious doctrine

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by ryan2006

You have consciousness right? Then there must be a higher consciousness right?... If you say no to the second than you are saying that you can not create nor destroy energy which would then mean that the universe was endless...

Why?

The Laws of Thermodynamics--which have no contrary datapoints whatsoever--say very explicitly that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but this is not in the least bit inconsistent with the notion of a finite Universe.

Do you have an argument to the contrary?

Originally Posted by ryan2006

...but not accepting an eternal afterlife in religions points of view.

And what does this have to do with "an afterlife?"

Ryan, you can go two ways with this thread: you can tie these arguments to how actual elements of cosmology might justify your statements, or you can talk about how religious doctrines support this world view and contrast them with other religious beliefs.

If you are simply going to say what your personal beliefs are, we're happy for you, but its not really very interesting to most folks and you'll get them starting to believe that your only goal is to try to get them to agree with your religious beliefs, which is not a goal of this forum.

Happy to talk about Theology here, but "Theology" is not just telling people what your personal opinions are.

Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight on the geological clock. Yet we mayflies try to bend an ancient world to our purposes, ignorant perhaps of the messages buried in its long history. Let us hope that we are still in the early morning of our April day,
Buffy

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by ryan2006

You have consciousness right?

This single question is (or, at least in recent memory, was) huge, and the answer not at all considered an a priori truth based on even a superficial glimpse of the literature.

The 1980s especially was host to a proliferation of popular and technical focus on theis questions prerequisite – “what is consciousness?” (it is, of course, semantically meaningless to ask “do you have X?” without defining what X is), with popular anthologies such as “The Mind’s I” being de rigueur reading among people who spend much time in discussion of the question. Like many AI students of this decade, I considered this not just a, but the question.

One of the more promising answers to come out of this and earlier cultures of inquiry into the question is the idea that “what is consciousness” has no proper answer, because it presupposes that that the term is not a reference to an “empty referent” (“colorless sleeping green ideas” are a more well known example of one of these, sometimes called “semantic nulls”). Many people, myself included, have concluded that “consciousness” is such a term – I’ve discussed this a few times in these forums, such as in this post. Though I generally credit my concept of consciousness as an empty reference to Minsky, I’m unaware of a good online source of him precisely stating it - This 1998 Edge interview is about the best I’ve been able to find.

[modest]

Originally Posted by CraigD

One of the more promising answers to come out of this and earlier cultures of inquiry into the question is the idea that “what is consciousness” has no proper answer, because it presupposes that that the term is not a reference to an “empty referent” (“colorless sleeping green ideas” are a more well known example of one of these, sometimes called “semantic nulls”). Many people, myself included, have concluded that “consciousness” is such a term

I was probably in grade school when first seeing the episode of Star Trek TNG where the ship’s computer became conscious. Consciousness being something that happened when intelligence reached a certain threshold - like a light flipping on. At the time that seemed incredibly unlikely. Even to the little grade-school version of myself, it seemed a very simplistic view.

Nevertheless, I wouldn’t say consciousness is an empty referent. It’s a useful simplification is all. The mechanics in the human mind responsible for consciousness are obviously very complicated - yet probably a useful property of the brain, and as far as a property - it appears real.

I’m very good a spotting if another human is conscious or not. Be it someone sleeping, in a coma, or the recipient of a rear naked choke at the hand of BJ Penn. If such a binary state exists then it must not refer to nothing.

I’m no doubt unqualified to translate that to computer science. Until we can build HAL or the enterprise computer maybe we're all reaching a bit in the dark.

~modest