Unconscious Human Beings?

[bhsmte]

An unconscious human being ceases to be a person. This is why it's perfectly acceptable to take people's stuff when they're asleep. How can they own it if they don't exist am I right?!

Quite a leap you made there.

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

You cannot wake an unconscious creature. If it responds, it has some degree of consciousness.

That's a very broad view of consciousness. I define consciousness as a recognition and awareness of self. In other words, self-awareness.

Sleep is, by definition, an unconscious act. If you're conscious while sleeping, then you aren't actually sleeping you're just lying in bed awake. That sounds like a No True Scotsman, but its not, its just based on the definition.

During sleep, memory-retention is greatly repressed in the hippocampus, resulting in a lack of knowledge of thought processes during sleep.

If that's not a definition of unconsciousness, then I don't know what is.

Do you think bacteria, ants, and rocks are conscious?

 

[PsychoSarah]

Self-awareness is sentience, not consciousness. You can be conscious but not sentient, but anything which is sentient must at some point be conscious.

Ants make decisions, so I would consider them conscious. -_- why even mention a rock as if it is anything like a bacteria or an ant?

 

[BL2KTN]

That's a very broad view of consciousness. I define consciousness as a recognition and awareness of self. In other words, self-awareness.

Then you are confusing terms. Consciousness is not self-awareness.

Sleep is, by definition, an unconscious act. If you're conscious while sleeping, then you aren't actually sleeping you're just lying in bed awake. That sounds like a No True Scotsman, but its not, its just based on the definition.

You are not conscious of the senses turned off during sleep, but you remain conscious. You are conscious while you sleep, you are conscious of sounds, you are conscious of touch. These moments are seldom stored as memories.

If that's not a definition of unconsciousness, then I don't know what is.

Then Alzheimer's patients are not conscious. That is ludicrous logic.

Do you think bacteria, ants, and rocks are conscious?

Bacteria have no brains, nerves, or other data storage and response systems... they are not conscious.

Ants do have brains, nerves, storage and response systems... they are conscious when their brains are active.

A rock does not have a brain, nerves, or storage and response systems. It is not conscious.

Sometimes I have to go back to an important quote... "What is obvious to some is not obvious to another."

 

[Davian]

Maybe you could explain what it is you think I'm avoiding. Then we would both know.

The questions you avoided answering until I first explained my purpose.

Yes, I got that several posts back. Events end.



A cause is more than its symptoms. A person is more than an event.

Combustion was not part of my example. That was yours. My example was that a car doesn't stop being a car because you turn it off. The combustion event ends (the flame ceases to exist), but the car remains. The same is true of a person. When this "phenomenal self" of yours ends, the person continues because the brain is not dead and it retains the ability to produce those symptoms - that phenomenal self.



I would consider introspection and self-recognition 2 different things. The mirror test only captures one of them. Communication is required to know an "other" performs introspection ... and that's where it gets tricky. If one wants to be an extreme skeptic, it can be claimed that one only knows one's own introspection. A slightly less skeptical position allows that if I can do it, it's reasonable to assume others of my species can do it. One must be even more forgiving to allow that others species who must be taught (programmed?) to communicate an introspection they did not themselves develop are actually performing that task. Maybe they are.



Unless one starts to include spiritual matters in the definition of "self-awareness", I don't see why it would need to be anything other than in accordance with material laws.

What is a "spiritual matter"?

 

[Resha Caner]

The questions you avoided answering until I first explained my purpose.

I'm interpreting your use of "avoid" as pejorative. IOW, to me avoiding a question means one throws out red herrings so as to never answer the question. I see that as different from delaying an answer until the question is understood.

But even then, as I said, I took it as a rhetorical question, which usually requires no answer. The answer is implied. I suppose this means you and I can't use such devices with each other. We will have to be explicit.

What is a "spiritual matter"?

Something involving a spirit: God, angels, salvation, etc.

 

[variant]

I was trying to cover that possibility in the way I phrased my post. Yes, different systems will act differently, but I assume you think those differing responses are still in accordance with natural law.

I was trying to answer the question by saying that the differences between the baseball and a living system can be very large even if they are both acting within natural laws.

 

[Davian]

I'm interpreting your use of "avoid" as pejorative. IOW, to me avoiding a question means one throws out red herrings so as to never answer the question. I see that as different from delaying an answer until the question is understood.

But even then, as I said, I took it as a rhetorical question, which usually requires no answer. The answer is implied. I suppose this means you and I can't use such devices with each other. We will have to be explicit.

I will be sure to put a question mark at the end of my questions.

Something involving a spirit: God, angels, salvation, etc.

By that I infer that "spirit" is equivalent to "imaginary". Can you define the word, rather than provide examples?

 

[Gottservant]

Unconscious human beings become basically plants.

They are able to grow, feel, determine, and even resolve.

 

[Resha Caner]

By that I infer that "spirit" is equivalent to "imaginary". Can you define the word, rather than provide examples?

Not effectively.

 

[Davian]

Not effectively.

Hence my continuing disbelief.

 

[Resha Caner]

Hence my continuing disbelief.

Disbelief in what? I didn't ask you to believe anything did I?

 

[Davian]

Disbelief in what? I didn't ask you to believe anything did I?

In your previous post:

...

Something involving a spirit: God, angels, salvation, etc.

Were you not implying that these examples that you provided were real?

 

[Resha Caner]

Were you not implying that these examples that you provided were real?

Sure, but I was just answering your question, not asking you to believe the answer.

 

[Aldebaran]

Unconscious human beings become basically plants.

They are able to grow, feel, determine, and even resolve.

Most atheists would use that to say that a fetus is less than a plant, not being a living thing at all.

 

[lesliedellow]

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

You can create consciousness at the flip of a switch? How exactly?

Every so often somebody claims to have created the world's first conscious computer. There is a brief flurry of headlines in the press. Then everybody yawns, and carries on writing the same old work-a-day software.

The only totally unconscious human being is probably a dead one. Even in sleep you must have some level of consciousness, otherwise you wouldn't hear the alarm clock go off.

 

[Davian]

Most atheists would use that to say that a fetus is less than a plant, not being a living thing at all.

Are you a spokesperson for atheists?

 

[Aldebaran]

Are you a spokesperson for atheists?

Nope. Just the opposite. Born-again Christian. What I said before was referencing things I see them posting on here all the time.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Most atheists would use that to say that a fetus is less than a plant, not being a living thing at all.

-_- that is some extreme stereotyping there. Plenty of atheists are pro life, I know quite a few who are very conservative politically. What is defined as life is not just a faith based issue, there are plenty of reasonable, secular arguments to be pro life. I for one happen to be extremely "republican" about the death penalty.

In any case, I don't see atheists or Christians crying over a patch of grass being removed for landscaping. In case you didn't notice, humanity tends not to care much about other forms of life unless something which directly impacts us is associated with them

 

[Aldebaran]

-_- that is some extreme stereotyping there. Plenty of atheists are pro life, I know quite a few who are very conservative politically. What is defined as life is not just a faith based issue, there are plenty of reasonable, secular arguments to be pro life. I for one happen to be extremely "republican" about the death penalty.

In any case, I don't see atheists or Christians crying over a patch of grass being removed for landscaping. In case you didn't notice, humanity tends not to care much about other forms of life unless something which directly impacts us is associated with them

I guess I should have said "some" atheists rather than "most", although it seems to be the case with the majority of the ones I've communicated with, excluding you, of course.