I can imagine that my body could function just as it is now, without some sort of 'consciousness.' Lemmings, suicide, unintentional death x100...that's what you'd get with no self-concept. Without self-perception, you wouldn't really have much urge for self-protection, I'm guessing. The two are coupled and integral to survival. "The cosmological constant is precisely what it is, because there are conscious beings (I think he said humans) alive today that are able to study and discern just what the cosmological constant is." This reminds me of my literary and cultural theory class discussion today. We were talking about the idea of discussion and how discussion brings an idea into being. For example, when we talk about "literature" we really mean the abstract, not a piece of it specifically. If people didn't discuss what literature is and what it does, it just would not exist. Simple as that. The individual things themselves probably would, but not the thing called literature. Another example: "science" in 1600 was a completely
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I guess I'm not really talking about self-preservation. I'm talking about me being me; the me that gets to see the things I see, and think the things I think. When I mention a lack of consciousness, I don't mean that it doesn't 'care' about survival or whatever, but simply, as with atheism and theism, atheists disbelieve in one more god than most theists. (down to a point where there is no god)... as in, we already don't experience what others experience, (perhaps indirectly, through communication), but if we eliminated our own experiences, etc, eliminated that last 'god.'
I think we've talked about this before, how we really have little to derive what it would feel like to be non-existent. (pre-birth, the occasional near-death-experience) but even, beyond that, um, I forgot what my point was. Anyway, I shouldn't be wasting time on Livejournal right now. :-)
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Lemmings, suicide, unintentional death x100...that's what you'd get with no self-concept. Without self-perception, you wouldn't really have much urge for self-protection, I'm guessing. The two are coupled and integral to survival.
"The cosmological constant is precisely what it is, because there are conscious beings (I think he said humans) alive today that are able to study and discern just what the cosmological constant is." This reminds me of my literary and cultural theory class discussion today. We were talking about the idea of discussion and how discussion brings an idea into being. For example, when we talk about "literature" we really mean the abstract, not a piece of it specifically. If people didn't discuss what literature is and what it does, it just would not exist. Simple as that. The individual things themselves probably would, but not the thing called literature. Another example: "science" in 1600 was a completely ( ... )
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I think we've talked about this before, how we really have little to derive what it would feel like to be non-existent. (pre-birth, the occasional near-death-experience) but even, beyond that, um, I forgot what my point was. Anyway, I shouldn't be wasting time on Livejournal right now. :-)
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