So, are we/am I conscious, or is the world an illusionary set of hi-karate cosmic dominoes?
Something I haven’t thought about for a while, and the flame has been sparked again. I wish could say I have a definite answer for this one, but I don’t. It seems like it’s obvious.
“Of course you’re conscious. What a silly statement! If you wanted a beer right now, you could walk over to seven eleven and buy one, or watch TV, or do any number of things. All because YOU want to.”
That seems reasonable enough but… Where did consciousness come from? This ball of dirt gets almost all of it’s energy from the sun. All the flashing lights, wind blowing, cats meYOOOOWing, flower growing, from the suns energy.
Is the sun conscious? Were those little single celled dudes conscious? Were dinosaurs conscious? Are the other primates conscious? Are we conscious?
For the time being I’ll assume that I am, but you (I) can’t help but wonder if we’re just observing a master setup (to the 10000000000000th power) of dominoes unfold. It may seem like “I” crave a beer, but how could I crave beer unless someone introduced it to me (that’s one cosmic domino click), and what encouraged them to introduce it to me (watch the dominoes fall)?
Take a step into that ocean and watch nature’s domino mastery. The dominoes look at little clearer there. If I had a par of SexySpecs (glasses that let you see subtle energies and thought travel) I bet I could watch the dominoes fall all around me.
Well, that’s what’s been on my ming as of late. I’m SOOOOOO glad this month is (almost) over. I shall never enter the world of full-time work again. FULL-TIME WORK IS THE DEBIL!!! No time for eating right, no time for working out the way I want to, no time for studying the five arts, no time for nothing. Call me a slacker if you like, but I wasn’t built to work like that. 3-5 hours a day is more than enough, and I hope to drastically reduce that as time goes by.
I have a lot of projects coming up so there’ll be some new news soon. Working on old websites, buying some new domains and will be setting up my first eShopping Cart thing. I’ll post about that stuff when the time comes.
If anyone wanted to take the time to figure out “my” cosmic domino theory it could prove to be very useful.
“Sorry honey. The Cosmic Domino law FORCED me to sleep with that hooker.”
😀
until the cosmic bones bring me back to the blog
miltownkid
Oh, something funny one of the afternoon kids wrote in their workbook:
miltownkid.com 
It sounds like you’re partly talking about the Butterfly Effect – a butterfly flapping it’s wings in the Amazon will cause a tornado in Kansas.
My current theory is something like a three dimensional spider web. You move one of the strings and a lot of others get moved too.
Yes, that would be watching them (the dominoes) unfold. But it’s right along with that thing of if we had a “picture” of the universe’s domino setup, could all things from past to present be figured out from mathematical equation.
Or look at it this way. Will computers even be conscious? If you think yes, then what would be the turning point from conscious to unconscious? Seems like consciousness is pretty black and white.
If I voted for me being conscious, I’d also for for a City, ocean, solar system, and a colony of ants of being conscious as well.
It sounds like you’re talking a bit about the Chaos Theory – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
– predicting random events scientifically/mathematically.
I don’t exactly follow your connection to computer consciousness, but yes, I think computers will be conscious some day. To me it seems like the line would be blurry between conscious/unconscious, though. I guess a computer could become partially aware of itself. It could know certain things about itself, but not really know it was there.
My definition for consciousness would be awareness of yourself.
Yeah, I think I’m confusing consciousness with a system of some sort. I guess I think any system that has the ability to maintain itself is conscious, but that wouldn’t be right. I don’t think I’d call a single cell amoeba conscious. But then, somehow, when a bunch of them are grouped together they become a more complex system that’s (supposedly) conscious.
I guess it’s back to the drawing boards with that one :P. 🙂
OK, I think this is what I’m talking about:
Deterministic system (philosophy).
I guess I can’t see things as being random. I think Quantum mechanics may be found to be not-so-random eventually (but I’m in no position to be making statments like that :D).
Just as things are so complex that they seem random. Life is so complex that we feel like we make choices (or something like that).
Who knows (I sure don’t).
I noticed the Chaos Theory is listed as one of the kinds of Deterministic systems. So I think we’re sort of on the same track.
In my original description of Chaos Theory I should have said “predicting (seemingly) random events…”
It seems like we’re talking about free will now. The question of free will is a really tough one and I think the answer would end up being decided by one’s beliefs (for now). It just depends on how you want to look at the world.
Intoduction to Philosophy is finally paying off. 🙂
If you’re not working full-time, how do you pay your bills and/or save money? How much do you make per month, if I might ask? Is teaching in Taiwan *that* lucrative?
The base pay at my morning job is 38,000NT (for 3 hours 5 days a week, not the greatest, but I like it). For the last 4 or 5 months I’ve gotten side jobs substituting or something that usually amount to an extra 5-10,000NT.
It’s not rockstar money, but it pays the bills and lets me by the occasional toy. This last moth working the two jobs will put me at 90-100,000NT, but that was too much work for me, I won’t easily do that again.
If you want more details than those, feel free to contact me (link).
I was thinking if everything as i thought was said.. then couldnt one day that something could become more conscious then human beings? i may not be very smart but couldnt that be possible
or even someday when people figure out exactly what the domino effect seriously is thaey could ultimatly figure out the future by scientific calculations?
… aside from what im saying a very good example of a possible domino effect is the music video “Who I Am Hates Who Ive Been” By Relient K
anyways i just lost my train of thoughts and forgot what i was going to say… Anyways if i remember ill write it down and come back