If you want to know why

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>You're conscious now in 2011 instead of 3011 or 9011, etc., the answer may very well be that you couldn't be conscious in those times, because there would be no humans alive then to perceive from. Maybe this helps explains why we're all conscious on the brink of what will be a technological explosion, but not after it (because people won't be being born after it, perhaps).</p>

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<p>Ow, my brain is hurting.</p>

<p>But really, I try to ignore these things because it’s not like it matters unless you’re a philosopher, in which case, have fun finding a job! :P.</p>

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<p>With your logic, wouldn’t the people who were conscious in 2011 BC be conscious then instead of a later time because they couldn’t be conscious at a later time because there would be no humans alive to perceive from?</p>

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<p>Maybe, yeah. It turns out that’s not the case though, it turns out humans survived well into the AD’s. Just like it could turn out that people might still be procreating 8000 years from now. I know what one can conclude about the future is not definite, but I wonder how much one can conclude, or with what certainty one can say things about it</p>

<p>But one point to make is that back then the estimate would have bee much less accurate: before 2000bc only a few billion humans (if that) had been conscious; now around 100 billion have been conscious. Thus, the end is in some sense nearer, and so the prediction of the end more accurate. That is to say, what I can conclude from being conscious when and where I am conscious is greater now than it was then.</p>

<p>I have to think more about this, though. I think there’s more than can be said, or things that can be said that are more precise.</p>

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<p>We exist now, so it must mean that something special is about to happen because obviously we’re special and the universe knows that. Right?</p>

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<p>*I waited 'til I saw the sun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I left you by the house of fun
I don’t know why I didn’t come
I don’t know why I didn’t come </p>

<p>When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand </p>

<p>My heart is drenched in wine
But you’ll be on my mind
Forever *</p>

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<p>So here’s one thing to consider: out of all the time humans have been conscious in the modern sense (approximately 60,000 years or so), right now (in the present) the world hosts the most consciousness’ it ever has. So I had, therefore, a greater chance of being conscious now (in 2011) than any date before now. Now, imagine if trillions of people inhabited multiple planets, etc., in the future. Well that would make it quite unlikely that I (or you) would have been conscious now (it would be a lot more likely to be conscious in those future times). But maybe my being conscious experience (and yours too) isn’t a statistical anomaly: maybe we do actually live when around the time that will be seen as the time when it was most probably to be alive.</p>

<p>If you think in chronological order or births of people that grow up to be conscious (because those are the only ones it makes sense to count), maybe we’re closer to the middle of the hypothetical list if there is a end to it (i.e in the future a last conscious person). </p>

<p>@billy: no…
@tcbh: I appreciate the poem :).</p>

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How could you possibly determine how long human consciousness has existed?</p>

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But the population of subterranean supermen is severely dwindling!</p>

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Yes, because that one particular sperm and one particular egg only could have met at one time.</p>

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No, see above sperm/egg comment. It would mean that if you put the names of all human beings who have hitherto existed into a pile and drew one out, the drawing would be much more likely to yield my name or yours today than in such a future as you describe.</p>

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You already beat the worst odds during conception.</p>

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I hope that human consciousness exists for as long as possible.</p>

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That’s basically how I read your OP.</p>

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<p>That is how long we think humans have had a complex language. Try to be conscious without thinking in words (it’s quite inconceivable). </p>

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<p>can you explain how this is relevant…why did you say this?</p>

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<em>Spanish accent</em> You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.</p>

<p>Inconceivable to someone who thinks in words, perhaps, but not to someone without language who thinks without words, so we don’t know. Ever had an idea that you couldn’t convey with words?</p>

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“You” would not exist if another sperm fertilized your mother’s egg or if your father’s sperm fertilized another egg. Without that specific combination of those exact two cells, you wouldn’t exist. Countless souls who could have been conceived never were.</p>

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<p>Right, so you ignore those. You only consider the fertilizations that have developed into conscious, perceiving people (like you). Why would you consider the possible consciousnesses that have never developed?</p>

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<p>consciousness?</p>

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<p>The development of language is linked to more sophisticated tool use, to human’s (possibly deliberate) migration of of Africa, etc. It is linked to many of the things we associate with conscious behavior. It is the thing that inculcates the concepts “I” and “You” into those who learn it.</p>

<p>There is another thread here on visualization - some things can be conceived (visualized) without words, but we find that the animals that can do this (like elephants) don’t display conscious behavior (or at least not very much in comparison to humans). </p>

<p>I think it’s hard to dispute that consciousness requires some sort of complex system of associations, a language. And a language that can evolve, that has some basis sounds or letters or signals or (more generally) distinct elements that can be reconfigured. It could be a language based off visual perception (like sign language is), among other things.</p>

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No, I mean that you could not have existed in another time because the ingredients necessary for your existence did not exist then.</p>

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Inconceivable. Have you not seen The Princess Bride?</p>

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Again, it is easier to imagine things being only as you can perceive rather than being able to exist in ways foreign to you.</p>

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Correlation does not imply causation. Language is more likely to be a product of consciousness, rather than consciousness being a product of language.</p>

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<p>This is a fair objection, but why do you think it’s more likely the other way around? Maybe you didn’t mean to say that, or if you did what makes you think that? At least one must admit consciousness is enhanced by communication. Consciousness evolves WITH language, is what I would say. There is a lot of research neither of us now regarding language.</p>

<p>Some very curious studies, for instance, about what happened when isolated deaf kids (who didn’t have a language) were brought together to a school from all over some african country. While the adults were trying to teach them some standardized sign language, the kids ended up inventing there own language! And ten years after the program started the original kids at the school has trouble speaking it because it had evolved so much. Here it’s actually hard to say what happened (whether conscious spurred language or visa versa), because the kids were young. As they were growing up (as their brains were maturing and they were becoming more conscious, they were learning a language at the same time.</p>

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<p>What do you mean? Of course I could have! have you ever wondered why you perceive from the brain you from? Come on, it’s just as likely we could have been a person in another country, or a CONSCIOUS ALIEN on another planet. We have to try and broaden our perspectives here, I think.</p>

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Because a being without consciousness would likely have trouble with language?</p>

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I must not admit it, though it seems a fair theory, though I can’t really make a fair comparison.</p>

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It’s hard to measure things based on isolated kids, since they don’t have the system of family early humans would have had. Also, a “language” of gestures, noises, and symbols has existed in some form well before humanity ever was.</p>

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So you don’t think your consciousness is tied to your brain? If it is, then a different brain (through different DNA) would yield a different consciousness, no?</p>

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<p>right, the evolution of a “complex” language though, is what I mean. Which just means having enough elements, so vast rearrangement of them is possible I think (so you can have lots of words or concepts). Like you said, this takes some initial intelligence or consciousness, being able to devise such a system, and being able to contribute to it (come up with new words). Researches tried teaching certain chimpanzees language decades ago (first english, then english sign language) - neither attempt was very successful.</p>

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<p>Yes I agree. Different DNA (or in fact the same DNA, but a different cell) would yield a different brain and consciousness. </p>

<p>Still, I think it’s quite possible I (or you) could have been born some other time. I mean how are we assigned to the brains we are (why do we perceive from the brains we do?). This is an open question; it can’t be dodged by saying - well, you are that person, and therefore couldn’t be anyone else. I think one can ask why you are that person <em>without</em> contradicting what we are agreeing to above (that consciousness is tied the brain, that each brain is the consciousness). So I don’t think what you brought up impacts what I mentioned here:</p>

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<p>oooh I love Philosophical debates!</p>

<p><a href=“http://i.imgur.com/tCp90.gif[/url]”>http://i.imgur.com/tCp90.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I like overripe dates.</p>

<p>[File:Dattes-TN.JPG</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dattes-TN.JPG]File:Dattes-TN.JPG”>File:Dattes-TN.JPG - Wikipedia)</p>

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We aren’t “assigned” to our brains, our consciousness arises naturally from them, no?</p>

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<p>yes, but there is something peculiar about that fact that we are conscious. Yes, humanity has to be conscious because we’re sufficiently evolved, have language, etc., but why do I have to be? Why do you have to be? I could imagine a universe which was the same in every way except for the fact I never actually perceived anything in it. So why do I? And if I do, why is the visual stimuli coming through these particular eyes, in this particular place, and not where anyone else is, why am I perceiving from this particular being, and not one on another planet, and who or what decided that. How does that work?</p>

<p>So I think we are in some sense assigned to the location in space we perceive from, to those people. I think our consciousness’ can arise from our brains, and that we can also think about them, ourselves, at the same time as in some sense being assigned. It sounds contradictory, I agree.</p>

<p>But I think you have to have something else. It’s not enough to say consciousness comes from the brain, that people with certain brains (brains that are healthy, that work well) are conscious. One has to ask additionally why one is one of those conscious brains, why one so different from all the people around them in the way that everything is centralized to them (why they only experience their own thoughts, and not other’s, or their own pain or happiness, etc.).</p>

<p>Personally though I don’t think we are assigned really; or I think that the assignment is a illusion which makes us think we’re tied down to one person, to seeing from perspective, etc., but I think its also a necessary, unavoidable illusion for those who are conscious.</p>

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I remember thinking this way; I suppose I’ve just grown to accept myself as a whole person without a detached mind.</p>

<p>Though I think people are illusion-happy nowadays. Ever since “time is an illusion,” everything of consequence has been said to be an illusion. Yes, all of existence is merely a sea of particles, with all the differences owing merely to the distance between certain particles. However, that doesn’t make us less real.</p>