On Mar 10, 2:34 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <stath....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> On 3/10/07, Tom Caylor <daddycay....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> On Mar 7, 1:52 am, "Stathis Papaioannou" <stath....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> > > On 3/7/07, Tom Caylor <daddycay....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > > > Why wouldn't the *whole* of such a Plenitude be truly superfluous to
> > > > any reality? According to Bruno's recursion theory argument, most of
> > > > the stuff in the Plenitude is useless junk. *Someone* (somebody
> > > > bigger that you or I ;) has to decide what is the good stuff. The
> > > > good stuff IN *all* of the Plenitude, not just part of it. This is
> > > > what I mean by being in charge of it.
>
> > > The good stuff knows that it's good stuff, just as you will still know
> > that
> > > you're you if you're kidnapped in your sleep and taken to a distant
> > place
> > > full of things that aren't you. This is the defining feature of a
> > conscious
> > > entity. (This is repeating Russell's answer, but it's perhaps the single
> > > most important idea of this list: everything + anthropic principle =
> > > observed reality).
>
> > > Stathis Papaioannou
>
> > Like in my last Meaning of Life post, explaining observed reality is
> > only half of the equation of the meaning of life. Modern science is
> > only in the left side of the brain of humanity.
>
> Do you agree then that science can in principle explain observed reality, to
> the point where we might be able to assemble a conscious human being from
> the appropriate chemicals?
>
> Stathis Papaioannou
If it is true that science is looking at only half of humanity's
brain, do you think that science will be able to build a single brain
that would truly be part of humanity? I believe that understanding
consciousness is at the core of understanding everything. I believe
that at the core of consciousness is the question and answer of
meaning, goodness, creativity and love. Modern reductionist science
that you allude to tries it backwards: try to explain everything in
terms of mathematical physics from the bottom up ("meaning is only
mechanical relationships"), then we will understand consciousness.
With this bottom-up approach, understanding consciousness seems to be
always beyond our reach. Getting back to the plenitude, it seems that
the many-worlds interpretation takes bottom-up to the extreme and
says, OK we can't figure out how the good stuff happens, so let's just
say that everything happens. So this is supposed to take the worship
and awe out of it all: It's not a big deal that we are here. We just
are, so let's just get on with it and mechanically follow our local
wants. There isn't any exciting broadsweeping love story to the
universe that has anything to do with our consciousness. We are just
an odd very^very rare string of bits in a random meaningless sea.
When we feel that we want to talk to someone out there, it is just a
mistake. Sorry for bothering you all. I'll let you get back to your
local bit flipping ;)
Tom
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Received on Sun Mar 11 2007 - 03:41:15 PDT