Re: On the Issue of Awareness

From: Niclas Thisell <niclas.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 10:55:00 +0100

Fritz Griffith wrote
>>> The number of ants vastly outnumbers the number of humans. So I
should
>>> be suprised to find myself human. (We could put it like this;
assuming
>>> ignorance on the ratio ants/human, and given the fact that I'm
human, a
>>> guess would be that the number of ants is not vastly greater than
the
>>> number of humans.)
>>> A reasonable explanation for this is that ants have a lower degree
of
>>> consciousness.
>
> I think what we really need is a definition of awareness. I
> believe we are
> aware due to memory. I'm currently writing a paper on this
> very subject.
> I'll post the URL when I'm done.

I believe my reasoning had been more clear had I used the term
'self-conscious' instead (or indeed 'self-aware'). Self-awareness seems
to be considered a boolean, though, and the wacky magic required a
scalar. Or does my self-awareness decrease if I whack myself in the head
with a hammer a couple of times?

Anyway, don't let my confusion on terminology lead you to believe that
everybody here are as confused. Personally, I would indeed like to see a
clear definition of 'self-aware' that I agree on (preferably one that
can be evaluated by a computer 'for all entities' (all subsets of
particles?), given a point in Hilbert-space :-).

Best regards,
Niclas Thisell
Received on Fri Dec 17 1999 - 01:50:13 PST