From: zakolus zahn (zakolus@gmail.com)
Date: Tue Oct 13 2009 - 16:05:33 MDT
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Mu In Taiwan <mu.in.taiwan@gmail.com>wrote:
> "Take away everything, place a human in a void, and in effect, we cease to
> be. Without external stimuli, is our mind anymore awake than the computer
> you are at right now?"
>
> Absolute rot. 3 hours in a sensory deprivation tank will cure you of this
> fiction.
>
> Mu
>
Did I say "place a human in a void for 3 hours"? No. Let's try again.
"Place a human in a void and in effect, we cease to be."
Everything that makes a person, a person, involves being acted upon in some
way by an outside world, either human or other.
If you took everything you learned from every else and threw it away, what
would you know? You'd ask me "What?" But, language is learned from someone
else. You'd try to use your kung-fu skills on me, but again, that's
something you've learned.
"But, but, Mr Zak, everything had to be learned somewhere at some point."
While this is true, this happened on earth, with an environment.
Try learning Kung-Fu in a void where you have no reference and no prior
knowledge of what it is. Hell, you don't even know what Kung-Fu means.
Add onto that the fact that a person cannot breathe in a void, and my point
is compounded upon.
A human isn't a human when it's dead, just a mass of flesh and bone, that
whilst might resemble a person, hell could be your best friend, isn't
anymore.
Unless you believe in the after-life, but that's on a whole 'nother
discussion.
Now, imagine that you are the air, the very soul for a computer, you give it
life, you are the external reference, the replacement to the void.
It may be that you, as a person, are controlling it, but is it not an
extension of your very thoughts, your personality, your knowledge.
If those don't make me have a mind, I don't know what would.
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