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Toward a Science of Consciousness 1998

cijadra at zedat.fu-berlin.de cijadra at zedat.fu-berlin.de
Sat Apr 18 00:00:26 EST 1998


Jason Rosenberg <jason at erdas.com> wrote:

>David Chalmers wrote:
>> 
>>            TOWARD A SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 1998
>> 
>>                     TUCSON, ARIZONA
>>                  APRIL 27 - MAY 2, 1998
>> 


>I must say, this looks like a great conference.  I
>wish I had known about it sooner.  Will there be a
>published proceedings for the various papers?  What
>about proceedings for the past years?

Easy, look at the title: consciousNESS. 

>It looks to me as though the participation is quite
>inter-disciplinary, but not much from the traditional
>AI crowd, i.e. computer scientists, etc.  Is that
>right?  And if so, why?

>Jason

I looks to me that it is not inter-disciplinary,
as at least several hundred of the directions of the world studying
aspects of the mind are missing...

Reading the topics might also bring enlightenment to the why, as the
aspect of enlightenment and all of the branches to do with it are not
exactly there in abundance... apart from many others.

And if thou wouldst consider the matter a bit deeper,
though mightst observe that the old "we are in the frontal cortex and
it is bigger than that of most other mammals, therefore we can lock
them into cages and abuse them" is not exactly congruent with the data
of the alive-mammal-apart-cutters.
If thou wouldst think even more long though mights arrive at the
suspicion that the upper part of the frontal cortex is not of the
conscious areas at all nor the front and that in both you can
basically park a brick or a biiiig tumor and the person might still be
around, which suspiciously does not make it the likely center for
consciousness.
Now of course a little rethinking is needed, for most neuros
preferably with the preset result that they are ever so much more
conscious and have ever so much more thinking I-perception than the
other mammals they abuse, so that they can go on abusing them and
eating them, ...
and my first guess would be that someone tries to get the neuros to
make up their melon where the centers who are conscious might be - if
they exist - and the shrinks to rethink their brain-screwing people
accordingly and the philosophers for little thingies like some
Christians being a bit miffed if the conscious mind is not some soul
going to Heaven, where maybe the dead partner you loved already is
waiting for you,  but just a bunch of neurons of some areas in the
brain.

Here is a little riddle for you:

How would society restructure if it was proven beyond doubt that the
thinking and conscious centers we have are also there in mammals and
some of them also in many other animals?
To what extent would it make what people do to animals a crime the
same way or to at least the same percentage the similarity is there
as if they had been committed against the mammal "human"?

The moment you declare certain centers main suspicion areas for
conscious centers or declare them THE conscious areas, it might cause
some tiny, trivial alterations in a few unimportant areas...




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