Conference hydra::dejavu

    Re .0:
    
    >     Life as we have seen it, always comes from other life--cells
    >always come from other cells. The cell is said to be the most fun-
    >damental unit of life. 
    
    I would disagree on two counts:
    
    1) Life, _in the brief time-slice we view it_ comes from other life.
    The materialist/evolutionist would say that back somewhere, probably
    through certain natural processes, life came from non-life {I tend
    to agree]; the religionist would say that life came from some superior
    being's creation.  In either case, there would be a beginning.
    
    2) Below the cell, there is the virus.  A virus produces certain
    life signs anmd is usually considered as being alive.
    
    Additionally,  life shows a pattern from simple to more complex.
     This is thus not a steady-state phenomenon but one assuming growth
    in one (or several) directions.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    RE; .0
    
    Uh.... I don't understand what you are tryig to say.  
    
    One can certainly be alive without being conscious.
    
    
    
    John M.

    We all must remember that .3 was a reply entered by a guy who has
    the personal title of "Memory druge:  just say ..uh..".
    
    Marion   :^D

    Re .4:
    > ... personal title of "Memory druge:  just say ..uh..".
        
    Oh, he isn't such a drudge... :-D  
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    Current thought on life-from-life:
    
    	*Where life exits* life can only come from life.  The presence
    	of life prevents the evolution of pre-life into life.
    
    There is no clear line between pre-life and life (as there is none
    between non-life and pre-life) -- there is a gradiant.
    
RE: .0
    
    While I don't reject your conclusion out of hand.  I think your
    reasoning is weak in this case.  First off you are reasoning purely
    by analogy -- analogizing "life" and "consciousness".  Analogies
    are useful for suggesting ideas, but to prove anything with them
    you have to show that all significant properties carry meaningfully
    across the analogy.  Furthermore you seem to make the completely
    unjustified logical jump from "consciousness comes from consciousness"
    to "all that comes from consciousness is consciousness".  To use your
    analogy: feces, beaver dams and pliers are all the products of life
    without being, in any identifiable sense (except assumption), living
    themselves (all contain life -- life is ubiquitous -- but none are
    living).
    
    To make anything of this at all, we'll need a useful definition
    of consciousness.
    
    					Topher

    Re: .4 and .5
    
    Attack the writer when you don't have a good argument? 
    Shame on you. 
    
    -bs

    Re .7 (re .5):
    
    _Attack_ the writer?  If anything [other than having fun in a word
    play], I could be thought of as defending the writer! :-)
    
    
    Re .6:
    
    Topher, your perspective and mine are in close agreement (said so
    that people won't think this is an attack (-: ), however, how do
    pliers _contain_ life?
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

RE: .8
    
    >...how do pliers _contain_ life?
    
    Steve, if you were a surgeon, would you use a pair of pliers in
    an operation (assuming you needed to use a pair of pliers in an
    operation) without first steralizing them?
    
    				Topher

    Re .9:
    
    ...but that's on the surface....
    
    Of course, I suppose if you used pliers to "catch a rabbit by the
    toe...." :-)
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
    

RE: .10
    
    American Heritage Dictionary:
    
    Contain: 1. To enclose 2. to comprise, include. 3. To be able to
    hold. 4. To hold back; restrain.
    
    When you say that "The dessert contains diverse and active life"
    you are not refering to only that which is below the surface.  In
    the context, it seemed appropriate.
    
    Or I could get picky and claim that I was refering to the life
    within the joint, which is probably the richest source of
    micro-organisms on a pair of pliers.
    
    						Topher

    My original inspiration here comes from the viewpoint that before
    there was anything, even before the "Big Bang" dare I say, there
    "is" consciousness. I define consiousness as that which looks out
    into the world, that which feels its own existence, that which is
    the source. From consciousness issues forth all. What we think of
    as consciousness when we say "I'm conscious and walking around this
    building" in the mundane sense, is only a minute, infinitessimal
    fraction of all consciousness. We, in ordinary experience, only
    feel one aspect of it that fluctuates in size with the intensity
    of each different experience we have. 
    
         If you are deep in meditation and experiencing union with God
    on some level, you are then more fully conscious in the immediate
    moment than if you are watching a "Three's Company" rerun. This
    is a distorted, barely adequate example though, because on one level
    we are all fully conscious all of the time. (This stuff only gets
    more confusing when you try to look at it rationally!) The uncon-
    scious comatose patient, even though he is not responding to stimuli
    as a waking person, is still in fact conscious in the full-conscious-
    ness sense. In fact, there have even been cases in which persons
    under hypnosis were able to recall word-for-word conversations which
    took place in their presence when they were "totally out". Their
    deeper self is hearing, sensing that which is taking place around
    them.
    
         We are sharply limited in 3-dimensional space and "linear-time"
    in trying to understand many different types of things. But contemplate
    this: there is only the present. There is no past or future (e.g.
    you can never make the statement "this is the future"). There is
    no other place than right here (you can never make the statement
    "I am over there"). I often use this descriptive model; what we
    think of as the past is just a particular subset of the full set
    of initial conditions right here with us in the present moment,
    and what we think of as the future is a subset of the total experience
    of process we feel--the directions things are taking as we project
    them beyond what is physically sitting right here with us now. I
    still find that I speak of past and future and am therefore limited
    in trying to describe different levels of experience. (I even have
    a model of "time" travel and travel between different universes
    that I love to play with.)
    
         Most of what I describe here, or try to describe is from my
    belief that our own essence is primary and that indeed all is con-
    sciousness, even as Einstein said all is energy (E=mc**2). More
    all encompassing than the electromagnetic energy that Einstein refers
    to is, consciousness.
    
         The only proof is in one's own experience of "I-am-ness", 
    "I-feel-ness", before that which issues forth as the diversity that
    is this universe. This is consciousness.
    
         One of the lessons for the New Age is is that we must begin
    to open ourselves to understanding, to "reasoning" on an intuitive
    level, which means focusing on experience rather than rationale.
    
    

    Re .11:
    
    Okay, Topher, I surrender.
    
    
    You got me with a pliers joint. :-)
    
    
    Re .12:
    
    That is a functional world-view, but it might detach us from what
    the existence of time is all about.  Some philosophies claim time,
    and space, for that matter, are but illusory; however, if we are
    experiencing them, there's probably a reason.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    
    
         There is a lot more that I would love say on this, but I just
    want to point out that the discussion is relevant because within
    a few years the supreme court will surely be debating whether or
    not a computer should be afforded the same rights as a human being.
    Crazy? Well picture this: A man-made cyborg (the brand new kind
    that can display feelings!) that you just purchased at a trade show
    says something insulting to you, you lose your temper and proceed
    to destroy it. But as you are doing this, it begs you not to. It
    pleads for its "life". you find yourself in court sometime later
    in an historical case in which you, a human are charged with 
    "killing" a cyborg (really just an advanced computer). Is that 
    possible? Can a person kill a machine?
    
         Mind-boggling isn't it!
    
         Even now the debate has already begun in the biotechnology
    labs as to whether man can create life. What do you suppose the
    arguments will be like on both sides?
    
    
    Roy

    I've had an idea for a short story about a group of Grad-students
    who get together and work on a Masters/PhD Thesis project.  The
    goal is to use advanced computers and programming to build a computer
    consciousness.  The project is a sucess (the computer even surprises
    the builders by cracking a joke). And everyone passes in their reports
    and shows the result to the people of the world.
    
    "This is great" the college says, and then asks them to turn it
    off and break it down.  The builders say they won't and bring the
    college to court saying that doing that would be murder.
    
    One of these days I'll get back to this.

RE: .14 (Roy)

I think "machine rights" are a long, long way off.... For Pete's sake, the
rights of fully conscious animals are still not being recognized, let alone
non-feeling machines!

FWIW: researchers are still a long way off from creating "life" in the lab.


John M. 

    RE: .7
    
    Thank you very much for your concern.  However, I saw neither .4
    nor .5 as an attack on me; in fact, I got a chuckle out of them!
    
    My only resentment is to having been discussed under a topic titled,
    "Artifical Life" !  :-)
    
    John M.

    Shall we move the discussion to "Artifical Intelligence"?_:-)