[Mrboogie23]

The Question, "Are we alive?", came up when I was reading a very philosophical book.

One thing that makes us living and more so sentient, intelligent beings, is the ability to think and act willing. But a character in this book, a computer program that became self conscience, brought this question to mind while asking a human for advice.
"How do I think of something that has never been thought of..." the entity said.
"Just watch." the human replied
This made me wonder, how do we create thoughts? Everyone single one of our thoughts is based on some sort of observation and is altered by instinct suited to best fit our seemingly self aware being or survival. Everyone knows the thing that makes us a "living" sentient being is will and logic. But if everything in the human psyche is based on observation, then there is no orginal thought. So, are we just performing our basic "program" or are we acting out of own accord in this self-diluted state of existence? Feel free to debate this topic, I'd like some honest opinions.





How do I think of something that has not been thought of...
-Orson Scott Card-
Ideas are only observation, manipulation, and alteration to better suit survival or the pursuit of such..
-Anthony McCormack-
True knowledge is the knowledge of one's own ignorance...
-Confucious-

[Reflexion]

Many (including Plato) would say you are just remembering what you forgot

[Dasher]

Someone recently told me - The earth is a stage for you to play and carry out tasks in the physical world... As well as learning and evolving spiritually..

You have some good points.

After my close encounter I had many strange new feelings and thought patterns. I could not remember them properly or relate them in any way to the things I knew in the physical reality - I'm still pretty confused But there may be many realities happening at the same time.

Interesting stuff.

[lil'kiwi]

eeeerrr....u guys are not in a cult,aren't you?

[ultraman__26]

chim.
pz

[tinyD]

therefore i am. i'm no philosophy student, so that's all i can come up with

[murasaki0001]

geez. . .makes ya think kinda. . .crazy.

i had somethin i was gonna say. .but my mom yelled at me .. .and i lost it. . .damnit!

she sucks. i wanna throw a dog at her.

ok ..so . . ive wondered this same thing a few times. ..and all i can come up with is. . .RANDOM! i dunno

what makes our thoughts so random? like. . ..you will be looking for a something. . .and *POOF* you realize something. . . .like the craziest things will make u think. .. .me any way .. . but im nutty. . .

anyway. .. .i honestly think .. . why spend all your time wondering HOW something happens . . .of WHY something happens. . .we should spend our time just letting it happen. . .

tru, everything happens for areason. ..we dont always need to know why. . .

but also. . .ppl might find it better to acknowledge WHY something is done, rather than HOW it is done . . .

i dunno. ..

so i dont think about the advanced, smrt ppl stuf. . .for very long. .

. . ..

Think of absolutly nothing. . . .

and try to forget something

[Mowicz]

Originally posted by murasaki0001
she sucks. i wanna throw a dog at her.

LMFAO!!!!! MAN you sound like this girl I know.....

Ok anyway, I don't personally think this, but I came up with it once I read what all of you's said:

Ok, lemme start off by doing a bit of explaining:

Quantum Physics. It's a study of physics that completely contradicts conventional physics, like y'know, grade-school-ish, F=ma, or even Einstein's General Relativity (How gravity creates a pull, which is that massive objects warp space-time, and bend light....but anyway...) General Relativity, is VERY accurate in describing large objects....like planets, stars, y'know objects with very large mass....but it could never describe a blackhole, because a blackhole has a very large mass, but a very small size.

Quantum physics, describes the physics of things with a very small size, IE, atoms, quarks, etc. It basically states, that nothing is for certain....if u were to look at space in a very high magnification, it would be goin' crazy, y'know? Bouncin' around all over the place...however, it also states that nothing is for certain, and the only thing that you can calculate, is the PROBABILITY of something occuring. Quantum Physics can't describe black holes either...which is why a new style is being sought...the most likely choice of the present is string theory, but that can never be proven/disproven, so it's useless...

Ok ANYWAY....So far so good, right?...this is where it starts to pertain to this discussion:

If no certain thing happens at one specific time, then EVERYTHING happens at that specific time....hard to follow? I basically said that quantum physics says that there are infinite numbers of parallel universes, in which every possible thing occurs, at all times.


With this in mind.....perhaps we are all knowing? Maybe we know all, but are in an amnesia-like state, and depending on the path through time we travel through, we see different things....and are reminded of things that occured in other dimensions, possibly even in the past in other dimensions....kind've hard to grasp hold of, though eh?


Sorry 'bout the Physics lesson.....I kept goin' off-topic, which always happens whenever I get into physics...heh.


Peace.

[Anubis2002]

Now that was an interesting read...i liked the physics thing...reminded me of arguing with my science teachers that there is no such thing as scientific theory because u can never repeat the SAME procedure exactly lol..

n for that matter...the always a counter argument for something...gotta love sciene n reason when science n reason tell u its yes, but also no...but because its no, its yes but no one knows why so its no

[Mrboogie23]

Interesting argument, bringing physics into the discussion.
But how does this prove that we are alive and are in actuality sentient?

I was having this same discussion with a few of my friends yesterday, and one of them offered this as an explanation. Saying to know one self is to know that you are sentient.

"Know thyself"-Socrates

Though a simple statement, it carries with it one of the most difficult objectives man can concieve as far as philosopy and knoweledge are concerned. Is it really possible to describe ourselves? Highly unlikely. Here we are questioning the meaning of "sentience" itself rather than just humanity's categorization under it. Here's Webster:

sentient (adj): of or capable of feeling, conscious.


So is the human psyche fooling our self- preserved "conscience" only to keep us from the truth, or has it already been revealed to us. If it has been, then the answer is obvious,but if the nature of the human mind has fooled then there is no-way to reach the truth without knowing. So i ask you how can we know one-self o-Socrates. The question still remains are we "sentient"? If we are how do we know that we are?

[Bboy_InZaNe]

With this in mind.....perhaps we are all knowing? Maybe we know all, but are in an amnesia-like state, and depending on the path through time we travel through, we see different things....and are reminded of things that occured in other dimensions, possibly even in the past in other dimensions....kind've hard to grasp hold of, though eh?

thats crazy to think about....reminds me of a poem i read in english..called "a road taken"

it was all about taken a certain path, and how u will never know what would have happened if u took the other....

i dont really have much to comment on about boogies question at the moment, ill think about it more then get back to yas

Peace,InZaNe

[Bboy Furious]

nice topic.

i think about stuff like this a lot, but what i modtly think about is death. dont get me wrong i dont want to die... im just looking forward to seeing what happens. but then i think how will i know what happens when i die? if im dead i cant think... or can i? see no1 knows because no1 has come back from the dead (par jesus christ but he had more pressing matters) at the end of the day im a christian and i believe i will go 2 heaven but what if life is just a big experiment? i dunno wot i mean but maybe we are in a big sorta ant farm. im confused.

but to boogies question, i dont think ther is an answer, its like one of those silly questions - if a tree falls down in woods but no1 is around to hear it.. does it stil make a noise? (as far as im concerned it does) wot came first chicken or egg? well the chicken because the chicken evolved from a certain species of animal after the 'big bang' if thats true. then it layed eggs as its way of reproduction.

i dont think we will truly ever know if we really are alive.

just 1 funny thing i picked up on the eglish language-
if something is AWE-SOME then it is good.
if something is AW-FUL it is bad.
does this mean some AWE is good but full of AWE is bad?

my head hurts

[bboyarfen]

take a step away from all the complex shiat...think how life worked when things were simple(r). You get sick, you die. You find food you live another day; if you don't you starve. Don't walk up hill when you can walk downhill. If its cold go somewhere warm...etc etc...anyways, I like to think of things being simpler than everyone thinks they are. We can't find the answers because we are caught in the complexity of subjects, and we can't take a step back and look at them from a much simpler viewpoint...so what i'm sayin is...we are here and we think and stuff...just cause we are...not anything different, no different dimensions, none of that shit...but I guess thinking like that makes the whole topic boring in the first place

[Anubis2002]

are we alive...define alive...then yes and no..same as all answers

[Mowicz]

Yea, but arfen man, sometimes u CAN'T think simpler.....like if you go back to a time that people used to think their insides were made of stone (or some shit like that, pullin' stuff outta my ass. lol), and it was later proven that we infact have organs, and whatever, you can't go back and start thinking like "What if we are infact rocks?" Whatever conclusion you come to from that, will be fiction. Always will be. Like, it's silly to think of multiple dimensions and whatever, right? But if it's proven (to some extent....I haven't exactly gotten my Masters in Physics or something like that, so my knowledge on it is limited) to be true, you can't ignore those facts.



Ok, here's another physics 'tidbit' (jus to add a bit of gayness...heh). Life, is a lot like uniform motion. What uniform motion is, is simply moving at a constant velocity, whether it be 0, or 20 m/s, or 1000 m/s, whatever.

Now....imagine there was some huge disaster, and everything in the universe was destroyed, except you.....are you moving, or are you stationary? There is no way to tell, without something to relate yourself to.....and even if you HAVE something to relate yourself to (1 thing...). Say you're left, and so is a meteor. To you, it appears as though the meteor is moving 100 m/s towards you, but to the meteor, it looks like YOU are moving 100 m/s towards it. Which one is actually moving? Are you at 0, and it's moving 100? Are you at 30 and it's moving 70? You'll never know.

That's what I think life is like. I relate Life with time. Under normal circumstances, time flows in one direction....so does "Life". Assuming that Life is being able to think for yourself, learn new things, AND make your own decisions, let's think of it as this motion equivalent to time.....is there any other sort of "life"? The answer's no.....and if you only have 1 type of life (Which we all share), and 1 KNOWN type of life (having free will, and the ability to learn), you never CAN find out which is which....much like the "You and the meteor" example...and sorry if u can't really get what I meant there. Hopefully I can explain it better later.

Peace.