Is God a logical contradiction?

[The Grand Nudger]

Fine, have fun talking to yourself.

[John 6IX Breezy]

"...those same things we take to be indicative of consciousness and conscience in humans, are also present in animals. You -strongly- insist that these observations are insufficient..." -Mr. Gae.

While you're away I'll leave you with this final thought. A toy furby will look at you, shake up and down, and tell you it loves you. These are all behaviors indicative of consciousness and empathy in humans. Would you not strongly insist that these observations are insufficient to know the furby is conscious?

[Abaddon_ire]

I can't state something I don't have. But I enjoy the attempt to hide your unsubstantiated claims about consciousness with such a transition.

Except for the thing you flat out stated that you actually do have. Lying for jebus makes you special, right? 

If you are intending to engage in any reasonable discussion, bring a modicum of honesty to the table. Abject lies are not going to garner you friends or allies. Or mythical gods to take up your slack.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

A 'Furby'? Really?

Me thinks John 6IX is relying more on the marketing promises put forth by the toy company rather than having owned one themselves.

Also..... is John 6IX now flailing towards referance to the 'Turing test' in an effort to help their claims?

[John 6IX Breezy]

 is John 6IX now flailing towards referance to the 'Turing test' in an effort to help their claims?

The problem of inferring consciousness applies to many things including computers, not just animals. I think the Turing test has more to do with the concept of intelligence than consciousness, so I wasn't intentionally referring to it, but perhaps the two go hand in hand. I just think computers are a great way to dissociate a behavior from any conscious underpinnings; given that they can behave while seemingly unconscious. But again we can observe the same thing with split brain patients, sleep walking perhaps, etc.

[LastPoet]

@John 6IX Breezy Have you read Professor Damasio work?

[John 6IX Breezy]

@John 6IX Breezy Have you read Professor Damasio work?

Not all of it but yes. Why?

[Mister Agenda]

"...those same things we take to be indicative of consciousness and conscience in humans, are also present in animals. You -strongly- insist that these observations are insufficient..." -Mr. Gae.

While you're away I'll leave you with this final thought. A toy furby will look at you, shake up and down, and tell you it loves you. These are all behaviors indicative of consciousness and empathy in humans. Would you not strongly insist that these observations are insufficient to know the furby is conscious?

Would you not strongly comprehend WHY those behaviors in a furby aren't equivalent to, say, a female chimp risking her life to protect her closest female associate from an aggressive male?

[John 6IX Breezy]

"...those same things we take to be indicative of consciousness and conscience in humans, are also present in animals. You -strongly- insist that these observations are insufficient..." -Mr. Gae.

While you're away I'll leave you with this final thought. A toy furby will look at you, shake up and down, and tell you it loves you. These are all behaviors indicative of consciousness and empathy in humans. Would you not strongly insist that these observations are insufficient to know the furby is conscious?

Would you not strongly comprehend WHY those behaviors in a furby aren't equivalent to, say, a female chimp risking her life to protect her closest female associate from an aggressive male?

Why aren't they equivalent? Because one is alive? Because a chimp seems more complex than a furby?

I'm not fully on-board with behavioral genetics, nor am I a computer scientist. Nevertheless, I'm sure most people here have read the Selfish Gene; in particular the part about bees and foul brood, and the association between a bee's behavior and its genetic underpinning. It shows how a behavior can result from the presence of a gene. You say a furby isn't equivalent to a chimp, but what's the difference between a furby/computer's behavior being regulated by codes, and an animal's behavior being directly or indirectly regulated by genes? In neither case do we have sufficient information to know the behavior is accompanied by any kind of conscious experience. Consciousness is often more about being than doing.

Take the amygdala for example. The public tends to view it as the "fear center" of the brain; but people in the field view the role of the amygdala as threat detection and defense, things like fight-or-flight response, etc. Why is this important? Because the mechanisms of behaviors such as fight-or-flight are not the same as those responsible for the feeling of fear. The feeling of fear is being processed elsewhere in the brain such as the cortex. That means that observing behaviors such as an animal running away from a predator, which we associate with feeling afraid, does not inform you whether or not the organism is experiencing fear. There's a distinction between the parts of the brain that are responsible for executing the behavior, and the parts of the brain that are correlated with the experience of feeling it. The amygdala does its work unconsciously, whereas fear is conscious. Similarly, protecting your closest female associate from an aggressive male sounds like a threat detection/defense mechanism. Geneticists have formulas such as Hamilton's Rule showing how alleles causing altruistic behavior can spread. 

So again, you're better off looking at a furby wiggle its ears and infering it was conscious.

[downbeatplumb]

"Many other animals are also conscious, some, even have a conscience." -Gae

Again, my only problem is with claims such as the one you made above, when you don't possibly have access to such information.

Why wouldn't other animals have a conscience if humans, a kind of animal have a conscience?
What stops them?