No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?
He'd probably turn into a vegetable given enough time.
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?
the past events that the brain or soul experienced.
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?
the past events that the brain or soul experienced.
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?
the past events that the brain or soul experienced.
You know, stimulus.
Meh, I'm not convinced.
If you really want, if you are that special, God can come down and communicate to you.
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. (edit: that is if you see them. The part of the brain that associates seeing with emotion and hearing with emotion are different pathways.) hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
Its really not remotely that simple when you get to hormones
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?
the past events that the brain or soul experienced.
You know, stimulus.
Meh, I'm not convinced.
Take some psychology classes. Watch anything on TV that has a guy name Dr. Ramachandra in it. Look up a condition named synesthesia. Those are a few good place to start (off the top of my head) if you want to see how your perceptions and the way you experience reality are directly controlled by your brain.
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. (edit: that is if you see them. The part of the brain that associates seeing with emotion and hearing with emotion are different pathways.) hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
Its really not remotely that simple when you get to hormones
Well they do play a pretty huge factor, depending on how much your brain is exposed to. Go read "Man Made" about a guy with a prolactin secreting tumor. He quit his hockey team because he hated the violence, pittied the guys he knew who looked at porn, watched daytime soaps (I shit you not) and then when he got it removed, he suddenly hated watching the soaps, got back on the hockey team, and suddenly took a new interest in staring at naked women.
My moms MtF abnormal psyche teacher talked about the depth of emotion he (she now) could feel after he started the hormone therapy. Even though it's anecdotal I still think it deserves some consideration considering the source.
No mater how complex the system, it still functions based off events. If those events are chemical reactions or decisions made by a soul, there is little more than the illusion of free choice.
If we took a person, removed all his senses so he was getting no external stimuli, what governs the mind?
The Soviets actually did this to test subjects in the 80s. They were working on sensory deprivation tanks as a means of interrogation. What happened was a person was drugged so that all internal and external sensations (hunger, muscles, touch, taste, etc) were blocked, brought into total darkness, suspended in a fluid solution and kept perfectly still in a silent room. Total lack of sense data- the only thing such a person perceived was their own thoughts in an absolute void. Most of them started screaming after the first hour (apparently the first hour or so can be pleasant) but were unable to feel their own throat as they tore it to pieces.
After 12 hours, even volunteers who knew what to expect were begging to be released. After 16, most had severe post-traumatic stress disorders. After 24, most were irrevocably insane. After three months, most died- the brain cannot initiate the sleep reaction without sense data (some quirk to the chemistry, I dunno why) and after three months fatigue finally killed them.
They still had their own thoughts, memories, etc, just no sense data.
Anyway, back on topic- on a quantum or atomic level we're more a shifting fuzz, interacting constantly with the atoms around us. Kind of like shapes in sand, moving forward- adding new bits and dropping others. Over a long enough period we're all entirely replaced on an atomic level. Does the gradualness of this mitigate the "death" you speak of?
I'm not sure it does. If I winked in and out of existence, would each iteration be a new me?
I don't think so. What defines me is what I do (how I think, etc), not where I have been or what I am made of.
After 30 days, the "total isolates," as they were called, were found to be "enormously disturbed." After being isolated for a year, they barely moved, didn't explore or play, and were incapable of having sexual relations. When put with other monkeys for a daily play session, they were badly bullied. Two of them refused to eat and starved themselves to death.[4]
In order to find out how the isolates would parent, Harlow devised what he called a "rape rack," to which the female isolates were tied in the position taken by a normal female monkey in order to be impregnated. Artificial insemination had not been developed at that time. He found that, just as they were incapable of having sexual relations, they were also unable to parent their offspring, either abusing or neglecting them. "Not even in our most devious dreams could we have designed a surrogate as evil as these real monkey mothers were," he wrote. [5] Having no social experience themselves, they were incapable of appropriate social interaction. One mother held her baby's face to the floor and chewed off his feet and fingers. Another crushed her baby's head. Most of them simply ignored their offspring. [5]
Isn't it wonderful how after you abuse something long enough it'll start abusing itself for you?
On another note I've been digging around on google and I haven't found the study/experiment Phobos was talking about. I'm not calling BS I'm just really interested in reading it myself.
Right now I'm thinking of that part in Fallout 2 where the player talks to a computer... You ask it about Artificial Intelligence (because the computer insists that it is only semi-intelligent) and it gives you a long speech about how humans invented perfect artificial intelligence, but because the computers that could think could not experience sensory input they went insane. The computer hints that this was the cause for the nuclear war. Food for thought.
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. (edit: that is if you see them. The part of the brain that associates seeing with emotion and hearing with emotion are different pathways.) hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
Its really not remotely that simple when you get to hormones
Well they do play a pretty huge factor, depending on how much your brain is exposed to. Go read "Man Made" about a guy with a prolactin secreting tumor. He quit his hockey team because he hated the violence, pittied the guys he knew who looked at porn, watched daytime soaps (I shit you not) and then when he got it removed, he suddenly hated watching the soaps, got back on the hockey team, and suddenly took a new interest in staring at naked women.
My moms MtF abnormal psyche teacher talked about the depth of emotion he (she now) could feel after he started the hormone therapy. Even though it's anecdotal I still think it deserves some consideration considering the source.
Yeah, I've read plenty of stuff by trannies and steroid abusers, but I also know plenty of blokes who hate organised sports and plenty of ladies who think romance novels are the very devil. And its not like there's anything wrong with them. Hormones may affect how you feel about things, but they don't seem to exert much control over adherence to cultural norms.
Yeah, I've read plenty of stuff by trannies and steroid abusers, but I also know plenty of blokes who hate organised sports and plenty of ladies who think romance novels are the very devil. And its not like there's anything wrong with them. Hormones may affect how you feel about things, but they don't seem to exert much control over adherence to cultural norms.
No kidding.
I have loads of testosterone, as evidenced by various physical indicators.
I'm still a sport-hating feminist who loves cuddling kitties.
And I even grew up in a rugged environment, all cutting down trees and hunting.
--
It sounds like the guy was just playing the stereotype role he ASSUMED was true because society told him. It's like a guy realizing he's gay one day and suddenly he has a lisp, limp wrists, and says things are Faaaaabulous.
Yeah, I've read plenty of stuff by trannies and steroid abusers, but I also know plenty of blokes who hate organised sports and plenty of ladies who think romance novels are the very devil. And its not like there's anything wrong with them. Hormones may affect how you feel about things, but they don't seem to exert much control over adherence to cultural norms.
No kidding.
I have loads of testosterone, as evidenced by various physical indicators.
I'm still a sport-hating feminist who loves cuddling kitties.
And I even grew up in a rugged environment, all cutting down trees and hunting.
--
It sounds like the guy was just playing the stereotype role he ASSUMED was true because society told him. It's like a guy realizing he's gay one day and suddenly he has a lisp, limp wrists, and says things are Faaaaabulous.
I thought he was just trying to be comedy for the most part.
But do you disagree that it will be before computer implants in brains?
First off, what moniker said. Second, I don't know. My instinct tells me that computer implants are a lot simpler to implement than sentient AI, but I wouldn't stake money on it.
Then it's over.
My entire argument was that if sentinent AI surfaced before computer implants, many implants would have been made obsolete by the sentinent AI, and would never be necessary.
Mental implants that are worth a damn will not happen for a far longer time than sentinent AI.
I don't think this is true. It's entirely likely, and logical to assume that around the same time we possess the intimate knowledge of the human brain to completely recreate it non-biologically, that we will also possess the capability to easily alter and augment our own brains.
Vincent Grayson on
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
edited July 2007
On upgrading my body:
I will be to having the photosynthesis now.
On upgrading my body:
I will be to having the photosynthesis now.
It's kind of inefficient for things that move around a lot. I mean I guess it could supplement you a bit if you stayed in the sun a lot, diminishing your need to eat. But it's not terribly worthwhile.
Personally, if I had to go for a biomod, I'd go for regenerative and bone-strengthening abilities. I want to be able to regrow a broken spine or an eyeball if I have to.
Your brain is your mind, and every single aspect of your consciousness can be altered by screwing with your head. And if you do some reading up on abnormal psychology you can see the wonderful hijynx that ensue when you mess with it.
By shutting down the right part of the brain you can stop feeling emotion. By severing the right part, you can stop associating people with the corresponding emotions you feel for them. (edit: that is if you see them. The part of the brain that associates seeing with emotion and hearing with emotion are different pathways.) hit your head in the right place you can stop seeing color and shapes, but still see motion. Take the right drug and you can find religion. Take the right hormones and you can see how wonderful books like Sense and Sensability are. Take another and you'll suddenly find a passion for violent sports.
Its really not remotely that simple when you get to hormones
Well they do play a pretty huge factor, depending on how much your brain is exposed to. Go read "Man Made" about a guy with a prolactin secreting tumor. He quit his hockey team because he hated the violence, pittied the guys he knew who looked at porn, watched daytime soaps (I shit you not) and then when he got it removed, he suddenly hated watching the soaps, got back on the hockey team, and suddenly took a new interest in staring at naked women.
My moms MtF abnormal psyche teacher talked about the depth of emotion he (she now) could feel after he started the hormone therapy. Even though it's anecdotal I still think it deserves some consideration considering the source.
Yeah, I've read plenty of stuff by trannies and steroid abusers, but I also know plenty of blokes who hate organised sports and plenty of ladies who think romance novels are the very devil. And its not like there's anything wrong with them. Hormones may affect how you feel about things, but they don't seem to exert much control over adherence to cultural norms.
Well there's genetics too. The fetus is also bombarded with hormones before the kid is born, which hormone therapy doesn't seem to undo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
see I want additional yeast like mitochondrialis sub cellular bodies.
Like, just enough so that I could kick into anaerobic mode metabolism mode, you couldn't do it indefinitely, and it wouldn't be too much energy. But maybe enough to keep you alive a while, if you weren't expending much energy. You'd be, like, undrownedable.
And you could get drunk off carbs too, I guess. Like, being able to turn it off, would be a plus.
redx on
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
On upgrading my body:
I will be to having the photosynthesis now.
It's kind of inefficient for things that move around a lot. I mean I guess it could supplement you a bit if you stayed in the sun a lot, diminishing your need to eat. But it's not terribly worthwhile.
Think of the money you'd save over time on food?
Also, survival on deserted island for the why not?
I think a male pill would almost be a bad idea if there were still all sorts of nasty bugs floating around. I think it would encourage a lot of stupid, that would be avoidable.
I'm all about engineering the fetus to have a self-abort functionality where it grows backwards and disappears.
Then watching as this does nothing to help women's rights and intolerant societies transition smoothly to abusing and rejecting women who use this option.
Posts
He'd probably turn into a vegetable given enough time.
the past events that the brain or soul experienced.
You know, stimulus.
Meh, I'm not convinced.
If you really want, if you are that special, God can come down and communicate to you.
If that makes you feel any better.
That is still stimulus of course.
Its really not remotely that simple when you get to hormones
Well they do play a pretty huge factor, depending on how much your brain is exposed to. Go read "Man Made" about a guy with a prolactin secreting tumor. He quit his hockey team because he hated the violence, pittied the guys he knew who looked at porn, watched daytime soaps (I shit you not) and then when he got it removed, he suddenly hated watching the soaps, got back on the hockey team, and suddenly took a new interest in staring at naked women.
My moms MtF abnormal psyche teacher talked about the depth of emotion he (she now) could feel after he started the hormone therapy. Even though it's anecdotal I still think it deserves some consideration considering the source.
The Soviets actually did this to test subjects in the 80s. They were working on sensory deprivation tanks as a means of interrogation. What happened was a person was drugged so that all internal and external sensations (hunger, muscles, touch, taste, etc) were blocked, brought into total darkness, suspended in a fluid solution and kept perfectly still in a silent room. Total lack of sense data- the only thing such a person perceived was their own thoughts in an absolute void. Most of them started screaming after the first hour (apparently the first hour or so can be pleasant) but were unable to feel their own throat as they tore it to pieces.
After 12 hours, even volunteers who knew what to expect were begging to be released. After 16, most had severe post-traumatic stress disorders. After 24, most were irrevocably insane. After three months, most died- the brain cannot initiate the sleep reaction without sense data (some quirk to the chemistry, I dunno why) and after three months fatigue finally killed them.
They still had their own thoughts, memories, etc, just no sense data.
Anyway, back on topic- on a quantum or atomic level we're more a shifting fuzz, interacting constantly with the atoms around us. Kind of like shapes in sand, moving forward- adding new bits and dropping others. Over a long enough period we're all entirely replaced on an atomic level. Does the gradualness of this mitigate the "death" you speak of?
I'm not sure it does. If I winked in and out of existence, would each iteration be a new me?
I don't think so. What defines me is what I do (how I think, etc), not where I have been or what I am made of.
Got any links on those Soviet experiments?
I know of the well-known studies on the effects of complete isolation on monkeys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harlow#Partial_and_total_isolation_of_infant_monkeys
On another note I've been digging around on google and I haven't found the study/experiment Phobos was talking about. I'm not calling BS I'm just really interested in reading it myself.
Yeah, I've read plenty of stuff by trannies and steroid abusers, but I also know plenty of blokes who hate organised sports and plenty of ladies who think romance novels are the very devil. And its not like there's anything wrong with them. Hormones may affect how you feel about things, but they don't seem to exert much control over adherence to cultural norms.
No kidding.
I have loads of testosterone, as evidenced by various physical indicators.
I'm still a sport-hating feminist who loves cuddling kitties.
And I even grew up in a rugged environment, all cutting down trees and hunting.
--
It sounds like the guy was just playing the stereotype role he ASSUMED was true because society told him. It's like a guy realizing he's gay one day and suddenly he has a lisp, limp wrists, and says things are Faaaaabulous.
On the internet, you can never tell if someone is joking, or an idiot, or a joking idiot.
I don't think this is true. It's entirely likely, and logical to assume that around the same time we possess the intimate knowledge of the human brain to completely recreate it non-biologically, that we will also possess the capability to easily alter and augment our own brains.
I will be to having the photosynthesis now.
But then you'd be all fat, unless you avoid the sun.
It's kind of inefficient for things that move around a lot. I mean I guess it could supplement you a bit if you stayed in the sun a lot, diminishing your need to eat. But it's not terribly worthwhile.
Personally, if I had to go for a biomod, I'd go for regenerative and bone-strengthening abilities. I want to be able to regrow a broken spine or an eyeball if I have to.
Well there's genetics too. The fetus is also bombarded with hormones before the kid is born, which hormone therapy doesn't seem to undo.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer
Like, just enough so that I could kick into anaerobic mode metabolism mode, you couldn't do it indefinitely, and it wouldn't be too much energy. But maybe enough to keep you alive a while, if you weren't expending much energy. You'd be, like, undrownedable.
And you could get drunk off carbs too, I guess. Like, being able to turn it off, would be a plus.
Also, survival on deserted island for the why not?
I think a male pill would almost be a bad idea if there were still all sorts of nasty bugs floating around. I think it would encourage a lot of stupid, that would be avoidable.
You can at least slow down the reproductive speed of the stupid.
That way they may hump themselves to death before they can breed.
did you see that shit with the butterflies? It is pretty amazing what the right small fraction of the male population can do.
Then watching as this does nothing to help women's rights and intolerant societies transition smoothly to abusing and rejecting women who use this option.