Martian:

Why are you people always getting so easily offended? Correct me if I'm wrong. Did or didn't James Cameron use the Gaia hypothesis or something similar as an inspiration for Pandora?



Life can take many forms as we all know,both concious and unconcious but this is a proposition that a whole planet is sentient. It could be true and it could be false,and that's why I was asking you to clarify what you meant.

Martian:

I think you're just anthropomorphizing "mother" earth. These geological events have been observed on other planets and moons, so I think it's just the human hubris to think that natural events happen because the earth is defending itself againt humans. I'm not saying that human actions do not contribute but thinking the earth is a concious entity because of geological changes is a little bit too much.

http://geology.com/articles/active-volcanoes-solar-system.shtml
http://science.discovery.com/tv/how-the-universe-works/

InesQor:
I beg to differ, we are not just anthropomorphizing Earth.
These "natural" geological events are expected responses to stimuli, as they are not just random occurrences. There is current research into the accurate prediction of earthquakes with respect to the level of perturbation of the earth.
The earth is alive. Living things respond to stimuli, and all living things experience a form of consciousness; as I stated in my answer to point (2) earlier on.

ETA: You said "These geological events have been observed on other planets and moons", and I say "The other planets (even those that have no support for life) are also living, and thus they have a form of consciousness".

Martian:
Are we now expanding the meaning of conciousness to include geological events? I can understand "alive" being used as a metaphor for the natural events that take place, but are we now going to claim that the earth is concious because of these events.

Martian: If all living things experience conciousness, is a bamboo tree "conscious"

InesQor:
Geological events are observed to be responses to stimuli, and not random occurrences.
.

InesQor:
Yes a bamboo tree is conscious, in the sense of perception or phenomenality. Obstruct the sunlight and watch its branches grow in search of the nearest source of light. Or watch its roots bend in various directions to avoid stones in search of water.

Deep Sight:


@ Pastor AIO, great rally u had there with Kag. I wonder is KAG is aware of the existence of chess playing robots and their ability to respond to complex strategic scenarios with jaw dropping intelligence. Such robots are neither self aware or conscious, not to speak of possessing knowing sentience.

I'll be back.

Kay 17: Awareness at least in a basic state, is a readily product/effect of matter, of which consciousness an advanced state must exist.

Pastor AIO:

You say that so authoritatively. As if you've done the experiment by configuring matter in the lab in such a way that Awareness was produced.

Kay 17:

No, but we have no experience of awareness/consciousness floating in mid-air.

Pastor AIO:

The only consciousness we have experience of is our own. I cannot experience your consciousness. You cannot experience my consciousness. As far as I may be aware you might just be a well programmed neurological robot, An AI.

One of the most persistent difficulties for reductive physicalism has been the apparent inability of physicalistic explanations to capture qualitative features of conscious experience. It has been persuasively argued that qualia--the experiential feels of 'what it is like' to be in a conscious mental state--cannot be captured by any physicalistic explanations in principle[b] because physicalistic explanations inherently refer to objective or public features of phenomena, whereas the experiential features of consciousness are inherently subjective or private[/b] (Teller 1992, pp. 190-191). While such arguments for the irreducibility of consciousness are not the last word on the subject, they have not been decisively refuted either--at least not in the view of several prominent philosophers.

Kay 17:

I'm not aware of your consciousness?! An AI is at most is aware, but a sophisticated AI could be self conscious, given aware of one's identity as the criteria.

I like to think of life as a biochemical robot.

Kay 17: ^^

No problem.

Do you actually think its impossible to ascertain the consciousness of any object?!

benodic:
according to the The Cosmic Sea of Words, Eckankar Lexicon, Consciousness is that state of being in which the individual lives daily, which is divided into two parts, the phenomenal and the transcendental. the phenomenal depends upon the sense organs for its expression, the transcendental is independent of the physical senses and works directly with the ECK (Holy Spirit)
consciousness is also the reality of a particular kind of Awareness which is independent of the mind's activity.







consciousness is actually an attribute of Soul. the level of a Soul's consciousness determines where it will find its expression which can be at the mineral, plant, animal or human level



it is a living conscious entity and not just a ball of dirt and water floating in space. it has a unique state of consciousness which gives rise to the events in the world.



there is both individual consciousness and a collective consciousness. a collective consciousness of for example a particular tribe or country is comprised of aggregations of the individual consciousness within that tribe or country.

plaetton: Consciousness defines reality. An Altered state of consciousness produces an altered perception of reality.
The universe, is , ultimately, a projection of our consciousness.

We see how drugs can alter our reality by simply elevating or altering the vibrational rate of our consciousness(our brain waves).
Therefore, Reality does not exist without the consciousness that defines it.

This brings us a very important question- Can an individual consciousness survive the physical dematerialisation(death) of the body?

If yes, how does the surviving intangible consciousness percieve any reality?

If no,does't that mean that universe ceases to exist since that consciousness no longer exists to percieve it?
The implication is that universe is probably a holographic projection that consciousness uses as an interface between it and nothingness.
It would mean that universe does not really exist except for the 7 billions units of exiled consciousness that percieve it as real in this planet.

And this again brings me to another question.
Did consciousness exist prior to the formation of the universe, or, is consciousness a by-product of energy interactions within the universe?

Were we conscious before we were born or did we grow into consciousness as our foetal brain waves reached a critical threshold?

This has great implications for the idea of an aftelifer, for , if we grew into consciousness, then consciousness would not be expected to survive the destruction of the physical body.
In this case the notion of an afterlife quickly becomes a big dud.
Not so?

Where is N Nwankwo? I would love to see his opinions on this.