..Luna, it wouldn't let me make new lines .. because I wrote some of it in MS Word first, then copy/pasted... even writing some new stuff in the reply and hitting Enter multiple times making new lines.. wouldn't work
"any system sufficiently advanced takes on a form of consiousness... the same will be true for computers one day."
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When does it become sufficiently advanced? Is it a gradually (non-selective) increasing complexity/consciousness of all things (living & nonliving)? Or is there a certain evolved threshold ability that all of a sudden makes it have a consciousness?
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I used to lean toward your view, but this question kept popping up “what is the purpose of consciousness� I believe that we are like machines with no free will. Every decision we do could in theory be done by a computer. For example, your arm gets poked with a needle, the nervous system cells notice that damage is being done to them (& thus the whole body), so they send an electric signal to the brain, the brain computes the problem and makes a decision, sends a signal back to the arm to move. Notice that I left out the pain that you felt the during the poke, this pain is an example of consciousness, and it seems totally redundant in the equation that lead to the decision. It seems as though consciousness is just along for the ride, it can’t change anything that happens to this robotic body, it can only passively see/feel/think, etc. This leads me toward believing in reincarnation since it seems compatible with the idea. Our consciousness could really just be a 4th dimensional (or higher) being living within this body until it dies, that is when the cord that ties the body to the 4th dimension being is broken (this could be the silver cord that’s often spoken about by Astral travelers).
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So basically I’m thinking our consciousnesses are higher dimensional beings that chose to be connected to a particular human or other animal upon its birth in this 3D realm, perhaps in order to learn lessons to help the being evolve into higher dimensions of consciousness (up to ~11 supposedly). It could be that not all living humans have this consciousness attached to them, some could just be the 3D body going about its business in a way indistinguishable from those connected to spirits. He might not understand what is this consciousness that everyone speaks of, but is fooled to believe he has it since everyone else is always talking about it.
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What further leads me to believe in reincarnation is how many young children appear to know things that they shouldn’t (maybe recalling things from past lives), e.g.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Wh0OsVtdeE
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Since I’m a strong believer in no free will, I tend to think these higher dimensional beings (i.e. aliens) also have no free will. Then as asked before, what is the purpose of them having a consciousness? Maybe that’s their only method of input/output, they don’t have a physical brain to do all the work for them like 3d bodies do.