2nd December 2005, 1:08 AM
And again, I am faced with the ugly truth of opinion being worth more than fact.
Animals aren't self-aware? They cant 'think'? or 'think' of their own thoughts? Would you believe me if I said that almost every animal, and definitely every mammal is a teacher? To teach the young of dangers, where the best food sources are, where the safest areas are to run to, etc? In order to do that you must understand your own thought process to teach it to others so that they can follow. You may argue instincts but they do not dictate knowledge. They dictate a want for food, a desire for protection but not the means of how to achieve it and that is why we rely on our parents until sexual maturity.
My favorite example is the silver back gorilla who teaches their young to use a thin stick to prod termite hills to extract the bugs inside. This isn't as easy as it sounds, it requires patience and a steady, controlled hand. A human might tear the termite hill up and grab as many bugs as possible, but not only does the gorilla understand that if they dont harm the hill, they'll have it tomorrow, but they also understand not to eat too many of them. They are taught this by elders at a very young age.
People have such misconceptions of the world around them and thy make up these unfounded realities that only make sense because of a lack of factual data or to seek that factual data. The truth is, you only know what you know and if you dont know... well it seems popular to just make up what you dont know.
Einstein did indeed fail at math, that is not a myth. But if you would have continued reading my post you would have noted the "invented his own math" group of words next to it. He suffered from a simple desire to work out every problem instead of memorizing it, some people have to figure the math out when presented with it, some people are better at memorizing the answers on a math table. Obviously, one is more frustrating than the other.
self-aware--
1.) Aware of oneself, including one's traits, feelings, and behaviors.
2.) Realization of oneself as an individual entity or personality
I doubt anyone here would disagree with the idea that all living things have this understanding...
life--
1.) The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism. From Wikipedia:
In biology, a lifeform has traditionally been considered to be a member of a population whose members can exhibit all the following phenomena at least once during their existence:
1. Growth, full development, maturity
2. Metabolism, consuming, transforming and storing energy/mass; growing by absorbing and reorganizing mass; excreting waste
3. Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion
4. Reproduction, the ability to create entities that are similar to, yet separate from, itself or consisting solely of entities that exhibit the quality of reproduction.
5. Response to stimuli - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment, and act upon certain conditions. This property is also called homeostasis.
2.) The characteristic state or condition of a living organism.
Unicell organisms--
1.) the basic structural and functional unit of all organisms; cells may exist as independent units of life (as in monads) or may form colonies or tissues as in higher plants and animals. Which contain the following traits: (from wikipedia)
2.) Properties of cells
Each cell is at least somewhat self-contained and self-maintaining: it can take in nutrients, convert these nutrients into energy, carry out specialized functions, and reproduce as necessary. Each cell stores its own set of instructions for carrying out each of these activities.
All cells share several abilities:
Reproduction by cell division.
Metabolism, including taking in raw materials, building cell components, creating energy, molecules and releasing by-products. The functioning of a cell depends upon its ability to extract and use chemical energy stored in organic molecules. This energy is derived from metabolic pathways.
Synthesis of proteins, the functional workhorses of cells, such as enzymes. A typical mammalian cell contains up to 10,000 different proteins.
Response to external and internal stimuli such as changes in temperature, pH or nutrient levels.
Traffic of vesicles.
It should be noted that wikipedia even mentions that the tradional explanation of "life" does not answer why viruses are alive among many other things that fall outside this difinition, this is why I (and many others) have adopted the term "self-aware" as a better judgement of what life is.
So, it is a fact that all cells are alive. (I seriously hope everyone is in agreement here) and that all living things are self aware in that they understand their individuality and purpose.
Now as I said many posts ago, the level to which the life-form is self aware is a construct to which we place an order to, from low to high - bacteria being low, man being high. But not at any point does the ideal of life (existence, self-awareness) ever deviate from the workings of all, any, living things.
I think i'm done with this conversation, I cant stand hitting brick walls where I have to spend time re-educating someone who places opinion over what is already known to be fact. I probably sound pumpous for saying so, but its just not something I enjoy doing. A conversation of opinions where nothing is fact, great. A conversation on the elaboration of such facts, wonderful. A mixture of the two, and i'd rather eat my own penis.
Oh... so I guess if i'm "aware" then I can see that the predator is coming towards me. But if i'm "self-aware" I can see that the predator is coming towards ME... yeah, there is no difference in being aware or self aware it is a meaningless reconstitution of words with the same ideal. To be aware of one's self is to fear death and avoid it at all costs in order to continue existing, it means that you carry the inherent understanding that you exist and you can not exist and that the circumstances that lead to each outcome are directly manipulated by you.
If you want to talk about zen teachings or inner spiritual growth or some other bullshit then you're talking to the wrong person. Only half of zen is worth anything and that half is embraced as modern psychology.
Animals aren't self-aware? They cant 'think'? or 'think' of their own thoughts? Would you believe me if I said that almost every animal, and definitely every mammal is a teacher? To teach the young of dangers, where the best food sources are, where the safest areas are to run to, etc? In order to do that you must understand your own thought process to teach it to others so that they can follow. You may argue instincts but they do not dictate knowledge. They dictate a want for food, a desire for protection but not the means of how to achieve it and that is why we rely on our parents until sexual maturity.
My favorite example is the silver back gorilla who teaches their young to use a thin stick to prod termite hills to extract the bugs inside. This isn't as easy as it sounds, it requires patience and a steady, controlled hand. A human might tear the termite hill up and grab as many bugs as possible, but not only does the gorilla understand that if they dont harm the hill, they'll have it tomorrow, but they also understand not to eat too many of them. They are taught this by elders at a very young age.
People have such misconceptions of the world around them and thy make up these unfounded realities that only make sense because of a lack of factual data or to seek that factual data. The truth is, you only know what you know and if you dont know... well it seems popular to just make up what you dont know.
Einstein did indeed fail at math, that is not a myth. But if you would have continued reading my post you would have noted the "invented his own math" group of words next to it. He suffered from a simple desire to work out every problem instead of memorizing it, some people have to figure the math out when presented with it, some people are better at memorizing the answers on a math table. Obviously, one is more frustrating than the other.
self-aware--
1.) Aware of oneself, including one's traits, feelings, and behaviors.
2.) Realization of oneself as an individual entity or personality
I doubt anyone here would disagree with the idea that all living things have this understanding...
life--
1.) The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism. From Wikipedia:
In biology, a lifeform has traditionally been considered to be a member of a population whose members can exhibit all the following phenomena at least once during their existence:
1. Growth, full development, maturity
2. Metabolism, consuming, transforming and storing energy/mass; growing by absorbing and reorganizing mass; excreting waste
3. Motion, either moving itself, or having internal motion
4. Reproduction, the ability to create entities that are similar to, yet separate from, itself or consisting solely of entities that exhibit the quality of reproduction.
5. Response to stimuli - the ability to measure properties of its surrounding environment, and act upon certain conditions. This property is also called homeostasis.
2.) The characteristic state or condition of a living organism.
Unicell organisms--
1.) the basic structural and functional unit of all organisms; cells may exist as independent units of life (as in monads) or may form colonies or tissues as in higher plants and animals. Which contain the following traits: (from wikipedia)
2.) Properties of cells
Each cell is at least somewhat self-contained and self-maintaining: it can take in nutrients, convert these nutrients into energy, carry out specialized functions, and reproduce as necessary. Each cell stores its own set of instructions for carrying out each of these activities.
All cells share several abilities:
Reproduction by cell division.
Metabolism, including taking in raw materials, building cell components, creating energy, molecules and releasing by-products. The functioning of a cell depends upon its ability to extract and use chemical energy stored in organic molecules. This energy is derived from metabolic pathways.
Synthesis of proteins, the functional workhorses of cells, such as enzymes. A typical mammalian cell contains up to 10,000 different proteins.
Response to external and internal stimuli such as changes in temperature, pH or nutrient levels.
Traffic of vesicles.
It should be noted that wikipedia even mentions that the tradional explanation of "life" does not answer why viruses are alive among many other things that fall outside this difinition, this is why I (and many others) have adopted the term "self-aware" as a better judgement of what life is.
So, it is a fact that all cells are alive. (I seriously hope everyone is in agreement here) and that all living things are self aware in that they understand their individuality and purpose.
Now as I said many posts ago, the level to which the life-form is self aware is a construct to which we place an order to, from low to high - bacteria being low, man being high. But not at any point does the ideal of life (existence, self-awareness) ever deviate from the workings of all, any, living things.
I think i'm done with this conversation, I cant stand hitting brick walls where I have to spend time re-educating someone who places opinion over what is already known to be fact. I probably sound pumpous for saying so, but its just not something I enjoy doing. A conversation of opinions where nothing is fact, great. A conversation on the elaboration of such facts, wonderful. A mixture of the two, and i'd rather eat my own penis.
Quote:Self aware and aware are also two seperate things I have found.
Oh... so I guess if i'm "aware" then I can see that the predator is coming towards me. But if i'm "self-aware" I can see that the predator is coming towards ME... yeah, there is no difference in being aware or self aware it is a meaningless reconstitution of words with the same ideal. To be aware of one's self is to fear death and avoid it at all costs in order to continue existing, it means that you carry the inherent understanding that you exist and you can not exist and that the circumstances that lead to each outcome are directly manipulated by you.
If you want to talk about zen teachings or inner spiritual growth or some other bullshit then you're talking to the wrong person. Only half of zen is worth anything and that half is embraced as modern psychology.