This description doesn’t match my beliefs about cognition. There’s a weird dualism embedded in it that comes out incoherent when I try to imagine it or apply the word “possible” to it.
If there were some syndrome which destroyed an individual’s ability to predict results of choices, effectively reducing the victim to a reptile or fish-like level of learning and behavior, it would just kill people pretty quickly. I have no reason to believe that a memetically-transmitted disease of this sort makes any sense whatever.
Hi, I read the synopsis in that wiki page. While the Snow Crash story seems highly unlikely, indeed there isn’t any prerequisite of understanding (by the conscious person) so that a change may take place. One could go as far as to claim that understanding by its very nature rests mostly on not understanding, while focusing on something to be understood.
I certainly am not aiming to define possible conditions under which something like the DZI may occur. Those may or may not exist. However it isn’t by itself unrealistic that if we suppose that the vast majority of any mental goings-on in one’s mind at any given mind are not conscious, some pattern with crucial similarities to those yet not conscious mental goings-on may affect them; up to a very crucial degree.
That said, an obvious difference with the Snow Crash story is that I am not talking about anything consciously constructed. DZI would not be a man-made virus. In essence the question is more tied to whether the start of consciousness itself was ‘clean’ in regards to not allowing for any reverting to a previous state or a collapse due to the risk of such reverting. For what it’s worth, I do doubt that man developed consciousness in a clear-cut case of advancing and bettering one’s chances in the world.
If you wish, you can elaborate on how you mean “weird dualism”. If I attempt to guess—likely falsely—I’d imagine that you formed the view the hypothetical DZI had to affect just one part of the mind or just some ability which can reform or be provided by other parts (as in cases of people who suffer brain injury and in time may form new connections and means to generally possess again the same—or ‘same’ - abilities).
By “weird dualism”, I mostly mean “dualism” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism ), which is weird to me in all it’s forms. The idea that consciousness is an phenomenon unrelated to brain structure and neural connections, is not helpful.
″ The idea that consciousness is an phenomenon unrelated to brain structure and neural connections, is not helpful” is something I agree with. My question meant to have you argue in what way this hypothesis prerequisites a duallistic view.
This description doesn’t match my beliefs about cognition. There’s a weird dualism embedded in it that comes out incoherent when I try to imagine it or apply the word “possible” to it.
If there were some syndrome which destroyed an individual’s ability to predict results of choices, effectively reducing the victim to a reptile or fish-like level of learning and behavior, it would just kill people pretty quickly. I have no reason to believe that a memetically-transmitted disease of this sort makes any sense whatever.
You should definitely read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash if you haven’t already. Fiction is not evidence, of course, but it’s HIGHLY entertaining.
Hi, I read the synopsis in that wiki page. While the Snow Crash story seems highly unlikely, indeed there isn’t any prerequisite of understanding (by the conscious person) so that a change may take place. One could go as far as to claim that understanding by its very nature rests mostly on not understanding, while focusing on something to be understood.
I certainly am not aiming to define possible conditions under which something like the DZI may occur. Those may or may not exist. However it isn’t by itself unrealistic that if we suppose that the vast majority of any mental goings-on in one’s mind at any given mind are not conscious, some pattern with crucial similarities to those yet not conscious mental goings-on may affect them; up to a very crucial degree.
That said, an obvious difference with the Snow Crash story is that I am not talking about anything consciously constructed. DZI would not be a man-made virus. In essence the question is more tied to whether the start of consciousness itself was ‘clean’ in regards to not allowing for any reverting to a previous state or a collapse due to the risk of such reverting. For what it’s worth, I do doubt that man developed consciousness in a clear-cut case of advancing and bettering one’s chances in the world.
If you wish, you can elaborate on how you mean “weird dualism”. If I attempt to guess—likely falsely—I’d imagine that you formed the view the hypothetical DZI had to affect just one part of the mind or just some ability which can reform or be provided by other parts (as in cases of people who suffer brain injury and in time may form new connections and means to generally possess again the same—or ‘same’ - abilities).
By “weird dualism”, I mostly mean “dualism” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism ), which is weird to me in all it’s forms. The idea that consciousness is an phenomenon unrelated to brain structure and neural connections, is not helpful.
″ The idea that consciousness is an phenomenon unrelated to brain structure and neural connections, is not helpful” is something I agree with. My question meant to have you argue in what way this hypothesis prerequisites a duallistic view.