Recent content by Michael Allen


  1. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 13

    Why Watson, the answer is obvious to the casual observer: physics is not causally closed.
  2. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    "...any changes [ping] other than the passage [ping] of time" You hit on a very important nerve...consciousness...changes... passage... lead to temporality. Temporality and change allows consciousness... you use the word "exist"...and "seperate"...these terms are rooted in the same...
  3. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    Constance...here https://www.theparacast.com/forum/account/preferences
  4. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    to be clear: do not equate modern "physicalism" with the cartesian category of "physical." Some physicalists may take joy in thinking that everything is reduced to an "unthinking" -- an enlightened physicalist will take joy in thinking that it is possible for a physicalistic brain to reduce...
  5. Michael Allen

    Why are people so surprised?

    The first thing to do is to check the "released" with what has already been studied and analyzed. "Proof" doesn't exist in science; that is a mathematical notion based on a system of logic based on unquestioned axioms. Science deals with "theory" A scientific theory is a coherent group of...
  6. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    Perhaps it is impossible for any conscious machine to determine if another is conscious... Fix the definition...a machine is something we think of as "applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task." But a machine of...
  7. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    Agreed...somewhat: The problem here is that knowledge and information both presuppose consciousness--so they cannot be "equal." Also consciousness cannot exist without a "lack" -- or a background which encapsulates and highlights "things"--or "thinks" A super-conscious being that is...
  8. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    Well I tried to boil it down to this (1) Physical things are not conscious (2) Conscious beings require physical things (3) A machine exists that mimics consciousness perfectly to another consciousness (implied self-recursive turing test) (4) But as (1) indicates, such a mimic is NOT...
  9. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    yeah ... I agree...cheap shot. I suppose I thought it was clever or funny at the time :)
  10. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    the p-zombie is nothing more than the imagined (i.e. negative) results of a silly turing test applied to ourselves.
  11. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    Curious claim is a failed joke..."artifice" --> "artificial" --> "artificer"... why are we so bigoted about the thinking machines we "create" when we are already machines that think? The further you dig down into any "living" being, the closer you get to a machine...what is DNA -- the most...
  12. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    All sentience is artificial. All intelligence is artficial... ok...so you are looking for a first cause in terms of the "nature" ... but what if what I am about to be wrong....
  13. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    Human's (really should be all sentients) think in binary, "where do you draw the line between [whatever A] and [whatever B]? A line between two individuals standing in a field (2D) is divided by a 1D object (a line). In 3D such a division is effected by 3-1 = 2 -- on a number line the...
  14. Michael Allen

    Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

    Maybe I should have tried harder on (1). It isn't as if I've not charged into such dangerous waters with reckless abandon. A "full meaning of being" was meant to be an impossible triangle. So, yes, I see a strawman. Back to my original packet of thought: We cannot think in terms of the...
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