On 15 Aug 2014, at 04:15, meekerdb wrote:
Which would also imply that whether sensory deprivation was bad or not would depend on how your brain was wired. I don't know whether a fetus or even a baby is conscious or not. I think human-like consciousness is partly dependent on language, but I also think, unlike Bruno, that there are degrees and kinds of consciousness and a fetus or a newborn may be conscious like my dog is conscious.
I just say that either you are conscious, or you are not. you can't be half conscious, but you can have experience which makes you feel that you are less, or more, conscious.
There are typical drugs (like kava kava, but also high dose of alcohol) which augment the "intensity" of consciousness (I don't like that), as opposed to other which expands the consciousness spectrum, but without changing the "intensity".
It is like a number is either bigger than zero, or not. But it can be close to zero, notably when short term memory is stooped, like in slow sleep. Without training in focusing when awakening from that state, you can easily believe having been unconscious. With training, you can remember the last "events", and realized those are just conscious experience, of another type, which are just forgotten quite rapidly.
Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
