Day Brown discussing "Consciousness & hell" with me...
 RT>> Define consciousness.  
 DB> A system which experiences reality, stores that experience for 
 DB> retreival later [includes memmory], makes guesses about the likely 
 DB> effect of newer experiences [learns], and is aware of all of these 
 DB> processes as it tries to understand itself. 
So consciousness is an emergent quality of a complex self-interacting system. 
What is it though? You haven't defined consciousness itself, only the 
mechanisms that possess it.
 DB> Plato went on so far as to suggest that the memmory of experiences
 DB> continues to exist after death; given the example of mass computer 
 DB> storage and the shrinkage of I/O devices like video cameras, there  is a
 DB> lotta logic behind the idea that God could, and did, make you  a backup
 DB> tape of your life; everything you ever did, said, thought  about, is
 DB> recorded.  After you die, you, or anyone who cared about  who you were,
 DB> and what you did, could take your tape and put it in  a cosmic VCR deck
 DB> to watch every noble and/or despicable thing you  ever did. 
Plato may have suggested this but he has no basis of truth from which to make 
the assertion. Yes, the brain is a physical thing and memory may be stored in 
your brain, but when we die the brain reformats itself chemically and thus 
would destroy the data.
As to introducing the concept of a god that can somehow access this 
information and make it available to you and your friends when you have died 
is wholly unsupported.
 DB> With judgement like that, who needs hell?  How do evildoers *ever*  live
 DB> it down?  You think they could lie about it like they do here  all the
 DB> time? 
Indeed. Maybe that is why Plato thought of it. It is his own personal version 
of the afterlife where there is a form of natural justice for ones acts 
whether good or bad. In this scenario, god merely produces the video tape of 
your life, and others do the judging.
 DB> With further consideration on the subject, I agree with Zoroaster,  who
 DB> said the problem was not 'evil', but dementia and ignorance to  contend
 DB> with, as we do here all the time.
I agree with that too.
 DB> Ignorance is relatively  easy to cure
 DB> without dementia, but usually the latter is the cause  of the former,
 DB> and it is generally incurable.
Agreed.
 DB> As again, we see in  postings where the
 DB> greatest ignorance is abundantly accompanied by  the evidence of illogic
 DB> and dementia.  A fool isn't only untaught;  he is unteachable. 
Indeed. I have met many people like this here in Fidoland.
    Relatif Tuinn
... Assembler Command: HGD: Halt, Get Drunk
--- Spot 1.3a #1413
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