Question

[Queso]

i was reading this extremely complicated book called "wider than the sky" that somebody gave to me. there were many things i did not understand clearly in this book, in fact i gave up on it. if any of you have read this book, you will totally understand why i gave up. :rant:

 

in it, there was a quote that melted my mind.

 

"we are concious automata"

 

what exactly does this mean?

[Harzburgite]

We are, arguably, controlled by processes occuring without our conscious intervention. Research (using MRI scanning as I recall) has shown that when we make a conscious decision it is in fact triggered by activity in the lower brain milliseconds ahead of the 'decision' in the cortex. If this extends to all or most decisions then the conscious I is no more responsible for the decision than I am for Bruce Willis's actions in Die Hard. In both instances I am simply an observer of actions scripted elsewhere.

I have not read or heard of the book you refer to, but that's my take on conscious automata.

[Queso]

thanks, that's what i figured..but i could not alone get that indepth.

and to be honest, just the two words themselves, put together in a sentence:

 

concious automata

 

it just sounds so extraordinary. :rant:

[UncleAl]

"we are concious automata"

what exactly does this mean?

It doesn't mean anything. It is a concatenation of pretentious jargon like winespeak or artspeak whose goal is to impress authority without bearing content. That is how religion works - and if you question it you are thereby proven unqualfied to comment.

 

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

 

1) If Helen Keller falls in a forest, does she make a sound?

2) LIGO in Washington State. The gravity wave detector can sense trees being felled 100 miles away.

[Harzburgite]

It doesn't mean anything.

Yes it does. Please refer to post 2.

It is a concatenation of pretentious jargon

Much like the phrase 'a concatenation of pretentious jargon'. Nice touch. I like it.

That is how religion works - and if you question it you are thereby proven unqualfied to comment.

As noted above, I am not familiar with the work the phrase is quoted from, but even if it is a religious work I can assure you the concept is decidedly scientific and arguably anti-religious.

 

Your whimsical references to falling trees seemed more Busby Berkeley than Bishop Berkeley and as such surely off-topic.

[Turtle]

___Automata (plural of automaton) means computer programs these days, as in Conway's game of Life. An initial state is input & then subjected to a set of rules which govern all future development of the inital set on some pre-described matrix. Life is a 2-dimensional cellualr automata.

___Concious automata implies AI (arificial intelligence). Multi-dimensional cellualr automata make claims for advancement in AI.

___BTW, not only can you produce Sierpinski Gaskets by way of recursive algorithms, you can produce them with 1-dimensional cellular automata. :rant:

[Boerseun]

An Automaton is machine/device/organism that acts according to a fixed set of rules, and does so by itself. A robot following a white line painted on a floor can be said to be an automaton (plural: automata), whereas a automobile can't, seeing as it is operated by a different organism, following a different set of rules. That explains why cars sometimes end up against trees. An automaton acts purely upon this set of rules, and receives no input as to thoughts or such. It is not conscious, and can't be, per definition.

 

The term "Conscious Automata" is therefore a paradox in terms, and these two words sound to me like they should be mutually exclusive. I have to side with Uncle Al on this one - it smells like pretentious jargon to me as well...

[Harzburgite]

The term "Conscious Automata" is therefore a paradox in terms, and these two words sound to me like they should be mutually exclusive. I have to side with Uncle Al on this one - it smells like pretentious jargon to me as well...

I'll have my tame medium let Mr T.H.Huxley know of your scepticism. ;)