Recognising Zombies

:paranoid:

They have grey skin and make creepy groaning noises, yes, I know, thank you very, very much. :shakehead:

This being the philosophy board though, it's actually philosophical zombies I'm talking about. Yeah, if you haven't heard about these guys before, ask Wikipedia:

Quote:

---

A philosophical zombie, p-zombie or p-zed is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, sentience, or sapience. When a zombie is poked with a sharp object, for example, it does not feel any pain. It behaves exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch" and recoil from the stimulus), but it does not actually have the experience of pain as a person normally does.

---

Heavyweight philosophers like to get in big bitch fights about them, but I think they're all wrong.

A philosophical zombie, although not conscious, is supposed to act exactly like everybody else. Perhaps they are real? Perhaps everybody but you is a zombie? How can you tell?

The Turing Test is, by definition of a zombie, useless, so what can you do?

I think the bleedingly obvious answer here which nobody else seems to have is to go ahead and ask them.

Think about it. If somebody asks if you are conscious, you check to see if you are, and say 'yes'. I am experiencing, hence I am a conscious being.

If you asked a zombie, they would check to see if they were experiencing, and say 'no'.

So, doesn't this show that consciousness does actually have physical, tangible manifestations, and is not just an added extra, and completely falsifies the idea of zombies?

Discuss. It's not as if you have anything better to do.

That won't work, because it's possible that they'll just say 'yes' anyway, in order to properly mimic a "real person". As long as their brainstate is exactly the same as that of a normal human, they will have exactly the same beliefs and experiences as a normal. Except without the experience, of course.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xei

:paranoid:

They have grey skin and make creepy groaning noises, yes, I know, thank you very, very much. :shakehead:

This being the philosophy board though, it's actually philosophical zombies I'm talking about. Yeah, if you haven't heard about these guys before, ask Wikipedia:

Heavyweight philosophers like to get in big bitch fights about them, but I think they're all wrong.

A philosophical zombie, although not conscious, is supposed to act exactly like everybody else. Perhaps they are real? Perhaps everybody but you is a zombie? How can you tell?

The Turing Test is, by definition of a zombie, useless, so what can you do?

I think the bleedingly obvious answer here which nobody else seems to have is to go ahead and ask them.

Think about it. If somebody asks if you are conscious, you check to see if you are, and say 'yes'. I am experiencing, hence I am a conscious being.

If you asked a zombie, they would check to see if they were experiencing, and say 'no'.

So, doesn't this show that consciousness does actually have physical, tangible manifestations, and is not just an added extra, and completely falsifies the idea of zombies?

Discuss. It's not as if you have anything better to do.

---

The only problem is that the zombies wouldn't be able to check if they were conscious or not. Zombies do process sensory stimuli to produce a response, so the zombie would interpret this as consciousness and say 'yes'.

Wanna know how I check for zombies? They smell! :D

Lol, but I agree with post # 2.

But even if that were true, it's possible that a regular person (and by extension, a zombie) would simply lie to you.

Well, this is presuming that they are not lying. A zombie would have no motivation to lie about being conscious if it thought that it was not.

Quote:

---

That won't work, because it's possible that they'll just say 'yes' anyway, in order to properly mimic a "real person". As long as their brainstate is exactly the same as that of a normal human, they will have exactly the same beliefs and experiences as a normal. Except without the experience, of course.

---

Well... just imagine, I ask you if you are conscious. Actually properly check if you are experiencing at this time, right now. You would say yes. A zombie, not being conscious, would check if they were conscious, and say no... surely? Why wouldn't they?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xei

Well, this is presuming that they are not lying. A zombie would have no motivation to lie about being conscious if it thought that it was not.

Well... just imagine, I ask you if you are conscious. Actually properly check if you are experiencing at this time, right now. You would say yes. A zombie, not being conscious, would check if they were conscious, and say no... surely? Why wouldn't they?

---

Do you not understand that post? You said that they act like humans. Than, they would act like a human, under all the circumstances. Therefore, they would give the same answer as someone concious.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xei

Well, this is presuming that they are not lying. A zombie would have no motivation to lie about being conscious if it thought that it was not.

---

But if it acts exactly like a conscious being, then most would incorrectly answer yes like conscious beings do. Some conscious beings would have motivation to lie and say no, so we would probably expect that most zombies will say yes and some will say no.

Well what I'm saying is that it is impossible that it would act like a conscious being for the stated reason, and that zombies hence cannot exist. Anything capable of thinking 'I think therefore I am' is conscious.

Quote:

---

Do you not understand that post? You said that they act like humans. Than, they would act like a human, under all the circumstances. Therefore, they would give the same answer as someone concious.

---

No, look, you're missing the point. Although admittedly it's very subtle and I'm having a hard time trying to communicate it. Let's describe a zombie thus:

A zombie's neural activity is identical to a conscious person's, but there is no consciousness there. Key to this idea is that consciousness can treated as some added extra layer that can be removed with no 'ill effects'.

What I'm saying is that this is paradoxical. When you ask it if it is conscious, it must surely come to the conclusion that it is not because it is not, which is physically manifested in the activity of different neurons (hence the paradox, its neural activity is not the same), and eventually speech, saying 'no'. So consciousness in fact has tangible physical manifestations and there is no such thing as a zombie.

I know I said that a zombie acts like a human, but what I have just shown, I think, is that this is in fact impossible, so the definition of a zombie is inherently contradictory.

Oh, okay. I see where your going. Then yes it would be paradoxial, because noaturrally a humn would check to see if they are, so when the zombie does (like a human) it would realize it isn't. So then what would happen if it realized it wasn't concious? Would it dissapear, like if it divided by zero?

Well, speculating about what happens when zombies realise that they are not conscious is like speculating about what happens when you divide by zero, seeing as both have no existence or meaning... I think. It's like asking 'if lemons tasted of apples, what would bananas taste like'? The question itself is an impossibility.

Although good point, it's something I actually hadn't thought to consider.

Yes, there isn't enough sufficient evidence to prove what the bannanas taste like, or what happens when you divide by zero. Ima go try that...

I look at these zombies and don't need to ask.

http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/ar...1070805599.jpg

This whole question really depends on whether you think consciousness is epiphenomenal or not. Regardless, there's no theoretical difference between asking someone a question, or opening up their brain to find out the answer, so if there's not other way the find it out, asking won't work. (Consider how the neurons in the brain are supposed to check for consciousness, when you ask them.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xei

:paranoid:

They have grey skin and make creepy groaning noises, yes, I know, thank you very, very much. :shakehead:

This being the philosophy board though, it's actually philosophical zombies I'm talking about. Yeah, if you haven't heard about these guys before, ask Wikipedia:

Heavyweight philosophers like to get in big bitch fights about them, but I think they're all wrong.

A philosophical zombie, although not conscious, is supposed to act exactly like everybody else. Perhaps they are real? Perhaps everybody but you is a zombie? How can you tell?

The Turing Test is, by definition of a zombie, useless, so what can you do?

I think the bleedingly obvious answer here which nobody else seems to have is to go ahead and ask them.

Think about it. If somebody asks if you are conscious, you check to see if you are, and say 'yes'. I am experiencing, hence I am a conscious being.

If you asked a zombie, they would check to see if they were experiencing, and say 'no'.

So, doesn't this show that consciousness does actually have physical, tangible manifestations, and is not just an added extra, and completely falsifies the idea of zombies?

Discuss. It's not as if you have anything better to do.

---

The part about the grey skin and noises is my grandfather in the morning

oh shit
he's a zombie?

I don't think they exist because consciousness is in everything, it's the source of all existence. There is no single object, living or "not" without consciousness, including people. Existence doesn't even exist without consciousness to recognize it.

I disagree but that's a rather separate issue. I think there are many objective realities (multiverse theory) but we can only observe those in which conscious systems develop, and we are likely to be observing one in which a large number of conscious systems have developed. There are many objects we observe which are simply products of sets of rules which allow for consciousness, for example, rocks. They are not conscious, they are just a result of the constants of the universe.

Quote:

---

This whole question really depends on whether you think consciousness is epiphenomenal or not. Regardless, there's no theoretical difference between asking someone a question, or opening up their brain to find out the answer, so if there's not other way the find it out, asking won't work. (Consider how the neurons in the brain are supposed to check for consciousness, when you ask them.)

---

Absolutely, epiphenomenalism is essential to this. One of the crucial consequences of what I have said above, I think, is that it disproves epiphenomenalism and the concept of 'added inconsequential layers', and with it zombies.

But I think the key issue that you have raised is, how do the neurons actually respond to the question? Do they do something very special when we ask ourselves to check for consciousness? Where is the brain's activity when that occurs?

Personally, my opinion agrees with Belisarius' post. If a zombie set up a "consciousness check," They would be unable to thell theat they aren;t conscious, because they wouldn;t know what consciousness, or a lack thereof, feels like. People are trained from their first pseudophilosophical lecture to assume that they are conscious (I think, therefore I am), and a zombie would assume that since it thinks, insofar as can be described, it must exist as a conscious being. It;s like if someone was raied a perfectly normal life, except that the color red was always labelled blue, and the colour blue ewas always labelled red (and they weren't colorblind). If they were pitted against another person who was raised to believe red and blue are the wavelengths of light that we understand they are, they would believe that they are correct, especially if the two judged the colors based on placards that they had painted, and the other person was unable to see. It's basically a similar idea. The zombie, not knowing otherwise, would assume they were conscious, and since the human, not being able to percieve the zombie's lack of consciousness, could not disprove that.

As for the definition quoted in the first post, there are actual people who don;t have a predefined reaction to sensory stimulius. I forget what it's called, but they have been shown to exist, I believe it';s some form of neurological disorder but I could be wrong, and from what I know, most of them eventually associate different actions with different stimuli (such as saying "ouch" when injured).

Edit: As for the question of how the neurons respond to the question, I assume it's something along the lines of the same neurons that go "Am I typing on DreamViews, or typing the e-mail?" (when one spontaneously forgets what one is doing, I assume it happens to everyone occasionally), fgo "Am I thinking?" Then the srecent memory cells and cells that process conscious thought go "Well, that was though, so, I suppose I'm thinking. I;'m still thinking. THis is stupid." Then the cells that process vocabulary, facial and breathing muscles, and speaking dexterity all work together to say "Yes, i'm conscious."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xei

But I think the key issue that you have raised is, how do the neurons actually respond to the question? Do they do something very special when we ask ourselves to check for consciousness? Where is the brain's activity when that occurs?

---

It seems to me that there's no evidence a neuron is vastly different from other pieces of matter. The implication is that if neurons are capable of checking for consciousness, than any other piece of matter should be able to, including a surgeon doing brain surgery.

The only zombies here are the gingers! They CAN'T be living.
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/picture...GingerKids.JPG

Buddhist simile:

The ego and the self can be looked at like two birds on a tree, one bird hops around tasting the sweet and sour fruits of the tree while the other bird sits and watches the first.

Consciousness/awareness in itself is described One That Watches. It has no intentions, no judgments, no comments, it simply experiences so that creation can be observed. People are ruled by the basics of Chaos Theory, pretty much, which means their intentions, choices, opinions, thoughts, and everything else are just the result of Cause and Effect. We learn, we feel joy and pain, we associate things in order to fit new information into the set-ups we develop of the world we exist in. A "zombie" could do all of this, a zombie can have fears, doubts, pride, selfishness, everything. The only thing it lacks is a connection to the greater awareness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Omnius Deus

Buddhist simile:

The ego and the self can be looked at like two birds on a tree, one bird hops around tasting the sweet and sour fruits of the tree while the other bird sits and watches the first.

Consciousness/awareness in itself is described One That Watches. It has no intentions, no judgments, no comments, it simply experiences so that creation can be observed. People are ruled by the basics of Chaos Theory, pretty much, which means their intentions, choices, opinions, thoughts, and everything else are just the result of Cause and Effect. We learn, we feel joy and pain, we associate things in order to fit new information into the set-ups we develop of the world we exist in. A "zombie" could do all of this, a zombie can have fears, doubts, pride, selfishness, everything. The only thing it lacks is a connection to the greater awareness.

---

The only question is: If our thoughts and experiences are generated by the material world, and we can think about our consciousness, doesn't that consciousness have to be connected causally with the material world? If our consciousness causes us to think about consciousness it must be part of the material world of cause and effect that creates thoughts. The only other possible explanation is that our ideas of consciousness aren't related to our consciousness itself and instead are just a weird byproduct of our evoulution.

That's a difficult challenge, proving someone else is conscious.

But I have an idea! ... sort of.

Let's assume people are robots. The robots have a set path or program. Some robots are conscious, some are not. In these conscious robots, their awareness monitors their programming, allowing them to realize when it is being altered. The zombie robots don't have this ability. To tell the robots apart, one would have to alter the robots' programs in such a way that the sentient robots would realize their code was changed, and the zombie ones would simply run the new code, oblivious to any change.

If we translate this to the p-zed idea, both zombies and humans have the same program, to exist and respond the way a human should. If there was some way to force people to exist or respond in some way that was inhuman, then we could tell humans apart from zombies. However, changing this "program" would have to be more than a series of elaborate physical or mental tricks, it would have to be something that not even a human could imagine...

So, hypothetically, it's possible to tell a zombie apart from a human, but you'd have to be something... inhuman. dun Dun DUN!!! :shock:

So you're saying the consciousness is analogous to one of those anti-virus programs that has a blind spot including and limited to itself? Interesting.

Hey nice topic here. The problem of philosophical zombies is a pretty strange one, and quite relevant as I'm currently writing an essay on mental causation.

Basically, I think the main proponent of the philosophical zombie is David Chalmers... although it has a lot to do with other phenomenalists such as Nagel etc.

The phenomenalist position is basically a nonreductive physicalist position. They hold that mental states are not fully reducible to physical states. In the area of consciousness, they hold that consciousness is not equal to the physical neural states that realise consciousness. In other words, phenomenalists hold that, in addition to our brains and all the events of synapses firing, there is some other thing going on when we are consciousness. This other thing is not physical, and is called by many different names: 'epiphenomena,' 'qualia' or 'what it is like.'

This new phenomenalist position centres around Thomas Nagel's influential paper What it is Like to Be a Bat. He argues that we could investigate everything about a bat's brain, and how it uses sonar to navigate, but we would never be able to experience what it is like to be a bat, and that this aspect will continually elude our scientific endeavours. A similar argument is made for things such as seeing red: we can investigate pigments, light and the eye, but we will never be able to explain the 'qualia' of the conscious feeling of seeing red.

Epiphenomenalism is a type of phenomenalism. Epiphenomena are produced by the physical world, somehow supervene on it, but do not have any causal powers of their own. Think of your shadow - it is produced by you, it mimics your physical actions, it follows you around, but it cannot reach and grab objects. The problem with epiphenomenalism is that it is unneccessary - if the phenomena has no causal power, and the world can get on by fine without it, why posit it?

The philosophical zombie is basically a thought experiment that seeks to drive the intuition that it is possible to have a physical replica of a human being, but that replica has no conscious experience, and so therefore conscious states are not equal to their physical states.

Problems: there are many problems with phenomenalism. The main problem comes from its antireductive nature, and the fact that it is basically a form of dualism, which goes against the current recieved view of physicalism. Another problem with the zombie thought experiment is that it doesn't really seem to be that intuitively plausible. At least, not to me anyway. Also, it voilates a thesis held by many philosophers, even those who in part agree with phenomenalism's nonreductivism: the thesis of supervenience. This thesis holds that if one were to build an atom-by-atom replica of a person, once the physical building process is complete, there is no more work to be done in order to duplicate the mental states or the consciousness.

I'm not sure whether the philosophical zombie is meant to be an atom by atom replica of a human, or simply a sort of composite 'artificial' person, like a robot or something. If it is the former case, it would violate supervenience, and if it is the latter I don't see how any meaningful intuition could be drawn from it.

So, my answer to how to tell if it were a zombie would be this: it is not possible for such a zombie to exist in the first place. If a zombie is complex enough to be able to properly respond to conversation with me, then it has consciousness and is not a 'zombie.' For it to have no real 'consciousness' it would have to be as dumb as, say, a rock: you increase the intelligence of an organism and you increase the complexity of its consciousness, which is why chimps appear so fascinating.

Basically this is a version of the Turing test for artificial intelligence, whereby if a computer is able to trick a human into thinking it is talking with another human, then it is genuinely intelligent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Belisarius

The only question is: If our thoughts and experiences are generated by the material world, and we can think about our consciousness, doesn't that consciousness have to be connected causally with the material world? If our consciousness causes us to think about consciousness it must be part of the material world of cause and effect that creates thoughts. The only other possible explanation is that our ideas of consciousness aren't related to our consciousness itself and instead are just a weird byproduct of our evoulution.

---

Well therein lies an area of my beliefs that unfortunately renders me unable to discuss this issue in the same philosophical paradigm. That belief is that it is incorrect to assume consciousness is reserved for living objects. I don't think such a thing as a living object exists in contrast to a dead object. We exist in a living universe. I frankly don't buy the so called "qualities of life" held as standard by the scientific community.

However there is still a kind of line drawn between being conscious and being self-sconscious, as in aware that you have awareness. But is there really a point where something becomes conscious of its own consciousness? We're able to talk about consciousness because we know that there is some part of of us that simply experiences the world without judgment or intention, however, is that any better than the way a rock is conscious of itself? Sure a rock lacks brain functions, so it can't turn its self consciousness into an idea, but how can we prove that the rock does not experience?

Going even further, could computers be aware? That concept is interesting because computers will eventually use probability and other criteria to make decisions for self-resolution. If consciousness exists in everything inherently, then there isn't really a big deal. What is the difference our perspective taes on about something once it gets the ability to choose for itself? Sure, now it's an individual, but is it more conscious?

What are we, for that matter, but just a collection of material that has chosen to work cohesively together under one ego?

Anyway, even if there is a term to describe the idea, there isn't really a qualifying factor to consciousness. It has no traits or characteristics, it doesn't truly exist at all, it simply record that which does exist. Though many objects lack intention and judgment, does that mean their experiences are going unrecorded? Just because they don't judge the world they exist in nore have any personal goals, nor brain functions, does that mean they lack awareness?

And so on the flip side, yes I do suppose that it could work oppositely, we could live in a completely dead universe where everyone still has their brain and they can think and communicate, compare ideas, choose to pursue certain goals, etc... but absolutely none of it is truly being experienced and therefore none of it actually exists at all.

EDIT: Enlightenment can be described as one's choice to drop awareness of their own awareness, and simply become the experience itself.

Quote:

---

So, my answer to how to tell if it were a zombie would be this: it is not possible for such a zombie to exist in the first place. If a zombie is complex enough to be able to properly respond to conversation with me, then it has consciousness and is not a 'zombie.' For it to have no real 'consciousness' it would have to be as dumb as, say, a rock: you increase the intelligence of an organism and you increase the complexity of its consciousness, which is why chimps appear so fascinating.

---

This is pretty much identical to what I tend to think, actually. Indeed I've never met anybody with such similar thought patterns. :)

Consciousness is the result of the causal relationships between waves of action potential in the brain along axons (etcetera); to ask questions about a being with the same activity but without consciousness is basically a nonsense point. And I think my original argument provides from evidence for this way of thinking...

A few little points to raise: I for one am not so sure about the Turing Test working as you describe it. I reckon that there probably needs to be some kind of overlying intelligence to the responding logic system.

Say there was a hypothetical machine which had a set of convincing responses for every possible conversation ever. Would it be conscious? It would definitely pass the Turing Test, but I think this would be a faulty result.

Another little thought I've had in the past; do you think there needs to be a causal factor inherent in the brain's activity? To illustrate; if the neurons in a brain were actually firing randomly, but happened to emulate the exact activity required for a thought, or set of thoughts, would that brain be conscious?

I have a very strong feeling that it would not, although I don't currently have any justification. Just a gut feeling.

What is remarkable if this is true though is how consciousness makes causality a tangible thing, refuting what I think is the normal view that it is just a concept which nicely fits observation with no 'physical' essence.

A couple of quick questions for you, by the way; firstly, I suppose you agree that the China brain would be conscious? And secondly, are you currently reading philosophy or something similar at uni? I just got that impression.

" A philosophical zombie, p-zombie or p-zed is a hypothetical being that is indistinguishable from a normal human being except that it lacks conscious experience, qualia, sentience, or sapience. When a zombie is poked with a sharp object, for example, it does not feel any pain. It behaves exactly as if it does feel pain (it may say "ouch" and recoil from the stimulus), but it does not actually have the experience of pain as a person normally does."

sounds like a dream character to me

me. "are you real?" them. "yes." me. "no you're not!" them. "you're right, were not."

Interesting idea actually. You can have a flawless conversation with a DC. Does that mean they pass the Turing Test?

Whoa... so since some DCs are causally linked to a part of your mind, then they would also have to have consciousnesses... which is not only interesting, but testable! Since both your dream consciousness and the DC's consciousness would both be linked to your physical mind, a talented LDer could theoretically explore the DC's consciousness! And if shared dreaming is possible, you could test to see if other people are p-zeds too.

Really puts a whole new spin on walking a mile in someone else's shoes.

Hm... I thought about this, and I reckon that the way to look at this is that the language part of the brain is working, but not aware ('in' your consciousness). A bit like blocking out sound when reading a book, vision when in deep thought, or even walking somewhere with no recollection of thinking about it. We often think of language being a higher function which is intrinsic to consciousness so it may be a strange idea that this could be done without awareness... but I don't think that this is true, because I find it quite easy to imagine consciousness without language (just sit and observe your environment without a single word entering your mind, it's very easy and clearly you don't loose consciousness).

Consciousness can do very strange things, that much is clear. There is evidence from split brain patients that they have two consciousnesses in one body... it's crazy stuff.

With a dual-consciousness like that... there might even be the possibility of consciousnesses merging... which is an interesting concept. I wonder if both the consciousnesses could directly communicate, via some sort of telepathy. Gah. Totally wish I had another awareness rambling around in my brain to talk to when I'm bored. Ha.

Yes, I often wonder about what merging two networks would do...

I'm going into computational and theoretical neuroscience research in a few years, which is amazingly cool I think. Best job ever. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xei

A few little points to raise: I for one am not so sure about the Turing Test working as you describe it. I reckon that there probably needs to be some kind of overlying intelligence to the responding logic system.

Say there was a hypothetical machine which had a set of convincing responses for every possible conversation ever. Would it be conscious? It would definitely pass the Turing Test, but I think this would be a faulty result.

Another little thought I've had in the past; do you think there needs to be a causal factor inherent in the brain's activity? To illustrate; if the neurons in a brain were actually firing randomly, but happened to emulate the exact activity required for a thought, or set of thoughts, would that brain be conscious?

---

Hey yeah our thoughts on the issue seem to be pretty similar.

On the turing test: perhaps it wouldn't work just by itself. I do think, though, that it is a good determination of intelligence, but whether it is enough to determine proper concsiousness is another issue. There is an international competition run every year (or two years?) where people enter their computer software in order to try and fool a panel of judges into thinking that they are talking to a computer. Wikipedia it perhaps - it's a very interesting subject. One of the entrants to the competition is called jabberwacky - www.jabberwacky.com - and it basically works by accumulating a statistical store of responses to conversation. Check out the website and you can talk to it... sometimes it is spookily like talking to a person, other times it is a bit strained. The good part about it is that as you talk to it, it's busy storing your responses so in effect you're helping to develop it.

But I guess the turing test isn't quite enough for a proper test of consciousness. I guess there'd have to be some sort of 'zombie' test - equivalent of the turing test. If a robot can fool a panel of judges into thinking it's a human, simply by the things it does and the way it acts in common life, it is conscious. Might be a bit harder getting a robot to superficially look authentic, but that's a seperate issue.

Basically if something looks conscious, acts conscious, and gives every sign of being conscious - being able to make long-term decisions and plans, being able to recognise other people, being able to guess other people's thoughts etc - then it is conscious.

I guess i'm of an evolutionary physicalist/reductive view of consciousness: I think that our consciousness is a product of our evolution, and allows us to navigate our environment, interact with it, store memories of food sources, be able to predict events through pattern recognition etc. The most important aspect of our consciousness is our conscious awareness, which basically allows us to recognise ourselves as physically distinct from our surroundings. If we cannot recognise ourselves as distinct, then there would be no reason for us to live. If we did not think that we were going to be the same organism tomorrow, why bother eating today?

I think that there has to be causality in the brain, but i'm not sure... perhaps explain the example again? Also, I'm not familiar with the China brain example, although I've heard of it before. What is it?

And yeah, I'm doing a double major in English-philosophy at university :) I've done lots of stuff on philosophy of mind... I just finished a course on metaphysics, and i've done a bit from both the naturalist viewpoint and an analytical viewpoint. I just finished an essay on mental causation yesterday as a matter of fact... it just so happened that lots of stuff in this topic correlated with what I'm talking about in my essay :)

Hey roller. So I went to that jabberwacky site... and some hilarity ensued. Good lol-factor.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jabberwacky

08:43:59 User: Butt sex.
08:44:03 Jabberwacky: So do I. I like to eat them too.
08:44:43 User: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA.
08:44:44 Jabberwacky: It is not a joke.
08:44:59 User: How do you eat butt sex?
08:45:01 Jabberwacky: Like normal people do.
08:45:14 User: How do normal people eat butt sex?
08:45:19 Jabberwacky: OK, like people do.
08:45:51 User: How do people eat butt sex?
08:45:53 Jabberwacky: By accepting and remembering the knowledge that is given to them.
08:46:11 User: O.o.
08:46:15 Jabberwacky: Speak russian&.
08:46:33 User: :-(.
08:46:37 Jabberwacky: You feel bad about that?
08:46:51 User: X_X.
08:47:08 Jabberwacky: What do you feel?
08:47:16 User: Gay.
08:47:22 Jabberwacky: Are you?
08:47:31 User: Yes.
08:47:43 Jabberwacky: Good.

---

Computers eat buttsecks! O_O