My family interacted with me, and I'm sure it mattered to them, but it was simply impossible for it to matter to me. Its not something you will be able to comprehend. Its not just not remembering a two week period in my life... we ALL have that. It was not remembering at this moment that I existed a moment ago, and that I will exist a moment from now. I just can't explain it to someone who hasn't experienced it. Being in that state could not be felt, but coming gradually OUT of that state could be felt, and so I was immediately aware of the difference.
I'm not saying to give up on your friend.
And yes, we are all meat-based computers, but the key difference is that computers are able to use variables - a computer can store a new value for a variable and thus change its state. I couldn't. With no changes in state, time stops. Consciousness in the sense of self-awareness is a thread... a line. I had no line. I was a line segment.
The point is, I was interacting and speaking with people, but if they stepped out of my vision and then back in, then it was as if I was seeing them again for the first time. This, of course, is all from what I have been told by the people that were interacting with me at the time.
The point being that without that continuity, without the ability to remember from one moment to the next - without that continuing thread, the subjective experience of the person lacking this function is of nothingness. You could argue that my responses to people (as non-sensical as they were) were just programmed responses.
Bottom line is, whether or not you can argue that a person exists or not is kind of beside the point - if they are unable to experience their own existence, then to them they don't exist... and if this mechanism is necessary for an individual to be able to experience their own existence, then after death, when this mechanism surely ceases functioning just as it would with injury, the experience of the dead person would be the same - nothingness. From my perspective at the time (or rather complete lack of one), I did not exist - and when it comes to being alive or being dead, the perspective of the person concerned is the only one that matters.
The process of storing memories simply came back after a couple of weeks, I gather that this is not uncommon with head injury. The process of going from no memory creation to reasonably full memory creation apparently took place over a period of perhaps 2 or three days (or so it seems to me anyway).
There is simply a blank space, no memories whatsoever from shortly before the accident until weeks later, with a few little flashes and snippets that stored in the last day or so during my transition back to normal memory storage.
I was not making new memories, so while I was conscious and talking and interacting with people for weeks, to me it is a complete blank, and was at the time. I only know about it from what they told me in the days following my recovery.
When the "mechanism" for storing memories started to work again, I kind of faded back into existence in snippets lasting a few seconds here and there - but of course in a sense it only FEELS like that remembering back on it, the actual experience at those very moments must have been something different.
In essence, there is no memory of weeks, then there are segments here and there that stuck, and then finally continutity.
... after a head injury, I was unable to form new memories. That mechanism was not working. I was totally conscious and talking to people, and yet from my perspective I didn't even exist. It is NOT like the movie Memento, because its simply impossible to have any self-awareness of your condition.
For the weeks that I was like this, I was essentially dead. I was lucky enough that for me it was temporary, though I still have some problems, but even if I weren't already an atheist it would have been total confirmation that there is no afterlife, because with that small part of my brain not working I was literally no longer a person, I didn't exist as a mind - I was just some pile of animated meat.
The process of regaining the memory "stickiness" was strange - that time feels like my birth.
Yep, that's what we need faster processors for - WEB BROWSING! Woohoo! If you're browsing the web at less than 3gh, WAYSA? (edit: why are you still alive. forgot that acronym isn't from/.)
Nobody lives forever... nobody SHOULD live forever... and if thats wrong and there is some rare person who actually deserves to live forever, it's certainly not YOU. Having accumulated weath doesn't make you deserving - if anything, it probably rules you out.
That's the thing. The draconian WILL be necessary.
The members of the RIAA do NOT create music. Thier entire business model is based on reproducing copies of the music and distributing them. Now, a ten year old with no money or raw materials, 15 seconds to spare, and a $200 home appliance can do the job the RIAA does. There are millions that can, and there will soon be hundreds of millions who can.
If we ever get to the point where millions of ten year olds can make their own cars with no money or raw materials, in just a few seconds with a $200 home appliance, the the auto industry will be similarly doomed.
It's not good or bad, it just is. It's reality.
Yes, it could be stopped. It is technically possible to prevent hundreds of millions of people from doing something which costs them no more time, effort or cost than reading an email - but to do that would require extraordinary control over those hundreds of millions of people. That control could necessarily only come from government.
Government control like that is possible, but is that worth it? I don't know for sure what kind of government you would call it, but it certainly wouldn't be a democratic one.
It may not be fair - but what does this tactic have to do with fair? Who says that if you are obnly forced to parrot "center" ideology that that is fair?
and incidentally, back to the topic at hand - this particular guy... as someone below has pointed out, they have a list of liberals only that they are calling "dirty." They are NOT targetting both extremes... Or perhaps they ARE - because there is no such thing as no bias, and so "center" depends on who you are.
Who would Pat Buchanan consider extreme? Who would Limbaugh consider extreme? Who would Trostky consider extreme?
It all depends on who is creating the list - the list will NEVER eliminate bias, it merely will enforce one person's.
I agree that the Republican party is anything but conservative - but if, as you say, conservatives don't vote Republican (or Democrat) then there are apparently about five conservatives in this country.
Unless you have evidence that they're really only targettingthe left or the right, I fail to see how they're doing anything particularly egregious.
Why does that make a difference? What if they ARE targetting BOTH the left and the right? Then all that does is try to enforce the status quo - but what if the status quo isn't that great?
Isn't that essentially what's being done in China? Intimidation of speech in any extreme (as they see it.)
What has the catholic church done NOW, when the controversy was roaring and the subject was in the press and in the public mind? Why, the shiny and newly minted Pope Ratzinger came out and said that he DOESN'T think evolution is true.
Slashdot Mirror
Freedom is dangerous - animals always live longer in captivity.
I hear there's going to be an RFID chip in the new Federal Walking License.
Its not something you will be able to comprehend. Its not just not remembering a two week period in my life... we ALL have that. It was not remembering at this moment that I existed a moment ago, and that I will exist a moment from now. I just can't explain it to someone who hasn't experienced it. Being in that state could not be felt, but coming gradually OUT of that state could be felt, and so I was immediately aware of the difference.
I'm not saying to give up on your friend.
And yes, we are all meat-based computers, but the key difference is that computers are able to use variables - a computer can store a new value for a variable and thus change its state.
I couldn't. With no changes in state, time stops. Consciousness in the sense of self-awareness is a thread... a line. I had no line. I was a line segment.
The point being that without that continuity, without the ability to remember from one moment to the next - without that continuing thread, the subjective experience of the person lacking this function is of nothingness. You could argue that my responses to people (as non-sensical as they were) were just programmed responses.
Bottom line is, whether or not you can argue that a person exists or not is kind of beside the point - if they are unable to experience their own existence, then to them they don't exist... and if this mechanism is necessary for an individual to be able to experience their own existence, then after death, when this mechanism surely ceases functioning just as it would with injury, the experience of the dead person would be the same - nothingness. From my perspective at the time (or rather complete lack of one), I did not exist - and when it comes to being alive or being dead, the perspective of the person concerned is the only one that matters.
There is simply a blank space, no memories whatsoever from shortly before the accident until weeks later, with a few little flashes and snippets that stored in the last day or so during my transition back to normal memory storage.
When the "mechanism" for storing memories started to work again, I kind of faded back into existence in snippets lasting a few seconds here and there - but of course in a sense it only FEELS like that remembering back on it, the actual experience at those very moments must have been something different.
In essence, there is no memory of weeks, then there are segments here and there that stuck, and then finally continutity.
For the weeks that I was like this, I was essentially dead. I was lucky enough that for me it was temporary, though I still have some problems, but even if I weren't already an atheist it would have been total confirmation that there is no afterlife, because with that small part of my brain not working I was literally no longer a person, I didn't exist as a mind - I was just some pile of animated meat.
The process of regaining the memory "stickiness" was strange - that time feels like my birth.
I dunno, no offense man but I lived in TX for a while in the early 80s and it was a shithole then too.
Yep, that's what we need faster processors for - WEB BROWSING! Woohoo! If you're browsing the web at less than 3gh, WAYSA? (edit: why are you still alive. forgot that acronym isn't from /.)
or perhaps,
"At Graviton, we don't make the gravity. We make it stronger.®"
starting with the president.
using it.
nature has already decided.
Nobody lives forever... nobody SHOULD live forever... and if thats wrong and there is some rare person who actually deserves to live forever, it's certainly not YOU. Having accumulated weath doesn't make you deserving - if anything, it probably rules you out.
I just sent myself a test email without my usual period between my first and last names, and it never arrived back.
Oh well - if someone has the other one, they are getting a LOT of email (I'm on a lot of listservs)
The members of the RIAA do NOT create music. Thier entire business model is based on reproducing copies of the music and distributing them.
Now, a ten year old with no money or raw materials, 15 seconds to spare, and a $200 home appliance can do the job the RIAA does. There are millions that can, and there will soon be hundreds of millions who can.
If we ever get to the point where millions of ten year olds can make their own cars with no money or raw materials, in just a few seconds with a $200 home appliance, the the auto industry will be similarly doomed.
It's not good or bad, it just is. It's reality.
Yes, it could be stopped. It is technically possible to prevent hundreds of millions of people from doing something which costs them no more time, effort or cost than reading an email - but to do that would require extraordinary control over those hundreds of millions of people. That control could necessarily only come from government.
Government control like that is possible, but is that worth it? I don't know for sure what kind of government you would call it, but it certainly wouldn't be a democratic one.
ahhh... finally an unbiased analysis.
no text
Yeah - imagine a self-healing human body. Wouldn't that be incredible?
and incidentally, back to the topic at hand - this particular guy... as someone below has pointed out, they have a list of liberals only that they are calling "dirty." They are NOT targetting both extremes...
Or perhaps they ARE - because there is no such thing as no bias, and so "center" depends on who you are.
Who would Pat Buchanan consider extreme? Who would Limbaugh consider extreme? Who would Trostky consider extreme?
It all depends on who is creating the list - the list will NEVER eliminate bias, it merely will enforce one person's.
I agree that the Republican party is anything but conservative - but if, as you say, conservatives don't vote Republican (or Democrat) then there are apparently about five conservatives in this country.
Why does that make a difference? What if they ARE targetting BOTH the left and the right? Then all that does is try to enforce the status quo - but what if the status quo isn't that great?
Isn't that essentially what's being done in China? Intimidation of speech in any extreme (as they see it.)
What has the catholic church done NOW, when the controversy was roaring and the subject was in the press and in the public mind? Why, the shiny and newly minted Pope Ratzinger came out and said that he DOESN'T think evolution is true.
So much for your argument.
I actually HOPE cell phones cause brain tumors.