Are You Alive?

[QuinticNon]

How can you know?

[Greg]

Easy, define 'living' as 'in the state of experienceing some sensations'
Then just assert that you are experiencing the sensation of the visual experience of reading this.
QED

[Zetherin]

Originally Posted by QuinticNon

How can you know?

By knowing you're not dead.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by QuinticNon

How can you know?

I am answering this post. And so, you know I am alive too. I don't understand the problem. "Dead men answer no posts" (old saying).

[QuinticNon]

Originally Posted by Greg

Easy, define 'living' as 'in the state of experienceing some sensations'...

My computer has sensory input equipment. It can react to stimuli. Can it be said to be "in the state of experiencing"? Is my computer alive?

---------- Post added 01-21-2010 at 11:21 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Zetherin

By knowing you're not dead.

What are the qualifiers to determine if a notion is knowable? If I've never experienced death, how may I know if I'm not dead?

---------- Post added 01-21-2010 at 11:24 AM ----------

Originally Posted by kennethamy

I am answering this post. And so, you know I am alive too. I don't understand the problem. "Dead men answer no posts" (old saying).

Yes, a response would typically attribute authorship to another sentient entity. How do I know you are not an automaton? How do I know you are not just a computer program?

[Jebediah]

Well that's a completely different question than "how do you know you are alive". You are asking "how do you know other people are alive".

[QuinticNon]

Originally Posted by Jebediah

Well that's a completely different question than "how do you know you are alive".

The OP clearly states, "Are you alive?", "How do you know?"

How do you know that you are alive Jebediah?

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by QuinticNon

---------- Post added 01-21-2010 at 11:24 AM ----------



Yes, a response would typically attribute authorship to another sentient entity. How do I know you are not an automaton? How do I know you are not just a computer program?

Well, you cannot be absolutely certain. But you do, I think, know. After all, have you any good reason to suppose you are not being answered by a person?

[Zetherin]

Originally Posted by QuinticNon

My computer has sensory input equipment. It can react to stimuli. Can it be said to be "in the state of experiencing"? Is my computer alive?

Your computer is not conscious and hence it cannot experience.

What are the qualifiers to determine if a notion is knowable? If I've never experienced death, how may I know if I'm not dead?

If I've never experienced an infection of the scrotum, how may I know I don't have an infection of the scrotum? Seems to be a silly question to me.

Yes, a response would typically attribute authorship to another sentient entity. How do I know you are not an automaton? How do I know you are not just a computer program?

Well, for one, computer programs cannot bear intentionality. And I think kennethamy has demonstrated intentionality and a semantic capacity which no machine can have.

-

Just because you can question everything, doesn't mean you should. You should have reason to question something.

[QuinticNon]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

...have you any good reason to suppose you are not being answered by a person?

There are automatons (black swans) out there. There will be more.

The OP was presented for open speculation. Lacking details of my own personal perspective, being that, if one attributes "person hood" to the physical materialism alone, then there is absolutely no difference between a human make-up and rock guts.

Concrete reacts to stimuli of ice in the very same way that sweat glands react to stimuli of heat. No cognitive apparatus is needed for either to abide by the principles of cause and reaction. If the notion of mind is reduced to a physical mechanism of brain, then what makes that brain cognitive above and beyond rock guts?

Where does this notion of "Alive" hail from?