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ToughDiamond
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08 Apr 2024, 1:31 pm

DuckHairback wrote:
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Why is it necessary for humans to have consciousness? Why aren't we all like zombies?


Consciousness could well be an evolutionary dead-end. It may well be that animals aren't meant to have it, if they're to survive.

Would explain the absence of aliens visiting us.

Must say I sensed something missing in the theory that its evolutionary cause is the need to deal with other people. I don't quite see why that couldn't be done in a zombie-like way. I suppose the individual has to know they are them and others are others, hence self-awareness. But even that doesn't make perfect sense to me. Many other life forms behave as if they "know" they are them and others are others, but the simpler life forms aren't likely to be conscious. DNA is "selfish" but it's not self-aware, it's just a biochemical doing what it has no choice but to do.

I suppose by "evolutionary dead end" you mean an accidental by-product that serves no particular survival function?



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08 Apr 2024, 4:22 pm

Why does 1 hard-boiled egg seem like more food than 1 fried egg?


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ToughDiamond
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08 Apr 2024, 5:55 pm

PineappleLobster wrote:
Why does 1 hard-boiled egg seem like more food than 1 fried egg?

Assuming it does (I haven't tested it), maybe it's because an egg loses water when it's fried?



DuckHairback
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08 Apr 2024, 6:39 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
I suppose by "evolutionary dead end" you mean an accidental by-product that serves no particular survival function?


I meant that it might be worse than that - an accidental by-product that inevitably causes the (relatively) rapid extinction of the species that acquires it.

Hence no alien visitors because once you have consciousness you're inevitably extinct before you can develop sufficiently advance technology to travel through space.


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CockneyRebel
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08 Apr 2024, 9:36 pm

What took me so long to change? What took me so long to choose love over fear?


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ToughDiamond
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08 Apr 2024, 10:17 pm

DuckHairback wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
I suppose by "evolutionary dead end" you mean an accidental by-product that serves no particular survival function?


I meant that it might be worse than that - an accidental by-product that inevitably causes the (relatively) rapid extinction of the species that acquires it.

Hence no alien visitors because once you have consciousness you're inevitably extinct before you can develop sufficiently advance technology to travel through space.

How would consciousness make a species go extinct?



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08 Apr 2024, 10:47 pm

PineappleLobster wrote:
Why does 1 hard-boiled egg seem like more food than 1 fried egg?


Why aren't eggs more filling, period?

It sounds like you've eaten something ("I had eggs for breakfast.") but doesn't feel like it. :P

I once read that Theodore Roosevelt ate a half dozen eggs every day for breakfast. I'm not surprised. He should have just gone with steak.


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08 Apr 2024, 10:59 pm

Charlemania wrote:
I once read that Theodore Roosevelt ate a half dozen eggs every day for breakfast. I'm not surprised. He should have just gone with steak.



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DuckHairback
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09 Apr 2024, 2:45 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
How would consciousness make a species go extinct?


Not directly. But it may be that it always results in a species manipulating it's environment without really understanding the consequences to the extent it can no longer survive. This is hypothetical of course, since we only know of one species that has achieved consciousness and we're not extinct yet.


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ToughDiamond
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09 Apr 2024, 1:08 pm

DuckHairback wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
How would consciousness make a species go extinct?


Not directly. But it may be that it always results in a species manipulating it's environment without really understanding the consequences to the extent it can no longer survive. This is hypothetical of course, since we only know of one species that has achieved consciousness and we're not extinct yet.

So we're too clever for our own good? It seems plausible to me.



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09 Apr 2024, 1:09 pm

Whoops


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09 Apr 2024, 9:45 pm

Why is the letter W called "double U" when it's written "double V"?


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funeralxempire
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09 Apr 2024, 9:51 pm

Why's the sky blue?
Why's water wet?
Why did Judas rat to Romans while Jesus slept?


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09 Apr 2024, 9:57 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
Why's the sky blue?
Why's water wet?
Why did Judas rat to Romans while Jesus slept?

God
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Satan

Duck
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Goose


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ToughDiamond
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10 Apr 2024, 1:52 am

utterly absurd wrote:
Why is the letter W called "double U" when it's written "double V"?

Because they used to write it as two U's in the Middle Ages, and the name stuck even after they changed it to W.



ToughDiamond
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10 Apr 2024, 2:13 am

funeralxempire wrote:
Why's the sky blue?

The light from the Sun scatters in the air, and blue light scatters more easily than the other colours because its wavelength is shorter. Violet has an even shorter wavelength but our eyes are more sensitive to blue.

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Why's water wet?

Depends what you mean by "wet."

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Why did Judas rat to Romans while Jesus slept?

It usually pays to be sneaky like that when you're ratting on somebody so that they don't know what you're up to, though according to scripture it wouldn't have mattered because Jesus knew it was going to happen and wanted to be crucified anyway. Judas probably didn't realise that (if the story was true), so he'd have looked a complete dick as well as a traitor.