Late night philosophy

[man]

Anyone ever think what it would be like to be born anything other than a human? This is one thing that has always driven me nuts. I'm talking about a conscious existence...

[redrumracer]

man a dolphin would have been awesome. arent they like the only other species to have sex for pleasure?

[man]

man a dolphin would have been awesome. arent they like the only other species to have sex for pleasure?

LOL, true. But i'm going a little deeper than that, like would you still be you. Would you have the same sense of existence that you have now.

[turbosx©]

I'd wanna be a penguin

[RandomGuy]

LOL, true. But i'm going a little deeper than that, like would you still be you. Would you have the same sense of existence that you have now.dont think so, to some extent, I'd say humans are some of the only creatures which ask "why?"...

Consciousness's 'hardware' component wouldn't be there: in this case the human brain.. I don't think it(the same level of consciousness) could exist without our analytical nature.

Unlike other creatures, we don't really live off of instinct anymore. We have more depth than that,

If "you" were trapped in a goldfish body, your attributes would definitely not be the same as the human counterpart. You'd only be able to comprehend what you can physically. Like computers: you can't run vista on a 32mb ram, pentium 133 box... Sure some of the wisest fish maybe get a minor glimpse of their sense of existence, but i doubt it'd be anything compared to ours... In the same way, I'm sure some of the wisest humans get glimpses of stuff us normal folk can't even comprehend... For example, i'm sure many of you've read up on the "4th dimension, 5th, etc" theories... You can read it up and down and know everything about it, but we are not designed to comprehend it. Yet very few people can actually conceptualize it. I guess their spatial thinking hardware in their brain has some sort of variance from the norm?

Who knows... because the whole thing comes down to how you'd define "you" which I'm having trouble putting into words myself.

[alpine_aw11]

Sometimes when I'm watching my dog I just want to turn into it. Be happy all day for no damn reason. And hunt little animals. But no, you couldn't retain a human conscience with an animal brain, it's not complex enough.

[Black R]

some buddhists believe that you continue to be reincarnated until you achieve a higher consciousness.

so if you **** up, then you get reincarnated as a lesser creature. and if you're a really ****ty person, then you get reincarnated as a roach or something hideous.

if you are exceptional, then you transcend. it's an interesting way to view things.

[DevilK9]

I'd wanna be a penguin

At least you could get a job with Disney.

[Sport1.3]

Could you define a conscious Existence? How do you describe the existence of something? What does it mean for anything to exist?

[man]

dont think so, to some extent, I'd say humans are some of the only creatures which ask "why?"...

Consciousness's 'hardware' component wouldn't be there: in this case the human brain.. I don't think it(the same level of consciousness) could exist without our analytical nature.

Unlike other creatures, we don't really live off of instinct anymore. We have more depth than that,

If "you" were trapped in a goldfish body, your attributes would definitely not be the same as the human counterpart. You'd only be able to comprehend what you can physically. Like computers: you can't run vista on a 32mb ram, pentium 133 box... Sure some of the wisest fish maybe get a minor glimpse of their sense of existence, but i doubt it'd be anything compared to ours... In the same way, I'm sure some of the wisest humans get glimpses of stuff us normal folk can't even comprehend... For example, i'm sure many of you've read up on the "4th dimension, 5th, etc" theories... You can read it up and down and know everything about it, but we are not designed to comprehend it. Yet very few people can actually conceptualize it. I guess their spatial thinking hardware in their brain has some sort of variance from the norm?

Who knows... because the whole thing comes down to how you'd define "you" which I'm having trouble putting into words myself.

I also am having trouble putting what I think into words, though I understand what you're getting at and you seem to be on the same level.

[Ran]

Are you talking about taking your essence and self-realization, then putting it into an animal body?

Like, "Holy crap! I'm a dog! I'm gonna go poop on the couch!"

Kinda like that?

[man]

Sometimes when I'm watching my dog I just want to turn into it. Be happy all day for no damn reason. And hunt little animals. But no, you couldn't retain a human conscience with an animal brain, it's not complex enough.

I'm not saying you would retain the complexity of a human brain, merely the sense of being. For instance, does a bird realize it is a bird and act accordingly or is it merely acting on genetic programming (this applies to any animal, bird came to mind first).

[turbosx©]

I think animal in general are programmed. Else there would be some rogue(right word) animals.