[extropy-chat] Consciousness is a process inmulti-dimensionaltime.

[Jef Allbright]

On 12/20/05, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> "It was never supposed [the poet Imlac said] that cogitation is inherent
> in matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet if any part of
> matter be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose to think? Matter can
> differ from matter only in form, bulk, density, motion and direction of
> motion; to which of these, however varied or combined, can consciousness
> be annexed? To be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or
> little, to be moved slowly or swiftly one way or another, are modes of
> material existence, all equally alien from the nature of cognition. If
> matter be once without thought, it can only be made to think by some new
> modification, but all the modification which it can admit are equally
> unconnected with cogitative powers."
>
> Samuel Johnson

Take six ordinary toothpicks, each displaying the property of length,
and various material properties of perhaps diminishing significance. 
Arrange the six toothpicks, three to a vertex,  to form a tetrahedron.
 Suddenly, a new property appears; that of containership.  The
tetrahedron has aquired an inside and an outside and exhibits the
capability, unpredicted by its components, to contain another object.
It exhibits structural integrity never seen in the world of unattached
toothpicks, and an added dimension of symmetry.  If matter be once
without containership, it can only be made to have containership by
some new modification, but all the modification which it can admit are
equally unconnected with containership.

- Jef