> There's no such thing as a "consciousness meter," so how would we ever
> know if rocks, or plants, or other animals tingle with the spark of
> spirit?

> This question shows a mis-understanding consciousness. Consciousness
> is what we do with our senses and our experiences.
> A thing (even a human) born with no senses has no consciousness.
> Just what would a rock be conscious of?
> What would a glass of water be aware of?

>> Personally, I would say rocks are not conscious because they have neither
>> sense organs nor a brain. If you don't have sense organs, how can you
>> gather
>> information about the outside world? If you don't have a brain, how can
>> you
>> process information, form thoughts, etc?

>
> How do you define a 'sense organ'? Or 'processing information'? Rocks
> are not somehow isolated from the rest of the universe, and when the
> environment changes, that information may be translated into a change
> within the rock. After all, geologists delve into the memories of
> rocks like psychologists do with humans.
>

> On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:49:10 -0700, The Ghost Town Herald draze.com> wrote:
>

>>There's no such thing as a "consciousness meter," so how would we ever
>>know if rocks, or plants, or other animals tingle with the spark of
>>spirit? Philosopher de Quincey tells a story of one student who could
>>not accept the possibility that rocks may be nonconscious. He points
>>out that science aims to tell us about the actual world, while
>>philosophy explores possible worlds.......
>>http://www.noetic.org/publications/shift/issue1/s1_cdeq.pdf

>
> Do rocks deceive?
> Do rocks practice false folk lore theories about brain function?
> Do rocks have brains?
> Do rocks experience qualia such as "consciousness"?
> Do rocks experience...

>

>>> Personally, I would say rocks are not conscious because they have neither
>>> sense organs nor a brain. If you don't have sense organs, how can you
>>> gather
>>> information about the outside world...

> Path:
> news.ThunderNews.com!dartmaster!s03-b05.iad01!s02-b15.iad01!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!newshub.sdsu.edu!sn-xt-sjc-03!sn-xt-sjc-11!sn-xt-sjc-07!sn-post-sjc-01!supernews.com!corp...

> Well, in a way there is a "consciousness meter". Or at least a way for
> humans to observe degrees of consciousness. We do it all the time.
> Doctors make judgements not only of whether patients are conscious but
> how conscious they are particularly anaesthetists. If consciousness were
> not an obsevable phenomonon there wouldn't be so much discussion of it.

>
> In my view, fundamental (primary) and universal perceptive means have
> nothing to do with the five senses of humans. Humans do have access to
> primary perceptive means in addition to the the five physical senses.
> These various primary means are referred to as ESP or Extra Sensory
> Perception. People who are particularly sensitive to ESP are called
> "psychics".
>
> It seems to me that humans once placed high value on ESP and
> probably used such primary perception for survival needs. For
> example, Australian Aborigines would gather in groups for their
> "dream time" where water sources were sought via primary
> perception. The next morning the tribe would go trotting off
> 100 miles to a agreed upon location. Once human
> societies became agrarian, primary perception lost some
> survival value. Today, so far as I know, primary perception
> is used by and has value to governments (spying on other
> nations) and to police departments which use "psychics"
> to help track down criminal suspects.
> ...

>> In my view, fundamental (primary) and universal perceptive means have
>> nothing to do with the five senses of humans. Humans do have access to
>> primary perceptive means in addition to the the five...