Someone here

I don't want to glorify Texas, and I don't agree with their religious-based anti-abortion law, which I think will be struck down eventually. However, nobody is being held against their will there. Women are allowed to go to school, they don't have to hide their faces, they can drive a car and enjoy every other right that a man would enjoy, like owning guns or whatever. This is actually quite a contrast between what Taliban rule was in the past and presumably will be going forward. They've as much as said so. But let's go forward with this same 'right to life' ideology and see where it can lead. Under this Texas abortion law a woman would theoretically lose the right to her own body once pregnant, no matter how she got pregnant including rape and incest - She is now committed by law to defend the unborn baby inside her, no matter how the baby got there until it is born. Like some dystopian science fiction future ['The Handmaid's Tale' - "..... following a Second American Civil War wherein a totalitarian society subjects fertile women, called "Handmaids", to child-bearing slavery."] Isn't this what this Texas 'right to life' abortion law is all about The argument can be made that bringing children into a World run by such meat-heads is child abuse to begin with Why would anyone want to have children in a world that encourages them to have children they never wanted in the first place . Let me put it this way: the new laws in Texas have pushed its citizens a little more than half a century back in history. Afghanistan with the Talibans are going backwards several centuries and are a bit closer to the Middle Ages

I see what you are saying - So let me clarify what I am saying: I see it as much, much worse than a cultural anomaly where we can compare Moslem vs. Christian ideology and and its enforcement. I see it as a left over remnant of the 'Inquisition' and the 'witch hunts' of the middle ages where women where systematically tortured and burned alive by a sick bunch of Devils supposedly doing the work of God. - These evil and ill conceived anti abortion laws to supposedly protect the unborn from the evils of the living are sick - And the people trying to push the agenda are at least sick, if not insane. I saw a proponent of the anti-abortion agenda on TV a few years ago trying to explain himself - He grew teary eyed as he started to cry about those poor unborn babies, as if he felt personally responsible to be sure he they all get born. And how many doctors have been attacked, and in some cases even murdered by these crazy devils supposedly doing the work of god In my opinion we are not dealing with politics or philosophy - These anti abortion laws, more than anything are based upon mental illness, the same type of sick minds that gave the World the Inquisition and Witch hunts of the past. So go ahead accuse me over exaggerating - But I say it will never stop with just abortions, when you let the mentally ill take over politics and law the worst is yet to come

I'm all for women's rights, including the right to abortion. I'm all for the separation of church and state in Texas and Afghanistan, and I'm all against fundamentalists imposing their regressive beliefs in both places, but I must say that comparing Texas laws with Sharia law, even as reproductive rights have lost protection in many parts of USA, is a bit overstated

I agree: the Christian right is in many ways not so much different than the Taliban and their vision of society is very similar. Yet, I don't think one can compare the grip the Muslim fundamentalists have on their country with the one Christian fundamentalists have on theirs, which is not to say one should not keep an eye on them. The fact is, answering my second question in the OP, a woman today is still better off in Texas than in Afghanistan.

@PurpleTree for a year at least or until I show improvement.

Thanks for the advice though easier said than done .

@Preety_India like what ?

Why ?does it have bad side effects? Thanks for the information. May I ask what medications you suggest for panic attacks? I'm a uni student.

Sorry I don't understand what you mean by that . Thanks for sharing. So should I simply use affirmations to ground myself

@catcat69123 I'm usually isolated most of the time. It happens when I'm alone at home .

Do you think a man-made computer could ever become conscious? Can it have a soul? Why or why not? , I think consciousness is a faculty of the soul and I think the soul was placed by some higher power (God if you please) and regardless of what technology we produce I don't think we can get to the point where we can create a soul or consciousness. I do however I think there is a point we could get to that is a exceptional simultion of consciousness. For example, If any of you have ever tried those new 20 questions games. Those things are scary and it is aparantly thinking and reading your mind. I do not know how it does it but it's pretty convincing. Just to note It asks you 20 questions and then it tels you what you're thinking of, it guessed spider monkey..not just monkey, spider monkey!! It's unreal

How so? Could you elaborate?

@Adamq8 @Carl-Richard Materialism or otherwise known as naive realism is a metaphysical philosophy known as substance-dualism. That reality is split into two different substance. One is the appearances or phenomenon or consciousness or qualia (this stuff right here)..which is a second order emergence from the essence which is matter. That matter has no phenomenonolgical qualities. It's not conscious yet it gives arise to consciousness. Do you guys agree with this description ?

This is the "Duck Test". Or if you prefer the "Turing Test". If the robot were to walk and talk like it had consciousness and self awareness, then for all intents and purposes it has consciousness and self awareness. It's a philosophical question whether it has a conscious inner life, not a practical one. Actually, you are applying the Duck Test whenever you interact with people. You are mapping their speech and movements and form to yours and concluding that they too are experiencing what you are experiencing, a.k.a. consciousness. But, you will never know. Even if you magically expanded the reach of your consciousness to enter the "mind" of another person, that still wouldn't answer the question. Instead you would be some sort of hybrid consciousness, neither the original you or the original them. This is akin to the measurement problem in quantum physics. You can't measure the state of a system without disturbing the system. More accurately, whenever you measure a system, you are merging with it, to create a hybrid system. You can't disentangle the observer from the observed.

Decrease .

@Carl-Richard @Adamq8 I do consider that computers will have consciousness although in a distant future. Consciousness is, as I see it, just an (indeed extremely complex) composition of neuronal impulses, which are electrical signals. I think that, how was already mentioned, with enough power and the right build a computer could mimic the human mind and develop consciousness.

I don't know.

I cannot see why a machine could not transfer its unit of specifically unitary memories and specifically unitary predispositions to other machines which because they occupy diiferent spaces or times are regarded as separate body- analogues. Over all I guess that the intuitive objection to machine self consciousness is that machines are deemed incapable of emotions. True, it is unlikely that machines will ever function by the use of chemical messengers(which processes are what emotions are), but the analogue for machine 'emotions' is the installation of self preservation devices together with a predilection for computing the interests of others.

Lol but what you're not seeing is you're creating the duality between conscious vs unconscious. Go and try and verify an actual difference between something conscious and something unconscious. Sure you can say a rock or a ? is unconscious and a human is but where's your evidence for that? How you know people are not philosophical zombies and as a corollary how do you know rocks and brains don't feel, see and hear you in the same way you feel hear and see . its definitely not wild speculation. Furthermore how do you explain th brain's more than obvious correlation with consciousness? If your brain gets damaged there will be damage in your consciousness accordingly. Etc You seem to assume that just because you can't imagine consciousness emerging out of unconscious objects that it can't. But says who? Don't confuse the limits of your imagination with reality. Just because God exists does not disprove materialism. It could be the case that consciousness is a material by-product that has developed over time out of material objects that have developed over time out of nothing. That nothing is the ultimate God that does not have qualities, and is not even conscious, therefore it can take any shape or form. In this case, it happens to take the form of "consciousness". So consciousness is not God but just a tiny part of it. I'd like anyone to challenge this perspective.

@Tim R no worries. We simply disagree .it's OK ?

Those things depend on consciousness and consciousness depends on them. Its a strangeloop. I know a man-made computer can become conscious. Human life is not so complex as people believe. People are egotistical and ignorant. If you ever believe that there is no higher intelligence than human life, then you are gravely mistaken. Just like humans can dissect, understand, and control every aspect of an insect or simple animal, such as a dog, all that can be done to humans. There is no reason to disbelieve humans cannot be dissected, controlled completely, replicated, and that a "soul" can become downloaded onto a computer disk. There is nothing sacred about a human's life. It can be copied or destroyed freely. There is nothing essential or special about any particular human being. You can call this "dehumanizing", but, what again is human anyway? What does it mean to be human? My answer is, not much. It means very little to be human. I believe there are much, much higher forms of existence than human life. Not just "aliens", but, I believe some men and women can transcend human nature, and become godlike. There are no limits in nature, no limits anywhere. All is possible.

Yes .at least there is an undeniable correlation. To explain consciousness as a physical process we must acknowledge the role of energy in the brain. Energetic activity is fundamental to all physical processes and causally drives biological behavior. Recent neuroscientific evidence can be interpreted in a way that suggests consciousness is a product of the organization of energetic activity in the brain. The nature of energy itself, though, remains largely mysterious, and we do not fully understand how it contributes to brain function or consciousness. The modern scientific understanding of the "self" is that its temporary and subject to time and change and death as the body is.. And the 'mind' or 'personality' is not an abstract spiritual essence that is separate from the body.. But it's a byproduct of the brain.. There is no 'self' separate from the body or inside the body.. But rather its an emergent phenomenon of the body.. The body and mind grow together and decay together.. And we can actually change your personality by playing with the chemicals in your brain... A little injection of chloroform can erase your thinking process completely and can turn 'you' into a psycho completely lost control.... That shows you that your self is a byproduct of chemicals in the brain.. And the personality dissolves once you get older enough.. As a result of the dissolve of the neural network in the brain.. You see? That' personality ' completely dissolves in elderly people because it was never a substantial thing onto itself.

I think maybe people are confusing "can" iwith "will" with this question. Obviously, our consciousness is the result of something in our brain -- I'm not really sure what part that might be, but the fact that taking away a certain part of your brain might cause consciousness to go away tells me that ultimately a brain is a thing made up of component parts working together, just like anything else. All you have to do is find a way to artificially create brain impulses or something that works in a very similar way. But that's not to say that in the practical sense it will ever happen! Maybe such a task will turn out too hard, or maybe there is no material we will ever find to mimic the above. But if we are talking thousands, maybe millions of years in the future, who knows! Something that looks impossible now might be executed way into the future, who knows!

When we have so much neuoroscience, there is plenty indeed, to elaborate on. I do in fact doubt how to read your comments, without interpreting them as being basically ignorant of neuoroscience, though maybe it's just that it's easy to misinterpret your comments--I mean, what, you know that the brain is in the head, right? That's the brain, that's where the mental processing takes place. Not in the big toe. Cut somebody's big toe off, and they are still who they are, they're still conscious. Cut up their brain, though, you know how to do damage to consciousness. Perhaps you have a notion of the soul, which exists after death, is reincarnated maybe, these are common beliefs today, in which case, you can be made aware, that it sounds pretty absurd to a lot of people who take an interest in science. I'm not precisely an atheist or materialist myself (I don't like to be tied down with too much metaphysical baggage, what do we know? What would we do with the knowledge if we did?), but the scientific perspective on the relationship between the brain and 'consciousness' seems like a very big and comprehensive perspective. Especially to me, the one who argues that a computer can be conscious

I can also add two cents here. The idea is, that, hey, c'mon, we know that the human mind does not reside on the moon, and somehow perceive itself to be in a human head which it sees out of, and hears with. We know that if you cut up somebody's brain, he loses brain function, hit him hard enough, in the head, with a hammer, and he will promptly lose consciousness, perhaps permanently. You can also break something else, like a window or a lamp, by hitting it with a hammer. In this sense (in every sense), the brain is physical. You, 'you', subjectively, your experiences, your memories, this is happening in your body. Try drinking some wine, you get drunk, that's the alchohol getting into your brain and messing w/its functionality. A child is growing, and its brain is maturing, getting bigger, and you see a mature individual emerge from something that originally, physically, was only a few cells and didn't yet have a distinguishable brain organ. As the brain physically organically is built, the mental functions are enabled. If we totally figure out how the brain functions and generates consciousness..it's possible to then recreate an electronic neural network that mimics the brain ?.