# sentient ocean or ??

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sentient-ocean-or/322837>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 22, 2005, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sentient-ocean-or/322837 "2005-09-22T04:08:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sentient-ocean-or/322837/61 "2005-09-28T13:45:04Z")

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> [@Gyan](#):
>
> The ant might, and so might the camera if it’s conscious.

I know they both _might_ - I’m yet again asking what _you_ believe. You said the ant was an example of conscious memory retrieval - is the camera also, in your opinion?

> [@](#):
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> A conscious computer.

Out of interest, if I said I _wasn’t_ conscious, how would you convince me otherwise?

> [@](#):
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> There’s an somewhat old interview of Kim that I read where he says that physicalism, strictly speaking, is false.

I understand that he, like me, has reservations about how absolute one can be in saying that something is _reduced_. Can we _really_ say that life is “reducible” to cells, given the large holes in our understanding of chemical biology, or even of reducing molecules to atoms? Similarly, our reduction of the process called consciousness to biological computational elements cannot by any means be said to be complete. If this introduces a dualism, so be it, but again I would argue that such dualisms are thus introduced throughout all fields of science like a host of Greek Gods, rendering Ockham’s Razor blunt and useless. Calling rocks “conscious” is still as silly as calling them “alive” or “computers”.

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**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sentient-ocean-or/322837/62 "2005-09-28T18:31:15Z")

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> [@SentientMeat](#):
>
> You said the ant was an example of conscious memory retrieval - is the camera also, in your opinion?

I don’t have a position on that.

> [@](#):
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> Out of interest, if I said I _wasn’t_ conscious, how would you convince me otherwise?

I wouldn’t. You sure picked a weird username, in that case.

> [@](#):
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> Similarly, our reduction of the process called consciousness to biological computational elements cannot by any means be said to be complete. If this introduces a dualism, so be it

His adopting dualism is not predicated on the current status of reductionism, but on the conviction that qualia **can’t** be reduced.

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**Author:** ![mrrealtime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@mrrealtime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrrealtime)\
**Post date:** [September 30, 2005, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sentient-ocean-or/322837/63 "2005-09-30T12:23:56Z")

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Mr Dibble, that is the best reply yet, exactly what I was interested in, the idea of the mantle using evolution to eventually bring materials back to the planet is very intriguing.

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