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[Orange Wizard]

Conciousness doesn't have meaning per se, but it means I can experience things and I like experiencing things. Like food. And video games. And so much bloody anime, holy shit.

[Arcvasti]

In light of one particularly depressing discussion with Arx, I must ask the question - why give value to consciousness?

Because it makes things more fun. You can't have less fun then no fun, which is the amount of fun that is had without consciousness. Even if consciousness does not guarantee that fun will be more then zero, it enables the possibility that fun will exceed none at all. Since value is basically the capacity to generate/sustain fun, consciousness is the most valuable thing of all since without it the concept of fun has no meaning.

[Yoink]

If I lacked consciousness to begin with, how would I drink myself out of it?

[hops]

In light of one particularly depressing discussion with Arx, I must ask the question - why give value to consciousness?

Why not?

[Solifuge]

So consciousness has meaning because it solves problems which enable consciousness to exist?

As for arguing that it brings order, I think you'd find it brings at least as much chaos as well. Besides which, order is just a term you force on something. There is to be, nothing else - chaos or order doesn't matter.

Yeah. Good or bad, enabling matter to have Volition enables it to become an Agent Of Intentional Change, repurposing matter for new ends (tool making, recording experiences in pen and ink and language) that it wouldn't have developed naturally, and generally transcending the physical cause-effect relationships that govern the unconscious parts of the universe (the stuff that shapes geology, stellar fusion, and whatever else is out there).

The only reason Meaning exists at all is because consciousness can ascribe meaning to changes, or cause-effect relationships. At a fundamental level, Consciousness creates meaning. It's an intrinsic property of awareness and volition.

Conciousness doesn't have meaning per se, but it means I can experience things and I like experiencing things. Like food. And video games. And so much bloody anime, holy shit.

Anime and the ability to appreciate it is totally also a reason that consciousness is valuable. Enjoyment aside, language and culture created by conscious things for intentional ends creates stuff like Anime, which (however silly or profound it may seem) lets ideas exist and convey things to people, like enjoyment or hypothetical scenarios or whatever. More forms of rising complexity, where inert stuff like DVDs or monitors displaying animation is made to have Meaning it didn't have before.

I'd recommend this short essay, for exploring some of the value of consciousness and language and all that. A bit anthropocentric, but the idea is there.

[TD1]

Conciousness doesn't have meaning per se, but it means I can experience things and I like experiencing things. Like food. And video games. And so much bloody anime, holy shit.

Precisely. The meaning is personal, and therefore subjective. If it's subjective it's not absolute - that means life means nothing except to those who have it. In the great scheme of things, consciousness does not matter.

In light of one particularly depressing discussion with Arx, I must ask the question - why give value to consciousness?

Because it makes things more fun. You can't have less fun then no fun, which is the amount of fun that is had without consciousness. Even if consciousness does not guarantee that fun will be more then zero, it enables the possibility that fun will exceed none at all. Since value is basically the capacity to generate/sustain fun, consciousness is the most valuable thing of all since without it the concept of fun has no meaning.

Without consciousness, there would be no fun and no pain. That doesn't mean I can ascribe meaning to consciousness simply because part of what it entails occurs.

If I lacked consciousness to begin with, how would I drink myself out of it?

Think of lack of consciousness as a time of perpetual drunken stupor, and you'll have it.

In light of one particularly depressing discussion with Arx, I must ask the question - why give value to consciousness?

Why not?

Because, contrary to the popular belief, you don't have to.

[Arcvasti]

Conciousness doesn't have meaning per se, but it means I can experience things and I like experiencing things. Like food. And video games. And so much bloody anime, holy shit.

Precisely. The meaning is personal, and therefore subjective. If it's subjective it's not absolute - that means life means nothing except to those who have it. In the great scheme of things, consciousness does not matter.

That's awful spooky. I'll let anyone who lives in the great scheme of things know that.

In light of one particularly depressing discussion with Arx, I must ask the question - why give value to consciousness?

Because it makes things more fun. You can't have less fun then no fun, which is the amount of fun that is had without consciousness. Even if consciousness does not guarantee that fun will be more then zero, it enables the possibility that fun will exceed none at all. Since value is basically the capacity to generate/sustain fun, consciousness is the most valuable thing of all since without it the concept of fun has no meaning.

Without consciousness, there would be no fun and no pain. That doesn't mean I can ascribe meaning to consciousness simply because part of what it entails occurs.

It kinda does. You don't have to, but its possible. Like this.

* Arcvasti ascribes meaning to consciousness

I guess what I'm trying to say is that consciousness is desirable[And thus has value] because it is a prerequisite to desiring things. Those that desire things desire to desire things. Therefore they desire consciousness.

[chaotic skies]

My whole opinion on the consciousness thing is this: I have it. The majority of things in the universe do not. I can use it to control other parts of the universe. I have power over my own little portion of the universe, and I can acknowledge that. The vast majority of the universe can't do that. That makes me rare, and rare things are important, because I like to collect things.
On the other hand, why are we even having this conversation? Why is it that we arbitrarilly chose a series of noises to mean something, and can't explain how odd that is without said noises? How is it that we created this shapes that we refer to as letters, and why?

[TheBiggerFish]

Consensus.

[Spehss _]

I played games and mucked around on the internet for a few hours.

...I didn't really enjoy that at all. Real waste of time.

[chaotic skies]

That is a summary of the majority of my afternoons. Except that's all I have to do. Friends don't want to hang out, don't really enjoy Xbox anymore, read all the nooks in my house, don't want to run across the highway to get to the library, and most of the little gimmicks and stuff people get me I've either taken apart or broken.

[TheBiggerFish]

Didn't get a homework done.  Aaaaaaaaaaa.

[chaotic skies]

Somedays, it's hard to tell if my heart is so broken that I don't even feel the pain anymore, or if I've gone through enough that I'm strong enough to push everything aside.
In other news, running out of music to listen to. Need to get some more music soon.

[TheBiggerFish]

Heartbroke: I will avoid the Undertale reference in direct speech, but it does come to mind.

*shills [S] Collide.*

[Skyrunner]

heartache?