Recently I've been considering the development of a human if it was grown from fertilisation in a white (no reason, just how i picture it) container, fed intravenously and had muscles stimulated by probes or something. It is kept alive by external beings, but all it knows is the the box that surrounds it.


Would the lump of meat that is technically human develop an ego? It's environment stays static, and it has nothing to compare and/or contrast itself with. It would have no use for instincts, and must only breath to stay alive. It has nothing to consider and cannot really learn. It doesn't know suffering or pleasure, and doesn't even have use for it's own limbs.

Do you think the creature would even be self-aware?

I imagine that if it were aware at all that it would consider the space it exists in plus tubes and things, as a part of itself, with it's single sight sense centralised.
With absolutely no change in it's surroundings though, would it even keep its vision?
:confused:

Assuming that it was possible, what do you think would happen to the thing after it grew to a foetus?

Excellent thread, mr/ms/blah //drift. I mean it.

I have a notion to move and it centers around the 'ego' being a myth. Question: if you had 2 angles and put them together you have a third angle in a triangle. Does that third angle exist?
I've asked this question to a tedious fuck named Wes who kept dancing around it never answering.


Would the lump of meat that is technically human develop an ego? It's environment stays static, and it has nothing to compare and/or contrast itself with. It would have no use for instincts, and must only breath to stay alive.
That's the curious, most fascinating thing about life though, friend. Once there is 'life' there, in the same spark is instinct. That is what's absolutely amazing to me. If you breed a batch of diatoms or woodlice in a petri dish, as soon as they are out and moving the immediate response is to scurry and run for cover. Insinct is there by virtue of life being there no matter how you got there and I wish I knew what it is that drives life this way........ other than the washed out answer of "Duh...its in the genes, idiot". Whatever.

Now.....
Do you think the creature would even be self-aware?

I'm a staunch believer in the only means for a creature to know that it knows is through language. Primates and some whale species see themselves in a mirror and realize something, but that's only recognition. We're the only mammals in tune with an 'ego'.

Assuming that it was possible, what do you think would happen to the thing after it grew to a foetus?
I'm seeing something Christopher Reevish.

Elaborate on what you think. You've sparked my interest.

Would the lump of meat that is technically human develop an ego? It's environment stays static, and it has nothing to compare and/or contrast itself with. It would have no use for instincts, and must only breath to stay alive. It has nothing to consider and cannot really learn. It doesn't know suffering or pleasure, and doesn't even have use for it's own limbs.

Might i add what a sad life and what is even worse is that human doesn't even know what a demeaning life it has.

back to the question

Is it taught? or just kept alive for the sake of living?...that could make a huge difference. Now this raises a peculiar albeit a mind bending question....Is human concious inate or a product of it's enviorment? (I haven't read up on the origins of human concious so those greedy and hungry out to there to tear me apart on the question please just give it a rest). It may, on it's own, question or more rather feel uneasy of it's present state of existence but that is a huge MAY.....i guess reading up on the case of Genie may be of some help to this question. I have seens the video of her extensive studies done on her and from what i saw it seemed she didn't need anyone or neither care much of her looks...she only wanted instant pleasure by any means neccessary. She did realize her own existence though but in your case the creature doesn't even feel pain so i am taking a guess and saying NO...it won't know of it's own existence though i'd love to hear a case against it.


With absolutely no change in it's surroundings though, would it even keep its vision?

Will the lights be turned on and off frequently or even every so often? If there are light fluctuations then it would keep it's eyes because the corneas would detect light change and keep the eye function...though probabaly not any way near average effiency as a normal human has. Just enough to register changes in enviroment.

If light flow is constant with never changing enviorment then no it wouldn't keep them.....well it also depends on the air flow inside. Too much air the eyes will need to blink.

Assuming that it was possible, what do you think would happen to the thing after it grew to a foetus?

The most depressing life award will be given to the poor fucker.

Why do such an awful thing? Why would you want to subject someone to a tortureous type of condition just to see what happens. Why don't you put yourself into a box, shut it, and never come out. Then tell us what you think about the experiance.

Originally posted by cosmictraveler
Why do such an awful thing? Why would you want to subject someone to a tortureous type of condition just to see what happens. Why don't you put yourself into a box, shut it, and never come out. Then tell us what you think about the experiance.

Did you even read the thread?...he is merely asking a interesting question...just a thought he had. He doesn't state that he wishes to do such at all...he is only considering the development of it.

But for fun let's disect your reply

Why do such an awful thing? Why would you want to subject someone to a tortureous type of condition just to see what happens.

umm..because we can....it's fun to watch fuckers squirm.....

Why don't you put yourself into a box, shut it, and never come out.

Negative, that would be killing the point of the original question....the author of this thread is accustomed to sensory perception and stimulus, he is asking about a human who isn't even allowed to get a glimpse of it.

Then tell us what you think about the experiance.

If he never comes out how will he tell?

Sarge:
Now this raises a peculiar albeit a mind bending question....Is human concious inate or a product of it's enviorment? (I haven't read up on the origins of human concious so those greedy and hungry out to there to tear me apart on the question please just give it a rest).
No need to read up on nada to know what you're talking about Sarge. It most certainly is a mind bending question and one I've lost sleep over.

For this:
i guess reading up on the case of Genie may be of some help to this question. I have seens the video of her extensive studies done on her and from what i saw it seemed she didn't need anyone or neither care much of her looks...she only wanted instant pleasure by any means neccessary. She did realize her own existence though but in your case the creature doesn't even feel pain so i am taking a guess and saying NO...it won't know of it's own existence though i'd love to hear a case against it.

is key.

Ferral children and autism. These children are animalistic, primordial in their ways of being driven by instinct. What they have in common is a lack of language. Genie is a watered down example- she learned to speak some and was brought up in the context of humanity so she does realize she exists to some measure.

However, wild children and autistics are completely ignorant of themselves. Given a mirror, they do as a primate do. This does not define self-awareness. Self awareness is knowing and knowing that you know anything.

Cosmic:
Play with the idea will you? If not, fucking eat yourself up and shit yourself out.

We'd do it:

umm..because we can....it's fun to watch fuckers squirm.....

Amen.

However, wild children and autistics are completely ignorant of themselves. Given a mirror, they do as a primate do. This does not define self-awareness. Self awareness is knowing and knowing that you know anything.

Ahh but there was a reason i didn't include autistic childern in my quandry. //drift suggests that the being is normal in it's existence, no mental damages (personality disorders and such). Autistic childern are the way they are due to defects occuring at early development but this being is "supposedly" normal so can autistic childern be included in close examples needed in answering this question???.....another puzzling twist....

damn you //drift, i can't take my mind off of this.

It most certainly is a mind bending question and one I've lost sleep over.

I find that if answered in it's entirety and with utter truth (right there such a belief is moot.....scary if it wasn't, no?) it could open some amazing insights into human development and the forming of a personality....hell brain development all together.

Sarge:
Autistic childern are the way they are due to defects occuring at early development but this being is "supposedly" normal so can autistic childern be included in close examples needed in answering this question???...
No. They can’t. Fucking hell……Ok wait a sec….skim skim skim….

Fed IV, probotic stimulation……….external beings keeping it alive…..knowledge of its being enclosed in a box…..static environemt…….in absentia of suffering and pleasure…..

Sounds like an autistic vegetable. But you’re right- autism implies cerebral damage and we’re to assume this meaty clot is ‘normal’. Touche.
right there such a belief is moot.....scary if it wasn't, no?)

Oh yes. Propaganda
it could open some amazing insights into human development and the forming of a personality....hell brain development all together.

No shit. You know, there’s something called The Forbidden Experiment milling around in psychosocial circles where the dream is to get a newborn, stick him on an island away from any and all humans to see if he ever becomes self-aware. Ferral children are the only ones that come close to this and long ago there was a case with a little boy named Victor, found in the woods buttnaked prowling with wolves. They tried teaching him all kinds of civilized bullshatta but all came to naught- he never knew that he knew anything. All he learned served the immediate, the same things my dog can learn.

What I’d give to stick a newborn sprog on an island and watch it grow. A fetus in a petri dish........sweeeeeet.

Why do such an awful thing? Why would you want to subject someone to a tortureous type of condition just to see what happens. Why don't you put yourself into a box, shut it, and never come out. Then tell us what you think about the experiance.
gendanken and sargent have said just about all there really is to say in response to that. It doesn't take much to notice that i didn't mention doing it, but what i am interested in is why you think it would be "tortureous" to a creature that knows nothing other than the condition it is in and always has been in(?)(if it 'knows' it's condition at all). I also certainly wouldn't describe it as a 'someone' either.

The closest i can imagine to what i think would happen is the mental state of the creature freezing around the point/age where the brain was able to begin some human functions. So, very young.

if you had 2 angles and put them together you have a third angle in a triangle. Does that third angle exist?
I like this. I think it ties with:
....Is human concious inate or a product of it's enviorment?
I feel inclined towards the idea of an illusionary byproduct, flung up from physical processes in the brain mixed with environmental stimuli. So my guess would be (without any specialist knowledge about any of this, other than being apparently aware myself) that the growing....thing... would never become aware, with mental development grinding to a halt somewhere in early physical development.
I can't in any way imagine this state. Just the little thing dangling from it's tubes completely glazed over. :( I suppose it shouldn't really be upsetting becasue it isn't suffering, and it isn't seeking happiness or knowledge or pleasure, but the waste of a potential aware, thinking, feeling being isn't comfortable.

But then, there are enough of us.

Thank you very much for the replies.

Gendanken

I'm a staunch believer in the only means for a creature to know that it knows is through language.

This is posible the easiest way to answer this question of yours //drift. Also to Gendy, may i add socialization is also a major boot to the concious as well as language.

I feel inclined towards the idea of an illusionary byproduct, flung up from physical processes in the brain mixed with environmental stimuli.

Uh-huh, but not so much as an illusion, it is after all a very real and functioning product steeming from the union of the two.

So my guess would be (without any specialist knowledge about any of this, other than being apparently aware myself) that the growing....thing... would never become aware, with mental development grinding to a halt somewhere in early physical development.

I never took into account that mental development would stop alltogether after no stimuli at all. A brain dead meatsickle in the end.

No shit. You know, there’s something called The Forbidden Experiment milling around in psychosocial circles where the dream is to get a newborn, stick him on an island away from any and all humans to see if he ever becomes self-aware. Ferral children are the only ones that come close to this and long ago there was a case with a little boy named Victor, found in the woods buttnaked prowling with wolves. They tried teaching him all kinds of civilized bullshatta but all came to naught- he never knew that he knew anything. All he learned served the immediate, the same things my dog can learn.

Wasn't Victor found to be a fake? i swear i have heard that he was either a myth or a fake, is it so?

On the experiment note - Is it really right to do that to any child...ofcourse the chances are more than likely he/she will be adorned with the gift of lackluster and it grows up to be nothing more than another forgotten being but even then.......have some pity on the fucker.

//drift:
I feel inclined towards the idea of an illusionary byproduct, flung up from physical processes in the brain mixed with environmental stimuli. So my guess would be (without any specialist knowledge about any of this, other than being apparently aware myself) that the growing....thing... would never become aware, with mental development grinding to a halt somewhere in early physical development.


Beautiful. No, I don't think it would ever become self aware unless he had something to do it with. And there's only one mechanism I know he can do it with: language.

Think about this: we think of 'self' in terms of a mental voice when thinking that we know that we know anything. That mental voice most certainly seems like an 'illusionary byproduct" and it is most certainly enmeshed with an "environmental" propellant: language.

Imagine having that mental voice of yours without them(words). Mine sounds British.

I suppose it shouldn't really be upsetting becasue it isn't suffering, and it isn't seeking happiness or knowledge or pleasure, but the waste of a potential aware, thinking, feeling being isn't comfortable.

Indeed.....something about the heart growing fonder in absence. Here at least the little clot is clueless he's missing anything.
Thank you very much for the replies.
No problemas. And thank you for the pretty thread.

Sarge:
This is posible the easiest way to answer this question of yours //drift. Also to Gendy, may i add socialization is also a major boot to the concious as well as language
True enough. A major boot- feedback.

Wasn't Victor found to be a fake? i swear i have heard that he was either a myth or a fake, is it so
Was he? tinker tinker tinker.........pause.

Don't think he was:

“Victor, a boy of about 11 or 12, was discovered foraging for roots and acorns in the woods near Aveyron, France in 1799. Victor was taken to Paris, where he appeared to be human only in appearance. Victor behaved like an animal, ate rotten food with pleasure, was incapable of distinguishing hot from cold, and spent much of his time rocking back and forth like a caged animal. Victor was taken into the care of the brilliant scientist, Dr Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, who dedicated himself to the education of the boy. Victor proved to be a very difficult subject. Over the years, Victor only learned two terms, 'lait', and 'oh Dieu'1. His sense of touch seemed to be far more important than his sense of sight, he did not demonstrate an ability to distinguish right from wrong, and like Peter before him, he was indifferent to sex. He did however, learn some menial tasks, such as setting a table. Victor lived the rest of his life in the care of his housekeeper, and died in 1828 at the age of 40.

Or it could be bloody hearsay.

Btw...there are OOOOOODLES of ferral children you can read about. I plan on having one.

http://www.feralchildren.com/en/children.php

A foetus? In a jar? Impossible! Can not happen! Do you know any foetuses in jars? NO! That's because there aren't any!

Ahem.

The person in the box might be self-aware, but not aware of anything else, only their own thoughts and such unavoidable sensations as the body produces, such as breathing and heartbeat sounds, and other such things. They might believe that this is all that existed (to the extent that they formed thoughts about things).

A person who never used their eyes would probably not be able to differentiate shapes from one another with any ability - there are cases of people who were blind from birth and then had their vision corrected by surgery, and on first seeing objects they were unable to differentiate them and found their sight to be almost useless.

Whether other senses would have a similar inability is of some question - do you learn to differentiate two sounds from one another, or is it something that you naturally do?

Would you develop symbolic conceptualization, that is, abstract conceptualization, if you'd never experienced anything but the sound of your own organs?

It's certainly believed in the field of human development that language is learned very quickly up to the age of 5 or so, and that this corresponds to a period of many synaptic connections developing in the brain. It may be that without stimulation your brain never develops the mechanical capacity to do most of the things that we do normally, because the neural structure that forms is not formed by outside stimulus...

But this is all theory.

Gendanken

Sudam Pradhana was lost in the forest of Labangi, in Angul, Orissa, in India, at the age of 13, and wasn't returned to civilisation until he was found on the 4 May 2001, when he was 24. When he was discovered, Sudam ate and drink ferociously and couldn't talk, but could only make incomprehensible grunting sounds.

This child didn't intake language at all by the age of 13??? Though i shouldn't be surprised....i have observed such places first hand and wouldn't be surpirsed the least bit to learn that the child was neglected due to his minor handicap.

Aged about two, a wild girl aged about two was found in a forest south of Jhansi, India, in May of 1986.

Ok, she must have been incognito for a few days at most...hell even few hours....Forests in reality do not resemble happy Disney counterparts where animals raise you and teach you to sing...she would have been desimated by a disgruntled animal or died from starvation at such a young age...died quick........

Tissa was found in Sri Lanka in 1973, when seen walking on all fours with a group of monkeys near the village of Tissamaharama. As well as walking on all fours, he exhibited other animal characteristics such as yelping and snarling at humans and eating his food off the ground, and in common with most feral children did not smile. However, after three months in a welfare home near the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, he could smile and take food to his mouth with his hand, but couldn't talk and was still learning to stand and walk without assistance

I like this, provided it's true. It kind of goes along with my argument that humans do not come pre-equipped with morals and ethics that are norms in most societies (Whatever little similarities there are in the many different socieites.).....now one doesn't even need an argument to disprove the inane thoughts that the institution of god and religion comes pre-equipped....that is just retarded (unless someone offers a horribly good argument against such notions of mine)