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Originally posted by Snake

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Originally posted by Dave W.

Seriously, I once had a PETA member come up to me at a bar while I was wearing a leather jacket and hand me a little card which talked about the evils of wearing animal hides. I asked her how many cotton plants died for the shirt she was wearing

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Forget about the cotton for a minute. I'd like to be serious for a change also.
I pretty much agree with PETA. Yes, they go overboard sometimes but hey! who doesn't when they believe in their cause?

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Snake's post continues:

The main point one should take from them is that all animals feel pain. Man is not the only creature on this planet who (should) control everything. Man should not have power over other animals.
We, and I guess I have to include myself as part of Mankind, have a choice to use other animals or not when we could use a substitute.
Using animals for our existance when we don't have to is the same as slavery.
Now, for the cotton: I do have trouble picking my tomatos off the vine, knowing I raised them from little seeds only to be devoured. But that's when it comes down to survival of the fittest. If they aren't smart enough to evolve enough to grow feet, is that my problem?

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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse

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Originally posted by Computer Org

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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Our coordinated electrical activity is allowed thanks to the fact that we have very structured pathways in which this electrical activity takes place. Not only that, it's a combination of electrical and chemical communication.

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Dr. Mabuse, I had thought that the "very structured pathways" weren't; that we were just born with a whole bunch and that they, through learning, became structured. In fact, I didn't think that anyone knew exactly how our brain's neural pathways are structured.

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We don't, and I think you are misunderstanding me. I'm not thinking of the neural net, but the individual cells. The signal travels through the 'appendages' or 'tendrils' (don't know the English word for them) of the neural cells to its destination. These are the conduits through which the signal travels, that you can not find in stones. Except maybe as a vein of ore that is electrically conductive. And even if one considered whole mountain ranges, the electrical current must "flick a switch" of some kind in order to store information.

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Although simple crystals are not very structurally complex, many minerals are. (What this might imply, if anything, I don't know.)

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In this case size does matter, and smaller is better. I don't know off hand the size of a brain cell, but there must be billions of them in our brain. How big does a rock have to be before it had conductive veins enough so it could hypothetically function as a single brain cell (which is far more complex than a simple transistor)? Then it will have to be interconnected to billions of other nearly identical rock formations before it can even begin to function.

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As to man's brain's lengthy evolution, my point was that there are individual rocks that are that old. The 'sentience' question asks whether a rock could, over many millions of years, slowly manage its internal electronics into increasingly 'meaningful thoughts'.

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Now we are touching the subject of thermodynamics. In order to decrease the entropy (gathering its thoughts) we must have an energy source in order to rearrange the state of its "neurons". Besides, they have to be in a state of constant flux to even become aware of something as simple as the passing of time.

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We have complex electronic gizmoes which detect (and even chart) the human brain's electrochemical activity. So far as I know, there is no such counterpart for inanimate matter. That is to ask: "Are we sure that the electronic activity in a rock is random?"

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If you have an electric conduit and no magnetic field, the electrons will balance them selves out throughout the conduit. With no physical or chemical sender or receiver at either end, no current will flow, it will always even itself out (increase the entropy).
And once again we will need energy sources. Chemical-to-electric are short-lived. Heat-to-electric are like Peltier Elements, nice but requires a distinct hot-to-cold energy transfer in order to work. Radioactive materials could produce that heat (like in the batteries of satellites like Galileo that recently was crashed into Jupiter), but radioactive materials that active are rare, and of very low concentrations. Otherwise we would detect them.

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1. they were somehow alive and aware of their surroundings; and that
2. they were of extraterrestrial origin.