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Actually I have come to the conclusion it's you that has no idea what you are talking about -- in no small measure because you're unable to clearly articulate what you are talking about.
And here you are simply assuming the same gambit that theists use all the time ... okay, if evolution is true, prove it. If there is no god, prove it. Ignoring that evolution IS proven, god is unprovable, and the extraordinary claim carries the burden of proof.
It seems to me that the burden of proof lies with you if you are taking essentially Mystic's position here. If consciousness is axiomatically impossible in non-living entities, prove it. If you have no evidence, then at least prove that it is more likely than other possible explanations. Show that you are not making sentience more complex or contingent or elaborate than it needs to be. Show that your explanation is the more economical.
I can't speak for others, but I am simply taking the position that we don't know for sure that machine consciousness substantially equivalent to human consciousness is possible, but there's no reason in principle why not -- other than that we're used to thinking of it as inseparable from life. Just as 500 years ago people weren't used to thinking of motion as inseparable from life, so that serious philosophers were assuming that heavenly bodies had souls, since they moved.
Nice try , but I am ( edit, ok so a five day) not reading anything you post unless there is some kind of explanation for the previous incoherent foundation you were trying to make some kind of a point with. If your comfortable with it that's fine. I would never imagine any kind of brainwashing is on the go, certainly not.
Last edited by Sophronius; 01-31-2015 at 02:11 PM..
But it HAS failed to do something and something HAS fled. You may not like my versions of WHAT . . . but pretending that there was nothing but the material present is a non-starter. Preposterous. You know I make no such claim. Perfection is not attainable (except by happenstance) by us fallible humans. It would certainly never be a requirement.As I said above . . . it is NOT my "particular brand of dualism behind it." But to pretend that there is not SOME brand behind it is just materialist bigotry . . . given the failure of the material present to continue to "live."
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Originally Posted by NoCapo
Ok, but without assuming that we have full and complete knowledge of the material human being, you cannot rule out a material cause. Just because we don't know what it is does not imply that the answer must be something transcendent, or non material.
Why? That is the assumption you are making. I am not making that assumption. There could be something dualistic, something that is "us" that is not the body nor tied to it, but again this is just assertion, you have not explained why this must be so.
It is not a matter of full knowledge or assumption, NoCapo . . . it is a matter of the PRESENCE of everything material and the ABSENCE of life. That is NOT assumption. That is what makes your claim that it is all material preposterous . . . unless you are positing something material that isn't material.
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Again, this is just an assertion, with a little ad hominim thrown on top of it. As far as I can tell you are pulling out the old Creationist canard, "If you can't prove me wrong, then I am right." The correct answer is simply that we don't know, unless you can demonstrate otherwise.
This is almost the reverse of the logic you use against God. In what you consider the absence of evidence for God . . . you ask for proof. Here we have evidence of life in a material body and the absence of life in that same material body. There is no question about the evidence. Yet you want proof that something HAS left when the evidence exists that nothing material is missing.
This is where I think much of our AI research has been lacking, we have been trying to model the outcomes of our thought process, and I agree that we are unlikely to replicate the underlying mind that way. Even though IBM can build computers that win at chess and Jeopardy, they are not thinking, at least not in the way we do. This is why I find the structural approach so intriguing. If we can model the structure of the mind, and the behaviour emerges, that gets us much farther down the road to understanding our own minds than simple mimicry of behaviour or outcomes.
I totally concur. It is not that there is no value to be had in deep learning techniques such as IBM's Watson, but the emergent behavior is going to come from sufficiently detailed and accurate simulations of brain structures and organization -- and probably are going to require simulation of whole body biological processes as well, because in my view, a mind that is sufficiently like us is symbiotic with a body and all its sensory inputs and interactions.
It is not a matter of full knowledge or assumption, NoCapo . . . it is a matter of the PRESENCE of everything material and the ABSENCE of life. That is NOT assumption. That is what makes your claim that it is all material preposterous . . . unless you are positing something material that isn't material.
So I have an old van, a '91 Ford Aerostar. Some days it won't start. If the engine will not run, has it's spirit left? Or is it a matter of the process of an internal combustion engine not working correctly? I have all the parts ( usually... ), all the material stuff is there, what is the difference between when it runs and when it doesn't?
I would argue that the same can be said of a living thing. "Life" is what we call the complex processes that define our normal functioning. When those processes are disrupted or fail to a certain degree, we call that the absence of life. There is no need for us to identify a "life" particle that leaves at death. All the material can be present, but if the processes are not functioning correctly, we, as a being, do not have life. No need for dualism here...
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
This is almost the reverse of the logic you use against God. In what you consider the absence of evidence for God . . . you ask for proof. Here we have evidence of life in a material body and the absence of life in that same material body. There is no question about the evidence. Yet you want proof that something HAS left when the evidence exists that nothing material is missing.
No, it is the exact same logic I use about God. If you wish to postulate the existence of God, the onus is on you to demonstrate evidence supporting your claim. In the same way, we have evidence of the material being, we can see what happens when one ceases to live. If you wish to postulate an incorporeal soul, the onus is on you to provide supporting evidence.
OK So there are more than 2, and even more as to why I do not attend a church.
BUT let me explain.
Aside from the fact that the negative experiences I have had with any religion, any church or anyone within a church. AND aside from the fact that my two least favorite people on here (One named loosely after a cheap American electronic company and the other named after a 4th century Roman historian) Seem to be over represented in every church I visit. I narrowed two points within the Christian philosophy which I can never accept and which to me, are the biggest of all the flaws (but not the only flaws).
One is the idea that Jesus is going to someday return. I do not believe in this, and I did not believe it even when I was a Christian. Of course, every mythology has a leader whose return is imminent in some way, from Horus to L Ron Hubbard. Jesus , whatever human he was, died over 2000 years ago. While his return has always been "just around the corner" from the week after his death to now, mythology shows a clear pattern of belief in the returning leader. Yet never in any religion, has it happened. The dead do not return, except in myth (and Hollywood) But in fact, Jesus will never walk this earth again. And who would want him to? First, if he could, why would he want to get another dose of what humanity offered last time (torture, execution) and second, who would need him ?
Which leads right into my second reason, why do we need a god ? Science is showing less evidence of a god and more importantly, less of a need for a god. Of course the first answer from most Christians is "To save us from hell" Well, again, this has no proof. It has a belief based in ancient mythology, and maybe in human desire for immortality. It is seated in a desire to see the good rewarded and the wicked punished. Problem is, exactly what this good and evil are has become very blurred. Most commonly, Christians say that the rewards in an afterlife are based entirely on belief (lip service) in life, not in actions, but in belief. meaning an evil person can be rewarded so long as he or she believes the "RIGHT WAY" about God. To me, that is a most preposterous statement. What egotistical wreck would choose friends based only on beliefs? Sounds like an unenlightened narrow minded human. (BTW I can provide names and numbers as references if needed to illustrate this one) I would not want to spend eternity in the company of most Christians I have known. (I did not even want to spend an hour with them on Sunday mornings either) Would I want to spend an eternity around those I consider hateful and abusive in this life? Many of those were Christians. But let us look at this from a scientific standpoint. We have no evidence of an afterlife. We have however, much evidence that when the brain dies, all memory, consciousness and senses die as well. We see this is neurological disease. This is measurable and real. As such, it sadly tells us that we have no afterlife. So why waste this life living by some other religion's rules? (For me, Humanism is the answer, but that is not the topic here) We have no evidence for a Biblical god, and we have no need for one.
Now, on a final note, some of you will be pleased to know I will be on the forum less. My work is taking me out in the world more, and less behind a computer, and that excites me. I will endeavor when I post, to make thoughtful and possibly humorous at times commentary. I will rely on Mystic, Arequipa , TroutDude, Sharina, Mordant and the others to remind me of this. (If I left your name out it is not a slight to you) But I would like commentary, because to me, the two biggest flaws with Christianity are the fact that 1 Jesus is not coming back and no one should loaf around waiting to be saved by god and 2 there is no afterlife, Nor Biblical god, and we really should not need one. (again not the ONLY Flaws, but I'd be writing 500 pages or more to cover all of them)
You have a lot of pent up anger don't you. Just don't go then; rather than be a grievance accumulator which isn't mentally healthy. Move on.
Originally the seeds of doubt were planted as I became more educated and noticed the conflict between observable reality and the teachings of religion (human fossils in museums across the world documenting evolution over a million years, versus the variety of fairy tale creation myths, for instance). The primary reason I stopped believing the brainwashing of a Roman Catholic upbringing was this:
With some serious family problems overshadowing my childhood years, I did a lot of praying as a child. I was told that praying, behaving passively to aggression, and not trying to actively change things myself, was the "right" thing to do. But by age 15 or so, I realized that even if there was a God, I might as well have been praying to a blank wall, because NOTHING got better, and virtually EVERYTHING got worse, with the sole exception of the times when I took charge of things and affected some sort of minor change. In the 35 years from that time, I have had far more comfort from science and understanding, than I ever got from my divine Imaginary Friend. My life has been much better with the knowledge that I alone had to change things that were bad, and that the world made sense without needing to make up supernatural explanations of that really don't explain anything.
It is not a matter of full knowledge or assumption, NoCapo . . . it is a matter of the PRESENCE of everything material and the ABSENCE of life. That is NOT assumption. That is what makes your claim that it is all material preposterous . . . unless you are positing something material that isn't material. This is almost the reverse of the logic you use against God. In what you consider the absence of evidence for God . . . you ask for proof. Here we have evidence of life in a material body and the absence of life in that same material body. There is no question about the evidence. Yet you want proof that something HAS left when the evidence exists that nothing material is missing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NoCapo
So I have an old van, a '91 Ford Aerostar. Some days it won't start. If the engine will not run, has it's spirit left? Or is it a matter of the process of an internal combustion engine not working correctly? I have all the parts ( usually... ), all the material stuff is there, what is the difference between when it runs and when it doesn't?
That is a is a terrible comparison that is not remotely comparable. That you do not see it is the tragedy of modern materialist thinking.
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I would argue that the same can be said of a living thing. "Life" is what we call the complex processes that define our normal functioning. When those processes are disrupted or fail to a certain degree, we call that the absence of life. There is no need for us to identify a "life" particle that leaves at death. All the material can be present, but if the processes are not functioning correctly, we, as a being, do not have life. No need for dualism here...
We don't need to identify what has left . . . but it is indisputable that something has left. There is no missing "Gas" for the "engine" the "spark plugs" are still operational, etc. Everything was working 10 seconds ago and suddenly stops with no change in any of the material things present.
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No, it is the exact same logic I use about God. If you wish to postulate the existence of God, the onus is on you to demonstrate evidence supporting your claim. In the same way, we have evidence of the material being, we can see what happens when one ceases to live. If you wish to postulate an incorporeal soul, the onus is on you to provide supporting evidence.
-NoCapo
No . . . as usual you are trying to shift the onus to those of us who see that something HAS left . . . to prove something has left. The EVIDENCE is that something has left. You posit that nothing has left in direct contradiction to the evidence.
The kindest thing that can be said, I think, is that Mystic takes that sentience is contingent on biological life, to be axiomatically self-evident, when it is not.
It may be that it is contingent on biological life. I am agnostic on that point, actually, though I think it rather more likely that it is NOT contingent for various reasons and that folks like Mystic are simply exhibiting confirmation bias when they insist that it IS contingent. One has to ask, WHY is this so unthinkable? I think that it offends human vanity and hubris (to use Mystic's terminology) by denying humanity some fundamental, atomic specialness that it's used to assuming it has simply because encountering non-human sentience at the level of language-using, tool-inventing, and philosophizing is at present outside human experience. It happens that only one species evolved on this particular world that unambiguously has those characteristics. It happens that we don't understand, yet, how to build something substantially equivalent mechanically or digitally. So it remains "unthinkable" in the same way that space travel, antibiotics, steam engines traveling at a mile a minute or television were once unthinkable and ridiculed as axiomatically impractical or impossible.
All that is lacking is for someone to demonstrate that it is doable, even crudely, and such thought-habits will crumble. That may or may not happen in the field of AI -- particularly within my lifetime -- but Mystic in my view has no more basis to say it's inherently impossible than I do to say it's inherently possible (which, BTW, is not what I'm saying).
Yes. In many ways the 'consciousness' argument goes the same way as the 'God' argument, and it is more than a coincidence. The gap on consciousness is a gap for Woo; and a gap for Woo can easily become a gap for God, Thetans or alien messages, if you like.
That is why not knowing means not believing until you do know, and that also means giving what we do know, which is what science, Biology and the materialist default knows, the credit of being the 'preferred theory', and the burden of proof is on the Theists, the Woo -mongers or any other unproven theory to prove their theory (hypothesis) the better one.
That is why the debates on the validity of the materialist default, the logical validity of atheism and the whole dualism debate were so important, because it reinforced the generally accepted view that science, to put it broadly, has earned the benefit of doubt from the agnostic knowledge position and the efforts to establish 'God' as the a priori assumption, debunk the materialist default or to prove that materialist monism could never explain Qualia and more - illogically, it seemed to me - that it must therefore be wrong and dualism must be right (when we do not know, either way) - failed to make a case.
To me, at any rate.
I also agree that conventional thought habits - essentially the 'limited human perception' of the old Matrix/Plantinga debate where Mystic first popped up arguing his synthesis - and indeed what he might call 'common-sense' (which is common, and sometimes makes sense, but science often proves it untrue and it is often not logical) sees the differences between life and non -life, which are obvious, just as are the difference between mammal and reptile, creature and plant, bird and fish. And probably the rejection of the idea that at base they are all the same stuff and process is as unreasonably illogical and in denial of the facts as rejection of the idea that all life had its origins in the same cell, the same stuff and in the beginning, the same Bang, stars and planet.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 02-01-2015 at 04:55 AM..
Reason: usual needful editing.
Nice try , but I am ( edit, ok so a five day) not reading anything you post unless there is some kind of explanation for the previous incoherent foundation you were trying to make some kind of a point with. If your comfortable with it that's fine. I would never imagine any kind of brainwashing is on the go, certainly not.
Nice try, but not an original one. Mordant is one of the finest thinkers we have here and the position he is setting out is a well known and accepted one.
Your attempt to play the 'You make no sense...I am not talking to you...I win..' is a not uncommon one and we have all seen it before. We are not fooled.
It is not a matter of full knowledge or assumption, NoCapo . . . it is a matter of the PRESENCE of everything material and the ABSENCE of life. That is NOT assumption. That is what makes your claim that it is all material preposterous . . . unless you are positing something material that isn't material. This is almost the reverse of the logic you use against God. In what you consider the absence of evidence for God . . . you ask for proof. Here we have evidence of life in a material body and the absence of life in that same material body. There is no question about the evidence. Yet you want proof that something HAS left when the evidence exists that nothing material is missing.
It seems to me that the analogy of just switching off a machine is good enough. Nothing has 'fled' other than the combination of factors that enable the machine to work. Sometimes we only need to switch on the machine, repair it or, if it is beyond repair, junk it.
In what way is this different from life in bioforms? It still seems to me that you are applying a human convention that is based more on what you deprecatingly call 'common sense' than on the combination of information and reason that tells that that just because we can't do something now we never can do it, much less that it is impossible in principle..
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), all the material stuff is there, what is the difference between when it runs and when it doesn't?
