Atheists - how did you come to be?

[Sapiens]

Well, first of all, maybe language like "entities" and "souls" is not quite fitting. When describing "transcendent" things we might be able to pin it down more through a bit more discussion on what these things could actually be. And this also makes me curious how you are reconciling buddhism with atheism, seeing as I thought there was at least some trace of an animist or metaphysical aspect to buddhism. But no matter, there could be many things that circumvent the topical human sense organs. Science everyday tells us how narrow we are, how little we perceive, and that makes a direct way to my kind of rhetoric.

What you are advocating is a logical fallacy known as an argument from ignorance.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

No, IMHO there is not any language.

These kinds of things have to exist.

I "think" your trying convey arguments about dualism of some sort and the emergence of the conscious mind.

Of which, are purely imaginative at this point.

Less size.

It could be that the word "exist" itself is too strong a word or not the word for some things that can occur. I highly doubt we really understand what existence actually is. Or what imagination really is, what in the world kind of activity is that for a primate like you or I, to think of something that doesn't exist or is yet to exist.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

What you are advocating is a logical fallacy known as an argument from ignorance.

And that person who invented that logical fallacy is at odds with the original idea of gnosis. However, the 'argument' can consist of many different types of knowledge, but what one brings up from the depths of their own insight if they had explored it, can become important.

 

[LuisDantas]

And this also makes me curious how you are reconciling buddhism with atheism, seeing as I thought there was at least some trace of an animist or metaphysical aspect to buddhism.

I destroyed them. Mercilessly!

Having been raised by spiritists gave me uncanny anti-animistic powers.

 

[adi2d]

People reading this 1000 years from now will probably disagree. But take for example amnesia, one forgetting everything that came before. That is the closest example I can give you, the person who suffers this and recovers completely is pretty much someone else are they not?



True, but as I said the hardware interfaces with the operator, and the operator cannot sit in a broken chair, or do much when the radar goes out.



How limited is it? It is just so clear to me that it is an input of some kind. You could literally plug it into anything if you had the correct interface.

I'm not sure about the mind-brain question but I would bet any amount that noone will read this thread 1000 years from now

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I'm not sure about the mind-brain question but I would bet any amount that noone will read this thread 1000 years from now

And so where do you stand on the mind-brain question? Yeah actually I don't know if I'd want them to read this particular thread 1000 years from now, I feel as though I hadn't been lucid enough, the OP title is misnamed and the first few pages are a little too goofy. Maybe I'll have a better one.

 

[outhouse]

It could be that the word "exist" itself is too strong a word or not the word for some things that can occur. I highly doubt we really understand what existence actually is. Or what imagination really is, what in the world kind of activity is that for a primate like you or I, to think of something that doesn't exist or is yet to exist.

Move goal post much?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Move goal post much?

Again I'm not touting any kind of a dogma, really whatsoever, so these goal posts you mentioned are rendered illusory.

However, another example is kind of coming out of the soup here with the whole idea of AI attaining consciousness. Now, if sometime in the next millennium they gain the ability to build a computer that is practically indistinguishable from a human, except for perhaps it doesn't age or whatever, will it have consciousness in that same supposedly non-transcendent way that the atheist skeptics or positivists claim that we do?

 

[Bunyip]

Again I'm not touting any kind of a dogma, really whatsoever, so these goal posts you mentioned are rendered illusory.

However, another example is kind of coming out of the soup here with the whole idea of AI attaining consciousness. Now, if sometime in the next millennium they gain the ability to build a computer that is practically indistinguishable from a human, except for perhaps it doesn't age or whatever, will it have consciousness in that same supposedly non-transcendent way that the atheist skeptics or positivists claim that we do?

What makes you think consciousness is transcendant anyway? Atheists and skeptics just don't tend to assume that something is transcendant without any evidence.

 

[outhouse]

AI attaining consciousness

Imaginative

 

[amorphous_constellation]

What makes you think consciousness is transcendant anyway? Atheists and skeptics just don't tend to assume that something is transcendant without any evidence.

Well if it's not transcendent, you should be able to build it. And once you build it, perhaps you can make it "transcendent." Honestly, if it's not all that special, then there is absolutely no reason we can't eventually grant it upon other objects.

 

[LuisDantas]

Well if it's not transcendent, you should be able to build it. And once you build it, perhaps you can make it "transcendent." Honestly, if it's not all that special, then there is absolutely no reason we can't eventually grant it upon other objects.

Once upon a time we could not build radios either.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

What makes you think consciousness is transcendant anyway? Atheists and skeptics just don't tend to assume that something is transcendant without any evidence.

Look at it from this angle: you cannot imagine being not consciousness in some capacity. People who awake from a coma are awoken in a moment without waiting. I know that people lived and were consciousness before I was born. I know that there will be people alive and conscious after I die. I suspect I will be one of those people, and I was one of the people who inhabited the earth before I was born. A 'perspective' was available, let us call a conscious being a 'perspective.' A 'perspective' was available, I appear to be in the business of occupying a perspective. Reason and logic may actually demand that I always occupied a perspective as an obvious choice thus making me into something 'transcendent' as our language has it.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Once upon a time we could not build radios either.

Yeah and once you build that android (being nothing like data in that this thing will truly be topically indistinguishable from a human) giving it immortality and super intelligence, this thing will actually figure out how to make a soul. If it gets damaged, its soul will be transcendent the moment it saves itself on a flip drive.

 

[Bunyip]

Well if it's not transcendent, you should be able to build it. And once you build it, perhaps you can make it "transcendent." Honestly, if it's not all that special, then there is absolutely no reason we can't eventually grant it upon other objects.

No offence, but that is not an argument. What has transcendance got to do with whether we can build something or not? What makes you believe it is transcendant?

 

[Bunyip]

Look at it from this angle: you cannot imagine being not consciousness in some capacity.

What? Sure I can, I am unconscious when I sleep.

People who awake from a coma are awoken in a moment without waiting. I know that people lived and were consciousness before I was born. I know that there will be people alive and conscious after I die. I suspect I will be one of those people, and I was one of the people who inhabited the earth before I was born.

How can you inhabit something before you existed? That is just silly.

A 'perspective' was available, let us call a conscious being a 'perspective.' A 'perspective' was available, I appear to be in the business of occupying a perspective. Reason and logic may actually demand that I always occupied a perspective as an obvious choice thus making me into something 'transcendent' as our language has it.

 

[outhouse]

giving it immortality and super intelligence, this thing will actually figure out how to make a soul. .

Imaginative

 

[amorphous_constellation]

What? Sure I can, I am unconscious when I sleep.

How can you inhabit something before you existed? That is just silly.

No I mean, you cannot imagine not existing. That's why in some cases to tentatively once again use the metaphor of a coma, a person may wake up and still believe Reagan is president, you see because time for their consciousness seemed to have been fast-tracked. They seem to believe they experienced no time on some level.

Again going back to my other part of the comment about occupying a 'perspective.' Well first off what are some rules of that, it seems to be a mono-corporeal experience, perspective doesn't seem to contain actual plurality. Perspective moves through time in a linear fashion. There is nothing in science to suggest that since I occupy a perspective now, that "I" didn't always occupy one when it was available. Imagine for a moment there is no self, no I. The only connection made between the shifting perspectives might be that they simply can't overlap each other in time, that there is merely a point where they shift, where they continue onward, like a sand dune or a fractal.

 

[Bunyip]

No I mean, you cannot imagine not existing.

Sure I can imagine not existing. I just imagine a time before 1967.

That's why in some cases to tentatively once again use the metaphor of a coma, a person may wake up and still believe Reagan is president, you see because time for their consciousness seemed to have been fast-tracked. They seem to believe they experienced no time on some level.

Again going back to my other part of the comment about occupying a 'perspective.' Well first off what are some rules of that, it seems to be a mono-corporeal experience, perspective doesn't seem to contain actual plurality. Perspective moves through time in a linear fashion. There is nothing in science to suggest that since I occupy a perspective now, that "I" didn't always occupy one when it was available.

Science would absolutely evidence that you have not always existed, but came into existence at your conception. And that your consciousness is a product of your physical brain.

. Imagine for a moment there is no self, no I. The only connection made between the shifting perspectives might be that they simply can't overlap each other in time, but that there a merely a point where they shift, where they continue onward.

I was asking why you think consciousness is transcendant?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Imaginative

Explain to me what imagination is? What exactly is that body of thought that we appear to either generate or access, thus termed? Just a tool to be used to think of solutions, a terminus for which we smart apes reach, or informational slag melted away from whatever greater idea our betters might have for why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing on this earth?