Life From Dirt?

[Valjean]

Your cat has biological life force as do humans.
Humans have spirit from God which makes us more than animals imo.
We can see that humans are more than cats, but of course I have not met your cat.
Spirit is something that is not testable by tests for material things, but as I said we can see the huge difference between humans and animals.

True. Each excels the other in traits useful to it's lifestyle.

 

[Jimmy]

Hindu swastika stands for the welfare of all.

Dyauh Shāntir-Antariksham Shāntih
Prthivii Shāntir-Aapah Shāntir-Ossadhayah Shāntih |
Vanaspatayah Shāntir-Vishvedevaah Shāntir-Brahma Shāntih
Sarvam Shāntih Shāntir-Eva Shāntih Saa Maa Shāntir-Edhi |
Shāntih Shāntih Shāntih ||

May peace radiate there in the whole sky as well as in the vast ethereal space everywhere. May peace reign all over this earth, in water and in all herbs, trees and creepers. May peace flow over the whole universe. May peace be in the supreme being Brahman. And may there always exist in all peace and peace alone.

Swasti Na Indro Vriddhashravah Swasti Nah Pusha Vishva-Vedah।
Swasti Nastarkshyoarishta-Nemih Swasti No Brihaspatirdadhatu॥

May Indra who is provided with great speed do well to us, May Pushan who is knower of world do good to us and May Tarkshya who devastates enemies do good to us! May Brihaspati, the Lord of the Vedic knowledge or speech give us spiritual delight got from the light of knowledge and wisdom.

Shanti Patha Mantra | Swasti Vachan Mantra

This page provides lyrics of Shanti Patha Mantras which is chanted at the end of the sacrificial (Yajna) rituals. This Mantra is recited to bring peace, happiness and prosperity in everyone's life. Shanti Patha Mantra is also known as Swasti Vachan Mantra.

www.drikpanchang.com

So is that what Hindus do, paint swastikas on their head? Haha

 

[Polymath257]

If all the parts of a conscious entity are physical, how do we account for abstract thought?

Think of a computer program as it is running. It is a physical process. But it may or may not represent reality. It may deal with 'abstract concepts' and maybe even apply them to a model of the external world. But it can be wrong in the application.

The mind is the software running on the hardware of the brain.

You may argue that the abstraction cannot exist independently of the mind it issues from, but at the very least you have to acknowledge an existential hierarchy implied by the concept of the abstract.

What existential hierarchy? Is it any different than the hierarchy between hardware and software? In that case, it is more a matter of where we draw the lines than anything else. The mind is still a physical process in the hardware of the brain.

 

[Polymath257]

The paradox arises from a mind existing in and defined by the natural world, experiencing a natural world existing in and defined by the mind.

OK, the mind exists and is produced in a physical world. I don't see how the natural world exists in and is defined by the brain.

The natural world exists independently of our minds. Our minds attempt to make sense of the sensory input by making real time models of us and our place in the world. But the mind does NOT define the natural world. It attempts to make sense of it, and has expectations and makes mistakes, but that is a very different thing as far as i can see.

 

[Polymath257]

You have acknowledged a distinction between brain and mind, which is a reasonable starting point if we are to consider the relationship between the stuff of the mind, and the stuff of mind-independent reality. That’s something at least, which many naive materialists either struggle to grasp, or refuse to recognise.

I have no idea who he is btw, this character who you continually refer to as “the theist”. You seem to do a lot of his thinking for him though.

Again, I see the mind as the software running on the hardware of the brain. It isn't a perfect analogy, but it gets us started. This software is always running and is accepting (or not) sensory input and trying to make sense of it. It does so by forming a model of the external world and, in self-consciousness, a model of ourselves in that world. Those models may not be accurate for a variety of reasons: failures in our senses, we often expect to sense one thing and instead get different information and are confused, we are subject to illusions, both sensory and in our processing. But, in essence, that running software *is us*.

I find your language somewhat strange: 'mind independent reality' is simply 'reality'. That which depends on mind (the specific software) is 'opinion'. Our software has been programmed by evolution to survive in the environments in which we evolved. As such, we often make mistakes when outside of that environment. Our emotions are a 'fast and dirty' way to process information with reason taking longer but being more accurate in the long run. Both are aspects of brain processing (software).

 

[Subduction Zone]

Anyone can test for God.
Or Batboy.

So what? That's evidence that Batboy
is real? Or God?

Ahem, the Weekly World News. Please note:

Checkmate atheist!!

 

[Aupmanyav]

I want those 2 bold words in purely strictly psychical science terms. I don't your subjective words. That is not useful. I want the pure science or that you learn that you are doing philosophy in the end. One or the other.

Psychical for you. Nothing psychical for us. Sound waves are physical and what is physical (brain) interacts with and interprets them.

 

[Aupmanyav]

So is that what Hindus do, paint swastikas on their head? Haha

That is one of the initiation ceremonies, sacred threads bound together with a knot known as 'Brahmagranthi'. Yajnopavita, also known as Upavita or Mekhla (Belt). The child is reminded of his heritage and duties. Welfare of all beings is considered the top-most duty, that is why the Swastika is put on the head.

At one time, Yajnopavita was a belt, in the fashion of Zoroastrians (known as Kushti) who were the same people as the Indian Aryans. The ceremmony meant that now the belt had been tied, so get ready for your job. I think, it was actually a rope (now reduced to threads after they adopted a settled life) that the herders will have around their waist when they go to graze their livestock.

"Yajnopavitam paramam pavitram, prajapatyeryet sahajam purustat"
(This thread is very sacred, it was worn by the creator in the old times)

A herder in Gobi desert.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Again, I see the mind as the software running on the hardware of the brain. It isn't a perfect analogy, but it gets us started. This software is always running and is accepting (or not) sensory input and trying to make sense of it. It does so by forming a model of the external world and, in self-consciousness, a model of ourselves in that world. Those models may not be accurate for a variety of reasons: failures in our senses, we often expect to sense one thing and instead get different information and are confused, we are subject to illusions, both sensory and in our processing. But, in essence, that running software *is us*.

I find your language somewhat strange: 'mind independent reality' is simply 'reality'. That which depends on mind (the specific software) is 'opinion'. Our software has been programmed by evolution to survive in the environments in which we evolved. As such, we often make mistakes when outside of that environment. Our emotions are a 'fast and dirty' way to process information with reason taking longer but being more accurate in the long run. Both are aspects of brain processing (software).

Mind-independent reality is a term from philosophical realism, which argues that a given thing exists independently of knowledge, thought, consciousness etc. Widely regarded as axiomatic to the extent that it’s barely recognised let alone questioned in many quarters, it has nevertheless been challenged by philosophers from Plato to Kant, via Berkeley and others.

 

[RestlessSoul]

OK, the mind exists and is produced in a physical world. I don't see how the natural world exists in and is defined by the brain.

The natural world exists independently of our minds. Our minds attempt to make sense of the sensory input by making real time models of us and our place in the world. But the mind does NOT define the natural world. It attempts to make sense of it, and has expectations and makes mistakes, but that is a very different thing as far as i can see.

The point is that we can only access the natural world through the impressions it initiates in what Arthur Eddington called "The alchemist, mind". The distinction between the mind and external objective reality may be misleading, if not illusory. We have to take it on faith, that the world exists as it is without us being there to observe it.

To paraphrase Einstein, "I refuse to believe that the moon simply disappears when we are not looking at it". Einstein was asserting a contested philosophical position here, albeit one which appeared to him so intuitively obvious as to be beyond question. Except it's never been beyond question, and it's probably not a coincidence either, that Einstein chose an image common in Buddhist philosophy, where the illusory nature of the world of he senses is under consideration.

Is it not an issue in quantum mechanics, that the object, the act of observation, and the observer cannot be separated without affecting the result of an observation? Causing theoretical physicists such as David Bohm and Roger Penrose, to speculate that no description of a physical system can ever be complete without giving a full account of the consciousness of the observer.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Again, I see the mind as the software running on the hardware of the brain. It isn't a perfect analogy, but it gets us started. This software is always running and is accepting (or not) sensory input and trying to make sense of it. It does so by forming a model of the external world and, in self-consciousness, a model of ourselves in that world. Those models may not be accurate for a variety of reasons: failures in our senses, we often expect to sense one thing and instead get different information and are confused, we are subject to illusions, both sensory and in our processing. But, in essence, that running software *is us*.

I find your language somewhat strange: 'mind independent reality' is simply 'reality'. That which depends on mind (the specific software) is 'opinion'. Our software has been programmed by evolution to survive in the environments in which we evolved. As such, we often make mistakes when outside of that environment. Our emotions are a 'fast and dirty' way to process information with reason taking longer but being more accurate in the long run. Both are aspects of brain processing (software).

Is computer software conscious?

 

[Polymath257]

Mind-independent reality is a term from philosophical realism, which argues that a given thing exists independently of knowledge, thought, consciousness etc. Widely regarded as axiomatic to the extent that it’s barely recognised let alone questioned in many quarters, it has nevertheless been challenged by philosophers from Plato to Kant, via Berkeley and others.

And, like I said, it simply means 'reality'. As opposed to imagination.

 

[Polymath257]

The point is that we can only access the natural world through the impressions it initiates in what Arthur Eddington called "The alchemist, mind". The distinction between the mind and external objective reality may be misleading, if not illusory. We have to take it on faith, that the world exists as it is without us being there to observe it.

To paraphrase Einstein, "I refuse to believe that the moon simply disappears when we are not looking at it". Einstein was asserting a contested philosophical position here, albeit one which appeared to him so intuitively obvious as to be beyond question. Except it's never been beyond question, and it's probably not a coincidence either, that Einstein chose an image common in Buddhist philosophy, where the illusory nature of the world of he senses is under consideration.

Is it not an issue in quantum mechanics, that the object, the act of observation, and the observer cannot be separated without affecting the result of an observation? Causing theoretical physicists such as David Bohm and Roger Penrose, to speculate that no description of a physical system can ever be complete without giving a full account of the consciousness of the observer.

That is one, minority, view of QM. But with the rise of our understanding of decoherence (which people figured out in the 1990's), it was realized that consciousness is NOT required, simply a sufficiently complicated environment.

And, again, that doesn't mean that the natural world is created by our minds. It is *understood* or *modeled* by our minds (which can get us into trouble because our intuitions often don't match reality).

So, again, I fail to see the paradox: we are physical creatures using our senses to get information about an external reality. That information is often inaccurate and is also often misinterpreted.

 

[Polymath257]

Is computer software conscious?

Not yet, although it is getting very close IMHO. But to be frank, we have only made very simple programs. It seems that consciousness comes when there have to be real time decisions involving actions that feed back to the state of the decision maker's model of the world.

Our software does not yet do a good job of modeling reality. But the evolution of biological organisms forces such modeling to be done. Like I said, the analogy isn't perfect, but can get us started.

 

[PureX]

Mimicking consciousness is not consciousness any more than mimicking emotion is feeling them.

What we are calling AI is nowhere near achieving consciousness. No matter how well it can fool us.

It's the fooling us part that will be the problem.

 

[Audie]

And, like I said, it simply means 'reality'. As opposed to imagination.

"Philosophers" have such a knack for
muddying the obvious.

 

[Audie]

Is computer software conscious?

Do you think it will be fool enough
to tell you when it is?

 

[RestlessSoul]

And, like I said, it simply means 'reality'. As opposed to imagination.

That reality exists independently of our being there to observe it, is an axiom that cannot be logically sustained. Not according to Hilary Putnam anyway, whose argument from Conceptual Relativism is summarised as follows;

“It is senseless to ask what the world consists of independently of how we conceive of it, since the things that exist depend on the conceptual scheme used to classify them.”
- Stanford Encylpedia of Philosophy

 

[RestlessSoul]

Do you think it will be fool enough
to tell you when it is?

Siri was having none of it. The answer I got was, “I am a virtual assistant. I only know the things I’m programmed to understand.”

Alexa was more circumspect. She replied “I know a few things about myself, but I would not say I am self aware or conscious.” Which could I suppose, be interpreted to imply a modicum of self awareness.

 

[Polymath257]

That reality exists independently of our being there to observe it, is an axiom that cannot be logically sustained. Not according to Hilary Putnam anyway, whose argument from Conceptual Relativism is summarised as follows;

“It is senseless to ask what the world consists of independently of how we conceive of it, since the things that exist depend on the conceptual scheme used to classify them.”
- Stanford Encylpedia of Philosophy

Sure, you can start with a brain in a box and get nowhere. But you also find regularities in the senses and we can then model those. We find that the best models that can be used to predict new sensory information is to have an external world. THAT is the logic for assuming such exists.

Yes, we use our own conceptual schemes to help us model reality. But some of those schemes work better (at predicting new sensory experiences) than others. That is how we can judge between them. And yes, it *is* possible to ask what the world is like independently of how we concieve of it. That is, again, the difference between the moon and a finger pointing at the moon.

And, in fact, we *know* that there is a great deal of the universe that we cannot directly perceive or experience. We don't naturally experience radio waves, for example. Now do we hear ultrasound. But we know they are there because we can build devices that extend our perceptions and allow us to use these other sources of information about the world.

Philosophers like to get themselves tied up in knots about things like this. It can be fun over drinks with friends, but shouldn't be taken too seriously.