The Debate of God.

[waitasec]

Does this help?

apparently apophenia has displayed his selective memory....

 

[apophenia]

apparently apophenia has displayed his selective memory....

OK fine, let's get insulting.

My remarks about "no science" in relation to the examples of animal behaviour were a response to Davisos notion that only science gives us reliable knowledge.

The behaviours I described were examples of extraordinary knowledge and abilities which are innate intelligence i.e. no science was required for such displays of highly developed ability, and so from that we can assume that humans also are capable of direct knowkedge which does not rely on scientific research or proof.

For such lovers of science some of you people are really not very bright.

 

[Tiberius]

OK fine, let's get insulting.

My remarks about "no science" in relation to the examples of animal behaviour were a response to Davisos notion that only science gives us reliable knowledge.

The behaviours I described were examples of extraordinary knowledge and abilities which are innate intelligence i.e. no science was required for such displays of highly developed ability, and so from that we can assume that humans also are capable of direct knowkedge which does not rely on scientific research or proof.

For such lovers of science some of you people are really not very bright.

Those behaviours have scientific explanations. They are science. It does not require that the animal doing those behaviours understands the scientific rationale behind them.

Do you understand how you digestive enzymes work? I mean, do you understand the actual chemical reactions that take place with them? I thought not. Yet these chemical reactions take place in a scientifically explainable manner.

 

[apophenia]

Those behaviours have scientific explanations. They are science. It does not require that the animal doing those behaviours understands the scientific rationale behind them.

Do you understand how you digestive enzymes work? I mean, do you understand the actual chemical reactions that take place with them? I thought not. Yet these chemical reactions take place in a scientifically explainable manner.

You totally missed the point.

Try and follow this, it's really not that hard ...

Daviso and I were discussing whether or not there was any means other than science to obtain valuable and reliable knowledge about the world.

I suggested that there is, and that our innate wisdom is valid.

Whilst making that point I gave examples of notable behaviours in nature which clearly demonstrate highly developed capacities.

I used these examples to show that the innate intelligence of animals and insects equals or exceeds what science has so far delivered (though I can see that the capacities mentioned could possibly eventually be simulated).

The fact that those capacities can be scientifically explained does not contradict or refute the point that those capacities were not the products of science. In other words, we (organic life) already possess intelligence beyond the scope of current science and technology, whether or not science may someday explain it all.

Get it now ? Probably not.

 

[apophenia]

Those behaviours have scientific explanations. They are science.

Because animal behaviours have scientific explanations they are science ?

I see now why you can't follow the point.

 

[apophenia]

I explained how it worked and thats what comes from it. We are already building neurons. Just think of yourself as a machine, what more is there to it? I keep giving the evidence and you just keep saying we can't know that.

Here is how the brain stores memory and we are able to replicate it.

Brain Channels - Memory Encoding

And we are not downing experience we are trying to find out how it all works.

I know perfectly well that this body is a biological machine.

Point is, we have no reason to believe that your android knows that it is a silicon machine.

Or ever will.

No matter how complex its behaviour may become.

Do you get that ?

Even if a silicon machine told us it was sentient, we would have no way to verify that.

The programming which resulted in an output which said " I am a sentient android" would be displaying emergent behaviour (if it was that kind of technology, like a swarm of neural nets in a box).

So we would have emergent behaviour driving an output, " I am a sentient android".

So what ?

Because, as I have said, there is no science to differentiate sentience from behaviour, we would not know if it was a sentient machine or an inanimate calculator which mimicked human behaviour.

Let me say that again ... there is no science to differentiate sentience from behaviour... that may clarify for you what I am saying.

 

[idav]

Let me say that again ... there is no science to differentiate sentience from behaviour... that may clarify for you what I am saying.

If a machine displayed similar results of self awareness as in the chimp and mirror test, that would be evidence of self awareness. If you don't interpret it that way that is fine but it would be evidence no less. Anything less than that it would be harder to test cause we can't very well ask a metal cell how it feels but remember that the only difference is the number of cells and level of sentience as when we compare the mirror test with other animals.

 

[apophenia]

If a machine displayed similar results of self awareness as in the chimp and mirror test, that would be evidence of self awareness. If you don't interpret it that way that is fine but it would be evidence no less. Anything less than that it would be harder to test cause we can't very well ask a metal cell how it feels but remember that the only difference is the number of cells and level of sentience as when we compare the mirror test with other animals.

Digital cameras have 'smile recognition', and I'm sure you have a reasonably good idea of how that works.

It would be a trivial application to use a variant of facial recognition software to give a computer the capacity to 'recognise' a picture of itself.

To say that that means the computer is now sentient would be a facile interpretation surely.

 

[apophenia]

BTW Idav, Iwas not being at all derogatory when I used the word facile. I hope you can see that.
So far I think you are the only person on this thread who has any idea what I'm talking about, and despite our disagreements I totally see where you are coming from and respect that. I have thought the same way for many of the 30 + years that I have considered this question.

 

[idav]

BTW Idav, Iwas not being at all derogatory when I used the word facile. I hope you can see that.
So far I think you are the only person on this thread who has any idea what I'm talking about, and despite our disagreements I totally see where you are coming from and respect that. I have thought the same way for many of the 30 + years that I have considered this question.

No worries I don't take this stuff personally.

Our "soul" is mere data.
[youtube]I7lmJe_EXEU[/youtube]
Brain-Computer Interfaces (Krishna Shenoy, Stanford University) - YouTube

 

[idav]

BTW Idav, Iwas not being at all derogatory when I used the word facile. I hope you can see that.
So far I think you are the only person on this thread who has any idea what I'm talking about, and despite our disagreements I totally see where you are coming from and respect that. I have thought the same way for many of the 30 + years that I have considered this question.

We are already learning how to send visual data to our brains. Bionic eyes are possible. It is just data transfer. What is the alternate theory for awareness?

 

[apophenia]

Our 'personality' is mere data. If I were to use the word soul, it would mean being-aware-of-data.

I'm watching the vid now, though I think I've seen it. Any other material like that, please post links. Maybe start a thread about it. Just for the record (JFTR ?) I think the age of intelligent machines will be one of the defining aspects of the early 21st century, and I also fully expect all kinds of social/psychological crises to accompany the emergence of artificial intelligence.

That is the underlying motivation for my participation in this discussion. And in case you didn't realise, I am neither religious nor whatever you might call this new scientism (as opposed to science). I am an acid head ! LOL

 

[apophenia]

We are already learning how to send visual data to our brains. Bionic eyes are possible. It is just data transfer. What is the alternate theory for awareness?

Hang on ! Allow a bit of a time lag . first I need to watch the vid you posted ...

 

[idav]

Our 'personality' is mere data. If I were to use the word soul, it would mean being-aware-of-data.

I'm watching the vid now, though I think I've seen it. Any other material like that, please post links. Maybe start a thread about it. Just for the record (JFTR ?) I think the age of intelligent machines will be one of the defining aspects of the early 21st century, and I also fully expect all kinds of social/psychological crises to accompany the emergence of artificial intelligence.

That is the underlying motivation for my participation in this discussion. And in case you didn't realise, I am neither religious nor whatever you might call this new scientism (as opposed to science). I am an acid head ! LOL

Well then you might like this video.
[youtube]4ReO1usEAOg[/youtube]
The Mind Uploading (reverse engineering the brain) Hypothesis - Targeted Individuals Europe - YouTube

 

[apophenia]

We are already learning how to send visual data to our brains. Bionic eyes are possible. It is just data transfer. What is the alternate theory for awareness?

I don't have one.

But at this point I see no theory for awareness anywhere.

Everything you have said about the evolution of behaviour, including mental and social behaviour, is valid.

But I can see how all of that, all of this world now occuring, could be happening according to those models without any awareness whatsoever. It's a strange thought experiment to be sure, but it helps to identify what it is that the scientific model omits.

Try it yourself. Imagine exactly what is going on right now, including your body reading this screen and responding etc, all behaving according to the laws of physics which resulted in abiogenesis etc etc, but without the sense of self anywhere in the picture.

That is exactly what the scientific model describes.

I tried to express this earlier with no success, and fully expect the chimps in the gallery to go nuts and throw faeces (symbolically fortunately), but if you want to get what I mean, that thought experiment will help.

The whole process of evolved stimulus response all the way up to human social behaviour, happening according to the laws of physics, could be happening right now minus a sense of self. The 'sense of self' could effectively be just a variable in the code.

That is what I mean when I say that science describes everything except awareness, and what I mean when I say that the current scientific model doesn't even require self-awareness to describe what is observed.

Remember that physics stuff about how the observer affects quantum behaviour by observing it ? I don't claim to understand the first thing about quantum physics, but I did note that'observer' was never adequately defined.

We currently have no way of determining whether awareness is inherent in matter. If it is, then perhaps we could differentiate between awareness and 'forms of consciousness' which arise as a result of complex structures.

At the moment, many assume that the explanation for behaviour will suffice as the explanation for the observer. And they feel more comfortable that way.

But the observer is not in the model.

 

[apophenia]

Well then you might like this video.
[youtube]4ReO1usEAOg[/youtube]
The Mind Uploading (reverse engineering the brain) Hypothesis - Targeted Individuals Europe - YouTube

Thanks for that, but it will have to wait until I can access it with a better connection. Where I am now, I'm using an android (!) phone as a wifi hotspot and the bandwidth sucks.

I am aware of the mind upload stuff. From memory it was a 'new big idea' in the 80s, I went to a few seminars with immortalists etc.

'Mind' isn't just data of course. It is observed data. How do we transmit the observer, especially since we have no scientific model of what the observer actually is, or where (if anywhere !) it resides ?

Here's a nice line from Brian Eno (Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy - 'put a sraw under baby') ...

"There's a brain in the table,
there's a heart in the chair,
and they all live in Jesus !
(it's a family affair)]

LOL

 

[idav]

Remember that physics stuff about how the observer affects quantum behaviour by observing it ? I don't claim to understand the first thing about quantum physics, but I did note that'observer' was never adequately defined.

The observer could be anything that was measuring the wave function, mechanical or otherwise.

 

[mr black]

Is this phenomenon observed or unobserved?

 

[apophenia]

Put a Straw Under Baby - YouTube

some comic relief

to accompany the faeces from the gallery LOL

 

[idav]

At the moment, many assume that the explanation for behaviour will suffice as the explanation for the observer. And they feel more comfortable that way.

But the observer is not in the model.

So the monkey seeing self is legit but not if a machine did it? We already know how to tap into the brain it is only a matter of time before we are able to create memories and send the digital signal for it.