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About LinkBacksNot me; I'm an Anglican, and pretty much alongside Rowan Williams.Originally Posted by RedPutty
Not me; I'm an Anglican, and pretty much alongside Rowan Williams.
Nich,
Your question makes no sense, how can I know that my experience isnt markedly different from anybody elses anyway?
Your perception is your reality as they say.
To be honest, if it was possible to perfectly simulate a human brain in every minute detail, the logical answer would be that yes it would behave in exactly the same way including things like love.
You probably wont accept that answer because you think that there is something more to conciousness, I can relate to that.
Its like the old transporter question, if you were able to use a star trek transporter and teleport yourself, basicly deconstrucing the atoms in your body and encoding them into data and then re-assembleing it at the other end, would it be the same old "you" or just a copy with somthing missing because the original you no longer exists?
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
Well, you started from the position that love was purely a few chemicals fizzing about in the brain; you then resiled from that, acknowledging that other interactions may be involved before concluding
"Fully expect", I think just about anyone who isn't intent on mangling the English language beyond repair would acknowledge, implies certainty on your part that something will happen, in this case the construction of a simulacrum of a human brain. In the context of your post, the only feasible purpose of that would be to observe the processes which you state that you are certain that love is reducible to; without that purpose, the supposed construction of a simulated brain is merely a rather bizarre non sequitur.
The assumptions lie in your "full expectation" that it will be possible, when it may well not be, and the assumption implicit in the idea that observation of such a simulacrum will explain love through observation of purely physical interactions. It's the classic example of begging the question; you are certain that love is reducible to physical interactions, you predicate your experimental model upon the observation of physical interactions, and you find what you started by assuming that you would; a set of physical interactions.
Which kind of deprives you of a baseline to start with
But we can't know since there is no measurable baseline to start from.
Well, yes I do believe that there is; but then I don't have to necessarily to point out that such an experiment is fatally flawed to start with. You can't prove that love is reducible to physical processes when all you observe are physical processes.
Personally I'm a shuttle man - I think Bones had a point.
Anyway, me knackered.
Fully expect != guarantee
Lets just say that I think its a reasonable prediction, it is still not the same as faith as you are trying to imply.
Nich, what you just described there would seem to be a hypothesis not an assumption, I already stated there is a lot we dont know about the brain. I have seen some interesting documentaries about people who have the hemispheres severed or brain damage and it changes them big time as you would expect. The reason you expect that is because we know the brain is a physical thing and if you damage it, it will not perform like it should.
http://cwx.prenhall.com/bookbind/pub...ngs/split.html
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
Seems people are working on brain simulation already :
http://www.nsi.edu/nomad/
http://bluebrainproject.epfl.ch/
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
NOMAD appears to be basically a behaviourally conditioned rat; just one that runs on NiMH. And in the case of Blue Brain, I'd note that that site also states:
So it's not even assumed by them that it's actually possible. And that's a mammalian brain, let alone a human one.A Foundation for Whole Brain Simulations
With current and future computer technology it seems unlikely that a mammalian brain can be simulated with full cellular and synaptic complexity (above the molecular level). An accurate replica of an NCC is therefore required in order to generate reduced models that retain critical functions and computational capabilities, which can be duplicated and interconnected to form neocortical brain regions. Knowledge of the NCC architecture can be transferred to facilitate reconstruction of subcortical brain regions.
Last edited by nichomach; 03-04-2006 at 12:19 AM.
Agreed; a guarantee is a promise that something will occur. An expectation is a belief that something is probable or even certain to occur. Surely, to "fully expect" something to occur implies a high degree of confidence that it will. Anyway, nighty night!
Heh, I don't want to keep you up, but as I have already said progress is exponetial, who knows what we will be able to do in a decade never mind 50 years.
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
To be pedantic it is you that take a leap of faith to raise existence to bewond that of the material, and in doing so are blind to its true beauty. That so much life can come into existence exist, with such a wide variety, merely by adapting to take advantage of their surroundings is a natural miracle. It doesn't need a divine spark to make it special.
I also don't disagree that I may be wrong in not accepting the existence of a God, but as I have said before the opposite is true of your posistion. Neither of us can be absolutely certain that we are right, irrespective of what we may feel about the situation.
As for love, I accept that people experience it, but do not believe in it as anything more than physical phenomena, albeit a rather peculiar one. The illusion to me being that it is supernatural. Of course I could be wrong
buts that's the dichotomy of this argument at one time pointless as no real answer can be deduced, but at the same time entirely meaningful as without questioning our existence we would be nothing more than autometa
If it ain't broke, fetch a bigger hammer
I would be interested to know whether a Turing compliant machine would believe in God, i.e. a true God and not just it's maker. I do think that in the future such machines will exist but I very much doubt that they will have faith.
I think the whole argument equating love as an unknown feeling with faith is a load of BS when you look at it from a logical biological point of view. It is very easy to manipulate the feelings of someone and their disposition towards you. eg punch in the face anyone? Any repeated pleasurable stimili will reinforce the need for that stimuli, whether that be drugs, sex, reassurance, affection, comforting. In the case of love it's a bond that is produced by a period of time spent in someones company that gives you a stimili (chemicals produced in the brain) that you like and as such is reciprocated and reinforced.
It's this reinforcement that is the key. We see the similarities between the religious happyness that the religious often experience and the feeling that person experiences when "in love" and as such we end up with people loving God (and saying irrational things like I know God). This is why religious indoctrination is so dangerous. It's the utter devotion and belief in something that is fundamentally irrational. This is why religious people are able to do such barbaric things even when there own teachings instruct the opposite.
Many religious people appreciate the social aspect of their religion but fail to see it as more than a club of members with similar interests. All religions ask the followers to perform some form of social ritual and it's this social aspect that drives the so called "love of God". They get the same stimuli, with the same reinforcement that any other human being would get when participating in a group activity and as such are conditioned, the difference is that a book club can openly discuss without prejudice but a religious organisation cannot. NB. It's my belief that most human beings are conditioned to a certain level aswell as having inbuilt social conditioning eg. the natural herd mentality.
This is why we see arguments such as I know God exists and therefore ID is the logical conclusion. It's the tail wagging the dog science. There is absolutely no way that a creationist is going to take a counter argument seriously because it goes completely against their indoctrinated, reinforced, non rational belief. Therefore you cannot have a rational discussion about ID or Darwinism with the religious becasue they cannot alter their standpoint. It's impossible for them to play devil's advocate or to debate from another point of view. Therefore, to say I want a a rational argument as per the OP is impossible becasue as soon as the opposite point of view is put it goes against their ingrained religious belief. And as such no rational argument backed up with evidence will ever be truly weighed, it will always be dismissed.
It always amuses me when Creationists and propenents of ID propose the eye as an example. I wander how many of them wear glasses!! God certainly was not much of an engineer when he designed the eye because it is imperfect, it does not last.
Similarly the system using genes as a building block is fundamentally flawed. We all know that faulty genes are responsible for a wide range of diseases yet ID proponents will never say that God didn't do a very good job because they already know God to be perfect. If ID is the truth (which I don't believe for one minute) then we will know that God is not the perfect entity he's made out to be and hence Christianity is false/wrong.
It is no coincidence that ID has mainly taken off in the USA were there is a large proportion of fundamentalist Christians. It's their way of getting their myopic view point taught in secular American schools and is more to do with indoctrination and power than anything else. Those that can debate without preconception can easily put forward the notion that God set up the conditions for the universe at the time of the big bang knowing full well that "Darwinism" would run it's course and produce man. The reason we never hear this is because it goes against the 6 day creation story written in the Bible and hence the fundamentalists cannot entertain it. I am aware that there are many facets to ID the same way that there are many facets to Christianity, however, they all start from the wrong point using a preconcieved unalterable view and as such cannot follow the protocols of science.
Science does not base it's theories in the absolute, they are subject to change, religion does and therefore cannot be construed as science.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?id=4140
http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/w...il.html?id=652
Last edited by iranu; 06-04-2006 at 03:30 PM.
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.
I think most people consider the knowing god excists is like been in love argument totally facetious, most people over the age of 20, have thought they've been truely in love, and then, it drifted away.
Now i think this thread should do the same, leave the zealots be, as long as their not allowed to put their minority views into our 51% rule democracy.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Unless they develop emotions as well I very much doubt it. As without being able to "love" it won't be able to "know" God
If it ain't broke, fetch a bigger hammer
you can catch the steve jones lecture live or view it at a later date here.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=4110
"Reality is what it is, not what you want it to be." Frank Zappa. ----------- "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." Huang Po.----------- "A drowsy line of wasted time bathes my open mind", - Ride.
I am watching now, does not seem to have started yet.
Did I miss it?
Could allways watch the replay.
HEXUS FOLDING TEAM It's EASY
I think I shall try and find time to try and watch this tomorrow - those of you bored of this debate may wish to give the comments on the RS website a miss.
All the usual fallacies are there
"both are theories, lalala" (so how can we disprove creationism?)
"evolution violates second law of thermodynamics" (because the earth really is a closed system, rolleyes)
"but how did the eye evolve?"
(please use google a bit more, and do the same before you mention anything about flagellum)
"but you see, the idea of an omnipotent creator is far simpler than that of the universe just existing" (*fetches Occam's razor and cuts throat of person*).
I'd be all for having this debated in science class in schools, only with the bright kids playing devil's advocate, and then, when they win, the bright kids can explain to the others why every single thing they said to win was utter tripe, in the eyes of science.
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