Intellect is not a Property of Matter

[Moonstruck888]

I have given you the answer already and rather than respond, you are engaging in ad hominem attacks.

Ad hominem attacks? Pointing out that your argument is woefully inadequate and your position a mendacious one is hardly engaging in ad hominem attacks, it is merely stating the obvious.

 

[Moonstruck888]

I agree on both points.
This individual already made it clear that he doesn’t want to discuss the topic.

First Point: Would that have anything to do with the fact that while he never actually answered the question, he evaded it in the spirit of taking the side that you would be on?

Second Point: All he had to do was say so. I really don’t think I’m being out of line pressing for some quantifiable or even verifiable information on what the human soul is.

How can you believe in something when you don’t even have a clue how to define what it is?

 

[Moonstruck888]

Let’s take a look and see. First, with regard to storage, the human brain accepts and stores billions and billions, as Sagan used to say, of extremely sizable chunks of data. From the time of our births, and perhaps even before, our brains have been storing so much data that no super computer could ever compete. Why, because they are physical.

Think about it. Every nano-second of every waking day, ours brains are snapping and storing snapshots of incredible complexity. All stored in our relatively small foot-print brains.

None of which proves the existence of the supernatural, all it proves is that the human mind is very efficient at data storage, for whatever reason.

I think the brain has the capacity for a potential infinity of exigencies. We can always add one more. Nothing else known to man has this capacity.

I think you should use a bit of caution here. You’re being definitive about a construct, the brain, that is not understood.

Well, it certainly has not considered the real “you” inside of our bodies. Remember gnothi seaton (sp). Know thyself. If everyone of us would make an effort to really get to know ourselves, we would understand that there is an entity within each of us, so to speak, that is not an emergence from matter. Matter only had an appetite for it. That “thing” is the soul. The existence of a soul is proof of God. For one thing, because new souls are being created every moment, at millions of times per second - and, I know I’m not doing it!

Are we playing assumption bingo here?

I counted five in the above paragraph.

 

[sidbrown]

Ad hominem attacks? Pointing out that your argument is woefully inadequate and your position a mendacious one is hardly engaging in ad hominem attacks, it is merely stating the obvious.

More ad hominem attacks on top of those you had given before:

You now seek to trick me like an oily lawyer, presenting this ridiculous straw man argument.

I am not an oily lawyer. I already said that my answer to your question was the same as you had answered yourself. So you are indicting yourself if you do not like the answer I gave which was nothing more or less than your very own answer.

 

[Moonstruck888]

More ad hominem attacks on top of those you had given before:

I am not an oily lawyer. I already said that my answer to your question was the same as you had answered yourself. So you are indicting yourself if you do not like the answer I gave which was nothing more or less than your very own answer.

Fine. If that’s the best answer you can give, I’ll drop the subject, but I really think it’s devoid of any meanignful analysis and just totally uninspired.

 

[reggieM]

Let’s take a look and see. First, with regard to storage, the human brain accepts and stores billions and billions, as Sagan used to say, of extremely sizable chunks of data. From the time of our births, and perhaps even before, our brains have been storing so much data that no super computer could ever compete. Why, because they are physical.

Think about it. Every nano-second of every waking day, ours brains are snapping and storing snapshots of incredible complexity. All stored in our relatively small foot-print brains.

True. Although it could be said that **we **are snapping and storing this immense data. The physical brain is finite. How could it be capable of all of this processing and storage power?

Even in evolutionary terms, it’s a difficult issue to solve. Why would a brain that powerful ever be needed in an evolutionary development?

I think the brain has the capacity for a potential infinity of exigencies. We can always add one more. Nothing else known to man has this capacity.

True. We have this capacity. If the finite physical brain is capable of this potential infinity, then that’s a contradiction. How could there be a potentially infinite power in a finite physical organism?

Well, it certainly has not considered the real “you” inside of our bodies. Remember gnothi seaton (sp). Know thyself. If everyone of us would make an effort to really get to know ourselves, we would understand that there is an entity within each of us, so to speak, that is not an emergence from matter. Matter only had an appetite for it. That “thing” is the soul. The existence of a soul is proof of God. For one thing, because new souls are being created every moment, at millions of times per second - and, I know I’m not doing it!

Great points. Thanks.

 

[sidbrown]

Fine. If that’s the best answer you can give, I’ll drop the subject, but I really think it’s devoid of any meanignful analysis and just totally uninspired.

The inspirtation for believers comes from the wonderment at the fact that we as humans are able to think, reflect on reality past, present and future, and our ability to love other human beings. What is consciousness really? Hawkings says that we come from nothing. It is difficult to believe that the human ability to reason, to experiment, to write philosophy and to reflect on the human condition all came from absolutely nothing.

 

[Touchstone]

The inspirtation for believers comes from the wonderment at the fact that we as humans are able to think, reflect on reality past, present and future, and our ability to love other human beings. What is consciousness really? Hawkings says that we come from nothing. It is difficult to believe that the human ability to reason, to experiment, to write philosophy and to reflect on the human condition all came from absolutely nothing.

It certainly is counter-intuitive. But the difficult breaks out differently depending on where you ground your belief. If the intuition is the be-all-end-all, then I think the difficulty is severe, maybe insuperable. But we have methods and heuristics that work beside and outside just our raw intuitions of how things should just be, and via those methods, while the effort is non-trivial, it’s quite natural to see our intuitions as problematic here, and the evidence as being really hard to square with anything “godful”.

It’s difficult to believe, for some here, apparently, that the earth is not the center of the universe. But we have instrumental means of establishing that it’s not, or that every other point in spacetime is just as much the center as any point on/in the earth.

Once again, just pointing out this tension between objective analysis of a subject and our personal intuitions. Saying that something is “difficult to believe” as a result of objective analysis is one thing (it’s very difficult to believe, for example, that the earth is just 6,000 years old based on the objective evidence we have available). Saying something is “difficult to believe” as a matter of wrestling with one’s intuition makes it really a personal issue. Maybe the strength of one’s intuition is just too strong and can’t be overcome or countered by other means of investigation. But if so, the difficulty is localized to the person in a way that “difficult to believe per objective analysis” is not.

We find it difficult to believe the earth goes round the sun, or even that the earth really is (roughly) spherical.

We find it difficult to believe that all the different species could all come from the same root of ancestors, and that man is just a leaf on the “tree of life” on this planet.

We find it difficult to believe that no two events can truly be simultaneous.

We find if difficult to believe that entangled particles share state and information, across vast distances, with correlated changes happening faster than the speed of light would allow information to get from one to the other.

We find it difficult to believe that two identical twins could be separated on their first birthday, one sent off in a very fast spaceship for fifty years, only to return as a child to meet his 50 year old twin sibling.

We find if difficult to believe that a photon going from point A to point B is both nowhere and everywhere at once while in superposition, and is in fact exploring every possible path from A to B across the entire universe.

There’s lots more. The witness of science is that our “difficulties in believing” are really just that, true difficulties that obtain from reliance on intuition over empiricism and objectivity, over methods that augment, and sometimes overturn our intuitions.

-TS

 

[Moonstruck888]

The inspirtation for believers comes from the wonderment at the fact that we as humans are able to think, reflect on reality past, present and future, and our ability to love other human beings. What is consciousness really? Hawkings says that we come from nothing. It is difficult to believe that the human ability to reason, to experiment, to write philosophy and to reflect on the human condition all came from absolutely nothing.

Neither your argument from baffled awe, that human beings are bloody wonderful ergo a creator exists nor your argument from slushy sentiment, that humans can feel ergo a creator exists hold any water. They are not based on any rational position but on deep seated emotional needs.

As for the idea that we came from nothing, Hawking explains this if you’d care to read his book. He does not think that we were created ex-nihilo, merely that in the beginning there was no space, time nor matter as we know it today. I wish he hadn’t used the term nothing, because like Einstein, his enemies will now trip him with his own metaphors in perpetuity.

 

[Moonstruck888]

It’s difficult to believe, for some here, apparently, that the earth is not the center of the universe. But we have instrumental means of establishing that it’s not, or that every other point in spacetime is just as much the center as any point on/in the earth.

Not just difficult, impossible. Every object in the sky circumnavigates the Earth every 24 hours.

For the Earth to be the static centre of the Universe, Proxima Centauri, the nearest object to us, would have to be travelling through 2PiR light years in 24 hours, that is 6.28 * 4.3 = 27 light years.

27 light years in 24 hours. That would mean that The Centauri System would be moving at 9,885 times the lightspeed.

The Andromeda Galaxy would be moving through 15,700,000 light years in 24 hours. These are objects that are in our own neighbourhood. Objects at the edge of the known Universe would have to be moving at incomprehensible speeds.

It’s absurd.

 

[inocente]

True. We have this capacity. If the finite physical brain is capable of this potential infinity, then that’s a contradiction. How could there be a potentially infinite power in a finite physical organism?

I looked around. The maximum theoretical estimate is 2.5 petabytes based on neuronal connections and assuming good compression algorithms. However, the actual capacity must be somewhat smaller as many parts of the brain are involved with monitoring and controlling body systems that don’t use up memory (whales, for example, have larger brains than us because they have bigger bodies to control).

The lowest estimate I found was half a gigabyte, based on Thomas Landauer’s experiments which suggest we actually only remember around 2 bits/second.

 

[inocente]

Please help me with this argument … thanks …

Human thoughts, however, are infinite in quantity (size) and variety. There are infinite numbers and humans can make any calculations, and invent any new set or kind of mathematical rules on an infinite set of numbers.

This would mean that the human brain would need an infinite physical (cellular and neurological) capacity.

But the human brain has a finite capacity, therefore it cannot store, process or retrieve an infinite variety of thoughts.

I think your OP fails by jumping from humans in the plural to the singular. Mozart always sounds like Mozart because he didn’t have the capacity to sound like Stockhausen or Philip Glass.

Irrespective of how much data we actually process and retain, you need to demonstrate the capacity for an infinite intellect in any one individual, and why cooperating with and learning from each other should be discounted.

 

[Moonstruck888]

I looked around. The maximum theoretical estimate is 2.5 petabytes based on neuronal connections and assuming good compression algorithms…

There is no reason to believe the human brain is algorithim driven. It is a biological entity and does not run anything resembling a computer programming method. There is no basis for setting any storage limit large or small on it with the current paucity of knowledge we have on how the brain works.

 

[sidbrown]

Neither your argument from baffled awe, that human beings are bloody wonderful ergo a creator exists nor your argument from slushy sentiment, that humans can feel ergo a creator exists hold any water. They are not based on any rational position but on deep seated emotional needs.

As for the idea that we came from nothing, Hawking explains this if you’d care to read his book. He does not think that we were created ex-nihilo, merely that in the beginning there was no space, time nor matter as we know it today. I wish he hadn’t used the term nothing, because like Einstein, his enemies will now trip him with his own metaphors in perpetuity.

How is the effect of consciousness or awareness produced? Would this occur through a space time manifold? If so, what is the velocity at which this self-awareness effect is produced? How do you know it occurs through a space time maninfold?

 

[Moonstruck888]

How is the effect of consciousness or awareness produced? Would this occur through a space time manifold? If so, what is the velocity at which this self-awareness effect is produced? How do you know it occurs through a space time maninfold?

I don’t know. You’re the one who claims that you do, although it’s abundantly clear that you’re fettered with a paucity of evidence to back that claim up.

I don’t pretend to know how the mind works any more than that fluctuations of thought and emotion are linked to changes in the electrical activity of the brain. What I do know is that there is no reason at all to believe that the activity of the brain is linked to anything either supernatural or infinite.

 

[JDaniel]

None of which proves the existence of the supernatural, all it proves is that the human mind is very efficient at data storage, for whatever reason.

Well, then, it shows that the mind/brain is something much more than just simply matter…

I think you should use a bit of caution here. You’re being definitive about a construct, the brain, that is not understood.

You should be use caution not to use naked assertions quite so prolifically. You don’t know thing about me.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

None of which proves the existence of the supernatural, all it proves is that the human mind is very efficient at data storage, for whatever reason.

I think you should use a bit of caution here. You’re being definitive about a construct, the brain, that is not understood.

Are we playing assumption bingo here?

I counted five in the above paragraph.

Point them out, don’t just flap the trap.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

I looked around. The maximum theoretical estimate is 2.5 petabytes based on neuronal connections and assuming good compression algorithms. However, the actual capacity must be somewhat smaller as many parts of the brain are involved with monitoring and controlling body systems that don’t use up memory (whales, for example, have larger brains than us because they have bigger bodies to control).

The lowest estimate I found was half a gigabyte, based on Thomas Landauer’s experiments which suggest we actually only remember around 2 bits/second.

Incente:

Do these reflect memory before or after hypnosis? It is interesting that, under hypnosis, we recall things with much, much greater detail. And, the somatics includes information from all of our sense.

God bless,
jd

 

[sidbrown]

I don’t know. You’re the one who claims that you do, although it’s abundantly clear that you’re fettered with a paucity of evidence to back that claim up.

I don’t pretend to know how the mind works any more than that fluctuations of thought and emotion are linked to changes in the electrical activity of the brain. What I do know is that there is no reason at all to believe that the activity of the brain is linked to anything either supernatural or infinite.

However, if it were linked to a material explanation, then the self-awareness effect would not be able to be immediate, but would be restricted by the velocity of light and as well would have to travese through a space time manifold.

 

[inocente]

There is no reason to believe the human brain is algorithim driven. It is a biological entity and does not run anything resembling a computer programming method. There is no basis for setting any storage limit large or small on it with the current paucity of knowledge we have on how the brain works.

I just reported what I read. There are some companies that try to estimate the storage capacity in long-term preparation for building human-like robots for example. The only attempt to find the capacity empirically that I found was Landauer’s, although it was not universally acclaimed.

The thinking about algorithms seems to be based on factors like psychoacoustics, where our perceptive systems are known to throw away source data a la mp3. We also seem to concentrate on aspects of images (the pretty woman or the man with the gun) while ignoring other elements.