Mind Emerging Out of Matter via "Complexity"

[Touchstone]

I used to post on the Amazon.com Religion forum, which is overrun with supercilious atheists and the one thing I learned there is that whenever you get two or more supercilious atheists together on the same thread, their honesty and objectivity go out the window, rather than speak honestly about the posts of their atheist brethren, a clique mentality sets in where they support every boneheaded statement of their buddy. If you watch me here on these threads, you’ll see I don’t hesitate to point out that another Catholic poster said something silly, there more than a few here who definitely won’t have me on their Christmas card lists. For some reason you rarely see supercilious atheists do the same with their brethren. Once someone starts playing those silly high school clique style games, I stop taking them seriously.

If Spock had given a summary of Gödel’s first or second incompleteness theorem and then said ***one of the implications that follow *** from these theorems is that “no finite, formal system can describe its own algorithm completely” that would have been a sensible statement and he would have sounded like a man who know what he was talking about. Instead, he showed up on the thread, ready to set me straight and arrogantly proclaimed “You seriously misunderstand the Gödel Theorem. It merely says that no finite, formal system can describe its own algorithm completely - nothing more.”, which sounds more like some kid arrogantly pretending to be an authority on some subject in which he’s rather clueless.

So as long as you two want to play that little clique game, I doubt too many will take you seriously here

You keep objecting to the criticisms, many of which here have provided substance and detail, with just a waving of your hands. You don’t deign to grace us with the substance of your criticisms of our criticisms. I think it’s a waste of time to get bogged down in worrying about who’s “arrogant” and other personal assessments, but to waste a moment, it strikes me as arrogant to suppose one’s response is sufficient just with a wave of the hand in opposition to the substance offered. So it cuts both ways, I suggest, which is a great reason to focus on the ideas and concepts, and not lower the conversation to analyzing the worthiness of the attitudes of other posters.

Spock used “merely” for good reason. You’ve read a whole bunch of implications into Gödel Incompleteness that aren’t there, that do not have any foundation in Gödel’s work, or computability.

Let’s recall how you introduced the Gödel objection, in this thread:

A computer is a formal system just like any other formal system which is subject to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, and thus “calculates” through blind symbol manipulation. Every formal system, or algorithmic system (i.e a computer) has a Gödel Proposition that the formal system can not prove to be true within the confines of it’s system but that a human being, standing outside the rules of that system, can show to be true. The implications of this show that there is a diffference in Kind, not Degree between and “thinking” ability of a human being and a computer. Human being are able to transcend any formal system to understand what is going on in that system, it is this ability to understand that computers In Principle do not have and never will have.

(my emphasis)
It’s clear to anyone who understands Gödel (really, you don’t have to trust me or Spock – dial up your local university’s head of the math department, or the computer science head, and ask her yourself to assess your paragraph, here), that a strong “merely” is in order, as the bolded is a stark non sequitur from Gödel’s insights.

To provide detailed substance to that criticism:

1. Human beings are not able to transcend any formal system. Just in terms of scale, it is easy to conceive of software programs that are so large and complex that NO human, or group of humans can formally comprehend and thus verify them. One of the effective points of discrediting Penrose’s claims is the idea that the the “program” for the human brain is itself exactly in this position; it is too large and complex for any human verification. It cannot be transcended, or verified by humans.
2. if 1) is true, then Spock’s “merely” is devastating to your claims. Humans can’t transcend their own systems to an arbitrary depth, any more than a computer can. This is actually a pointer to the superiority of machines, in that they aren’t bound to a particular physiology, and as such may be “clusterable” or scaled in such a way that machine minds at can transcend formal frameworks far beyond what humans can, even if they cannot do so ad infinitum.

Gödel’s insight has the opposite effect of what you said in your first post of the thread: man and machine in are in the same epistemic boat, per Gödel Incompleteness. Math (and machines) got busted down to the humble limitations of the mind, unable to ‘self-describe’ and ‘self-validate’ exhaustively in the same frame.

That’s good grounds for concluding that you “seriously misunderstand”. It’s not being off just a bit, but missing it by a mile.

-TS

 

[Charlemagne_II]

“Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.” George Wald

 

[The_Exodus]

If we can identify a Designer as the creative agent, something that has personal attributes and can be meaningfully said to “see” what it is doing (telic), then the “blind watchmaker hypothesis” is discredited.

I agree, but, even if such is not demonstrated, that doesn’t therefore “validate” the blind watchmaker hypothesis. Unless one wants to beg the question, both hypothesises are potentially true, and potentially false, but neither one is true a priori. Niether is one true if or because the other is false.

touchstone:

You can’t prove a universal negative, as you know, so this is trouble for the Design claim. It’s not falsifiable.

Well if it’s truly not falsifiable, I can’t see how anyone could reasonably hold the negative of the proposition to be actually true. One ought simply to leave the proposition alone, if (as you say) it cannot be proven true or false, for then neither could its contrary be proven true or false, since they are each a different side of the same coin. General agnosticism seems, to me, the most reasonable conclusion if you are correct.

The words “universal negative” are, as far as I can see, simply words used in smoke and mirror fashion.

There are two theories - either something designed the universe ,or something did not. I don’t see how assent is justified to either proposition, without some evidence to go on, unless one wants to beg the question. When this happens, the opposing person is automatically viewed as begging the question – e.g., an atheist claims to simply see no evidence for a designer, in which case he simply “lacks belief.” On the other hand, a theist may as well say just the same, and claim it immediately obvious that there is a designer, in which case he “lacks belief” in a blind watchmaker, or no designer.

The atheist and the theist are playin the same game. Both claims feel the burden of, against their respective claims, “proving a universal negative.”

touchstone:

As for reasons to think the processes are blind: we conspicuously have, among and through all the accumulated scientific knowledge now available to us, NOTHING that “sees”, nothing that is sentient, capable, and present, back when things got going, or “got designed”, if that’s how it happened.

This is another begging of the question. You seem to be reasoning thusly: “we have never seen black swans, therefore, black swans to do not exist.”

All that one can conclude from a lack of evidence – granting such is the case, which I dispute – is that “evidence does not support proposition x.” It would be unreasonable, in my mind, to extrapolate this into a dogmatic “therefore there is no designer.” This relates to what I just said above.

touchstone:

If you disagree, I’d be interested to know what the world would like for us such that it would be consonant with the Blind Hypothesis, in your view.

I think the evidence for a designer is compelling. This is all built on epistemology, and, since I am not a Kantian, and since I don’t follow any phenomenalist interpretations of knowledge (in fact I think things have been wrong since Descartes), it may be futile to go into my reasons.

I will say this, however.

The word blind is only used in conjunction with the idea we have of accuracy. That is, we only call a guess “blind” because we have some idea of an “educated” guess to compare it to. “Blind” is a word which means, conceptually, the same thing as “accidental.” I may be digging a grave, and “accidentally” find a gold coin for instance.

I don’t think it makes any sense – indeed, I find the notion unintelligible – to say that the process behind the universe is “blind” in this sense. That is, I think it meaningless to say that the universe works “accidentally” or “blindly,” because I think such notions can only be employed in reference to something purposeful, as in the case of the gold coin. To say that it is all blind seems to me like saying there is only one side of a coin.

The universe, as I see it, simply “does what it does.” But I do think inspection shows that “what it does” is intelligible and orderly. Effects proceed the same, or almost the same, or under a high degree of predictability, from certain causes. I think if the universe had no meaningful order, we would not find this to be the case. We could not even begin to predict patterns in nature or understand her. (This may devolve into epistemic issues.)

touchstone:

I see no evidence for a designer. But I can’t prove a universal negative. There might be such a being, and it just is extraordinarily good at hiding all markers of its existence, or creative influence. That’s not begging the question at all. That’s remaining open to the central question. It’s not settled. There’s nothing to convince me, but it still could be true.

-TS

Well, I would dispute the fact that such a designer is hiding. I remain unconvinced that macro-evolution has occured in the same way that modern science supposes it has. If the evidence is so obvious, I must be extremely stupid not to be able to follow it. I also think it metaphysically impossible for something to come from absolute nothing – that is, I think such a proposition can be reduced to absurdity --, and I think that anyone who says they think such a thing happened is *believing *in something far more unbelievable than the idea of a first cause, which seems to me eminently reasonable. I also think anyone who claims to believe that everything came from nothing has left the realm of demonstrative science, and is in the realm of conjecture.

 

[Touchstone]

I agree, but, even if such is not demonstrated, that doesn’t therefore “validate” the blind watchmaker hypothesis. Unless one wants to beg the question, both hypothesises are potentially true, and potentially false, but neither one is true a priori. Niether is one true if or because the other is false.

Right. That was the basis for my comment to Charlemagne II, which claimed that robots (with strong AI) are still the fruits of intentional design. Which they are, proximally, but those humans themselves may also be the products of impersonal “design” by nature. That’s the basic question, and neither the personal or impersonal design hypotheses are true a priori.

Well if it’s truly not falsifiable, I can’t see how anyone could reasonably hold the negative of the proposition to be actually true. One ought simply to leave the proposition alone, if (as you say) it cannot be proven true or false, for then neither could its contrary be proven true or false, since they are each a different side of the same coin. General agnosticism seems, to me, the most reasonable conclusion if you are correct.

No, unfalsifiable doesn’t implicate agnosticism, but rather just disregard. It isn’t a meaningful truth question if it’s not falsifiable, even in principle. Instead of agnosticism, apathy towards the claim. If I can’t possibly determine the falsehood of proposition X, even if it is false, then there’s no basis for talking about it in terms of false, or true.

The words “universal negative” are, as far as I can see, simply words used in smoke and mirror fashion.

Why would you say that? If I say, there is no marble in this milk carton, we can (on the common meanings of ‘marble’ and ‘milk carton’), conduct an exhaustive search of the milk carton in question, and determine if there is indeed a marble in side. I could prove a negative in that case, on those terms. But the “universal negative” case is different, fundamentally. We don’t have the bounds in place to know if we have conducted an exhaustive search, even if there is a practical way to do the search. We don’t even have a basic grasp of what an “exhaustive search” for a god would entail. So we are unable, in principle, to say such a god doesn’t exist. Unlike the marble in the milk carton, we cannot possibly say “we have done an adequate search to be highly confident it does not exist”.

There are two theories - either something designed the universe ,or something did not.

I understand you, but the phrasing assumes the existence of a “something” in either case. I say either:

a) something personal designed the universe
b) the universe came to be apart from the efforts of a personal designer

b) allows for the non-existence of the putative designer in a).

I don’t see how assent is justified to either proposition, without some evidence to go on, unless one wants to beg the question. When this happens, the opposing person is automatically viewed as begging the question – e.g., an atheist claims to simply see no evidence for a designer, in which case he simply “lacks belief.” On the other hand, a theist may as well say just the same, and claim it immediately obvious that there is a designer, in which case he “lacks belief” in a blind watchmaker, or no designer.

The question hinges on what reasonable grounds for identifying an “immediately obvious designer” are. If I claim there is a marble in my hand, even if you don’t believe me, we can, for example, subject the object to instrumentation – say a scale to weigh the putative object, the glass on metal noise I can make banging it round a tin cup that I’d not be able to make with my fingers alone, the witness of a disinterested, judge, etc.

All of these measures, measures which seek objective triangulation for settling any dispute, are trivial for establishing the ‘immediate obviousness’ of a marble. But the claims of God fail across the board. This just suggest we must then assess the epistemic merits of objective analysis over subjective and private claims.

The atheist and the theist are playin the same game. Both claims feel the burden of, against their respective claims, “proving a universal negative.”

What claim am I making that requires to prove a universal negative to discredit my claim? I missed that.

This is another begging of the question. You seem to be reasoning thusly: “we have never seen black swans, therefore, black swans to do not exist.”

That is excellent reasoning. Such claims are not, and cannot be, made with certainty. But in the absence of any black swans, that is the reasonable conclusion. The reasoning mind is corrigible in light of new evidence; when a black swan is found, if that should happen, then one changes one’s belief, reasonably, to “black swans DO exist”. But prior to that happening, “black swans do not exist” is the reasoned belief.

Consider: do unicorns exist, in your view? If no, on what grounds do you conclude they do not exist? I’m interested in your answer in light of your comment, here.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

The Exodus:

All that one can conclude from a lack of evidence – granting such is the case, which I dispute – is that “evidence does not support proposition x.”

I’m fine with that. This is the essence of atheism: the evidence does not support the proposition that a god exists.

It would be unreasonable, in my mind, to extrapolate this into a dogmatic “therefore there is no designer.” This relates to what I just said above.

I don’t advocate being dogmatic. That’s a religious vice. There may be a god, there may be unicorns. But the evidence for both is the same, and my conclusion about the reality of both is the same. If a god or a unicorn can be identified and shown to me, I will change my beliefs, and affirm, based on that evidence that indeed gods and/or unicorns exist.

I think the evidence for a designer is compelling. This is all built on epistemology, and, since I am not a Kantian, and since I don’t follow any phenomenalist interpretations of knowledge (in fact I think things have been wrong since Descartes), it may be futile to go into my reasons.

OK, I agree, based on past round-n-rounds we’ve had.

I will say this, however.

The word blind is only used in conjunction with the idea we have of accuracy. That is, we only call a guess “blind” because we have some idea of an “educated” guess to compare it to. “Blind” is a word which means, conceptually, the same thing as “accidental.” I may be digging a grave, and “accidentally” find a gold coin for instance.

“Blind” is a fairly casual term, and overloaded in mays that can be problematic, I agree. I prefer “undirected”. “Blind” gets picked up as a response to theistic metaphors, like “the watchmaker”. Contra Paley, you have “the blind watchmaker”. Maybe “the undirected process of the development of biological structures” is more accurate, but what it gains in precision it loses in poetic value.

I don’t think it makes any sense – indeed, I find the notion unintelligible – to say that the process behind the universe is “blind” in this sense. That is, I think it meaningless to say that the universe works “accidentally” or “blindly,” because I think such notions can only be employed in reference to something purposeful, as in the case of the gold coin. To say that it is all blind seems to me like saying there is only one side of a coin.

Now I’m confused. If I said that natural processes were “undirected”, as opposed to “blind”, would that be similarly problematic?

The universe, as I see it, simply “does what it does.” But I do think inspection shows that “what it does” is intelligible and orderly.

It is that, to some degree, by all accounts. We could not have this conversation if that were not true.

Effects proceed the same, or almost the same, or under a high degree of predictability, from certain causes. I think if the universe had no meaningful order, we would not find this to be the case. We could not even begin to predict patterns in nature or understand her. (This may devolve into epistemic issues.)

I can certainly imagine chaotic universes in which that would be true. But per the anthropic principle, if some universe was the “structured” on out of trillions that all that were unintelligible (for humans anyway), we’d be wondering what “Designer” put in all the structure we see. That is, the only universes where people wonder such things are universes which necessarily have hospitable conditions for such wondering.

But either way, that’s so far off anything we (or maybe just I) could stand on epistemically, it never rises to being anything more than notional.

Well, I would dispute the fact that such a designer is hiding. I remain unconvinced that macro-evolution has occured in the same way that modern science supposes it has. If the evidence is so obvious, I must be extremely stupid not to be able to follow it.

It’s not obvious, but I would say it’s compelling. A key feature of the science of evolution is ‘consilience’. There are so many pieces of the puzzle that fit together so cleanly, and in only that way, and shouldn’t fit together at all if the theory were not true, that it’s very difficult to resist when it’s reviewed. But there is no single “smoking gun movie of it happening” or some such that makes it obvious in the sense I think you mean it. Confidence in the theory correlates roughly with knowledge and familiarity with all the lines of evidence and avenues of inquiry that contribute to it, a compelling “forest” that is convincing, but has to be seen as a forest. No single tree will convince you of the forest.

I also think it metaphysically impossible for something to come from absolute nothing – that is, I think such a proposition can be reduced to absurdity --, and I think that anyone who says they think such a thing happened is *believing *in something far more unbelievable than the idea of a first cause, which seems to me eminently reasonable. I also think anyone who claims to believe that everything came from nothing has left the realm of demonstrative science, and is in the realm of conjecture.

I don’t claim to have any basis for such metaphysical claims. If something can come from nothing, how would I (or you) know that? I think it’s absurd to suppose we’d have any innate knowledge either way on that. If the metahysics are that “nothingness is metaphysically unstable”, in such a way that something is produced, I wouldn’t have a way to know that, anymore than I’d have a way to know that couldn’t be the case.

-TS

 

[The_Exodus]

Why would you say that? If I say, there is no marble in this milk carton, we can (on the common meanings of ‘marble’ and ‘milk carton’), conduct an exhaustive search of the milk carton in question, and determine if there is indeed a marble in side. I could prove a negative in that case, on those terms. But the “universal negative” case is different, fundamentally. We don’t have the bounds in place to know if we have conducted an exhaustive search, even if there is a practical way to do the search. We don’t even have a basic grasp of what an “exhaustive search” for a god would entail. So we are unable, in principle, to say such a god doesn’t exist. Unlike the marble in the milk carton, we cannot possibly say “we have done an adequate search to be highly confident it does not exist”.

You make many assumptions here, which are the equivalent of “we don’t x, y, z; nor have we any method of checking if there are other a, b, and c’s.” It is a general plea of agnosticism, which is used to justify some vague notion of a “universal negative.” And I have no idea what that phrase means, nor how you are using it.

touchstone:

I understand you, but the phrasing assumes the existence of a “something” in either case. I say either:

a) something personal designed the universe
b) the universe came to be apart from the efforts of a personal designer

b) allows for the non-existence of the putative designer in a).

The question assumes nothing. It is a bare question. Either something designed the universe, or something did not. Simply because one option involves the “non existence” of a designer does not therefore mean that the question itself implies one, far from it.

At most, the question assumes that it is meaningful. I see nothing meaningless about it, unless you want to demonstrate that it is in principle meaningless to ask questions which are not substantiated by analytic methods, or science. In which case I would ask you to demonstrate the meaningfulness of postivism as a philosophy or worldview, without begging the question yourself.

If this is another foray into linguistics, Wittgenstein, Ayer, et al. say so up front. I do not wish to waste my time running on the hamster’s wheel.

touchstone:

What claim am I making that requires to prove a universal negative to discredit my claim?

I was only pointing out that the burden of proof often shifts from one party to another, without either one advancing a position. In your case, you do not prove anything, yet advance the claim that no God exists.

But this conclusion is unwarranted, or, at least meaningless, if you have not brought forth reasons for thinking it true. It would be, as you said, a “don’t go there” conclusion, which I said we should be agnostic about, which you took issue with (incorrectly, imo.)

If you want to bring forth reasons for why you think the conclusion “God does not exist” is meaningful, I will gladly hear them.

touchstone:

That is excellent reasoning. Such claims are not, and cannot be, made with certainty. But in the absence of any black swans, that is the reasonable conclusion.

Says who? Once you give up certainty, you have to fall back on some criteria of subjective probability, which rests, on what?

The most reasonable thing to do – I am not saying what we do in practice, or practically speaking – but the most logical, strictly rational thing to do, speculatively considered, is to remain agnostic.

touchstone:

But prior to that happening, “black swans do not exist” is the reasoned belief.

This is plainly a fallacious inference, as John Stuart Mill rightly pointed out. At most, it only underscores your subjective desire to conclude an unknown proposition in a certain manner, or to bend it a certain way: i.e. “if I have not seen x, I think it reasonable to think x does not exist.”

For practical purposes, it may explain how our minds happen to work (we conveniently conclude that, since we have not seen x, it therefore does not exist), but logically and deductively speaking, it is as fallacious as it gets. It is an unwarranted “because” or “therefore.”

touchstone:

Consider: do unicorns exist, in your view? If no, on what grounds do you conclude they do not exist? I’m interested in your answer in light of your comment, here.

I have no idea.

 

[The_Exodus]

Now I’m confused. If I said that natural processes were “undirected”, as opposed to “blind”, would that be similarly problematic?

In my view, yes.

touchstone:

It’s not obvious, but I would say it’s compelling. A key feature of the science of evolution is ‘consilience’. There are so many pieces of the puzzle that fit together so cleanly, and in only that way, and shouldn’t fit together at all if the theory were not true, that it’s very difficult to resist when it’s reviewed.

I simply disagree, and stand by what I said earlier. I find the evidence povertous.

touchstone:

Confidence in the theory correlates roughly with knowledge and familiarity with all the lines of evidence and avenues of inquiry that contribute to it, a compelling “forest” that is convincing, but has to be seen as a forest. No single tree will convince you of the forest.

This would seem then to require that the will bend the mind in assent to its truth, since it is not seen as evidently certain. If that is the case, it seems to be you hold evolution as an an opinion?

Further, you must hold an awful lot of evidence for evolution on authority, no?

touchstone:

I don’t claim to have any basis for such metaphysical claims.

Do you live life constantly in fear that the law of contradiction is an apriori synthetic projection onto reality?

 

[Spock]

The replacement idea is a ubiquitous one, and once it’s brought up, it seems obvious, but I hadn’t considered the strength of the “incremental replacement” idea. It really goes to the basis for many objections, I think, which is that the the “digital brain” just can’t work because it’s… radical. The incremental strategy “deradicalizes” it and makes it much harder to resist, as there’s no (clear) step where one could say “it stopped being human right there”, as there clearly is in the case of a single-step brain switch from wetware to software/hardare.

We can “play the game” differently. Suppose that there is a huge, “old fashioned” computer, with an incredibly large database. We record trillions and quadrillions of conversations in it. When someone asks a starting question, the machine will search for it, and rattle off the pre-recorded answer. As the questions keep on coming, the machine searches for them in the proper environment, and answers accordingly. Obviously, this machine does not “think” in any way, shape or form. It is nothing more than billions of “parrots”, which rattle off the answers without understanding them.

The problem is, how do we know this? We cannot examine the internal workings of the machine, we have no access to the algorithm it uses. All we can do is make inferences from the conversation. It becomes a guessing game. The fundamental question is: how do we tell the “emulation” apart from the “real thing”? Is there a difference?

In a similar fashion, let’s take a human actor. A good actor can emulate all sorts of traits and emotions, he can pretend to be happy or sad, or devastated, or what have you. How do we know if those emotions are “real” or “pretended”? We cannot, since we have no access to his “internal” structure either. Even is did, the neural network is different from one individual to the next. Is there any good reason to assume that the displayed behavior is not “real”?

Lem had a great story on the subject: The seveth sally from the Cyberiad - fortunately it is available on-line. Highly recommended for everyone who likes deep philosophical questions.

Since we at it, I also recommed: Non Serviam, another one of Lem’s wonderful creations, which deals with artificial beings, “living” inside a computer, created by a scientist, but approaches the subject from a different point of view.

 

[Touchstone]

You make many assumptions here, which are the equivalent of “we don’t x, y, z; nor have we any method of checking if there are other a, b, and c’s.” It is a general plea of agnosticism, which is used to justify some vague notion of a “universal negative.” And I have no idea what that phrase means, nor how you are using it.

The notion isn’t vague. A ‘universal negative’ is just an unbounded search. There is no “end point” where we can say we have established the negative. It’s no more vague than the set of positive integers, as a concept. That too is unbounded, you will never count up and reach the end. There is no point at which we can stop searching for a god and say “we have reached the end of our search”. One can always suppose there’s yet some other supernatural way for a god to exist that we haven’t considered or can’t determine yet.

The question assumes nothing. It is a bare question. Either something designed the universe, or something did not. Simply because one option involves the “non existence” of a designer does not therefore mean that the question itself implies one, far from it.

At most, the question assumes that it is meaningful. I see nothing meaningless about it, unless you want to demonstrate that it is in principle meaningless to ask questions which are not substantiated by analytic methods, or science. In which case I would ask you to demonstrate the meaningfulness of postivism as a philosophy or worldview, without begging the question yourself.

If this is another foray into linguistics, Wittgenstein, Ayer, et al. say so up front. I do not wish to waste my time running on the hamster’s wheel.

As I read your formulation, “something” is the subject in both cases. If there is no designer, there is no ‘something’ to be the subject. That’s all.

I was only pointing out that the burden of proof often shifts from one party to another, without either one advancing a position. In your case, you do not prove anything, yet advance the claim that no God exists.

Yes, because the null hypothesis doesn’t carry the same burden as the claim “there is a God”. Do you suppose you have the burden of proof to show there is no teapot in orbit beyond Saturn, or that unicorns exist? To say X exists is not at epistemic parity with saying X doesn’t exist, or more precisely, we have no basis to say that X exists. My claim that unicorns do not exist (or that we have no basis to believe they exist) is not on par with your claim that they do exist. My belief can obtain without considering any evidence at all, and continues until the point that positive evidence negates it – the production of a unicorn, say. It is not the same in reverse. These are not epistemically symmetric positions. If they were, you’d be as much a unicornian as you are a theist.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

The Exodus:

But this conclusion is unwarranted, or, at least meaningless, if you have not brought forth reasons for thinking it true. It would be, as you said, a “don’t go there” conclusion, which I said we should be agnostic about, which you took issue with (incorrectly, imo.).

The lack of evidence for the positive claim of existence for X is a reason – the very best reason! – for thinking X doesn’t exist. Think about it: what would be the very best grounds you can conceive of for believing X does not exist?

If you want to bring forth reasons for why you think the conclusion “God does not exist” is meaningful, I will gladly hear them.

There’s no reason to think such a being does exist. It’s as clean as that. As above, there is no more solid ground for supposing God (or any X) does not exist.

Says who? Once you give up certainty, you have to fall back on some criteria of subjective probability, which rests, on what?

There was/is never any certainty to give up. We judge on the basis of the evidence, of course. If all known swans are non-black, and we have no other reasons to suppose black swans exist, we do not have certainty, but the evidence tilts heavily toward the belief that black swans do not exist. The “black swan caution” is against unreasonable confidence levels. If one just consults one’s own experience, the absence of black swans doesn’t cover much territory, and thus merits lower confidence. An rigorous search across the globe involving zoologists and biologists and ornithologists the world over would merit more confidence, though, even as it still leaves room for doubt – there’s nothing implausible about a swan with black feathers, after all. Other birds have them, for example, which suggests it is a possibility for swans.

The most reasonable thing to do – I am not saying what we do in practice, or practically speaking – but the most logical, strictly rational thing to do, speculatively considered, is to remain agnostic.

That only hold if we have the options “no idea” and “I’m certain”. Those aren’t our only options, though, and we incorporate the knowledge and evidence available to gauge our confidence in our beliefs, as the most rational, logical way to proceed. If I’m playing blackjack and I have 17 with a 6 up for the dealer’s up-card, I’m “agnostic” about what to do, on one level. I’m not certain what the next card is. It maybe a 4 giving me the best score of 21. It may be a 5 or higher, making me bust, and lose the hand.

Do I just choose “hit” or “stand” randomly, because I’m agnostic as to what the next card from the dealer is? No, you know I don’t. I have a greater confidence, based on the evidence available, that my prospects are better with “stand” than “hit”. I could be wrong, and it could go either way, but it’s not an epistemic tie as to what I should do.

This is plainly a fallacious inference, as John Stuart Mill rightly pointed out. At most, it only underscores your subjective desire to conclude an unknown proposition in a certain manner, or to bend it a certain way: i.e. “if I have not seen x, I think it reasonable to think x does not exist.”

I guess this just begs the question from you, then: what, if not that, is a reasonable basis for disbelief in X? If the complete lack of evidence for X doesn’t carry any weight, what would? Do you believe in Shiva and Vishnu as real gods? Why not, if not? What would be the basis for dismissing them as real?

For practical purposes, it may explain how our minds happen to work (we conveniently conclude that, since we have not seen x, it therefore does not exist), but logically and deductively speaking, it is as fallacious as it gets. It is an unwarranted “because” or “therefore.”

Only if we are hung up on certainty, which is a non-object, an irrelevant consideration, in my view. The black swan admonishment warns against certainty; the evidence doesn’t bring us certainty either way. But it does impact our conclusions and confidence levels when we reason from it.

I have no idea.

You have no idea if unicorns exist? Or you have no idea on what grounds you might conclude they don’t exist? Both are remarkable, but the latter seems quite debilitating. One can’t reasonably resist any claim of something existing, anything at all, without such.

-TS

 

[inocente]

“Body and soul dualism doesn’t figure in the faith”. So you don’t believe you have a soul which lives on past the death of the body? I don’t think that’s a standard position of born again Bapists, must be unique to the Spanish branch of Bapists

No it doesn’t say that at all ronnie . It’s fairly standard in sola scriptura to strip back and not want to invent explanations without due cause. God’s ways are not our ways, we prefer mystery to god-of-the-gaps. Sure we like working stuff out, but the mystery, the doubt and not knowing, to us that’s holy. If that sounds way too kooky and spiritual, it’s something we share with some atheists - see Fenyman the atheist’s poem about the wonderment of it all however we believe we got here. I’ve tried to debate this but for me it’s buried in non-verbal feelings and intuitions, either-you-see-it-or-you-don’t. Might pop over to Rome though and have a chat with the Pope, because from his writings I’m pretty sure he sees it too even though he disagrees on details.

What is the big deal with that Turing machine question? Your “thought experiment” isn’t even realistic. btw, something made out of silicon and silver that computes would indeed be a Turing machine, I’m not sure what the point of that question even was, did you mean to ask if it would pass a Turing Test?

I’m trying to pin down where and why people think the mind cannot emerge from matter alone. The Godel type of argument is negative, it doesn’t in itself propose a way forward in explaining mind. More positively, people appeal to x-factors according to taste such as QM interpretations, some unspecified feature of spatial layout or carbon chemistry, or the immaterial. Some go so far as to say that any explanation without their x-factor, no matter how thorough and well tested, will in some sense be deficient.

The thought experiment (not mine, don’t know who invented it) is useful in bringing out the reasoning behind putative x-factors.

Actually o’ humble one, that was NOT the question. The question was, would it be a Turing machine? And I said yes, this ridiculous and impossible to carry out thought experiment would result in a Turing machine.

The Turing question is subsidiary. The main point is if we change all the material and layout (by using VLSI chips) and the mind still works, we would need to discard most proposed x-factors (immaterial might still be on the table depending on whether it could still interface).

We’re then left with your p-zombie question – if someone with a silicon brain still behaves in every way as they did before, including reporting feelings and intellect, does it make any sense to say they somehow don’t have a mind when morally they remain human (outside of B-movies ).

 

[inocente]

By the way, I value and appreciate your posts.

Thanks, same right back at you, but realize I’m what’s often known here as a cafeteria relativist materialist para-Christian anathema .

 

[inocente]

I think the reason your position is unusual is that people naturally do want more than God creating a physical universe. That’s (for most theists I have known, including myself as a Christian for the first thirty-some years of my life) just not enough, and what is really desired are narratives and stories that cater to our intuitions, and ones that serve political and cultural needs in doing so.

Agreed, and on top of that a lot of Christians are prolific readers of what might be called Christian self-improvement books, they have piles of the things in their houses. Yet every painter knows less is more.

For example, it’s not enough to accept that God created a world where the physics are such that humans emerge as one of many diverse species over deep time through evolution. Such a (theistic evolutionist) view doesn’t deny God, and in fact provides some very elegant and profound theological advantages over special creationism. But because it isn’t really (or just) about God it is rejected, in favor of one’s intuition. I just knew that man was not a “monkey’s cousin” on some tree of life of the world’s species. Christianity provides succor of that intuition, if that’s what we want (you CAN be a theistic evolutionist, but there’s plenty of fodder to drive creationism beliefs for you, if that’s your goal).

A friend once said God would never do anything she couldn’t understand. Yikes!

I was thinking of asking for ronnie (et al) to comment on the prospects of the “Blue Brain Project”

IBM funds some great research. There was a team some years back at Yorktown Heights who investigated how sand grains avalanche (I think this is the abstract). Each grain has a unique geometry and exact prediction is of course impossible but they could do something on the probabilities. Now I may be misremembering and one of you knowledgeable guys might have to put me straight but I think the math for how traffic bunches on urban freeways is darned similar – in chaos a driver is no more in control of her destiny than a grain of sand.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Here is Mortimer J. Adler’s take on Mind over Matter. Interview by William F. Buckley

youtube.com/watch?v=wW-Pe…eature=related

 

[Charlemagne_II]

innocente

Agreed, and on top of that a lot of Christians are prolific readers of what might be called Christian self-improvement books, they have piles of the things in their houses. Yet every painter knows less is more.

That quite a handy slur on artists, isn’t it? You actually think painters don’t study the hell out of the masters before they improve themselves?

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

No it doesn’t say that at all ronnie . It’s fairly standard in sola scriptura to strip back and not want to invent explanations without due cause. God’s ways are not our ways, we prefer mystery to god-of-the-gaps. Sure we like working stuff out, but the mystery, the doubt and not knowing, to us that’s holy. If that sounds way too kooky and spiritual, it’s something we share with some atheists - see Fenyman the atheist’s poem about the wonderment of it all however we believe we got here. I’ve tried to debate this but for me it’s buried in non-verbal feelings and intuitions, either-you-see-it-or-you-don’t. Might pop over to Rome though and have a chat with the Pope, because from his writings I’m pretty sure he sees it too even though he disagrees on details.

I’m trying to pin down where and why people think the mind cannot emerge from matter alone. The Godel type of argument is negative, it doesn’t in itself propose a way forward in explaining mind. More positively, people appeal to x-factors according to taste such as QM interpretations, some unspecified feature of spatial layout or carbon chemistry, or the immaterial. Some go so far as to say that any explanation without their x-factor, no matter how thorough and well tested, will in some sense be deficient.

The thought experiment (not mine, don’t know who invented it) is useful in bringing out the reasoning behind putative x-factors.

The Turing question is subsidiary. The main point is if we change all the material and layout (by using VLSI chips) and the mind still works, we would need to discard most proposed x-factors (immaterial might still be on the table depending on whether it could still interface).

We’re then left with your p-zombie question – if someone with a silicon brain still behaves in every way as they did before, including reporting feelings and intellect, does it make any sense to say they somehow don’t have a mind when morally they remain human (outside of B-movies ).

p-zombie, even using the philosopher’s short-hand, pretty good. The big problem with this “silicon brain” scenario is the you couldn’t “replace” in a one-to-one correspondence each neuron in the brain with a silicon device along with silver wires for the axons and synapses, it wouldn’t work the same way as a brain, the brain is much more complex than that. IMHO a better thought experiment (I get this one from a book by Paul Davies, I don’t now if he originated it) would be to recreate biological neurons in the lab through nanotechnology and use these man-made artificial neurons to build a human brain from scratch. That would be interesting, what if you built this thing and transplanted it in a body, would this thing think exactly like a human being normally does? Would it be a p-zombie or would it lack true intellect and understanding? I can’t say, I will say that the likely theological position (anyway, those theologians of the non-Spanish Baptist variety ) would be that it is missing something, a soul (unless of course there’s still a soul associated with the body this artificial brain was transplanted into, maybe we need to create an artificial body too ). The bottom line is that bizarre thought experiments like this are totally unanswerable until they are actually carried out and we see real world results.

 

[mangy_dog]

Hey all,

I have a friend who argues that reason (and consciousness & free will, etc.) will eventually emerge out of computers/artificial intelligence, etc. And that, similarly, our reason “emerged” out of matter as well.

Not only do I find this vision horrifying - I also don’t agree with it. But I cannot quite say why.

Basically, what he seems to be saying is that if only substances/elements/circuits are arranged in a sufficiently complex fashion, a wholly different and independent thing emerges called consciousness/mind. No explanation is given for how this happens - much less why.

Can anyone suggest a way of articulating how and why this rather demonic vision is in error?

Thanks!

~cawbs

Your “feeling” is actually discernment. The reason why you feel that this is a demonic vision is because it is in direct opposition to God’s creative power.

Reason, free will, consciouness, intellect etc are powers of our soul. Our soul was created by God and infused into us at the moment of conception. God creates something from nothing.

God doesn’t need raw materials to create - He simply pronounces (Logos) and it comes into existence.

Your friend is saying that “raw materials” are needed to create something [conscious]. AI does not qualify because AI is …artificial. And contrary to the human soul - which will live forever - AI will cease to be because it is artificial therefore temporary.

It is a dangerous way of thinking because of how convoluted it sounds. And because to the “untrained listener” it seems to make sense.

You however, have recieved discernment from God…that’s why you feel uncomfortable hearing this demonic rhetoric.

God bless you my friend.

 

[ronnie_bonigli]

Here is Mortimer J. Adler’s take on Mind over Matter. Interview by William F. Buckley

youtube.com/watch?v=wW-Pe…eature=related

Charlemagne here’s a link to Mortimer Adler’s essay Is Intellect Immaterial

bookofjob.org/aonimmaterialintell.htm

 

[mangy_dog]

whooooo eeeee!!!

This part of the forum should be changed from philosopy to “Brainiacs & Master Cylinders”.

Adios everyone.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

ronnie

Thanks for the reference to Adler.

*The bottom line is that bizarre thought experiments like this are totally unanswerable until they are actually carried out and we see real world results. *

Continuing with the thought experiment, I can see how a brain could be created (programmed) to include logical processes. Could it be programmed to include imagination, pleasure, humor, virtue and sin? Etc.? I mean, is thought the same as soul, or is thought a particular function of the soul?

As Adler suggested, if you are in a dark room talking with a computer who sounded like another human being, no matter how sophisticated the computer, would you not sooner or later realize that you were talking with a computer rather than a human?

I found this to be the most intriguing paragraph from Adler’s essay;

There is another way of saying this. As the eye or ear, together with the brain, are sense-organs, the brain itself is not a mind-organ; or, more precisely, the brain is not an intellect-organ. The most that can be said of the brain in relation to the human mind is that it is an intellect-support organ upon which the intellect depends, without which it cannot think, but with which it does not think.