Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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good friend Werner, you've made your point that life is something special
from a science point of view that is consistent with all we know
but it is not a unique hypothesis
the scientific explanation is also consistent with all we know, and while a demonstration of direct creation of life would be convincing to some, the power of such a thing would be a test of our understanding regarding life, essentially the definition of life. (by the way, the demonstration of synthetic life has already been claimed in the scientific literature).
your point-of-view and the corresponding scientific one both result in a series of predictions that can be tested... one essentially by construction, the other by a combination of inference and deduction. One is fixed, the other changeable based on the outcome of the tests. One is fixed in time from thousands of years of human tradition, the other in the process of evolving and expanding.
We've each made a choice as to which we would follow.
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WBraun
climber
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That's what we are doing, Werner, right here on this thread.
No you're not.
Just mental speculations.
One has to put their whole "life" and being into it.
Just as Albert Hofmann ingested the LSD into his own self as an example.
Not that he speculated indefinitely about how it is by the word and experiences of others ......
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nobel Prize Awarded to Researchers in Stem Cells.
This kind of manipulation of life is bound to bring new insights and new ethical challenges.
"The Nobel Prize in Medicine has just been given to a British and a Japanese for discovering that mature, specialized cells of the body can be reprogrammed into stem cells — a discovery that scientists hope to turn into new treatments.
The prize committee at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said the discovery has "revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop."
Gurdon showed in 1962 that the DNA from specialized cells of frogs, like skin or intestinal cells, could be used to generate new tadpoles. That showed the DNA still had its ability to drive the formation of all cells of the body.
More than 40 years later, in 2006, Yamanaka showed that a surprisingly simple recipe could turn mature cells back into primitive cells, which in turn could be prodded into different kinds of mature cells.
Basically, the primitive cells were the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, which had been embroiled in controversy because to get human embryonic cells, human embryos had to be destroyed. Yamanaka's method provided a way to get such primitive cells without destroying embryos.
Just last week, Japanese scientists reported using Yamanaka's approach to turn skin cells from mice into eggs that produced baby mice."
http://news.yahoo.com/gurdon-yamanaka-win-nobel-medicine-prize-094102812.html
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WBraun
climber
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(by the way, the demonstration of synthetic life has already been claimed in the scientific literature)
No scientific advancement of material science can ever produce a living being.
Synthesizing life is an example of God.
Every living entity has all qualities of God but not the quantity.
Thus you can "create" some synthetic life but not the original.
The Synthesizer is the life force starting next chain in the experiment.
Without an original "life force" to start the process nothing will happen.
Life comes from life.
Put all the individual chemicals and ingredients on the table and nothing will happen until you start the process.
By themselves without your original actions onto them in the Synthesizing process they will remain incomplete.
The scientist becomes the "life force" initiator that starts the process in the synthesizing experiment.
In the end the experiment is "Synthetic" ...... Largos Frankenstein analogy ......
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Dr. F.
Ice climber
SoCal
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 8, 2012 - 09:54am PT
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Werner
Not pertaining to the just the post above,
all you are doing is spiritual speculating
everything you just wrote was created in your mind, no where can those things be found in the reality we all see around us.
In hip terms, it's called "crazy talk"
I have no idea what the hell your talking about, Why should I?
we haven't read about it, or seen it on TV, it makes zero sense
You've read a bunch of books, and got some info from some groups of people you hung out with, and created Your Own religion, it's obvious
Why should we believe your religion?
Lay it out for us in detail, and we can check it out for ourselves, and point out the flaws or strengths
By the way, I'm a certified Skeptic, and belong to the Skeptical Society, I will put up a link,
Many here need to a good dose of reality, and you can either go the deprogramming way, or the DIYS Skeptical Movement.
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WBraun
climber
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Dr F -- "I have no idea what the hell your talking about"
That's true, you don't.
You've read a bunch of books, and got some info from some groups of people you hung out with, and created Your Own religion.
Look who's guessing again and making up pure bullsh!t based on that guessing again.
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Dr. F.
Ice climber
SoCal
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 8, 2012 - 09:59am PT
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You didn't read a bunch of books?
You just came up with your ideas on your own?
The spirirtual speculating is then 100% of what you post then.
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WBraun
climber
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Become a real scientist for a change ......
Dr F -- "Many here need to a good dose of reality, and you can either go the deprogramming way, or the DIYS Skeptical Movement."
LOL now that's funny .....
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Werner is not making stuff up off of the top of his head. Even Ed notes that he is following a thousands of years old tradition. Personally I have very much appreciated his comments over the course of these threads as it has been a great review of Indian philosophical wisdom, sometimes missed perhaps, because of the colloquial American presentation. If you were now to read a more formal Hindu philosophy, you'd be surprised at how much of it would sound familiar already, thanks to Werner.
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Truthdweller
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Try this Ed, leaving your literary dogma aside and using scripture...why is that most choose to just step aside from it?
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Donald Thompson
Trad climber
Los Angeles,CA
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your point-of-view and the corresponding scientific one both result in a series of predictions that can be tested... one essentially by construction, the other by a combination of inference and deduction. One is fixed, the other changeable based on the outcome of the tests. One is fixed in time from thousands of years of human tradition, the other in the process of evolving and expanding.
Proof that Mr. Hartouni is both a philosopher, and a diplomat.
LOL
Question: is the assertion that a God does not exist a "construction" or a deductive inference?
I do not ask this question as a polemical 'dig' but rather as a clarification of the wall of separation of church and state ,as it were, (whimsically put )in the mind of a scientist. In other words, to what degree and magnitude are your convictions on the ultimate nature of reality informed and influenced by your scientific outlook and activities ?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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by "special" I am referring to the idea that nothing more than what we take as an objective, physical reality is required to "explain" humans. Humans are not exceptions in nature, they are a part of nature, one and the same.
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Kindly supply an objective, physical explanation for sentience - countering the current neuroscience contention that they have "no idea whatsoever" how experience is "created" in the brain.
I would agree that consciousness is a part of Nature - how could it be otherwise. The point here is that there is a contention that consciousness is "created" as a kind of output by the brain. This is pure materialism, that hasn't so far panned out per sentience. The staunch will insist that energy itself originates as mass converted to energy in nuclear reactions, either fission or fusion. In this way everything has an antecedent material "cause." The idea that there are uncreated, unborn and eternal qualities (energy being one) is lost on this belief system.
It's also interesting to look at the notion that Nature in strictly limited to purely physical phenomenon, that all else is either supernatural or unnatural. Experience itself is hardly material in the normal sense, unless you collapse objective and subjective and call them the same "things," but this is a clear and facile cheat that is hardly worth serious consideration.
Largo has yet to respond as to how he knows I'm conscious...
--
I did, but you didn't understand it. But I will try another track soon as I have time to dig back into the Turing experiment. The flaws in the basic assumption in that experiment underscore the answer to your question.
JL
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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BB: My question is; IS THEIR TRUTH, THEIR EXPERIENCE?
(As for being unclear, sorry: narcotics and pain.)
I think your question is: Does experience constitute truth?
The short answer is Yes, of course it does.
Truth is an idea that we're especially oriented to. (Here's where my head is at today.)
We live in a postmodern and pluralistic world. That has come to undermine notions of absolute truths in all disciplines and lines of thinking (religion, science, ethics, beauty). Nietzsche trumpeted that God was dead, and with it all codes of morality and law: what was left to Man was a will to power and doing what thou wilt. This rather anti-enlightenment movement, like a virus, infected everything. Before you knew it, nothing was authoritatively sacred--not science, education, religion, culture, etc. There appear to be no absolute truths, to include this very statement.
What's left? Well, nothing.
One good thing is that spiritualism has become released from religion's restrictions. So, what is spiritualism? Spiritualism ends up to be many forms of subjectivity. Experience has always been the core of religion, but without on-running direct subjective experiences opening minds and hearts, religion became a dead outer hull of spiritualism.
What kind of spiritual experiences are we talking about here?
(i) Mu: a suspense of judgement, a state of non-thought or non-clinging to thought, a pure contemplation arising from deconstructing all theory and cutting through all assumptions, bringing thought to a standstill. This results in a letting go (emptying out) of knowledge and belief - the conventional world of opinions--and results in a non-dualistic non-ontological awareness meaning that collapses everyday divisive ontological dualisms (us-versus-them, self-versus-world, man-versus-god, freedom-versus-fate, mind-set or mentality). It is pure openness and a receptivity to "is'ness." Emptiness is like a black hole: it sucks up everything into a zero-dimensional unity. Emptiness is a state of free existential beauty arising spontaneously that can be accessed everywhere and in anything. (See "Wa")
(ii) Wa: Reality appears to be empty, yet we perceive it continuously as a rich tapestry. As a totally captivating picture, as a dance, every "thing" and "event" plays a crucial part in a beautiful and harmonious whole. Everything is a necessary thread in the tapestry spun from gold. Wa comes from a transcendental solipsism, the gold pristine experience. Life and reality appear to be an ongoing creation of some kind, perhaps from an absolute Self. Wa is restored in and from Mu.
(iii) A spiritual practice of beauty consists of an ongoing interaction between meditative silence and non-volitional participation in infinitely pervasive inter-dependence. An emphasis on beauty rather than truth obtains from advancing aesthetic creativity as an art form rather than devotion to metaphysical creeds, truths, or faiths, or pre-given structures, or handed-down dogmas, or established institutions, or authoritarian laws, or objective moral codes. Spirituality can be an aesthetic preference. It is an extreme form of anarchism, but of an enlightened sort for grown-ups.
A focus on truth is . . . well, a focus on truth. Believe it or not there are other things than truth. As for truth, who can say for others what it is? The wonderful thing about aesthestics is that we all realize that no one can say what is beautiful for another. It's just not needed.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Seems as though in this country there's a real agenda to strip away our freedom of choice.
It tries to limit our ability for freethinking by putting us in a box. I.E. if I can label you, you are condemned within these four walls. Example; I am most offended by the homosexual group for taking away our language and symbols and putting them in their box. Then that what they do in their bedrooms. I can't count the number of times I've had to prove I wasn't a homophobe for using the word "queer" or "gay" to describe something.Or to talk about a beautiful rainbow. These terms have become synonymous with being a Homo. I feel this decreases our ability to express our selves.
Drf wrote:
"Science would advocate that the Bible is Not the word of God"
I argue that, the more I know of science the more it confirms my faith in God. Just because scientist can't prove there's a God right now don't think for a moment it's not trying to.
By you saying; science does not publicly support the Bible being the word of God. You are telling the world that all scientists do not believe the Bible. This is a lie. You are trying to take all of science and it's reputable honor and fit it into your box. Thuss limiting the minds ability to think outside the box. And bring deception to the uninformed. This is not only a trait of negativity but also that of the ego. Not being responsible for one's own Conscience. You don't have the capacity to show love for your opposition. Which is a trait of Christianity.
But I say to you who hear; love your enemies do good to those who hate you...
Who said that? oh yeah, Jesus!
Jus Think'in
BB
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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The flaws in the basic assumption in that experiment underscore the answer to your question.
generalize Largo, what you wrote was that the premise that a machine could be built to fool a human into believing that it was human was an impossibility. You offered no proof of that, but that wasn't what I was asking about the Turing Test.
Implicit in the Turing Test is also the presumption that humans can tell if something else is human. There is the artificial (at least for the moment) separation of the two "individuals" in separate rooms in order not to tip off the machine like nature of one contestant to the other (in the classical Turing Test). This is a generalization of a parlor game in which one asks a set of questions which are conveyed to a person, and the answers conveyed back with the task being to determine whether or not that person is male or female.
Once again, the interesting point is how do we actually know?
In the Generalized Turing Test I would pose the question to you (in variation):
How do you know that someone else has experiences?
How do you know that someone else is conscious?
How do you know that someone else is sentient?
that is, how do you know someone else experiences life in a manner similar to you? aside from the details of those experiences.
Please be specific in your answer.
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MH2
climber
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Just as Albert Hofmann ingested the LSD into his own self as an example.
Ingesting this thread is similar. LSD is just a molecule.
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the Fet
climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
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Ed wrote:
how do you know someone else experiences life in a manner similar to you?
That's a big part of why I'm an agnostic. I don't know if they've experienced things that I haven't that have led them to different beliefs.
I try not to denigrate others for their beliefs because I don't know what they've experienced. I draw the line however when someone's beliefs lead them to bigoted actions which negatively affect someone else.
I've been open to and listened to various viewpoints that there is something out there supernatural, but nothing has ever held up. Circular reasoning, fear, and faulty arguments don't do it for me. I really don't see anything wrong with a universe that is the result of good old nature, except of course that when we die that's the end, but I can face that.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Question: is the assertion that a God does not exist a "construction" or a deductive inference?
From my own point of view, the non-existence of God/gods has to do with an induction rather than a deduction. God/gods have been used to explain various phenomena and behavior, various origins, etc, for a very long time. Taking God/gods as a "primary cause" then, one can quickly perform the exercise of understanding whether or not God/gods need be involved in everything that goes on...
As our scientific knowledge expands, less is required of God/gods... an example of having God/gods and an objective universe subject to scientific understanding is the Diest standpoint that the universe was initially constructed and then let to "play out," the initial architect being God/gods, who then has no role in the outcome.
The inductive step is the decreasing scientific uncertainties of natural phenomena, where you can count consciousness, life, before-the-big-bang as three examples which have been offered here as demonstrations (if not proof) that science has limits. However we do not know, nor can we prove that science cannot explain these things.
Let me assume that science will, then God/gods are pushed back even further, to explain things which escape our ability, albeit for a limited time, to provide a scientific explanation.
So let's assume again that such a thing has happened... does it disprove God/gods exist(s)? No, since by construction God/gods could co-exist with any set of science, it is the nature of constructing a definition of God/gods, that is, to posit it/their existence in such a manner to be completely consistent with what we know.
However, for the purpose of explaining things, one does not have to resort to God/gods at all. One can choose whether or not the concept is useful for oneself, it is not necessary to invoke God/gods' existence in order for the universe to exist as it does with us in it.
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go-B
climber
2 Timothy 1:9-10 Psalm 119:83
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The Universal Grace of God
http://www.gty.org/resources/questions/QA194/The-Universal-Grace-of-God
The Universal Grace of God
John MacArthur
In what sense is God’s love universal? What aspects of God’s love and goodwill are seen even in His dealings with the reprobate?
There are at least four ways that God’s love is manifest universally to all people. Today we will consider the first.
Common Grace
Common grace is a term theologians use to describe the goodness of God to all mankind universally. Common grace restrains sin and the effects of sin on the human race. Common grace is what keeps humanity from descending into the morass of evil that we would see if the full expression of our fallen nature were allowed to have free reign.
Scripture teaches that we are totally depraved—tainted with sin in every aspect of our being (Rom. 3:10–18). People who doubt this doctrine often ask, “How can people who are supposedly totally depraved enjoy beauty, have a sense of right and wrong, know the pangs of a wounded conscience, or produce great works of art and literature? Aren’t these accomplishments of humanity proof that the human race is essentially good? Don’t these things testify to the basic goodness of human nature?”
And the answer is no. Human nature is utterly corrupt. “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9). Unregenerate men and women are “dead in … trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). All people are by nature “foolish … disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending [their lives] in malice” (Titus 3:3). This is true of all alike, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).
Common grace is all that restrains the full expression of human sinfulness. God has graciously given us a conscience, which enables us to know the difference between right and wrong, and to some degree places moral constraints on evil behavior (Rom. 2:15). He sovereignly maintains order in human society through government (Rom. 13:1–5). He enables us to admire beauty and goodness (Ps. 50:2). He imparts numerous advantages, blessings, and tokens of His kindness on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt. 5:45). All of those things are the result of common grace, God’s goodness to mankind in general.
Common grace ought to be enough to move sinners to repentance. The apostle Paul rebukes the unbeliever: “Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4). Yet because of the depth of depravity in the human heart, all sinners spurn the goodness of God.
Common grace does not pardon sin or redeem sinners, but it is nevertheless a sincere token of God’s goodwill to mankind in general. As the apostle Paul said, “In Him we live and move and exist … for we also are His offspring” (Acts 17:28). That takes in everyone on earth, not just those whom God adopts as sons. God deals with us all as His offspring, people made in His image. “The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works” (Ps. 145:9).
If you question the love and goodness of God to all, look again at the world in which we live. Someone might say, “There’s a lot of sorrow in this world.” The only reason the sorrow and tragedy stand out is because there is also much joy and gladness. The only reason we recognize the ugliness is that God has given us so much beauty. The only reason we feel the disappointment is that there is so much that satisfies.
When we understand that all of humanity is fallen and rebellious and unworthy of any blessing from God’s hand, it helps give a better perspective. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail” (Lam. 3:22, NIV). And the only reason God ever gives us anything to laugh at, smile at, or enjoy is because He is a good and loving God. If He were not, we would be immediately consumed by His wrath.
Acts 14 contains a helpful description of common grace. Here Paul and Barnabas were ministering at Lystra, when Paul healed a lame man. The crowds saw it and someone began saying that Paul was Zeus and Barnabas was Hermes. The priest at the local temple of Zeus wanted to organize a sacrifice to Zeus. But when Paul and Barnabas heard about it, they said,
Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you in order that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them. And in the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness (vv. 15–17, emphasis added).
That is a fine description of common grace. While allowing sinners to “go their own ways,” God nevertheless bestows on them temporal tokens of His goodness and lovingkindness. It is not saving grace. It has no redemptive effect. Nevertheless, it is a genuine and unfeigned manifestation of divine lovingkindness to all people.
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