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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Go-B: . . . the Bible has the Greatest Stories Ever Told
I'm sure that Paul and Sycorax could say much more than I about that. I studied more Shakespeare than I ever studied the Bible (as literature and wisdom). When I was an undergraduate, there was already the move to more secular expressions than clerical ones in literature. So sure, the Bible was important, but among all my coursework for a degree in English Literature, I only remember the Bible being referenced rather than read and studied. I wish it would have been otherwise. I also wish I had chosen courses more in Greek and Roman literature to have a broader view of mythology. Instead, I chose courses in more modern writing. Had I not been greatly impressed by one scholar's rigor and discipline, I never would have chosen courses (by him) in Shakespeare.
In time, I decided not to go to law school but business school instead, and then Economics got a hold of me. It probably took a couple of decades of training and writing to return to studies in humanities. Funny how things come back around to beginnings.
As a teacher, manager, and officer in the Army, I've seen people go wrong in many situations. They act out, they fall into ways of "being" that hurt them, they join-up with other damaged marauding souls, they become self-abusive in many different ways--and these in all stages of life (early, middle, aged). But the majority of my experiences in these areas have shown me that if a person has had a good foundation from their family / parents, they finally aright themselves. I guess this has tended to make me a conservative of sorts. One can teach the mechanics of being a rational adult human being all day long, but if one hasn't had healthy and respectful values established in their childhood, then the values must be personally discovered--and I find that process is very hard to do by oneself alone. If, on the other hand, if one has had a "wholesome" upbringing, they are like sailboats that have been turned upside-down by heavy seas: their design will aright themselves in time.
Be well.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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If, on the other hand, if one has had a "wholesome" upbringing, they are like sailboats that have been turned upside-down by heavy seas: their design will aright themselves in time.
Very true, and well said. Children growing up must have adults around them who are decent people, who impart, mostly by example, how one functions optimally in relation to oneself and others.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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as above, so below
I guess we have parents up there and down here.
And they are both very accessible.
Try it sometime in your quiet moments.
And how do you know it is really them?
Empty awareness is not so empty, unless you want it that way.
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Another excellent post, Mike. You're on a roll!
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 4, 2017 - 06:58pm PT
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Largo has done a lot of rubbing...
but aren't you all tired going around in circles on this... Largo hasn't anyway to demonstrate his "first person" and gave up on that, but insists that it is a science. It is not, and I am not saying that in a dismissive manner, just that what he talks about isn't science. He should get over it... science envy is unbecoming of him.
Ed, you're so locked into your scientism you project it even on me, in that now I am envious of any duffer with six pens in their Sears button down short sleeved shirt. Please.
And insisting that since one can't demonstrate a 1st person POV as a 3rd person demonstration/external object, the only thing we can conclude is that we are circling. Getting down to business can only mean getting back to the real lifting: 3rd person measuring. Why don't YOU quit circling in that hole and dig into the core of this discussion, rather than just carping about the lack of figures?
I'll bust out something soon to kick start things again.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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I'll bust out something soon to kick start things again
We eagerly await a new approach.
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WBraun
climber
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There's nothing new since you guys never even started anything except mental projections and denials that your minds which you do not control which are accepting and rejecting are guiding you.
There's only one way to take hold of the steering wheel.
That is to turn it.
You guys just sit there and guess how to take hold of that steering wheel and never do ......
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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That's because it lies broken, covered with moss and slime, at the bottom of CatTail Crossing. I fear JL will try to fish it out . . .
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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Another excellent post, Mike. You're on a roll!
+1 Nice narrative, MikeL!
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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The Book of Books
by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.” (Genesis 5:1)
The Bible (literally “the book”) contains over 200 references to books. This implies, among other things, God’s approval of communication by books. Our text, containing the first mention of the word “book” in the Bible, indicates that the very first man wrote a book! “Give attendance to reading,” Paul recommends (1 Timothy 4:13), especially the Holy Scriptures (2 Timothy 3:15-17).
The pattern of first and last mentions of “book” in the Bible is noteworthy, for all refer to divinely written or divinely inspired books. The first use in the New Testament is in the very first verse—“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ” (Matthew 1:1). The book of Adam’s “generations” is, in a special sense, the Old Testament; the book of the generation of Jesus Christ—the last Adam—is, in a similar sense, the New Testament.
The final mention of “book” in the Old Testament is in Malachi 3:16: “A book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.”
The third-from-last verse of the New Testament contains no less than three references to God’s books: “If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, . . . and from the things which are written in this book” (Revelation 22:19).
Note the significant modifiers attached to these six key references: “the book of the generations of Adam,” “a book of remembrance,” “the book of the generation of Jesus Christ,” “the book of this prophecy,” “the book of life,” and finally, simply “this book”! HMM http://www.icr.org/article/9714/
...read the Good Book!
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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The Call of the Mountain - Arne Næss
Interesting stuff should be on the religion thread as well.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Here's an approach JL might consider:
Voices in Our Heads
I assume Zen meditation muffles these voices or renders them unimportant.
How many of us talk to ourselves?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I'm not circling, I'm driving in a straight line...
no need to speculate about metaphorical steering wheels...
Hey Werner! how do you translate "steering wheel" into sanskrit? here's the hindi स्टीयरिंग व्हील
looks so much better that way!
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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A lot of thread drift here. Some of the religious quotes might be better on the religion vs science thread. But no matter. Perhaps they could be linked somehow to mind. We await JL and a new approach to the subject.
No flaccid designators though.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2017 - 10:40am PT
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In 1999, Hard AI apologist, futurist and scam artist, Ray Kurzweil, of Kurzweil Industries, published a book called "The Age of Spiritual Machines." The book was full of magnificent claims about sentient machines but the suppositions were mostly bogus and ill-conceived and Kurzweil was excoriated by that bright and hilarious old curmudgeon, John Searle. The gist of his refutation is as follows:
"I cannot recall reading a book in which there is such a huge gulf between the spectacular claims advanced and the weakness of the arguments given in their support. Kurzweil promises us our minds downloaded onto decent hardware, new bodies made of better stuff, evolution without DNA, better sex without the inconvenience of actual partners, computers that convince us that they are conscious, and above all personal immortality. The main theme of my review is that the existing technological advances that are supposed to provide evidence in support of these predictions, wonderful though they are, offer no support whatever for these spectacular conclusions. In every case the arguments are based on conceptual confusions. Increased computational power by itself is no evidence whatever for consciousness in computers."
That was eighteen years ago and instead of clearing the air, many Hard AI geeks have simply tried to bolster Kurzweil's original bullsh#t, and so a few years ago Searle and another Oxford academic tried to clear the air once more. The presentation is interesting to anyone interested in the study of mind, and is found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6o_7HeowY8
While I disagree with many of Searle's ideas and concepts, he is a keen thinker with a vast knowledge and scholarship of the pertinent issues, and clearly recognizes a key thing about AI: That the entire field is an invaluable tool for studying mind, but that simulation is NOT duplication, and that conflating computation and sentactical processing with conscious intelligence (related to "semantics" when used by Searle, who began with math and language expert, Ludwig Wittgenstein) is a fatal error for research going forward. But I'll hold off on any additional discussion till some readers get jiggy with the material presented in the video.
There is a longish prelude to Searle you can skip and find the money about seven minutes in.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 15, 2017 - 01:13pm PT
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Searle is a philosopher. He is not likely to have much influence on people working on hardware and software to make advances in computer science.
I cannot recall reading a book in which there is such a huge gulf between the spectacular claims advanced and the weakness of the arguments given in their support.
Has he looked at the Bible?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 15, 2017 - 01:36pm PT
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That the entire field is an invaluable tool for studying mind, but that simulation is NOT duplication, and that conflating computation and sentactical processing with conscious intelligence (related to "semantics" when used by Searle, who began with math and language expert, Ludwig Wittgenstein) is a fatal error for research going forward.
this is a basic canard, with all due respect, and it is especially interesting because Largo is on both sides of the argument, obviously confused.
A scientific theory is an explanation of how a physical system works. That is, you provide input to calculations that are defined by the theory and the output is a prediction of the response of that system.
So when we implement the calculations in a computer "simulation" we expect to be able to test the answers of this simulation, comparing them with data. Since both the input information and the theory are "finite" that is, we can quantify our uncertainty regarding them, the output also is finite, as is the data we are measuring against. We have to define what we mean by "agreement" of the calculation and the observation.
But when all is said and done, we say that our theory is either in agreement with observation (is consistent with observation) or it is not. A successful theory is consistent with observation, that is, it reliably predicts the behavior of the system.
Now we understand that the simulation "is not the physical system" but successful theories, upon which the simulations are built, are predictive, which means they can perform the same as the "physical system."
Such a simulation of "mind," were it to be successful, would produce behavior we associate with "mindfulness." Before totally objecting to this, ponder the meaning of the clause: "were it to be successful".
Now whether or not we can "download" the state of a specific mind into the simulation is another issue, but a side issue I believe.
The major objection that I get from the philosophers, and from Largo, is that there is something subjective called "experience" that cannot be so reproduced.
However, our access to that subjective state is only reported by our accounts of it, our behavior, so it is entirely possible that that behavior could be simulated. Our only objection is to assert that the machine cannot have "experience" because it is a machine. This would posit that mind is a totally unique phenomenon occurring in humans only. While this may be true, we suspect that it is a particularly biased view, and instances of this bias include times when the humanity of "others" was doubted, largely due to the inability of groups of humans to communicate. This later point illustrates the importance of describing what is "on our minds" to others.
That "specialness" is a weak argument, made weaker by the assumption, which is probably a good one, that we somehow know that other people have "experience." The weakness is that that knowledge posits some objective definition, an agreement among many, that such a thing as "experience" is universal among humans. If it is objective, it will have to be successfully simulated.
Confronted with the possibility that "machines simulate have minds," it is easy to simply state that this what they have is not "mind," they only "appear" to have it. This appeals to the thing we take to be "subjective experience" as a counter argument, all the while knowing that we have no knowledge of what this means, that is, people might only "appear" to have minds too.
This is the point that what we define as "mind" isn't what we actually have... that "mind" is a more complex behavior, and that our "theory of mind" is a perception that exists, precisely to predict what other minds will do. This perception is valuable, and accurate, but it is not the phenomenon of mind.
Right now, though philosophy tries to sharpen the argument against a physical mind, the possibility of some empirical approach cannot be ruled out, that is, it is not impossible that mind may be a physical phenomenon, and physical phenomenon can be described theoretically, and those theories can be implemented as simulations, ergo AI.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 15, 2017 - 02:40pm PT
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. . . conflating computation and sentactical processing with conscious intelligence (related to "semantics" when used by Searle, who began with math and language expert, Ludwig Wittgenstein) is a fatal error for research going forward
If and when the "point of singularity" is attained the very notion of "mind" or "consciousness" may become obsolete. Can you imagine JL answering a knock on his door, opening it to admit Mr. Robot, and then trying to convince Mr. Robot that "it" is not conscious, while fending off counter-arguments? For every question John asks, Mr. Robot has precisely the answer that would be given by a human. Each protagonist would advance philosophical arguments the other would refute. Questions about "feelings" and appreciation of poetry would be deftly handled by Mr. Robot, leaving the conversation spiraling into a black hole from which no enlightenment emerges.
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