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jstan
climber
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:20pm PT
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Blu:
Your last post poses a question demanding an answer How do you imagine your having fifteen unregistered weapons buried in your back yard, will induce bliss among the people around you? You have people very important to you. Suppose they stumble on one of the weapons and start to play with it. Surely there are no shells buried with them? I hate to be practical but in this case to be so seems necessary.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:29pm PT
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Knowledge corresponds to the perceptual states that produce them (ala, direct experience). You need a body to have consciousness.
reminds me of how we teach our dogs. i could direct my Heeler with a point of the finger. Or with a tone make him scoure, or become estatic.
Nice post:)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:33pm PT
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I don't think you may have gotten the full jist of his post? maybe you did.
But your's seems like a copout for an exploring scientist. You've already given up on the "hard question"?
the full gist? he asks about the "meaning of life" and my answer was "life is the meaning of life" there isn't any more meaning than that.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:35pm PT
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Then again, those old Vedic and Kundalini dudes did seem to have more than a glimmer of a clue about the functionality of the nervous and endocrine systems.
they knew nothing of what you mean when you write "nervous and endocrine systems"
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:36pm PT
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We are on "automatic pilot" much of our lives. I once read a piece about the Zen of Driving in which the author referred to his autopilot as "George." George would take over and allow the driver to contemplate, converse, listen to the radio, etc. with occasional input to George's performance when needed. After reading the article I designated my own "George" and let him perform. He was pretty damn competent.
These days I take a bunch of pills, and if I am not focused to some extent on this menial task I may wonder a half hour later if I took them. So it's not unusual when we turn on the autopilot to not remember everything that transpired while it functioned. Habit and instinct allow us a respite from overseeing many mechanical tasks. And this in turn allows some of us to become focused artists, writers, and scientists . . . and ducks.
Read Shakespeare . . . . Ed is not God, btw. (sullly)
And neither is Shakespeare.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:38pm PT
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Thanks for your concern jstan:)
but i assure you my 15 gun rant was only a metaphore in a point i was trying to bring to Sweet Stewart.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:45pm PT
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Computer-as-brain implies there is no need for bodies, that all cognition is what happens in heads, and that the meaning of symbols can be derived from other symbols. The metaphor is “mindless.”
a full theoretical description of mental activity can be predictive, on a practical level that means I can use that theory and program a machine to use that description and behave in a way that reproduces that activity. Take IBM's Watson and its ability to understand natural language.
Now we can all see with our own eyes that Watson is a computer. And because we see that Watson is a computer, we say that, in spite of Watson's behavior, it cannot be "understanding" natural language.
However, what, exactly, is our agreement on behavior? If Watson behaves in a way that indicates it understands natural language how do we make the claim that it doesn't?
Turning this argument around, what is it about human behavior that we have agreed indicates that that human does understand natural language?
It turns out that we don't have a very definite agreement, aside from the fact that we can see the human is a human, and Watson is a machine.
We know how Watson works, we don't yet know, at the same level of detail, how the human works, yet we are more likely to claim that the human "understands" and Watson does not.
Why?
One answer to this question is that the "mind" as you define it doesn't exist in humans. That mind is quite another thing, and may be (I'd say is) a material, bodily function. It is true that, given a good theory, we'd be able to program a machine to have such function... (not to "download" a person's mind, but to have a "mind" of its own).
How would you tell the difference between a human and a machine?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:49pm PT
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the full gist? he asks about the "meaning of life" and my answer was "life is the meaning of life" there isn't any more meaning than that.
The mind demands more than life is the meaning of life... and why is that? Why does the human mind search and serve and celebrate with such enthusiasm a calling beyond the mediocrity of survival and procreation? Why Shakespeare, Dante, Goethe and all the complexities of theology and mythology around the world? "There is more than is dreamt of in your philosophy Horatio."
How would you tell the difference between a human and a machine?
How is fooling a human a validation of something that is not?
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jstan
climber
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Jun 28, 2015 - 10:52pm PT
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We are so ego centric at a personal level it remains unclear whether even human associations can be made to work reliably.
Possibly we may define as machines anything that can make associations with its peers work.
Ed I notice you don't mention the Turing Test. Has that been shown faulty?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 28, 2015 - 11:05pm PT
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The interesting part of the Turing Test for me lately is generalizing the argument to include how we decide what behavior constitutes "human behavior" and what does not...
How is fooling a human a validation of something that is not?
indeed an interesting question... but if a human does not share your view of the nobility of human life and the quest for a deeper meaning, is that human human? or do you deny that any human could not share your views?
and what is special about being human?
there were none around 20 million years ago... and there will none around in 20 million years.
everything we have done and everything we will do will be gone in any sense that matters to us.
Life will go on on planet Earth... a continuous chemical reaction 3.4 billion years old and going strong, and probably up to the time that the Sun expands into a red giant in another 4 billion years.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jun 28, 2015 - 11:33pm PT
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Wow interesting day for me on Twitter ( yeah, of all places) One of two very interesting things happened in my direction: a Saudi Crown Prince decides to follow me. I have a rule that if you follow me I follow back. So I followed him back thinking he is just another dude who writes in Arabic.
Over the course of the next 3-4 hrs. 245 of his subjects (that's what we called them in ye ol Europe) follow me. Staying true to my rule I have followed them all in return. Close to 100 more this evening.( make that 150)
This whole thing will no doubt resume on the morrow. I could have the entire nation following me by this time next week.(Grovelling at my feet!)
Now I'm beginning to develop delusions that my house is being watched by intelligence agents and I'm being stalked by terrorist network operatives.
Well gotta go ...have some Arabic language lessons scheduled...
WT
PS And hey a big shout out to " Mississippi Jack McCoy" who performed a great...and I mean great rendition of Johnny Cash's cover of the NIN tune "Hurt" at the Farmers Market on Friday night!
And...so forth
Anybody know what time it is over there?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Jun 29, 2015 - 06:11am PT
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"Wow interesting day for me on Twitter..." -Ward
So Ward,
take this opportunity to ask your new Arab friends how many accept evolution as a basis for life and their existence.
You are Comrade Collie aka @songdon? You're a very busy bee over there.
http://twitter.com/songdon
Runnin. That's yours? Your harmonica playing is awesome!
.....
jgill implies... Sycorax is sullly?
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 29, 2015 - 07:57am PT
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there were none around 20 million years ago... and there will none around in 20 million years.
Making absolutes again for something you really do not know. (guessing again)
.... the difference between a human and a machine?
Again ... it is the spirit soul that separates the difference between machine and human.
All living entities have spirit soul and each one has identity and personality according to their developed consciousness.
The soul can evolve up or down.
The soul can transmigrate according to its consciousness into any material body it so desires after the annihilation of its present material body or due to it's present life karma.
The operator of the vehicle is never the vehicle .......
Non-physical sound waves??? THAT... Does not compute.
Again ultimately you are not a machine.
You have the ability to absorb the non material stratum since your true nature is completely spiritual and transcendental.
But presently you are so very materially bound and conditioned to the material stratum due to your materially is only/all consciousness.
Vibrations are not all material.
There are transcendental sound vibrations.
Every atom has God within it that the materially conditioned scientists can not see with their limited materially created instruments.
The arrogant material scientist saying there's no need for God is another absolute which immediately checks their ultimate advancement toward the all pervading knowledge.
The four defects of the materially condition soul are:
imperfect senses, the propensity for cheating, certainty of committing mistakes, and certainty of being illusioned.
Thus they will remain ultimately as mental speculators agreeing and disagreeing (duality) ......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 29, 2015 - 08:22am PT
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Making absolutes again for something you really do not know. (guessing again)
not so much guessing as extending an empirical observation, that is, the mean duration of the existence of a species.
You can get a sense of the species durations here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_extinction_rate
and here
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html
and note that I have been generous to Homo sapiens sapiens.
As you know, I am not a person who thinks that humans are "exceptional" so the basis of my statement on the human species, "...there were none around 20 million years ago... and there will none around in 20 million years..." is a speculation based on observation.
We might yet understand, scientifically, what sets the limits of species durations, and so have a deeper understanding of the lifetime of our own species.
As a side note, it is an even greater speculation, and one at odds with observation, to say that Homo sapiens sapiens will persist indefinitely.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 29, 2015 - 08:31am PT
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sycorax is correct to state that I am not God (though Spira says my consciousness is a manifestation of "God" as is all of our consciousness)
and as such I can do nothing about the the celestial event this Wednesday but know the time of the happening and the bearing to its beginnings. But the story has it that sycorax could...
...it would be interesting to see if sycorax might alter things such that my drudgery at calculating were rendered incorrect by her sorcery.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 29, 2015 - 08:35am PT
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Nice try but sound is physical, in ever sense. Especially the ears.
just like a dog whistle... (I think werner covered that in his finite capabilities of human sensory; capabilities
and also covered the fact that us poor confused physicalists will now get in an argument over imperfect knowledge...).
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STEEVEE
Social climber
HUMBOLDT, CA
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Jun 29, 2015 - 09:06am PT
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Whether one believes in "God" or not, life is a f#$king miracle. That is the sentiment I've gotten from the last dozen posts. The conversation is fascinating. I simply do not know what "Mind" is, if defined as something outside myself. And I'm satisfied, for now, to just explore all the possibilities. I'm a fan of both science and spirituality. For either schools of thought to "throw the baby out with the bath water" seems to deny truth.
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jstan
climber
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Jun 29, 2015 - 09:16am PT
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Maybe I am wrong, but we may be seeing here how human associations really work. We have a horrible inequity in SC and even in this thread on an entirely unrelated subject, tone of the inputs moves up.
Our "minds" whatever that is, seem connected. In some sense, they are a collective entity.When homo sapiens were really few in number they may have developed mirror neurons so as to survive in tribal associations. Perhaps nuclear weapons have now given us the task of building associations with billions of members. Ants did it.
At the time I knew 1945 was immensely important. The echoes are still rattling around.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jun 29, 2015 - 09:48am PT
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As a side note, it is an even greater speculation, and one at odds with observation, to say that Homo sapiens sapiens will persist indefinitely.
This is true. The physical being known as Homo sapiens is evolving even now and like all other species will either become extinct or evolve into another form eventually. The average mammalian species lasts 4 million years. The average homonin somewhere between half a million and three. We reflect those who have gone before us but we are not them. At most, some of us carry 1-4% of our predecessors neanderthal and denisova.
If there is a non physical consciousness that resides in humans, it will reside in a different body a million years from now and most likely sooner.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jun 29, 2015 - 10:05am PT
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Ed: One answer to this question is that the "mind" as you define it doesn't exist in humans.
Your post presents very good questions that I cannot answer.
I recognize my comments here in this thread are schizophrenic. I talk conventionally, but I also talk ultimately. The embodied model of cognition is one that I understand and appreciate, as I do the computer metaphor. I am not trying to define mind because I don’t think it can be done.
I enjoy the conversations and the paradoxes. I admit I am dancing. Don’t take me or anything I say TOO seriously. In all honesty, my participation in this thread is not unlike my experiences or intentions when I sit in the morning. I’m seeing what’s on my mind. All of you are helping. (And thank you for that.)
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