quote:Originally posted by rivka: Tom, I'm not talking about the types of types you are talking about.
There are certain types of questions -- about the whys and first causes, for example -- that science will never be able to answer. The converse is true as well.
But religion doesn't answer those questions either.
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My understanding of it is something like this: The (incredibly low) odds of the particular combination of physical constants, forces, etc. that are necessary for life as we know it to exist aren't relevant, because the fact is that the universe does exist.
My parallel was something like this: If there were no reason for us to be here, God wouldn't have put us here. So it doesn't matter if there must be a purpose; the fact is that there is one, and we are here.
(Of course, I realize that this rests on premises you do not share. But then again, I think the WAP is nonsensical hand-waving.)
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Suppose you have adapted a religion that says there is only one God; At the same time, this religion says it's the only right religion; So then you would tell people from other religions they believe in the wrong God?? You can't say that, because then it's YOU assuming there's more than one God. Ok, so then they believe in the same God, but then how to tell which religion is right?
I don't see the problem here. If you truly believed that your's was the only god you wouldn't tell people they believe in the wrong god, you would tell them they believe in a god which does not exist.
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quote: Instead, pretty much everyone I know has faith in some set of beliefs and values that they take on some degree of faith - whether they call it religion or not.
Yes. That pretty much says it all Posts: 1247 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
I went over to Wikipedia to see if they had referenced summations of the WAP. The entry is hilarious: WAP, SAP, FAP, and CRAP!
In any case, I like the M-W WAP as referenced in Wikipedia: "Conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist." That's basically the version I espouse -- if the universe wasn't the way it is, we wouldn't be here talking about it. I don't really think the relative likelihood of the universe being as it is -- insofar as that can even be estimated -- matters much at all given that the univers is, quite clearly, here.
If the universe being as it is is improbable, well, that just makes the fact that the universe is as it is that much cooler. There is no probability threshold below which I would consider the unlikeliness of the universe being as it is to support the proposition that it was created by a deity.
I still don't think I understand your parallel. The existence of the universe is obvious even to people who espouse different premises; the existence of a purpose is not.
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posted
Oh, okay. I see the parallel now. Of course, it only holds in the context of that premise, whereas I think the weak anthropic principle holds, period.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: These areas are beyond the scope of science's powers, not just because we haven't advanced to that point yet, but rather by definition - science defines itself in a way that limits it to the objectively and physically testable.
And that is a big part of the danger of losing religion. If we were to attempt to rely solely on science to answer the above questions, we would almost certainly conclude that there is no morality, that there is no consciousness, and that there is nothing to the universe beyond what we can physically and objectively test. This would be a horrible mistake - if for no other reason that it eliminates any and all understanding of meaningfulness. Looking at the world ONLY through a scientific lens, nothing has any value whatsoever because value is a subjective, nonphysical, untestable thing.
I'd hate to think what sort of decisions society would make if it failed to possess an understanding of what is worthwhile and what isn't. My suspicion is that they'd end up following only very basic impulses and instincts instead - pursuing whatever "feels good" in a hedonistic sense.
Fortunately, I don't think we have to worry about that quite yet. Although there are lots of people who claim that we should all act purely rationally and follow only science, I don't really know anyone who actually acts that way. Instead, pretty much everyone I know has faith in some set of beliefs and values that they take on some degree of faith - whether they call it religion or not. [emphasis added]
Hold your horses, for a minute. Do you really see only two “options” for knowledge: Science and Religion? What about philosophy? Or are you calling “religion” anything that is outside the realm of science?
Or better yet, are you calling anything based on faith, religious? As many have observed (including yourself), we all have some kind of faith (degrees of faith as you put it) about everything (at the axiomatic level). So your last paragraph doesn’t really state anything about religion. Or is it?
It all comes to the same old semantic issue. What is “religion”? I’d say that any philosophy that doesn’t rely on any kind of “supernatural being/deity” is just that, a philosophy.
“You should be good because it appears to lead to happiness and happiness is a positive thing” is philosophy. “You should be good because the deity X said so” is religion. [note that the definition of “good” remains in both cases to the interpretation/definition of human societies]
As an atheist I can perfectly well live by the first “rule” and have no need for the second.
posted
I'm actually a little curious. An open question to the "two separate realms" religionists out there: do you really believe that we will never map consciousness? Tres doesn't think it'll ever be perceptible; I'm confident that it will, and wouldn't be excessively surprised to see it happen within Sophie's lifetime.
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posted
I think rivka, at least, is not so much concerned about consciousness and qualia, as about the purpose of existence. Personally, I think science has a really excellent answer to that one : There ain't no purpose. Deal.
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posted
Tom, as consciousness is not the same as the soul, and is at least partly a physical quantity, I don't see why it matters. (It would be very cool, though!
KoM, it does no such thing. It does not answer the question at all. That you claim it does is at the very least intellectually dishonest.
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quote:Tom, as consciousness is not the same as the soul, and is at least partly a physical quantity, I don't see why it matters.
But if we can someday draw a distinction between consciousness and the soul -- to the point that "consciousness" is the thought process we can track that has concrete effects on behavior, leaving the "soul" with the sad remains of "something we can't identify that has no apparent effects" -- then what's the point of the soul? Are we at that point just choosing to believe that there's something more out there, and creating a whole mythology to support that hypothetical "something?"
What if, as we map consciousness, we find exactly what makes certain people feel the need to invent something "more?" If it turns out we can turn a receptor for that spiritual feeling on and off at will -- with a drug, an electrical stimulus, or a surgery -- what does it mean for spirituality in general?
In other words, does it all come down to the Catholic concept of "essence," where we need to speculate on a whole realm of completely imperceptible realities that run parallel to the observable one? What possible merit is there in that?
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quote:Not everything that exists and has an effect is physical. Or even quantifiable.
Well, it comes back to the same question, then. What possible reason do you have for believing this, apart from "I wanna"?
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quote:if we are to actually come up with an explanation for consciousness we need a serious paradigm shift.
I'm willing to accept the idea that consciousness doesn't have a hard border, and that it's actually a sort of process. From this POV, consciousness doesn't actually require explanation, as any process of sufficient sophistication would by definition achieve some degree of consciousness.
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You are asking an interesting question. The possibility that we will fully understand the physical determinants of consciousness in Sophie's lifetime are probably at least 50:50.
The possibility that we will therefore understand conscious thought, and be able to exercise prediction and control over it is practically nil.
And, really, the question is ultimately irrelevant because it is based (apparently) on the assumption that the "separate realms" is really the old "God is in the smallest of the small" idea. That's a completely separate thing, and it's behind the flaw that is "irreducible complexity" that used to underpin Intelligent Design thinking -- that is that you get to a point where you can't explain something scientifically and that's where God lives.
No...NO... NO!!!
God and the physical universe are both "out there" and while they are separate linquistically and logically from our human perspective, that does not mean that the interfaces between them might be simple the tip of the iceberg. That the reality we cannot yet perceive might be that they are one and the same.
The separate magesteria argument is mute on this point. Seriously.
The religious believe that one day there will be a full understanding. So do atheist materialists. But so what? Neither side has the ability to predict what that full understanding will look like and what it will include or exclude as part of the explanation of things.
If anything, separate magesteria allows us to deal with the ultimate from two directions, not just one.
It is not a principle of exclusion, as much as maybe the word "separate" may sound. Or maybe I'm perverting the original sense of the argument to one that makes more sense to me.
Anyway, what it is NOT, is a theory that puts God in the smaller-than-detectable box in hopes that science never progresses to the point where we need a smaller box. The continued failure of that theory was, in fact, part of the reason for the argument of separate magesteria.
I suspect that the soul will always be outside the realm of science. Even if (in your hypothetical) someone completely understands how the human brain works, how the mind is a epiphenomenon of the brain, and how thoughts are generated completely. There will still be the soul, and the infinite/ultimate out there which science cannot touch. It's a limit of the method, inherent in its very structure.
That's not a smaller box problem. It's a separate magesteria problem.
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quote:if we are to actually come up with an explanation for consciousness we need a serious paradigm shift.
I'm willing to accept the idea that consciousness doesn't have a hard border, and that it's actually a sort of process. From this POV, consciousness doesn't actually require explanation, as any process of sufficient sophistication would by definition achieve some degree of consciousness.
I'd be sorely disappointed if science stopped THAT far short of trying to explain the ultimate.
I mean, really, science has vast usefulness in reducing human folly and in understanding God through how things work. If the idea of hyper-complexity scares off empiricists, I think we're going to miss out on some very cool discoveries.
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quote:It has been called "separate magesteria." And it's worth reading about. Essentially it is the point of view that acknowledges that religion and science can operate side by side because they occupy different niches, if you will.
The problem is that this is exactly the same thing as being "a God of the gaps." But most religious people find the latter concept insulting. I suspect the word "magesteria" sounds better, and is therefore less insulting than saying "we'll let you keep your God in the places we don't have answers yet."
It amounts to admitting that religion is a form of delusion, the one "faith" -- here meaning "belief without proof, and perhaps even in the face of conflicting evidence" -- that we don't consider a sign of insanity.
"Okay," we say, "science can't yet explain what it means to love. So we'll let you believe that there's this whole special realm of things out there which can only be addressed through pseudo-mythology, provided that your obscure mythological requirements don't go stepping on my civil rights."
I find that incredibly patronizing, and am amazed that more religious people don't. It's certainly practical, since there are demonstrable sociological and psychological benefits of having mythologies when compared to actually requiring that people face up to the gaps in their knowledge. But I'd be offended if someone shrugged off the existence of my God in that way.
God the gaps was exactly what Separate Magesteria was designed to do away with.
Sorry, but maybe we've read different accounts of it. I believe I'm right on this.
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quote:Not everything that exists and has an effect is physical. Or even quantifiable.
Well, it comes back to the same question, then. What possible reason do you have for believing this, apart from "I wanna"?
well, for starters if something cant be quantified it cannot be explained, since that is part of the definition of quantify so asking to describe something non quantifiable will not get anywhere even if it exhists.
some things like thought and concience can be measured to an extent in that you can measure brain activity. Concienceness or the ability to be self aware is however not directly attached to the workings of anything inthe physical world. Being that a perfectly working neural center can still be inside a person who is phsycologically no longer there. Self awareness is a trait that is considerd to be purely human in that we have an advanced sense of self. Chimps, whales, dolphins and other "intellegent" creatures have the proper neuralogical pathways and advanced brain structure, even the patters of energy that suggest some thought. But when compared to the human brain they would be considered to have the same awareness of a 2 year old. self awareness isnt exactly quantifiable since only the thought proccecies are measurable, Not the actual weight of the thought itself. Life can even be put on the same spectrum, life definately ends, we can measure it based on time but no one knows how it starts, or when it starts (no i am not going into abortion morals). How does a randomly generated protien suddenly replicate itself without having a previous replication gene? How does a protien make others to form the amino acid, how do amino acids become structured to a cell? How does that cell spark life. None of that is quantifiable and yet evolution hinges on it. Of course religion give this to "the breath of god" and is no closer to explaining it either.
to move outside the human body, what about the "dark matter" that is said to exhist, yet cannot be weighed and only detected by the ambient heat in the void of space. Not to mention that to spark the universal cataclysmic event that sets the ball rolling the discovered mass of the known universe is far to small and so lots more must exhist. What gives galaxies their spiral shape, something holds the bands seperate, it cant be discovered how not all galaxies are eliptical or blob-like. All these are attributes given to dark matter, but no one knows what it is.
What about Anti-Matter? Asimov loved this stuff. Knowing that the big bang would make no sense coming out of nowhere with the first two laws of thermo-dynamics in place Asimov theorised that the universal "void" was made up of matter and then an anti matter, very similar to the way that 0 can be made up of a number of +1's and -1's. that would seem to cancel each other out but still allow for exhistance of substance but also the non-existance of substance. For the universe to start you would need a source of energy or a source of mass. What it was we dont and cant know and isnt quantifiable and yet it must have been there.
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quote:Not everything that exists and has an effect is physical. Or even quantifiable.
Well, it comes back to the same question, then. What possible reason do you have for believing this, apart from "I wanna"?
I've already answered that.
And it's a reason that an empiricist should love:
Personal experience.
It works.
How can you tell the difference between a creator god, and last week's dinner? This is jsut more god-of-the-gaps : You don't understand what produced experience X, so you assign it to a god.
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quote:There will still be the soul, and the infinite/ultimate out there which science cannot touch.
But what I'm saying is that the very existence of a "soul" or an "infinite" is a question in play. You're taking the existence of these things as givens and saying that science cannot explain or even touch them; I'm asking why, if we cannot touch them, we can assume they exist. The argument that there are things science cannot explain hinges upon the theory -- as yet unproven -- that there are things science cannot ever explain.
In other words, I'm not coming at this from an "this religion is absurd and cannot be true" approach. I'm coming at it from the angle that there may well be nothing for religion to DO in a world where spirituality is understood as a mechanism.
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quote:Consciousness has no hard boundaries: As I read it, this would mean that everything that constitutes the universe has consciousness in manifest or unmanifest form.
No. What I'm saying is that the state of "consciousness" as we call it is an arbitrary landmark. We cannot with any accuracy point to someone or something and say "this is conscious; this is self-aware." Consciousness may well be a series of very complex, fully deterministic processes. While it suits us to pretend (in this scenario) that some form of "Will" exists, it may not in fact do so.
quote:*Suppose* whatever constituted the beginning of creation (say Big Bang) had no consciousness. For e.g if strings are the elementary constituents of everything then, an individual string is incapable (even latently) of consciousness. Then, is there a process by which some configurations can be conscious of others and themselves?
Sure. If consciousness is a mechanism, the whole can be far greater than the sum of its parts. (As an example, no individual gear or atom of tin can tell time, but a watch can display the hours.) I think it's unnecessary to imagine that a "spark" of "Will" had to exist in the building blocks of the Universe in order to produce the human imagination, any more than it would be necessary that a molecule of carbon would have to dream of being a diamond.
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quote:How does a randomly generated protien suddenly replicate itself without having a previous replication gene? How does a protien make others to form the amino acid, how do amino acids become structured to a cell? How does that cell spark life? None of that is quantifiable and yet evolution hinges on it.
Ridiculous. These things are highly quantifiable, we call it "chemistry". Just to start you off, any crystal can replicate itself, given the right environment. I mean, duh.
quote:well, for starters if something cant be quantified it cannot be explained, since that is part of the definition of quantify so asking to describe something non quantifiable will not get anywhere even if it exhists.
Word games. I might just as well assert that it can't be experienced, either. In fact, I think I will.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Ridiculous. These things are highly quantifiable, we call it "chemistry". Just to start you off, any crystal can replicate itself, given the right environment. I mean, duh.
Crystals are not protiens or amino acids or cells, all of which have a special part of them that gives them the information on how to replicate, and what to replicate with. Where does the first protiene, cell, amino acid develope this and how? And it still doesnt answer the question of how life can start.
quote: Word games. I might just as well assert that it can't be experienced, either. In fact, I think I will. [/QB]
thank you for re-hashing what i said.
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quote:what is remarkable about consciousness is that I can say with absolute certitude that *I* am conscious
You know what's odd? I find that fascinating and even awe-inspiring, but not "remarkable" in the way you mean it. In other words, it seems perfectly credible to me that my two-year-old daughter and Koko the gorilla and some hypothetical artificial intelligence could all eventually manage that step without requiring that the universe first be full of pre-existing intelligence.
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quote:Crystals are not protiens or amino acids or cells, all of which have a special part of them that gives them the information on how to replicate, and what to replicate with. Where does the first protiene, cell, amino acid develope this and how? And it still doesnt answer the question of how life can start.
Oh, I see, you were asking about the transmission of information. You are apparently operating from a misunderstanding about how genes work; it's simple chemistry. There's no little genetics gnome running around looking up instructions! The proteins, etc, are 'sticky' in some places, but only to the right kind of atoms. When all the sticky places are filled, voila, a copy has been formed. Again, you can do this with simple crystals; if the seed starts off variant X, all the copies will likewise be shape X. Start off in shape Y, copies are shape Y. Start off with pollutants A and B that only fit into the holes in X and Y, and mix 'em up - voila, a two-valued DNA.
As for life, if you didn't mean "sufficiently complex, self-replicating molecules", by all means give a better definition.
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posted
On the subject of consciousness, I don't think it's really very difficult. Consider self-awareness; it is really nothing but an entity which contains a model of itself. Well, we know plenty of entities which contain models of the world around them; any cat can manage that much, or they'd never catch a mouse. Just include the self in the model. And 'maintaining a model' is just a more complicated version of being able to store changes of state - having a memory, in other words. Any tree can manage this. And finally, changes of state require only simple chemistry, as in amoeba which 'react' to the surroundings. There is a clear chain of small improvements going up from an amoeba reaching out for a bit of food, through bees encoding the location of flowers, rats learning not to press a lever, chimps recognising themselves in a mirror, all the way up to emo kids writing tortured MySpace blogs about how nobody ever felt this bad before.
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posted
its not about the process that is known to date, its about what starts those procecies.
DNA carries the replication code for the protiens and for itself and differs from each organism. Once this is instituted its not hard to see where it goes and how it functions. The Enzymes that help replicate the DNA are basically called for and created by the DNA before it goes into replication. There is nothing to explain how the system started. Specialized enzymes are created by the DNA for DNA replication, its a cycle somewher that cycle would have to start at random.
Similarly DNA and self replicating protiens are not "life" as science defines it, neiter are viruses. As far as simple life goes no one really knows what life is in order to find the key to how it starts.
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posted
the subject of conciousness is a touchy one because it exists above our intuative selves. A person can react to stimuli, and has reflexes including the emotions and chemecal reactions that denote thouhgt and feelings. Self awareness seems seperate from this in that you can supress any of these and they still think of themselves as a "self". Trees arent particularly aware, cats, dogs, bees do things by reactions and by instinct, if you supress it they die. people and a few "higher" animals seem to be able to function mentally even without instincs and stimuli and yet the concious is not actually weighted with the electrical currents that denote thought.
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quote:its not about the process that is known to date, its about what starts those procecies.
Please read my post again. I suggested a way in which such a process might start.
quote:Similarly DNA and self replicating protiens are not "life" as science defines it, neiter are viruses. As far as simple life goes no one really knows what life is in order to find the key to how it starts.
Sez you. This scientist is quite prepared to accept any self-replicating molecule as life. As for vitalism, it was discredited in the nineteenth century. Tell me, what magic barrier do you see that prevents a crystal from becoming a bacterium, through a sufficient number of steps?
quote:people and a few "higher" animals seem to be able to function mentally even without instincs and stimuli and yet the concious is not actually weighted with the electrical currents that denote thought.
How do you know?
Edit : And anyway, you will please note that all I asserted is that there is a visible continuum between me and a rock. Wherever there is a contiuum, gradual steps can work; that means there is no need to assert any magic infusions of spirit.
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quote:Please read my post again. I suggested a way in which such a process might start.
i fail to see in anyway how its explained how a self contained cycle got started from a homogeneous mass of molocules to the enrgises organised system of DNA. Not to mention inanimate objects require energy to start information synthesis and thouhg there are sources of energy redily available all conceptual ways taht enrgy can be added to the system have failed miserably in lab tests, usually the "atmosphere" used in labs to create these organises amino acids destroyed the amino acid before it could even have a chance to self replicate.
quote:Sez you. This scientist is quite prepared to accept any self-replicating molecule as life. As for vitalism, it was discredited in the nineteenth century. Tell me, what magic barrier do you see that prevents a crystal from becoming a bacterium, through a sufficient number of steps?
unless i was quite misunderstanding of the definition of life (entirely possible) crystals and individual protiens are not considered life in the biological terms by any scientists. i will go and find some old bio or chem books i have lying about the house and see if i can look up a clearer definition of life. Of course i cant stop you from believeing a crytal is life, the problem with your statement is that it doesnt in anyway engage mine because you are using yourself as a reference not the scientific community in general. In all forseeable situation there very well could be a time when crystals are considered life.
quote:How do you know?
that question doesnt do anything as far as the discussion since it will require of me an answer that you deem sufficient, not one that answers the question or that anyone else might find credible. its just changing the subject
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posted
i had no intention of introducing a spirit or soul, just mentioning some areas of science and phsycology where the experts arent exactly sure what to make of things.
its all subjective since at any minute a breakthrough could happen that would solidify any particular part of the unclear areas.
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posted
As a total aside, would you mind using the shift key and some punctuation? Your writing style is really annoying.
quote:i fail to see in anyway how its explained how a self contained cycle got started from a homogeneous mass of molocules to the enrgises organised system of DNA.
I refer you again to this post:
quote:You can do this with simple crystals; if the seed starts off variant X, all the copies will likewise be shape X. Start off in shape Y, copies are shape Y. Start off with pollutants A and B that only fit into the holes in X and Y, and mix 'em up - voila, a two-valued DNA.
Please tell me what problems you see with the scenario.
quote:unless i was quite misunderstanding of the definition of life (entirely possible) crystals and individual protiens are not considered life in the biological terms by any scientists
No, but that's not what I said. I said "sufficiently complex, self-replicating molecules." A crystal-based structure could easily qualify.
quote:that question doesnt do anything as far as the discussion since it will require of me an answer that you deem sufficient, not one that answers the question or that anyone else might find credible.
Well, if you really believe that I will automatically dismiss anything you say about the functioning of the brain, why are you talking to me at all? I mean, you must have some kind of reasoning for saying that consciousness is not encoded in the electric activity of the brain. (I paraphrase; if this is not what you meant, please say so.) If you're just saying so because you believe in some kind of soul, then that's just what we are discussing, and you can hardly produce it as evidence of your position! If not, well, what is your reasoning?
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posted
after doing some research on the definition of life given i could see how you could establish a crystal as a life form. I think that it fails in the idea that crystals all have the same structure taht doesnt allow for variation or else it is a different type of crystal. Also as they are not able to change themselves based on their outside situations.
Both of those may be seen as moot point because there may only be one singular crystal that all others are "birthed" from and therefore you have differentiation and evolution in the "species" of crystal. And then the second point i guess could be moot because crystals wouldnt need to adapt to survive.
hower a thing that seems to seperate tehm is crystals do not seem to hav ea drive to survive. They do not psess the "selfish genes" as it were.
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posted
Dude. Please. Would you like to reconsider that post, or would you like me to rip it to shreds for you? I do like to feel that my opponent has actually thought through his position.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: As a total aside, would you mind using the shift key and some punctuation? Your writing style is really annoying.
I will attempt to do better
quote:i fail to see in anyway how its explained how a self contained cycle got started from a homogeneous mass of molocules to the enrgises organised system of DNA.
I refer you again to this post:
quote:You can do this with simple crystals; if the seed starts off variant X, all the copies will likewise be shape X. Start off in shape Y, copies are shape Y. Start off with pollutants A and B that only fit into the holes in X and Y, and mix 'em up - voila, a two-valued DNA.
quote:Please tell me what problems you see with the scenario.
As i stated protiens and molocules that are placed together without a pattern to follow for replication in most cases becomes just a blob of molocules as the ones that Sydney Fox made in his tests. The idea that protiene and DNA replication is different from crystal structuring is because it completes a thermodynamic cycle that is not aparant in evey molocule or evident in groups of random protienes or molocules that are placed in the same area. There is energy added to it to start the replication process, this energy then gets repeated in subsequent replications. During the first synthesis of enzymes and DNA the energy and the information of how one is to replicate is created. The infromation process would carry on in all future generations though. My point was to bring up the external energy, not just in source but also in how energy is transferred from source to information used my DNA. And also to point out that DNA and cells follow a particular pattern given to them in information by the replication enzymes. Its not about random DNA and enzymes hooking up, its that they are needed as a part of the replication cycle
quote:unless i was quite misunderstanding of the definition of life (entirely possible) crystals and individual protiens are not considered life in the biological terms by any scientists
No, but that's not what I said. I said "sufficiently complex, self-replicating molecules." A crystal-based structure could easily qualify.
to be fair i was talking about life, and i do believe that i stated so. and i wasnt talking about replicating molocules since molocules are about bonds and not information synthesis or synthesis of a new molocule based on parent molocules alloweing for variation. In most casses molocules dont "evolve" as it is used in a biological sense.
quote:that question doesnt do anything as far as the discussion since it will require of me an answer that you deem sufficient, not one that answers the question or that anyone else might find credible.
quote:Well, if you really believe that I will automatically dismiss anything you say about the functioning of the brain, why are you talking to me at all? I mean, you must have some kind of reasoning for saying that consciousness is not encoded in the electric activity of the brain. (I paraphrase; if this is not what you meant, please say so.) If you're just saying so because you believe in some kind of soul, then that's just what we are discussing, and you can hardly produce it as evidence of your position! If not, well, what is your reasoning?
i dont believe you will automatically dismiss what i say. I was just putting that its been accepted that conciousness can be related to thought processes in the brain but not singularly attached or controlled by them. Nether is it aparantly controlled by the inner parts of the brain where the uncontrolable instincts are supposed to be. I used the analogies that a person can have a working brain that should be capable of processing thought, and you can even transmit electrical signals to it, but the brain will fail to show that there is conciousness in the person. And also that you can block off all the instinctual and uncontrolable parts of the brain and a person is aware of themselves inspite of not having any innate abilities.
i have a book compiling a few essays that have interesting points on this, ill have to refenece them in the future, since i probably mistook your statement as wanting an answer that could convince you instead of an asking for sources outside myself.
quote:Dude. Please. Would you like to reconsider that post, or would you like me to rip it to shreds for you? I do like to feel that my opponent has actually thought through his position.
actually i thought you were postulating what i put down so i was attempting to see how you could come up with that. i took part of that statement as you were ready to believe that a crystal or random group of molocules could be life.
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ecthalion: actually i thought you were postulating what i put down so i was attempting to see how you could come up with that. i took part of that statement as you were ready to believe that a crystal or random group of molocules could be life.
Yes. And the reasons you give for not doing so are completely, utterly ridiculous. Take another look at what I'm comparing the crystals to, and think through what you said. I am particularly referring to this:
quote:hower a thing that seems to seperate tehm is crystals do not seem to hav ea drive to survive. They do not psess the "selfish genes" as it were.
Lest there be a misunderstanding, you should please note that I am not referring to your grammar or spelling, atrocious though these are. You have here a really fundamental flaw in your reasoning.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
hmmm i was given reason to believe part of the definition to living things was that reproduction in itself was a desire to pass on the traits of the being, something Steven Pinker and (i cant for the life of me remember dawkins perhaps?) another reasonably noted scientist had coined as "selfish genes". Where can be considered crystals reproduce, they do not have a motive to continue their species. That is the point i was getting at. There is no motivation behind crystal replication that can be detected. Crystals structure themselves based on the atoms in them, this doesnt allow for the variation of subsequent "children" crystals and would rule out that evolution is advancing crystals. Another undrestanding was that life does not live long if it not actively adapting and evolving to its surroundings. I was merely suggsting reason why rocks and crystals would not be life, even if they were a form of mass that could replicate itself.
And no i didnt exactly have time to think of how to make an arguement based on rocks as living organisms, simply because ive never had anyone even suggest sucha thing.
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Humans can be broken down into successively simple processes, none of which deviate from the same chemical and physical processes that happen in non-living systems.
There's no reason to assume an intelligence in two hydrogen atoms combining with an oxygen atom, under the proper circumstances, to form a molecule of water. There's no motive, no though process, simply a physical reaction.
Make this more complex, add a wide range of processes, and you have what we call "life." Continue to make it more and more complex, and you have human life.
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Also, the Great Planet Jupiter, through His intercedent, the Magic Unicorn, wanted me to tell you that all posts made such that the combined value of the digits in the posted date and time are divisible by 4 are extra true. Treat them as such, or be punished by the Great Planet's otherworldly wrath.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Not only is there no current model for this, but that there seems to be no possible way this could happen.
I'm not sure what "this" you're talking about. By "this," do you mean replicating life, or do you mean "consciousness?" I'd actually disagree with you on either point, but I'm trying to narrow it down.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I wasn't offended. I'm just trying to understand why you think consciousness is something inherently different from another process.
See, part of the thing I'm trying to work through is the growing belief that consciousness isn't some kind of special "state" of being or awareness. I don't see any compelling argument out there that would indicate that it is.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:But what I'm saying is that the very existence of a "soul" or an "infinite" is a question in play. You're taking the existence of these things as givens and saying that science cannot explain or even touch them; I'm asking why, if we cannot touch them, we can assume they exist.
I dislike talking about "souls" in this context because I'm never really sure what the term is supposed to mean. I also dislike talking about consciousness for the same reason.
Howevere, what I can say is that I believe the I exist and that I also believe that I experience non-physical experiences, such as seeing, feeling, or even just valuing things. The reason I believe this is because I can observe them all the time; I'm observing myself having experiences right now as I type. And I can observe that the experiences I am having do not fit the criteria for "physical thing". Furthermore, because all other observations I make about the external universe (including all of science) are founded on these experiences, I must believe they do exist.
For these reasons, whether you call it a "soul" or not, I know that I exist as a thing that experiences these nonphysical experiences. And I believe that science by itself cannot fully explain me because it cannot, according to its own rules, study these subjective experiences directly.
This may seem like a minor issue, because experiences are just one thing - but consider that experiences are the source of all value in the world. We don't care about atoms and particles and energy, which is all a purely physical world would be. Rather, we care about the fact that those particles create people, and colors, and trees, and so on. The physical world only matters insofar as experience of some sort makes their arrangements of particles meaningful to us. For that reason, subjective experience - one of only a few area that science seems incapable of exploring - is an area of extreme importance, possibly more so than any other area of knowledge.
Berkeley even asserted that the world was nothing but experiences and perceptions. I'm not going to go that far, but I don't think an explanation of the world that excludes these things can ever be even remotely complete.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: And I can observe that the experiences I am having do not fit the criteria for "physical thing".
Arguably, if these experiences can be described by some of the chemical reactions that are happening in your brain, then they do.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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