quote:Arguably, if these experiences can be described by some of the chemical reactions that are happening in your brain, then they do.
No, not really. "Can be described by a physical thing" does not equal "Being a physical thing."
I meant "described" in the same way as a mathematical formula in physics describes a physical phenomenon. If the experiences can be described by the reactions in such a way that nothing is eliminated, then they are physical things for any meaningful use of the term "physical."
Added:
quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: A: "I'm in love!"
B: "Really? I don't think I've ever been in love before. How does it feel?"
A: "Well, check out these diagrams of my brain. That should tell you."
B: "Oh, wow. That explains it completely!"
Exactly. And I mean that in all seriousness.
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quote:My point is that if you do a thought experiment with some of the various possibilites you can think of, at a certain point, it becomes obvious that not only are some models inadequate but that all future models are inadequate as well, provided you maintain a certain paradigm.
The problem I have here is that most thought models for consciousness argue strongly for mechanism. Consider the classic one, where you map the firing of each neuron in your brain to some transistor or the like, so that at the end of a long process you've managed to completely record your mind. (This of course assumes that you grant that the process of thought is mechanistic, even if "consciousness" is not.) At the end of this transfer, the clump of transistors now thinks it's your brain; its thoughts are your thoughts. Is it alive? Is it conscious? How can you tell?
Let's say we transfer the process from that clump of transistors to a bit of managed code. Is that now an AI? If it is, is that code its brain, or its soul?
And here's an even weirder question: if a snapshot of the code and data passing through it happens to be, say, randomly represented at any one moment by a mathematical plot of raindrops in a hurricane, does that mean that the raindrops, for that second, are sentient?
The idea of "awareness" itself is something that I struggle with, because I'm not sure it really exists in the way we need to believe it does.
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quote:A: "I'm in love!"
B: "Really? I don't think I've ever been in love before. How does it feel?"
A: "Well, check out these diagrams of my brain. That should tell you."
B: "Oh, wow. That explains it completely!"
Replace "check out" with, say, "play back," and yes, it would.
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quote:Would you agree that *if* "awareness" does exist in the way we commonly understand it, it needs an explanation and that no normal model would suffice?
Absolutely. Because if it does exist in the way we understand it, that transistor model of your brain wouldn't work. And if it didn't work, we'd need another model to understand why.
quote:Susan Blackmore suggested a model of consciousness -- that it is like looking into the refrigerator to see if the light is on. So, if we pop the question "Am I aware?", the answer is always "Yes". What happens in the interim is that it is "dark" inside, and we are non-aware. Is this similar to how you think about awareness currently?
It's pretty close. Except that I think we're pinging our internal sense of awareness every time we run into a stimulus; flatworms do this, too, but unlike flatworms we've got brains capable of stimulating themselves.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Replace "check out" with, say, "play back," and yes, it would.
I don't know what you experience - perhaps you don't have qualitative experience. But I can tell you that you would not understand what "love" feels like to me from any series of brain diagrams, whether checked out or played back.
Unless, of course, you had already experienced it yourself and knew.
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quote:But I can tell you that you would not understand what "love" feels like to me from any series of brain diagrams, whether checked out or played back.
Unless, of course, you had already experienced it yourself and knew.
My assertion is that were your experience of love "played back" to my brain, I would experience it myself, insofar as our brain structures were similar enough to permit this.
I'm curious as to how you'd experience anything without experiencing it with your nervous system.
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quote:My assertion is that were your experience of love "played back" to my brain, I would experience it myself, insofar as our brain structures were similar enough to permit this.
What non-faith-based argument do you have for your conclusion that "playing back" the same physical activity in your brain will result in you experiencing the same experience that I did?
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posted
Well, I'm first assuming that it's possible to record a brain's physical activity in a way that'd be universally "playable" for someone else. That's the big "if" in the first place, since we don't know how coherent "thoughts" and "memories" are, or how contingent they are on specific groups of cells. It may not be possible to play back memories on someone else's brain without first remapping them to the new brain.
But if it IS possible, or if it IS possible to remap them, then I think it's a foregone conclusion.
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quote:Replace "check out" with, say, "play back," and yes, it would.
I don't know what you experience - perhaps you don't have qualitative experience. But I can tell you that you would not understand what "love" feels like to me from any series of brain diagrams, whether checked out or played back.
Unless, of course, you had already experienced it yourself and knew.
You're absolutely certain that initiating the same sequence of chemical reactions in my brain that happens in yours when you feel "love" would not cause me to feel "love?"
I don't know one way or the other, but if it does, then these things you call qualitative would indeed be "physical." I think the difference between you and me is that I don't think that would necessarily diminish them. It might, but I'm not certain.
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quote:But if it IS possible, or if it IS possible to remap them, then I think it's a foregone conclusion.
You didn't answer the question, other than to restate your conclusion as "a foregone conclusion." What non-faith-based reason do you have for your conclusion that "playing back" the same physical activity in your brain will result in you experiencing the same experience that I did?
quote:I don't know one way or the other, but if it does, then these things you call qualitative would indeed be "physical."
This is not true. That'd be like trying to argue that if eating lots of candy gives you a stomach ache, and that eating lots of candy also gives me a stomach ache, then eating lots of candy must be the same thing as having a stomach ache. That logic simply doesn't follow. Being caused by X doesn't make something identical to X. Being caused by something physical would not make something physical.
Having said that, I don't know if the same chemical reactions in your brain would cause the same experiences for you as those reactions might cause for me. I don't think it matters, except to illustrate that chemical reactions are not identical to experiences, because one could presumably happen without the other. At least, it wouldn't be farfetched to imagine it.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: This is not true. That'd be like trying to argue that if eating lots of candy gives you a stomach ache, and that eating lots of candy also gives me a stomach ache, then eating lots of candy must be the same thing as having a stomach ache. That logic simply doesn't follow. Being caused by X doesn't make something identical to X. Being caused by something physical would not make something physical.
This whole line of reasoning is predicated on the assumption that the reactions are not the experience.
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posted
Well, I think more accurately, the argument you quoted is predicated on the assumption that the candy is not the stomach ache. Based on that, I'm suggesting that candy can cause a stomach ache without being a stomach ache, and therefore something can cause (or correlate to) something else without being that something else.
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posted
Is the extent to which the workings of human brain are understood essentially irrelevant to your belief that emotions are non-physical things, then?
Basically, here's where I take issue with you:
quote:And I can observe that the experiences I am having do not fit the criteria for "physical thing".
I don't think this is true. You (the royal "you") can believe that they don't fit those criteria, but you can't even support that belief with evidence, let alone consider it self-evident through direct observation.
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quote:Based on that, I'm suggesting that candy can cause a stomach ache without being a stomach ache...
What is love when it is not felt? Love -- your example -- is an emotion, not a measurable state of being.
If there is a measurable state of being called "love," then "love" is your stomachache, caused by certain factors and perceived through certain sensations.
If your stomach hurts, is it fair to say that you have a stomachache?
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posted
I haven't followed this thread completely, just sort of popped in every now and then to see where the conversation is. Not sure this is really relevant to the current conversation but as I was reading I thought of this thread...
The 'snippet' at the beginning of chapter 8 in Children of the Mind is a kind of cool (to me) look at religion and what it might mean to some people. It's also cool (to me) how with so few words it seems to cover a whole slew of impressions of religion. Just figured I'd throw that out there.
I'd quote it - but I'm a little fuzzy about the quoting rules.
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quote:You (the royal "you") can believe that they don't fit those criteria, but you can't even support that belief with evidence, let alone consider it self-evident through direct observation.
Why can't I consider it self-evident through direct observation? It is! On the one hand I have a set of experiences that I observe myself having. On the other hand I have the criteria for being a physical thing. All it takes is then observing that the former experiences don't fit the latter criteria. It is as self-evident as the fact that a circle is not a type of square.
What do you think the criteria for being a "physical thing" are?
quote:If your stomach hurts, is it fair to say that you have a stomachache?
Yes.
quote:Out of curiosity, would Tres consider a candle flame to be a 'physical thing'?
posted
sometimes i hate how threads just move on to new subjects when you are unable to post.
As for the DNA desiring to reproduce, i personally dont consider a strand of DNA alive but i wouldnt really argue with anyone who says it is. The desire to live and reproduce would be the only reason for any species to exist. Not having a desire to do either would limit evolution pretty quick.
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posted
I definately used the wrong term there, i see that you are focusing on the word desire. The posts pretty much explain that living things have a need to reproduce and pass on the genes. Bad use of the word desire, but i would have hoped that you would have go tthe meaning even if i hadnt used such a poor description.
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posted
I don't understand the distinction you are making. Which part of the bacterium has the 'need' to reproduce?
Let me stop being gentle : You are completely mistaken. There is no need or desire to reproduce; there is only chemistry. Bacteria split and DNA copies itself when the chemical conditions are right; this differs from crystal copying only in complexity.
You should please note that I am not suggesting that a crystal is genuinely alive, as one of your posts seems to imply. Rather, I am suggesting that a crystal is a plausible first step towards life, which is what you were asking about. To answer your other objection, about adaptability, DNA doesn't adapt either, it just copies itself or not. The adaptability of life comes from the huge network of interactions from 3.7 billion years of evolution; but this is not what we are discussing. We are discussing the origins of life, and they are bound to be very simple. Forget adapting to circumstances - change the chemical conditions even slightly, and proto-life dies the proto-death. Forget sophisticated error-checking mechanisms; most copies are flawed, and die. Forget, in fact, anything except the bare ability to reproduce a pattern. That's all you need to start, which, as I apparently need to remind you, is what you were asking about.
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posted
I have a question for the religious folks. How much validity do you believe other religions have? How True are other people's beliefs?
If other beliefs are not True, how much leeway does a person have between being in the Correct religion (yours presumably) and being Wrong?
Are people in your church who disagree with certain doctrinal points not following the right faith? How about people in other denominations of the same basic faith? Other similar religions (both monotheistic, for example)?
I ask, because when I was religious, I felt that I was on a path to knowing, and figured that other religious people were on their own version of the path. Now that I'm not religious, I wonder how other people feel in regards to their version of True, and other people's version.
I suppose an additional question, should anyone care to answer, is how do you feel about Atheists? Are they sinners? Simply strayed from the path? Foolish people who have turned away from God?
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quote: ask, because when I was religious, I felt that I was on a path to knowing, and figured that other religious people were on their own version of the path. Now that I'm not religious, I wonder how other people feel in regards to their version of True, and other people's version.
I'm probably the wrong person to answer this, but I thought you might be interested to know that you were not/are not alone.
Here's how I handle the entire dilemma:
God is in charge of saving whomever God wants to save. It's not my job. I have a path, you have a path, someone else has a path. They may overlap, or not, intersect or not -- it's God's call.
quote:I suppose an additional question, should anyone care to answer, is how do you feel about Atheists? Are they sinners? Simply strayed from the path? Foolish people who have turned away from God?
Well...yes, we're all sinners. Denial of God may be an important sin...or not. Only time will tell. But, see above, it's not my place to point out the sins of others, or even to guide them to the salvation that I envision for myself and my family... If someone were to ask for my help, it would be cruel of me to deny it. But I know the futility of offering that help when it is neither sought nor desired.
As for the rest of this question...no-one "simply" strays from the path. In my view, we make conscious choices -- or at least those are the things we are held accountable for. If a person is striving to live a good life, I submit they are still on a path. Where that path will lead is neither up to them or me. I wish them well. At the end of all our paths, it will be less important HOW we got there than that we did. I submit that the HOW is always through God's grace and our own efforts combined. THAT we got there will be an overwhelming relief and enlightenment.
As for the foolish people thing...we're all a bit foolish, aren't we? KoM thinks I'm a fool -- at least on the subject of religion, and maybe others. What good does it do to call each other "fool." I take it as a given that I am, have been, and will be foolish on a great many subjects. I am human. I cannot avoid holiding opinions. KoM is also human and also unable to avoid holding opinions. It comes with the territory. It is a given that many of those opinions will either be wrong (due to a variety of reasons) or trivial (the things we're always right about are typically not very important or interesting). At least from any perspective but our own internal one.
I have come to grips with that in learning what things I can KNOW, and what things I cannot, and was surprised to find faith not simply surving the sorting out, but thriving. I don't envy people who don't have faith. But I don't pity them either. I was there once. For me it was not a good time. For someone else, it might fit like a glove.
I would wish all people Godspeed (which, by my calculations is just slightly faster than the speed of light) in their quest for meaning and purpose in life.
I do have pity for two types of people:
1) Those who do not ever think about these issues at all, and
2) Those who believe there is no meaning or purpose in life.
I'm totally fine with people who seek meaning and purpose within themselves. Those who don't seek it at all seem barely human to me.
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quote:You (the royal "you") can believe that they don't fit those criteria, but you can't even support that belief with evidence, let alone consider it self-evident through direct observation.
Why can't I consider it self-evident through direct observation? It is! On the one hand I have a set of experiences that I observe myself having. On the other hand I have the criteria for being a physical thing. All it takes is then observing that the former experiences don't fit the latter criteria. It is as self-evident as the fact that a circle is not a type of square.
What do you think the criteria for being a "physical thing" are?
A good approximation would be that physical things are composed of molecules.
You experience things and observe yourself experiencing things through a series of molecular interactions that occur in your nervous system -- messages from your various sensory inputs are carried to your brain, where, in the course of being processed by way of a series of chemical reactions, "you" perceive them. If that's all there is to it, then these experiences and sensations are indeed a "physical thing."
I don't necessarily think that is all there is to it, but I certainly don't think the converse is self-evident.
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posted
My day-to-day sneakers are Converse, though they don't look like those ones. I wonder how that brand name originated?
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I don't really have time to listen to it, but my initial question (and skepticism) would be -- how would he know? It's not like we could ever untangle the cause from the effect, could we? Sure...compared to a universe at maximum entropy, this one is "geared up" for life. But did life serve as an anti-entropic force along the way, or are we just experiencing the end result of all the things that didn't last having already disappeared, so we're left with the stuff that naturally lasts long enough for life to emerge?
Anyway...as I said, I don't have time to listen to him, so I'm just sort of guessing as to what he might be saying...
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posted
I don't necessarily subscribe to his theory whole, or even feel confident to say what it is having not read the book yet. I do intend to read it as soon as I can find it but for now I just throw out the interview because they touched on many of the subjects in the thread.
Earlier, I linked to Dawkins although I think he is deeply wrong about many things.
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quote:A good approximation would be that physical things are composed of molecules.
You experience things and observe yourself experiencing things through a series of molecular interactions that occur in your nervous system -- messages from your various sensory inputs are carried to your brain, where, in the course of being processed by way of a series of chemical reactions, "you" perceive them. If that's all there is to it, then these experiences and sensations are indeed a "physical thing."
That is how I know experience is not a physical thing, though; because the above description is inconsistent with what I am observing to be experience.
The thing that I am observing and calling "experience" is not composed of molecules. The thing I am calling experience is not made up of chemical reactions.
How do I know this? The same way you know that Beethoven's 5th Symphony is not made up of stone bricks. If I wanted to insist that Beethoven's 5th was a thing made of bricks, you probably could not absolutely prove me wrong, but you'd nevertheless know for sure that the thing you are thinking of when you talk about "Beethoven's 5th" is not something that could be constructed out of bricks.
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quote:The same way you know that Beethoven's 5th Symphony is not made up of stone bricks.
I'm not sure why you think this analogy works. Beethoven's 5th is basically a bunch of frequencies strung together. You could use bricks to create these frequencies, and indeed your experience of the 5th would be the same -- whether via bricks or MIDI instruments or kazoos -- as long as the frequencies were identical and the other components of the listening experience were kept as similar as possible.
What's your argument? That there's some concrete "thing" called "Beethoven's 5th Symphony" that exists independently of sound? If so, isn't that like a stomachache without pain, or indeed without a stomach?
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posted
Symbols are symbols. Beethoven's 5th existed as symbols before it was played; numbers are symbols for realities. But symbols are just representations; if someone unable to recognize the appropriate symbols came across Beethoven's 5th, or the right equation, they'd just see marks on a page and not experience a symphony or a gravitational anomaly. The symbol is just a placeholder for the sensation.
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posted
Experience has been demonstrated to be a poor discerner of reality but an excellent correlative to a sense of certainty for one's interpretation of reality.
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quote:Beethoven's 5th is basically a bunch of frequencies strung together. You could use bricks to create these frequencies, and indeed your experience of the 5th would be the same -- whether via bricks or MIDI instruments or kazoos -- as long as the frequencies were identical and the other components of the listening experience were kept as similar as possible.
That is pretty much the same confusion people make about the mind when they try to equate it to reactions in the brain. Beethoven's 5th is the song that you hear, not the instruments making it. Sure, you can play Beethoven's 5th using bricks, but that doesn't mean Beethoven's 5th is made up of bricks. It is a song. It is made up of music, not bricks.
In a similar fashion, experience is not the same thing as the instrument from which it arises. I can't prove it logically to someone who is intent on denying it, but I know it is true just as much as I know Beethoven's 5th is a piece of music, rather than a pile of bricks.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: I don't understand the distinction you are making. Which part of the bacterium has the 'need' to reproduce?
um.. well the part of the bacterium that wants to live.... this ones a given if the first bactirium dies there are no subsequent bacterium....
quote:Let me stop being gentle : You are completely mistaken. There is no need or desire to reproduce; there is only chemistry. Bacteria split and DNA copies itself when the chemical conditions are right; this differs from crystal copying only in complexity.
and yet the bacteria need to reproduce to survive. A point that i had for certain thought that i had made clear.
And let me stop being gentle. You are mistaken. This stuff isnt quantifiable. Every major scientist, psychologist and philospher has been chasing the answer to this. They are no closer to discovering it than you or i.
quote:You should please note that I am not suggesting that a crystal is genuinely alive, as one of your posts seems to imply.
now wait... you implied this... and then when i apologised because i thought i misunderstood you, you stated that that was exactly what you meant.
quote: Rather, I am suggesting that a crystal is a plausible first step towards life, which is what you were asking about
once again you miss the point. The crystal may be a step, but as you , me, or any other scientist has failed to define what exactly constitutes life's begining. It is as i asserted in the first post, un quantifyable.
quote: To answer your other objection, about adaptability, DNA doesn't adapt either, it just copies itself or not.
once again... i didnt say anything about DNA having to adapt. Instead i sugessted that DNA had to have the ability to allow for changes and adaptations. Without it no species would survive, DNA being the building blocks of any given species would have to allow for changes during replication. I know that i made clear in my last post that i dont believe a DNA strand to be alive in itself. Adaptability is part of the drive of life to survive. If it wasnt in the genetic makup to adapt then the very first life forms would have died. This is Just like if the very first life forms and pre-life dna and protiene had not been given the energy to generate the replication process that started the very same code and process that is inherant in all the DNA strands since. Not only did an enrgy source have to be given to the molocules it had to order them and structure them or you would have yet another blob of worthless protienes. After getting the energy it would have to transform it into useful replication data.
This is the process which science is stubling to define, a process that philosphers claim irrelevant because any experimentation that may succeed at the present time would be considered post hoc-ergo proper hoc evidence. The religious people call it the breath of god. The psychologists call "selfish genes".
quote:The adaptability of life comes from the huge network of interactions from 3.7 billion years of evolution; but this is not what we are discussing.
i only mentioned this in a statement that life has to have an innate drive to adapt.
quote: We are discussing the origins of life, and they are bound to be very simple. Forget adapting to circumstances - change the chemical conditions even slightly, and proto-life dies the proto-death. Forget sophisticated error-checking mechanisms; most copies are flawed, and die.
You missed the point about me bringing up the lab-synthesis protiens. My point was that under the conditions that you are stateing life begins, being that A molocule forms then replicates itself from a very base pattern, doesnt happen when molocules form at random. Molocules and protienes that are created with no previous information to replicate themselves come undone. This is even in a controlled enviroment where sufficient energy is created to structure the random protiens, and even to sustain it. Remove the energy source and they fall apart. Leave them in the enviroment they were created by and they fall apart. Seperate them from the enviroment, sustain them with the energy, then add all the necisary molocules to reproduce itself and nothing happens. This is the unquantifiable part of life that i am talking about.
quote:Forget, in fact, anything except the bare ability to reproduce a pattern. That's all you need to start, which, as I apparently need to remind you, is what you were asking about.
once again, patterns dont start out of nowhere, there is a difference in molocules aligning t othe rigidry of their bonds forming a crystal and a protien making exact copies of itself and DNA making exact copies of itself that hold all of the traits from the parent DNA and yet allow for change, mutation and adaptability of the life form it sustains. Then after having made the genetic change passing on the traits to the next generation of the DNA.
You needent remind me about the discussion. Since you seem to not remember the discussion is not about life. You asked for somone to describe something unquantifiable ( paradox in its own right). I attempted to come as close as i can to describing these things using what we do have the ability to quantify. The discussion changed to life when you brought up crystal synthesis. [/qb][/QUOTE]
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posted
Tres, what then is a song? I submit that a "song" is a pattern of varying tones, produced in whatever manner. It's made of tones, which can be made by bricks or kazoos or human voices or random car accidents.
Experience isn't the same thing as the instrument from which it arises, but it IS the same thing as the mechanism that permits it to happen. In other words, you experience those tones -- that song -- through vibrations picked up by the hairs of your inner ear. Were I to reproduce those vibrations in your auditory canal by another method, or stimulate your nerves or your brain in exactly the way those hairs would normally do, you would "experience" Beethoven's Fifth Symphony despite the fact that the symphony was not technically "played" anywhere.
In theory, if I knew how your memory worked, I could even insert the memory of having heard Beethoven's Fifth Symphony without requiring that you experience any sense or perception of it at all.
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quote:Molocules and protienes that are created with no previous information to replicate themselves come undone. This is even in a controlled enviroment where sufficient energy is created to structure the random protiens, and even to sustain it. Remove the energy source and they fall apart. Leave them in the enviroment they were created by and they fall apart. Seperate them from the enviroment, sustain them with the energy, then add all the necisary molocules to reproduce itself and nothing happens. This is the unquantifiable part of life that i am talking about.
You are apparently not aware of the experiments where people build up a virus molecule by molecule; these virii are perfectly viable, and there's nothing in principle preventing you from doing the same with a bacterium. So, in fact, the experimental evidence contradicts you. But even ten years ago, you'd have been talking nonsense; an inability to synthesise something doesn't mean that we haven't got the right magic words to say, it just means our technique isn't good enough.
quote:once again, patterns dont start out of nowhere, there is a difference in molocules aligning t othe rigidry of their bonds forming a crystal and a protien making exact copies of itself and DNA making exact copies of itself that hold all of the traits from the parent DNA and yet allow for change, mutation and adaptability of the life form it sustains.
Well, actually, there isn't. Patterns do start out of nowhere, if you shake up random stuff for long enough. I see I did not really describe my crystal-formation theory very well, because I assumed that anyone who would discuss abiogenesis would be familiar with it. I will try to do better now. Consider a crystal which comes in at least two forms, say right- and left-handed; there are many such crystals. Let's say the crystal unit is five or so atoms lying in a plane. The cells can join up laterally by one kind of bond, so the whole thing would still lie in a plane, or vertically by another kind, forming a tower. Graphite is a lot like this. Now, you can get a whole plane of right and left units, RRLRLLLLRRLRRRRRLLLLRR and so on, and in two dimensions. (The notation should remind you of something.) The thing is that while lateral joining ignores handedness, tower-building does not. So on top of the initial layer, you get another plane of the same RRLRLLL... configuration. And, as with graphite, this top layer could flake off, to land elsewhere and copy itself again. There would be mutations, since what I said about vertical copying being exact isn't quite true; there would be patterns that were stable, and patterns that broke apart easily; there would be patterns easily copied, and pattern that bred slowly. In short, you'd have natural selection and evolution! Now, is this not life, or the start of it? What is missing?
quote:You asked for somone to describe something unquantifiable ( paradox in its own right). I attempted to come as close as i can to describing these things using what we do have the ability to quantify.
You asserted "X is not quantifiable, because it's like life, which is magic." I don't find the first assertion very interesting, so I attacked the second one. If you did not wish to discuss the origin of life, by all means say so.
quote:once again you miss the point. The crystal may be a step, but as you , me, or any other scientist has failed to define what exactly constitutes life's begining. It is as i asserted in the first post, un quantifyable.
Do you mean to tell me that you are not arguing about whether abiogenesis without divine intervention is possible, but rather just saying that we can't find the exact point at which it has occurred? Sheesh. That point is so totally uninteresting, it didn't even occur to me that anyone would make it. What's next, an assertion that porn is defined as "I know it when I see it"?
quote:um.. well the part of the bacterium that wants to live.... this ones a given if the first bactirium dies there are no subsequent bacterium....
Right, and if my crystal fails to reproduce, there is no subsequent crystal. What's your point?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You are apparently not aware of the experiments where people build up a virus molecule by molecule; these virii are perfectly viable, and there's nothing in principle preventing you from doing the same with a bacterium. So, in fact, the experimental evidence contradicts you. But even ten years ago, you'd have been talking nonsense; an inability to synthesise something doesn't mean that we haven't got the right magic words to say, it just means our technique isn't good enough.[/qb]
once again, a virus isnt considered a life, therefor this is irrelevant toward the issue at hand. They have also built a cell piece by piece but they had to use parts from existing cells.
quote:Well, actually, there isn't. Patterns do start out of nowhere, if you shake up random stuff for long enough. I see I did not really describe my crystal-formation theory very well, because I assumed that anyone who would discuss abiogenesis would be familiar with it. I will try to do better now. Consider a crystal which comes in at least two forms, say right- and left-handed; there are many such crystals. Let's say the crystal unit is five or so atoms lying in a plane. The cells can join up laterally by one kind of bond, so the whole thing would still lie in a plane, or vertically by another kind, forming a tower. Graphite is a lot like this. Now, you can get a whole plane of right and left units, RRLRLLLLRRLRRRRRLLLLRR and so on, and in two dimensions. (The notation should remind you of something.) The thing is that while lateral joining ignores handedness, tower-building does not. So on top of the initial layer, you get another plane of the same RRLRLLL... configuration. And, as with graphite, this top layer could flake off, to land elsewhere and copy itself again. There would be mutations, since what I said about vertical copying being exact isn't quite true; there would be patterns that were stable, and patterns that broke apart easily; there would be patterns easily copied, and pattern that bred slowly. In short, you'd have natural selection and evolution! Now, is this not life, or the start of it? What is missing?[/qb]
Thank you for the further definition, i do find it intruiging and will probably find some extra sources on this when i can find more free time to read. But once again, you are interchanging cells and crystal structure. They are not the same thing. Crystal patters dont "breed" they simply align to other like structures around them. You fail to adress the formation of the synthesis information encoded in the DNA. DNA replicates by using Enzymes that the DNA assigns values to. Its a self governing cycle that has to have a begining, but as science has yet to show is inconcievable to function properly without either part of the cycle.
quote:You asserted "X is not quantifiable, because it's like life, which is magic." I don't find the first assertion very interesting, so I attacked the second one. If you did not wish to discuss the origin of life, by all means say so.[/qb]
Nowhere did i mention it is like magic. I stated it was unquantifiable because it is unable to be defined by any means that we now posses
quote:Do you mean to tell me that you are not arguing about whether abiogenesis without divine intervention is possible, but rather just saying that we can't find the exact point at which it has occurred? Sheesh. That point is so totally uninteresting, it didn't even occur to me that anyone would make it. What's next, an assertion that porn is defined as "I know it when I see it"?
Firstly, For being the anti religious person i thought you were you seem to be adamant about putting god in my arguments. Nowhere have i cited or used god as a source. Secondly i stated several times that it was the begining of life, the "spark" the "essence" of life that we are unable to quantify. There is no way you could not diverge that since it is in many of my posts. i dont really knwo if this is your way of backing out of an arguement but, i know that this is something i have stated over and over and over again. Something which you were telling me is certainly quantifiable.
Thirdly your statement about porn is irrelevent to the arguement at hand and is just a way of cahngeing from the subject at which you are failing to talk about.
quote:Right, and if my crystal fails to reproduce, there is no subsequent crystal. What's your point?
You were the one that brought this up, not me. I in no way saw how you intended to argue this as a point, and so aparantly neither did you.
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Ok, look you, I'm totally confused. Could you please remind me what we are arguing about? I am willing to continue an abiogenesis discussion, it's an interesting subject. I'm not willing to discuss the quantifiability of life, it doesn't seem to me like we're going to have a fruitful debate on that.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
yar, i was confused at why you wanted to debate that myself. Since i see it was a miscommunication it does make sense on why no one was making headway. Of course i do like learning new things and my data would not exactly be recent so i never know when something that was previously unkown becomes known.
As for abiogenesis. What would be a good place to start on that. Books, material authors and the like?
Posts: 467 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Tres, what then is a song? I submit that a "song" is a pattern of varying tones, produced in whatever manner. It's made of tones, which can be made by bricks or kazoos or human voices or random car accidents.
Tones can be made by bricks, but they aren't made out of bricks. There is a big difference there.
quote:Experience isn't the same thing as the instrument from which it arises, but it IS the same thing as the mechanism that permits it to happen.
What leads you to believe this is true? I don't think it is true at all. Most things in the world arise from some mechanism, but are NOT the same thing as those mechanisms. Babies arise from sexual intercourse, but they aren't the same thing as sexual intercourse. Books arise from printing presses, but aren't the same thing as printing presses. The words I am typing arise from a process in my brain, but is not the same thing as the process in my brain. And so on...
Experience is what it is. There is no rule that says it is necessarily the same thing as whatever creates it or allows it to happen, whether that be an "instrument" or a "mechanism".
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Tones can be made by bricks, but they aren't made out of bricks.
They're "made" of vibrations through media.
quote:Babies arise from sexual intercourse, but they aren't the same thing as sexual intercourse.
*sigh* Tres, are you being willfully obtuse, here? The issue is one of perception. If something were in all ways identical to a baby according to your perception, would you -- not knowing its origins -- still call it a baby? If not, why not?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
That is not relevant. Nothing in the brain is even remotely identical in all ways to the experiences I have. They are actually almost totally different.
The issue that you raised is whether experience is identical to the mechanism that permits it to happen. You seem to be basing an argument on the assumption that things are identical to the mechanims that permit them to happen. But because babies are definitely not identical to the mechanism that permits them to happen, that assumption does not hold true. If that is not what you meant by "Experience isn't the same thing as the instrument from which it arises, but it IS the same thing as the mechanism that permits it to happen" then what did you mean?
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Nothing in the brain is even remotely identical in all ways to the experiences I have.
This is exactly what I'm arguing, Tres: that the experiences you have are identical to the sensations they cause in your brain that make you aware of them, insofar as you're able to be cognizant of any difference.
Out of interest, how would you recognize any difference between two experiences that your brain perceived in exactly the same way?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
My brain doesn't "perceive" anything. My brain just reacts physically to stimuli. "I" am the thing that perceives experiences.
Now, I perceive "the smell of apple pie" differently from "the pain of a stomach ache." If it turned out that my brain reacts exactly the same way in both of these cases it would be interesting, but I would still be able to tell them apart - because the experience of smelling apple pie is nothing like the pain of a stomach ache. The difference is easy for me to tell, regardless of what my brain is doing. I just experience them and see the difference.
quote:This is exactly what I'm arguing, Tres: that the experiences you have are identical to the sensations they cause in your brain that make you aware of them, insofar as you're able to be cognizant of any difference.
What is your argument for this then? Why should I accept it when it seems blatantly false when I directly observe the experiences I have on a daily basis and see that they are definitely not made up of physical particles?
quote:The difference is easy for me to tell, regardless of what my brain is doing.
Well, that's just ridiculous, because plainly your brain is not doing the same things in these two cases. This difference is so gross that we can even see it in MRI!
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Tres, what then is a song? I submit that a "song" is a pattern of varying tones, produced in whatever manner. It's made of tones, which can be made by bricks or kazoos or human voices or random car accidents.
Whooaaaa there. A song is something you sing. A peice of music is what you're describing. Important if you want to use your vocabulary effectively: A song is colloqually known as any short peice of music, however "song" is also something sung, and it describes a certain musical form (which can be followed with an instrument making it a "song" without words, ala Mendelssohn).
A song is not however, the same thing as a waltz, trio, minuet, sonata, mazurka, prelude, fugue, theme and variations, aria, strophe,, or other musical form. To call any of these things (or countless other forms) songs is innacurate, and misleading. It is accepted colloquially, but IMO, it should not be, and it definetly hasn't been until recently (thanks itunes). Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: My brain doesn't "perceive" anything. My brain just reacts physically to stimuli. "I" am the thing that perceives experiences.
What's this "I" you're talking about? I'm not understanding what you mean. Is this your soul? The metaphysical sum of your experiences? The wave state of your brain's electrical activity?
I would like to participate in the discussion, but I feel that I need to understand the specifics of your point before I can address it.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:What's this "I" you're talking about? I'm not understanding what you mean. Is this your soul? The metaphysical sum of your experiences? The wave state of your brain's electrical activity?
That which experiences my experiences.
quote:Well, that's just ridiculous, because plainly your brain is not doing the same things in these two cases. This difference is so gross that we can even see it in MRI!
I didn't speculate on whether Tom's scenario was actually scientifically possible. I'm just saying that IF my brain acted the same and yet I had two different experiences, then I'd still be able to tell them apart, because that is part of what it means to experience things - the ability to differentiate different experiences.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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