People who believe in god are broken

[tar]

PeterJ,

 

Consciousness is a central point in religious discussions. What of it is "our" doing, and what of it is something "given" to us.

 

There would be a lot of strong arguments to suggest that reality has given us consciousness. And an especally sound conclusion, considering there is nothing but reality to have done the job.

 

But since reality is the only source availible, even if we were to take some of the credit, it would be OK, since we are real, ourselves.

 

You say strong AI can not be "put" into a machine, but that assumes you have a distinction that you make between what is artifical and what is real. What if the question was, can we put strong RI (real intelligence) into a machine? Then you could look around our constructions and see, that we already have done this.

 

Depending on your criteria. And whether or not it has to be "human" intelligence that you wish to achieve.

 

For instance, a dog (anybody that has had one would probably agree with this) has an awareness of its surroundings and its position in it. It remembers patterns and events, and can get excited and known what is coming when it hears the word "treat".or sees its owner reaching for the box, or shaking its contents. They have a unique personality, a territory, a collection of insiders and outsiders, and many more "characteristics" that just belong to it. It can morn the loss of a pack-mate, etc. We would not consider it had "human" intelligence, but it certainly is intelligence of some sort that is not tremendously different than that which us humans have, that it has.

 

Would you demand that there was a dog god, from which a dog had received this dog intelligence?

 

Regards, TAR2

[MonDie]

You say strong AI can not be "put" into a machine, but that assumes you have a distinction that you make between what is artifical and what is real.

 

He said it is not "possible to show" that such a machine would be "conscious."

I think the distinction between AI and RI is useless because it is not intelligence that we are unable to test for. It's qualia, or, as I put it, "vividness," that we cannot test for. For the rest of this post, "consciousness" is the conflation of intelligence and vividness.

I think the conflation of intelligence with vividness encourages belief in an intelligent creator. As long as these two are conflated, people assume that "consciousness" couldn't happen without some conscious (intelligent) creator, because there appears to be no reason consciousness should have emerged from inherently inconscious things. However, when intelligence and vividness are separated, it's apparent that vividness may not require intelligence.

 

It is becoming more and more clear that intelligence is mostly, if not entirely, a material phenomenon. Why this is bad for theists: If intelligence is material and God is immaterial, God obviously isn't intelligent.

The creation of our universe involved no wit,

no reason, no plan, no abstract blueprint;

the reasons are provided by us alone.

 

It's the explanation for "vividness" that will probably be the big problem for empiricists.

Edited December 18, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[tar]

Monday's Assignment: Die,

 

If no wit or plan, was involved, was there any vividness involved?

 

"It cannot be shown" produces an interesting question. Shown to whom?

 

If you say qualia/quale can not be tested, you have already backwardly conceeded that you already know that you are not the only one that has it/them. That this vividness indeed is a constituent of reality, that exists in other places, or entities, or "happens", even if you are not the one it is happening to. PeterJ knowns this thing, Immortal has recognized that it demands a unitiy of all things, others are not able to find its home, or "show" its existence, so they call it imaginary or supernatural.

 

Are people that have quale broken? Are people that experience vividness broken? Are people that believe in God broken?

 

Somewhat depends on who or what you think the answer is important to,

 

If God is vividness in general, then its existence is already assured, and our arguments about it, are truely just a misunderstanding of what we are each calling what. There still has to be a what to call. There still has to be some callers. And if there are some callers there must be "a" caller as well.

 

Regards, TAR2

[PeterJ]

Good point. But I'd suggest that subjective idealism is as one-sided and partial as objective materialism. For this reason I'd advocate Absolute Idealism.

[immortal]

Immortal,

 

If I did come up with a way to develop a machine with strong AI, or a machine that was conscious of its own existence, wouldn't you quickly find a rational to explain it as a cheat in some way, where I had actually taken some of your gods, put them into the machine, and erroneously claimed it was "my" idea?

 

Regards, TAR2

 

Or perhaps you would suggest that I had found a way to grab disembodied souls, on their transit from a former life to the next, and coax them into residing in my machine.

 

In any case I think you might not release your belief in gods, just because scientists developed strong AI machines.

 

All I want you to do is just make a machine think, the last time I came up with an algorithm all by myself was for to check whether a number is an armstrong number or not (for example :- 153 = 1^3 + 5^3 + 3^3). So perhaps if you give this example to a machine and tell the machine to come up with an algorithm to determine whether a number is an armstrong number or not all by itself then we can at least say a machine has an understanding and also is thinking.

 

That's the whole point! Human beings can always find a new way of looking at something, but an algorithm can't. You can't have an algorithm which generates new algorithms for itself, because if it did, the new bits would by definition be part of the original algorithm.

 

- Penrose's point.

 

“A majority of contemporary mathematicians (a typical, though disputed, estimate is about two-thirds) believe in a kind of heaven – not a heaven of angels and saints, but one inhabited by the perfect and timeless objects they study: n-dimensional spheres, infinite numbers, the square root of -1, and the like. Moreover, they believe that they commune with this realm of timeless entities through a sort of extra-sensory perception.”

 

“And today’s mathematical Platonists agree. Among the most distinguished of them is Alain Connes, holder of the Chair of Analysis and Geometry at the College de France, who has averred that “there exists, independently of the human mind, a raw and immutable mathematical reality.”… Platomism is understandably seductive to mathematicians. It means that the entities they study are no mere artifacts of the human mind: these entities are discovered, not invented… Many physicists also feel the allure of Plato’s vision.”

 

- Jim Holt

 

One of my main reasons for believing in gods is because I think intellect exists in platonic realms and if you need to come up with a machine capable of strong AI you need to embody this intellect into the machine to make it think and access mathematical truths but science cannot get beyond mere appearances of phenomena to do that.

 

Sounds like a fair enough deal to me.

 

 

Immortal,

 

By the way, since I mentioned it, how many souls do you figure there are, in total?

 

This reincarnation thing, does not seem to work out right, as the population of humans grows. Are there human souls of a certain number? Or can any mammal soul become a human soul? Or can the soul of any life form, become a human soul? Is it just the count of souls on Earth that we care about, or if we should birth more beings than the souls available, do we import souls from other planets?

 

If you have answers to these questions, can you give us the empirical evidence that was used to arrive at the number?

 

Regards, TAR2

 

(don't forget to subtract the souls that have reached nirvana, as it would not be cricket to put THEM though the whole eternal process again)

 

 

This answers all your questions.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MqPNsj1we50

 

 

By the by the way, this reaching nirvana thing has another related glitch, as that you would still be inhabiting a mortal body after you reached nirvana. Either that, or you would immediately expire.

Seems a logical problem, to me.

 

This answers your question.

 

 

 

Sankara's and Buddhist methodology: epistemic, not ontological negation

 

Sankara's method of 'neti, neti' (‘not this, not this’) is also often misunderstood. In it the sheaths or upadhis are supposedly rejected one by one as 'not-self' in order to reach the Self. Guadapada, his predecessor, had often, in fact, as previously mentioned, been accused of being a 'crypto-Buddhist' as the dialectic used by him was nearly identical to that of the Madhyamikas. However, the doctrine of the five sheaths in the Tittireya Upanishad, which forms part of the material which Sankara drew from, never once mentioned negating a sheath as not real or as not-self. Rather, the method of analysis there was wholistic, in which one successively realized each sheath as the Self, incorporating each in turn within the other, until nothing was known apart from the bliss of the Self. Sankara used a provisional negation, an epistemological method of negation, yes, as a first stage to find the self apart from the world, which some have interpreted as ontological negation, looking for an essence apart from that which was not real. But, in non-dual truth, there is no such separated essence per se, as nothing is not-real or known apart from the Self. The Self is the negation of a negation, realized in the second stage of the Vedantic approach where the world is known as Brahman. That is, Sankara would use 'neti neti' to strip away one's attachment to everything perceivable; then, when one had become so detached, he would ask one to reintroduce the negated elements into the one Self. "Brahman is real, the jiva is mithya (neither real or unreal, that is, apparent or relatively real), the jiva is Brahman' is how the formula actually read. The emphasis on 'neti neti' was more on negating the limits on the Self rather than trying to negate or eliminate the world. For even after realization of the Self, the sage would still see the world of duality like other men, only as not apart from the Self and this not objectively real in itself. Sometimes Ramana Maharshi, for instance, would say things that implied that for the sage whose jiva-hood was gone there was no world, thus misleading some people into an incorrect view of non-dualism.

 

[John Cuthber]

This thread keeps reminding me of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=438UKM1Av1g

[MonDie]

If no wit or plan, was involved, was there any vividness involved?

 

i dunno

 

 

"It cannot be shown" produces an interesting question. Shown to whom?

 

If you say qualia/quale can not be tested, you have already backwardly conceeded that you already know that you are not the only one that has it/them. That this vividness indeed is a constituent of reality, that exists in other places, or entities, or "happens", even if you are not the one it is happening to.

 

I accidentally said that we cannot test for vividness. More specifically, I think we cannot measure vividness, at least not directly. Then again, I have very little formal knowledge of neuroscience.

However, I think there might be a way to test for vividness. The empirical evidence is that I am talking to you about it right now. If you were a zombie who lacked this vividness, why would you be entertaining the idea at all?

 

It might be a constituent of physical reality, it might not. Nonetheless, if it's real, it's a constituent of reality.

 

 

Are people that have quale broken? Are people that experience vividness broken?

 

Only if they accept the claim without due consideration.

 

Are people that believe in God broken?

 

If the right function is to think rationally, then, for all practical purposes, yes. Exceptions are possible, but I don't know of any exceptions.

 

It can also be the case that irrationallity sometimes contributes to, rather than detracts from, functionality. It all depends on what subjective definition of "function" you are using. This claim would be much more plausible than the claim that belief in god is rationally justifiable.

 

 

If God is vividness in general, then its existence is already assured, and our arguments about it, are truely just a misunderstanding of what we are each calling what.

 

Okay. If God is broccoli, his existence is already assured.

 

Besides, this severely limits the idea of what a god can be. Without any method of recording events (a property of the brain), this god can't have perception of the time-line, thus he can't have perception of causal relationships. Without perception of causal relationships, there can't be "will," because will involves contemplation of the effects of certain behaviors.

Furthermore, there would be no system to unite various information collected from the physical world. Without such a system, there can't be perception, whether that's internal or external perception. Without perception, there can't be knowledge of anything.

This god is the equivalent of a dead guy. This view entails the conclusion that God is dead.

 

Here is a Godly attributes checklist.

Omnipotent (The Will of God)

Omnibenevolent (The Love of God)

Omniscient (The Eye of God)

Wise

Omnipresent

Immutable

Eternal

Edited December 19, 2012 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[tar]

Immortal,

 

I skipped around a bit in the video, but it did not look promising as to being likely to "answer all my questions".

I was atter the 'technical" answers, and the fellow said that they were unimportant, as long as we were headed in the right direction.

And to the animal thing he said it was possible but probably no soul would be punished by being demoted, and once you were a human you would come back as a human...and so forth. All just guesses that would be internally consistent with the vauge overall "belief" but with no particulars that you could inspect, test, expect, get wrong or right, or anything close to answering the questions I asked. Nor in the few minutes of the interview that I watched was there any evidence of how one comes upon this knowledge. It could be this way or that and it doesn't matter, as long as you are trying to be nice. No different a belief than I hold, as an atheist, that does not believe in reincarnation and the consistency of an "individual soul", absent an individual body.

 

You will have to do better than that, to answer all my questions.

 

Regards, TAR2

Monday's Assignment: Die,

 

I like your checklist, but the existence of general vividness is different than the existence of general brocolli.

 

Regards, TAR2

Good point. But I'd suggest that subjective idealism is as one-sided and partial as objective materialism. For this reason I'd advocate Absolute Idealism.

 

PeterJ,

 

Not sure what Absolute Idealism is, but it absolutely sounds ideal.

 

Regards, TAR2

[immortal]

Nobody here has suggested that theists not be allowed to worship. Please try to avoid arguing against strawmen, and please try to avoid moving the goal posts.

 

No, how can a theist worship God if you keep calling them broken? Theists cannot worship god without believing in some higher entity. If there is evidence found that the existence of God is more likely then worshipping is one of the best ways to test god for a theist.

 

I presume you mean outside of psychology or anthropology, correct?

 

Yes, there are compelling reasons and evidences with in the exact sciences to investigate gods because there is a hypothesis for a non-physical mind to solve the measurement problem and we theists think its very likely that such a non-physical mind is the product of a divine god.

 

 

If so, then kindly please define god in a way that can be measured without the use of neuroimaging equipment. Until then, your assertion that science "will abandon physicalism and shift thei r line of research into investigation of the gods" is quite an unrealistic assertion to make.

 

 

 

For millennia, contemplatives have known that ordinary people can divest themselves of the feeling that they call "I" and thereby relinquish the sense that they are separate from the rest of the universe. This phenomenon, which has been reported by practitioners in many spiritual traditions, is supported by a wealth of evidence—neuroscientific, philosophical, and introspective. Such experiences are "spiritual" or "mystical," for want of better words, in that they are relatively rare (unnecessarily so), significant(in that they uncover genuine facts about the world),and personally transformative.

 

They also reveal a far deeper connection between ourselves and the rest of the universe than is suggested by the ordinary confines of our subjectivity. There is no doubt that experiences of this sort are worth seeking, just as there is no doubt that the popular religious ideas that have grown up around them, especially in the West, are as dangerous as they are incredible. A truly rational approach to this dimension of our lives would allow us to explore the heights of our subjectivity with an open mind, while shedding the provincialism and dogmatism of our religious traditions in favor of free and rigorous inquiry. There also seems to be a body of data attesting to the reality of psychic phenomena, much of which has been ignored by mainstream science.

 

- Sam Harris, End of Faith

 

If neuro-imaging and recording equipment convinces one about the indirect empirical effects from the numinous then there is no better equipment than your mind to measure the existence of an anthropomorphic god.

 

Indeed, sir. Very much agreed. Unfortunately, you ought to look in the mirror when casting such aspersions instead of at the people who ask for a reason to accept your ideas as anything more than wish thinking and delusion.

 

Why should I let go my beliefs if they are based on scholarly evidences in religion supported by sound arguments from theoretical physicists.

 

[John Cuthber]

 

 

Why should I let go my beliefs if they are based on scholarly evidences in religion supported by sound arguments from theoretical physicists.

 

That would be a good question if there were evidence from physics.

However there's not.

Also the answer to the first part "Why should I let go my beliefs if they are based on scholarly evidences in religion"

is that studying books about old books tells you what the authors of books wrote about old books: nothing more and nothing less.

 

It's not even a good appeal to authority.

[iNow]

No, how can a theist worship God if you keep calling them broken?

Is this supposed to be a serious question? Did you want me to provide a sincere response?

[MonDie]

the existence of general vividness is different than the existence of general brocolli.

 

My point was that you are just redefining the idea of god to make it more believable. What do you mean when you say "god" is "general vividness"?

[tar]

Monday's Assignment: Die,

 

The redefinition was conditional for the consideration. "If God is general vividness" then, for consideration of the logic, and during the consideration, God will stand for whatever you consider general vividness. As you have conception of this general vividness, and it commands a rather all incompassing, reality based existence, and I have a conception of this general vividness, and it commands a rather all encompassing, reality based existence, there is a decent chance that there is some intersection, in reality, of our two possibly very different conceptions. "If God is general vividness" is an attempt to define God, at least when you and I are attempting to decribe it, in a mutually understandable way, as the intersection of the real components that you are referring to when you use the term "general vividness" and those components that I am referring to when I cogitate on the term. Sort of like saying "If you are talking about the same thing that I think you are talking about, then..." And I knew you were not talking only about brocolli.

 

Regards, TAR2

 

I suppose this is what I keep trying to get at, when suggesting that Immortal and I are probably refering to the same intersection of conceptions when he alludes to Brahman and I allude to general vividness, and Hawkins alludes to reality, or the universe.

 

It is, in this, why I propose one give the other, the benefit of the doubt, and assume they are talking about the intersection, and not stress the differences in the particulars that are not equally evident to the both.

 

And to the thread title, the conclusions would be that people are broken, if they hold so strongly to their particulars, that the rest of us can not find where that conception intersects with ours.

Edited December 20, 2012 by tar

[chris logan]

it all depends on your definition of 'broken'.

[Moontanman]

it all depends on your definition of 'broken'.

 

 

And that depends on god having some evidence for it's existence wouldn't it? If I believed in fairies would that mean I am broken?

[Anura]

"I believe evidence. I believe observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be." Isaac Asimov

[iNow]

Hi Anura - Can you please clarify for us why you've chosen to share this quote from Asimov?

 

Does it mean you think there is evidence for god, or does it mean you think there is not, but we should be willing to explore potential evidence if any were presented? It is currently unclear the point you wish to make, so I hope you can help us better understand it.

To clarify my stance, I agree with the quote, but I also challenge the idea that it's even possible to provide evidence of god(s) until god(s) is/are defined in an agreed upon and measurable way.

[MonDie]

I challenge the idea that "God" ever will be defined in an agreed upon way. Spinoza believed in something he called God, yet...

Spinoza's doctrine was considered radical at the time he published and he was widely seen as the most infamous atheist-heretic of Europe.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinozism

 

By the way, I'm sorry if I, in part, led immortal to say you were biased. I was rude in saying/assuming you would like, specifically, the religion & prejudice studies showing religious people are generally more prejudiced. Of course, I only made the assumption because I myself found those studies pleasing.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Mondays Assignment: Die

[iNow]

I wonder if a metaphysicist would care to comment.

[Moontanman]

I wonder if a metaphysicist would care to comment.

 

 

Or maybe a bullshitologist....

[John Cuthber]

If a metaphysicist comments in a forest, and nobody hears him, is that a step forward?

[tar]

If a metaphysicist comments in a forest, and nobody hears him, is that a step forward?

John Cuthber,

 

You bring up a good point. How many people need to be enlightened on a subject, inorder for it to be worthwhile, or a step forward.

 

There are many insights I have had along the way, in 59 years, that were a step forward for me, that were very much like me talking to myself, with nobody else listening. The idea, with only one holder.

 

If one were to imagine something mattering anyway, to the greater reality, in the face of mortality, and solitude, this would not be unlike a belief in God. That one is obligated to reality, somehow completely in its possession and responsible for it. The one who speaks and the one who listens. The one who it matters to, and the one that matters.

 

How may people need to hear a thing, or say a thing, in order for it to be considered a step forward?

 

Why should seeing my wife give birth to my daughter be such a wonderful thing, and such a huge step forward, when such a thing has already been done billions of times, and too many of these wonderful steps forward will overpopulate the Earth and cause its ruin?

 

I am thinking that a metaphysicist commenting in the woods, with nobody to hear her, is a good step forward for the metaphysicist. And if this is true, and it matters to anybody, other than the metaphysicist, then the metaphysicist is not alone, even if there was no other human alive but the fetus in her womb.

 

If we care what others think, and we care about the environment, and we consider the lessons dead people have left for us to learn, and we care about the yet to be born, and arranging things to be of benefit for them, then there is something we care about, that need not hear our voice, inorder to care about our comment.

 

Regards, TAR2

[John Cuthber]

"You bring up a good point. How many people need to be enlightened on a subject, in order for it to be worthwhile, or a step forward."

Why assume it's a step forward, just because lots of people are enlightened on it?

 

Plenty of people were aware of tyranny. Does that make it worthwhile?

[Iggy]

I am thinking that a metaphysicist commenting in the woods, with nobody to hear her, is a good step forward for the metaphysicist.

 

Yes, I rather prefer it that way.

[MonDie]

Would anyone care to explain why they dislike metaphysics?

 

...

 

"Did I just hear something?"