How many here are atheists?

[Caleb]

Ouch! I'm being attacked by the Cardinal! 

I guess I plead guilty to participating in a debate. Here in the subforum that is specifically designated for such debate. 

Actually, at this point, I think it's evolved into less of a debate and more of a philosophical discussion.  Christ didn't leave us an evolved philosophy, so I have to find my own.

[NJLiberty]

I would actually like to thank both you for taking the time to write such lengthy posts. It has been very interesting reading.

George

[srqrebel]

Ditto. I enjoy the mental stimulation and resultant personal growth very much.

...and thank you for keeping this in the Endless Debate subforum. That way, self-avowed debatatarian haters can just put the whole thing on ignore, and not even know this is going on!

[dalebert]

I don't know how you can get so hung up on the notion of instinct being explained as an elaborate pattern, as a function of the material world. That leap that you describe as if it's a chasm has already been made. We have simple robots that already respond to their environment in ways that are more elaborate than some of the simplest lifeforms that simply have some pain cells that transmit an electrical impulse that cause a muscle to flex. Planarians have eye spots that simply sense light and respond for instance. We've built robots that play ping-pong. There are software programs that design planets using fractal algorithms. How you manage to get so vexed over things that strike me as intuitively sensible eludes me. I don't even know how to address it when I don't understand what's so perplexing about it. Maybe it's because of my background in computer science. The whole point of programming is teaching computers to make decisions in a useful way. We start with very simple building blocks and build more complex building blocks and even tools for building from those and so on. We're already designing programs that learn. Software has gotten complicated enough that it's going the route of evolution. Hardly any of it is all written by one person. It's written using tools and building blocks that have been built over time. It's like, someone can know how to make a car out of component parts, but he may not know how every single piece of the car works. Even so, he doesn't suddenly get existential because he doesn't know how a battery works. I look at the rate that our technology is advancing, which is much faster than evolution, and it strikes me as a given that you and I will one day have a conversation with a computer that passes the Turing test. If someone says "but that computer is not self-aware" I'd like to know how they can say that confidently. I sure wouldn't say that.

The notion of the brain as a very elaborate computer seems intuitively obvious. This is not vexing at all to me. Computer programs make decisions. The brain makes decisions. The number of neurons in the human brain and the number of firings of those neurons still dwarfs any computer we've ever built so I'm not surprised we haven't pulled off a Turing test yet, but computing technology is also advancing at an exponential rate. Our nano technology is advancing quite rapidly as well. I may be slightly optimistic in my predictions of when, but that it's inevitable seems obvious.

[Friday]

I haven't read this particular thread, and I generally don't join in the online philosophical battles myself, but I have found some of the lengthy intellectual debates very interesting and enlightening, and am glad they're here.  I would also quibble with some of the usage of the term "debateatarian".  To me, that term should be restricted to people who hide behind their keyboards and do nothing BUT debate online.  That doesn't apply to the majority of, how shall we say... more "verbal" posters on this forum.   

[dalebert]

As for the danger of new technology being used in bad ways, yes of course that's a real concern. However, this sort of strikes me as about as sensible as an argument for gun control. Guns are inevitable. We have to live in a world where these technologies can exist and therefore they will exist and go from there. You may as well have told people not to discover fire because it can cause harm. Nuclear power- same thing. The discoveries are an inevitable consequence of progress. Teaching caution is certainly sensible, but it's pointless to say just don't go there. Someone will. I guarantee it.

It should be some consolation that these new lifeforms will not have the same needs as us and therefore will not have much incentive to fight with us over resources, a common source of strife. Also, I have faith (go ahead and laugh at the irony) that as we become more intelligent, the sensibility of morality will become ever more apparent. It's in this way that I tend to see morality as objective. It's also why I am extremely skeptical of any advanced alien race being as violent as we are.

[dalebert]

I know Caleb's posts are getting longer that the quotes from Christ in the Bible.

In Caleb's defense, I find his points a lot more compelling than quotes from Jesus. 

[Russell Kanning]

I know Caleb's posts are getting longer that the quotes from Christ in the Bible.

In Caleb's defense, I find his points a lot more compelling than quotes from Jesus. 

Interesting
Caleb is more complicated.
Have fun ... you guys seem to have fans .... along with us snipers.

[Caleb]

I don't know how you can get so hung up on the notion of instinct being explained as an elaborate pattern, as a function of the material world. That leap that you describe as if it's a chasm has already been made. We have simple robots that already respond to their environment in ways that are more elaborate than some of the simplest lifeforms that simply have some pain cells that transmit an electrical impulse that cause a muscle to flex.How you manage to get so vexed over things that strike me as intuitively sensible eludes me.

Because it strikes me as so intuitively insensible, but to challenge it I had to actually get you to say it.  You have reduced thought to something that is ... well, far more limited than my experience. You have addressed the gulf that I speak about by denying it. You have placed thought within the category of reflex, material response. And as a consequence put yourself firmly within a deterministic framework.

I never have got the computer analogy. I think because as a kid, I sat and watched dad program. And it always struck me how many arguments had to be created to create a very simple little software program. And so the software substitutes for will. You talk about how much has been done with computers, and I just don't agree. You are thinking that behavior is qualitatively the same as my experience. But think about it, Dale. Imagine yourself as an alien looking down, like you mentioned before. You might watch yourself, and write down everything that you do. But you wouldn't be catching the interior life at all, so your picture of Dale would be radically incomplete. A computer is programmed to a certain behavior. You can fancy it up with algorithms all you want, but its abilities will be determined to the extent of its programming. You seem to want to apply a behavioristic model to thought. I don't think that captures the quality of my experience. So I guess it boils down to the idea that I view thought as being radically different than you, which is why I see it as a gulf that can't be crossed.

As for the danger of new technology being used in bad ways, yes of course that's a real concern.

It occurred to me afterward just how dangerous it might be. Someone could create a "hell" and force me into it. A little world of horrors that only exists on a little microchip, but that microchip becomes my new reality once someone forces me onto it. Thankfully, I don't believe that is possible. Like I said, solve the biological riddle first: Download your mind into somebody else's brain. That's a way easier proposition because human brains are already made for human thought.

[Caleb]

About the DNA problem. It's kind of like this, if I can use your computer analogy. DNA builds the "hardware", but it seems like you are just asserting that the "software" is also built too, and I'm saying, "ok ... um ... wow ... I'm just not seeing. This gene codes for this protein and on and on, we can even map out all the genotypes (given sufficient time and money) in the cell, and I'm still not seeing this `software', just hardware."

And the only possible response seems to be, "oh, it's there, we just haven't found it yet," but that isn't falsifiable.

[dalebert]

And the only possible response seems to be, "oh, it's there, we just haven't found it yet," but that isn't falsifiable.

Caleb, now you're changing your premises. Before, the leap wasn't from a simple life form to a human's cognitive processes. You claimed the leap was from inert matter to simple instincts. I demonstrated that it is not in fact a leap. We have demonstrated that such a leap can be explained in materialistic terms. Just because we don't have the nano-technology to build a single cell doesn't mean we don't understand what's happening. From there it really does appear to be a matter of degrees of complexity. You even conceded that there is not a fundamental difference between a simple life form and a human, that we seem to share some unseen property that makes consciousness possible. Are you suggesting that spider instincts to cannibalize each other in infancy is not in their DNA but rather a communication from God? Come on, Caleb. Seriously. Where do you think the information to build the spider's brain and nervous system is located?

And once again, thinking about cannibal spiders, that brings me back to the unanswered question of how you conclude that morality is inherent rather than emergent. My experience of the world seems to defy that. Which is not to say that morality is not objective; just that it's something we had to discover through a rather messy process of development.

[Caleb]

Ok, I'm going to try to use this post to clarify some concepts that I think are getting clouded over.

First, I'm not impressed by your claim that you have solved the gigantic gulf. You say, "I demonstrated that it is, in fact, not a leap." You've demonstrated no such thing. What you've done is this: You've defined thought patterns as a sort of behavior. "A thought is not an awareness, it is a reflex. If it does this, then it is this." Then, having so defined thought, you've denied that any chasm exists at all, and voila, the problem goes away.

Except that it doesn't go away. Because what you've done is create a notion of thought that doesn't resonate with my experience. I am not what I do. You can't observe me and jot down my actions and have a picture of me. This is what I mean when I say that materialism must ultimately be reductive. From my perspective, you have eliminated the chasm by eliminating me. I'm going to post a little later on, to clarify the nature of human thought, because I think that "thought" is going into a bit of a haze here in these discussions, due mostly to a lot of analogy, abstraction, and hypothetical. But right now, I am amazingly tired (due mostly to a return to work after a week off, and the first day back was a very hard day,) so I might get to this later on tonight, and I might not. It might be tomorrow, maybe.

But what I want to show you now is that the issue is getting pretty confused. Let me show you.

Caleb, now you're changing your premises. Before, the leap wasn't from a simple life form to a human's cognitive processes. You claimed the leap was from inert matter to simple instincts.

Now, I'm not even sure where you are coming from here. The problem, as I see it, is not so much getting from a tiny cell to human life. I mean, I accept Darwinian evolution, (although not the extreme neo-Darwinism that has developed,) so I don't have a problem viewing my thought process as a very advanced version of that which a paramecium has. I view a tiny little cell's level of consciousness as differing from mine only in the scale, not the nature. So I can float back and forth between considering the cell and considering me, because I'm not, from my perspective, considering two radically different things. Instinct is a primitive thought pattern, from my perspective. You could compare it to the software (although I essentially dislike computer analogies, because I do not share the view that life and computers are two peas in a pod.) So when you say that I've gone from challenging the magic trick that materialists jump to from a tiny machine to a living, self-aware cell, and now somehow I'm just attacking it from a macro scale, I don't even see what you mean. It's the same stuff to me. I am challenging DNA, because I don't believe that consciousness is formed by a mechanism. This is your assumption, not mine, and lacking any other mechanism, you are trying to put it on DNA. And I think you are miles apart from that. Like I said, I also think you are miles away from demonstrating that the leap has been crossed, your victory celebration notwithstanding. Like I said, I will hopefully post later on this.


You seem to be applying your assumptions to me, and it is the assumptions that I am challenging. Let me show you:

I don't know how you can get so hung up on the notion of instinct being explained as an elaborate pattern, as a function of the material world.

Ok, there are two ideas here, that you are presenting as one. One is the idea of instinct as being a pattern. I can go along with that, to some degree. If you are interested in my philosophy (which to be honest, I haven't really even attempted to articulate because one, you've been discussing how you view the world and two, I think other people can articulate process philosophy better than I can; I'm not naturally suited to the rigors of philosophy, my mind wanders too much and I'm too undisciplined.) I believe that instinct is best summed up as a form of what Whitehead called "prehension". You might liken it to learned behavior from the past that is called up. In process philosophy, the spider doesn't gain knowledge of his world because the particulars of his construction impart this knowledge to him, as if a particular "hardware" construction is the same as "software". No, he gains this knowledge because he is a link in a chain of beings that are like him, and have developed certain behaviors that he can absorb through an experience of the past, particularly the experiences of the past that are relevant to his situation. In this worldview, the very first spider would be less well adapted than following spiders. The first spider would have to learn everything through trial and error, (more likely, he would prehend some of his behaviors from the creature from which he evolved, and would only be on his own in learning to use his peculiar adaptation,) and each subsequent generation would be better adapted as a result of common experience, "prehending" the past and adapting this body of knowledge to meet present circumstances.

But the second idea from your quote is that this must be explained by material processes. This is the doctrine of materialism that ends up destroying everything by reduction. And as I'm trying to show you, materialism ends up being very dogmatic. Because you have to start from the concept that a thought (as instinct hopefully we agree is in the same category), you have to show that a thought must have its origin in a material process. So instinct is a particular challenge. In a way, instinct is even more challenging to materialism than my highly independent thought, because my independent thought is unique to me, so a person could make a case (I think a very poor case, but a case nonetheless,) that my thought must be being excreted from my brain, because it can't be shown to come from any outside source. But instinct is a little different. It ends up being more primitive, yes, but its also less individualistic. It's hard to say that a fish who travels unaided to a particular spot that he's never been to before in order to spawn gained this knowledge through his own prior experience. (which, of course, is the easiest method of materialism: simple cause and effect.) So they need to somehow say that this knowledge must be physically implanted in him. And since materialism (more so even than other systems of philosophy) requires a cause and effect mechanism, then the materialist is forced to dogmatically assert that the coding for the knowledge must be in the genes. And absent any evidence to support this assertion, he will continue to make it. I don't understand how you can possibly fail to see that your assertion that instinct is coded in the DNA is not falsifiable. "My worldview calls for it. Keep looking." But my worldview says that thought is not the sort of thing that can be coded. Even from a materialist viewpoint, it's hard to see how that could be coded. I mean, if thought is an effect of a cause, then that thought won't be produced until the cause stimulates it. So to say that certain effects are programmed in, independent of causation, seems a remarkably speculative affair, even from a materialist viewpoint. I think it would be fair to say that instinct is not the sort of thing that materialism should predict, and it only faces it because instinct is unavoidably experienced in our world. But rather than checking the premises, materialists prefer to try to fit the facts to the mold rather than vice versa.

And the final point I want to make is one that I hope will resonate, without being an "argument" so much in a philosophical way. When I look at a tiny little amoeba, I feel a kinship with it, that I don't feel with a computer. I'm not going to try to convince you that if I develop amoebic dysentery that I would feel any moral qualms in taking medication to destroy the amoeba. No, I'm not that morally sensitive. But what I do want to say, is that even though I don't feel a moral qualm about destroying my little amoeba friend, I am still conscious of the fact that I have destroyed something. Something very real, that isn't mine because it was something in and of itself. It was alive. I have a kinship with it. I don't have that same kinship with a computer, your aspirations for computer science notwithstanding. If I were to become angry with my computer (it is, sometimes, very frustrating), and if in anger I took a hammer to my computer and smashed it, any remorse wouldn't come from kinship with the computer, it would come from knowledge that I had cost myself money. You say that, in behavior, computers have exceeded the modern cell. Then why do I feel a kinship more to the cell than to the computer? Isn't there something very real, something tangible, that all life shares that is not shared with non-life. That is the chasm. It's awareness. Self-awareness. In a real sense, not a programmed sense. Not a "I can get this computer to mimic this behavior" sense, a sense in which what I do is not just what I do, it's that I'm doing it for me. It's the "I". And that tiny little amoeba shares the "I". He does what he does for himself, aware of himself. He's not a tool, he's not a means. He's an end. Those who can't see that, I have nothing else that I can say beyond that. This is fundamentally what it means to be alive. I can only hope it resonates. If you disagree, then the disagreement is a fundamental one. If you think that human mental states can be explained by cause and effect mechanisms, then my disagreement is fundamental. It's at the very premises. But it's beyond premises. It's at the level where the premise is due to my direct experience. So I can't deny it. I can't say, "I am not," because I experience being. I am not an illusion. I am not determined. I am me, and I am free.

Ok, so that's all for now. I guess it has ended up being a lot. Russell will probably accuse me of writing a novel. Oh well. I still need to address several issues, which I'm going to jot down so that I can come back to this later and remember them.

1)  On thought, and how thought is an independent, not contingent, phenomenon. On thought within tiny life forms.
2)  On artificial intelligence
3)  On the ethics of artificial intelligence
4)  On morality
5)  On scientific challenges to materialism as it relates to the human brain.

hmmmm...if you can think of anything else I need to address, jot it down here. I feel like I'm leaving something else out.

[Raineyrocks]

Christ! Are you people writing a novel?

I know Caleb's posts are getting longer that the quotes from Christ in the Bible.

That is so funny and true!  I like you Caleb but Russell totally has a good point!  Caleb's post are far too long and complicated for me to understand but I love his short ones!  Laughing smiley!

[Vitruvian]

Caleb:

If intelligence is, as you seem to believe, neither material nor emergent, but instead immaterial and inherent (assuming you would categorize this proposition as a statement of fact), then what can be done to test the theory's veracity?  Modern science proffers compelling evidence that we humans are simply the first species (in this solar system, at least) to acquire the cognitive abilities necessary to ponder our own origin.  This evidence tells me that I, along with the chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, orangutan, and others, am a member of the order Primates; that the constituent atoms of my anatomy are no different, no more 'special,' than those of any other inhabitant of this planet, or, indeed, of the universe; that all of our history, all the blood shed over this scrap of land or that, all the wondrous products of the human mind, all the suffering and the joy, is but a tiny droplet in the vast ocean of cosmic time; that I have no 'soul,' no mystical spirit directing my thoughts and actions; that "I" have no existence beyond the span of my life.

This is my experience, Caleb.  Now, which of us is correct?  How do you know?

[Caleb]

Christ! Are you people writing a novel?

I know Caleb's posts are getting longer that the quotes from Christ in the Bible.

That is so funny and true!  I like you Caleb but Russell totally has a good point!  Caleb's post are far too long and complicated for me to understand but I love his short ones!  Laughing smiley!

Yeah. My posts in this thread haven't been Haiku, that's for sure. It's probably safe to ignore this thread, unless it interests you. I don't think tons of important work is necessarily getting done, although I enjoy philosophy and I like Dale and value his thoughts, so I am having fun.