Mind Transfer, The Soul And A.i.

[soto]

Not sure about the Turing Machine, I confess my knowledge of mathematics is barely GCSE level so I get lost.

Maths is about ability to be honest. You can know a shit load of maths and tricks but still struggle. Not so sure it's about straight IQ though, seems when you get up to the higher levels of maths starts to get abit fuzzy in nature, almost more qualitiative, which requires a certain kind of individual to understand and interpret what's going on.

Edited January 4, 2008 by soto

[Guest roger]

I wonder even if a machine were to write a book questioning its own existence could it be accepted as thought?

I think I'd accept that as thought. Unless the only purpose of the machine, the only reason it was built, was to question its own existence. But if it did it spontaneously then I'd accept that as thought.

Not sure about the Turing Machine, I confess my knowledge of mathematics is barely GCSE level so I get lost. Shames me really, cos complex higher maths and philosophy are very similar, I kinda look at it that when maths gets so complex that the numbers run out, then it enters the realm of philosophy, and that's the most interesting kind of maths there is, it's just to understand it you've got to do all the rest of the maths, and I'm shit with numbers

hey, einstien was not the best at maths

Infinity baffles me, but that's another thread....

I think that the day the "Field Programable Quantum Logic Gate" is invented that we may be on the road to answering some of these questions by experiment.

[Boojum]

To be alive isn't the same as to be conscious, self aware and posessing a 'mind' though. Cockroaches are alive, but I seriously doubt they are conscious (in any higher sense), self aware or in posession of what we would consider 'minds'. They are organic machines, really. Even fire fulfills all the biological criteria to be considered alive.

To throw a bone, the most interesting thing about that comparison is simply that if we were to imagine that the cockroach was us. Makes you wonder what a higher state of 'living' might be. I.e. is there another level of consciousness above ours?

We'll never know, because our brains don't have the capacity to achieve that level of consciousness, perhaps there's something we can't see because our minds are incapable of being concious of it just like the cockroach is happy to move around his surroundings without being really concious of them like we are.

hmmm, makes you think doesn't it.

Hate to bring the G word into it, but it's this kind of question (it's summat else I think about) that makes me laugh at organised religion. The very idea that if there is a God we could be so fucking arrogant as to even think for a millisecond that we could get within a universe of even beginning to understand an omnipotent being, it's absolutely ludicrous. We can't understand anything but ourselves (and we do a pretty piss poor job of even that).

Sorry, bit off topic.

[Guest roger]

To be alive isn't the same as to be conscious, self aware and posessing a 'mind' though. Cockroaches are alive, but I seriously doubt they are conscious (in any higher sense), self aware or in posession of what we would consider 'minds'. They are organic machines, really. Even fire fulfills all the biological criteria to be considered alive.

To throw a bone, the most interesting thing about that comparison is simply that if we were to imagine that the cockroach was us. Makes you wonder what a higher state of 'living' might be. I.e. is there another level of consciousness above ours?

We'll never know, because our brains don't have the capacity to achieve that level of consciousness, perhaps there's something we can't see because our minds are incapable of being concious of it just like the cockroach is happy to move around his surroundings without being really concious of them like we are.

hmmm, makes you think doesn't it.

Hate to bring the G word into it, but it's this kind of question (it's summat else I think about) that makes me laugh at organised religion. The very idea that if there is a God we could be so fucking arrogant as to even think for a millisecond that we could get within a universe of even beginning to understand an omnipotent being, it's absolutely ludicrous. We can't understand anything but ourselves (and we do a pretty piss poor job of even that).

Sorry, bit off topic.

I don't consider it to be off topic at all, the nature of the mind is the topic and the understanding of god, or at least the concept is a great part of the human mind - how we deal with a paradox makes us unique.

[soto]

I undersrand where you're coming from, but many christians do make the point that the bible was written in a way so that we would be able to understand something that they admit is totally beyond our comprehension. This is particularly embodied in the concept of the holy trinity., which to be honest is pretty odd, it's something that many christians don't pretend to be able to understand even though perhaps suggesting that such a thing exists is perhaps a little arrogant but then it may be just as arrogant as trying to explain anything of complexity around us, the inherent uncertainity of what this concept is, gives it some credence.

[soto]

Also you could say that even to suggest there is such a thing as a higher consciousness is an acceptance that there are beings of higher intelligence. I mean hmm, the roach can sense us by bumping into us, is there any way we might bump into higher beings and not be aware what they are.

The roach bumps into us, we could be a tree for all he cares.

The only way we know we're bumping into a being of higher conciousness is to be conscious of what that higher being is? This is fucking with my head now, I need to obtain a higher state of consciousness to recover.

What would be fking incrediable is if the human race were to be able to create the part of the consciousness of the higher beings among us that was able to sense these beings, ie know they were there because the machine had the necessary machinary to obtain the higher consciousness that we can't obtain.

Perhaps a consciousness machine or something. Maybe psychedelics are ways to turn our brains into higher consciousness machines? Or rather our minds are able to reach these states of conscienceness that the beings above us have but only if they're configured in a certain way.

Edited January 4, 2008 by soto

[Guest roger]

Frivilous I know, but I wonder if the robots will ever fight each other over what version of the digital bible is correct, would they turn themselves in to viruses in order to go to a martyrs silicone heaven?

on a more serious point, if a soul or mind can be encapsulated within a mechanical device, what would be the nature of their capacity to merge - does the distinct nature of the inividual define what it is to be alive? are these biological distincitions applicable to machines and does this take away from or add to their ability to be alive in the true sence? Are we arrogent to think that we are the highest form possible, gods not withstanding?

eta: what of the biological imperative? a can a device that has all of its needs satisfied ever function beyond a fixed set of parameters... would it act like the zen monk that did not need to eat, drink or pee and sit in quiet contemplation?

Edited January 4, 2008 by roger

[soto]

Also here's another interesting thing.

So let's assume that these higher beings exist and we're the roach, it would be easy to assume these beings are aware of us just like we're aware of the roach and are living among us, as part of our environment. Perhaps they see us as an annoyance on some greater physical dimension, perhaps they use us to some end, we don't use roaches for anything. However we can kill them if we want to, we can clearly interact with them but the roach doesn't know we kill them. We don't know whether the higher beings are killing us, helping us. Help a roach today, give him something to eat. We're just concious enough to deduce how our people are being killed or being given stuff to eat. I guess that's what our conciousness is. Still, we have some other questions that we ask about the basis for our faith in the soundness of these deductions of how these things like being able to eat and how people get killed happen.

Those criticisms may lead us to religious thought, we question the soundness of basing the explanation for what happens on just what we see around us.

Edited January 4, 2008 by soto

[Guest roger]

Those criticisms may lead us to religious thought, we question the soundness of basing the explanation for what happens on just what we see around us.

ceasing to base our explinations on what we see arround us leads to religious thought IMHO

In my darkest hallucinogenicly induced moments, I though I had an answer to this - it was possible(ish)

look up "retrocausality" it's the answer to the quantum turing machine and a possible explination for god not quite there yet, but I'll let you know when I work it out....

[Boojum]

Those criticisms may lead us to religious thought, we question the soundness of basing the explanation for what happens on just what we see around us.

ceasing to base our explinations on what we see arround us leads to religious thought IMHO

In my darkest hallucinogenicly induced moments, I though I had an answer to this - it was possible(ish)

look up "retrocausality" it's the answer to the quantum turing machine and a possible explination for god not quite there yet, but I'll let you know when I work it out....

Aahhhhh, but does retrocausality presuppose that there is actually such a thing as time and that it is linear (albeit not necessarily unidirectional) ? Perhaps, kinda tying into what Soto is saying, the next level of consciousness, the one 'above' human consciousness is to exist outside of what we perceive as linear time. If a being was to exist independently from what we perceive as time we wouldn't even be able to recognise its existence, fixed as we are within the linear dimension of time. No more than a two dimensional being would be able to recognise the existence of a being that existed in three dimensions.

Edited January 4, 2008 by Boojum

[Guest roger]

Suggest to me a way that time could be non linear and still seem to change, other than say a random block universe.

I really doubt that physics is there yet, but I do wonder what for existence in a higher dimention could take, even in terms of particles...

On a whim, since we made of atoms, seem to be alive; is there anything special stoping the branes of string theory forming a complex and self aware entiity?

since I would like to explore the possibility of other forms of life being aware, it would seem churlish to deny the possibility of an existence that I can not precive or comprehend out of hand.

eta: I mean that in the physical sence not, as a linguistic trick or in a religious way.

Edited January 4, 2008 by roger

[soto]

Suggest to me a way that time could be non linear smile.gif and still seem to change, other than say a random block universe.

The point you're missing is that you're human, and your mind will never be able to conceptulise something that's beyond it's conception.

[Guest roger]

Suggest to me a way that time could be non linear smile.gif and still seem to change, other than say a random block universe.

The point you're missing is that you're human, and your mind will never be able to conceptulise something that's beyond it's conception.

you assume that I'm human but is your statment a fact or a linguistic tautology?

Edited January 4, 2008 by roger

[Arnold Layne]

Am I the same person I was yesterday? in 10 years every atom in my body has been exchanged..

I belive that an understanding of this topic brings us closer to appreciating what it is to be alive.

eta: does anyone who belives in the soul think that it can ever be understood in non-metaphysical terms? if not, why not?

There's too many issues in this thread, from mind/soul to the Holy Trinity and let's just add some innate knowledge specualtion into the mix? :eek:

Just to isolate one right now: What is mind, what is soul.

People talk of "having" a mind, or a soul. I believe this is a funademental and essential misconception of the terms. Mind and soul are not "things" that can or could be isolated in the human physiology. They are not compartments in a brain or anything else. (Incidentally, research recently revealed that other organs than the brain originate cognitive activity I believe, but I cannot find any info so that's just speculation at the mo, but important.)

Anyhoo, mind/soul. These are terms that describe the human being wholly. That is to say, a human being may be said to be soul, or mind. It desribes their whole being, as seen from a particular vantage point. Mind/soul are just descriptions of certain aspects of human behaviour. They have no existence in and of themselves, they are merely human attributes.

Moving on, I believe it was Buber who propounded the I/Thou as being the ground of soul? Its areligious approach, soul is found where the Divine "I" confrnts the human "Thou". This could ve secualrised easilly enough I would have thought, for the modern age. We find our identity (soul/mind?) in the way others interact with us.

Hate to bring the G word into it, but it's this kind of question (it's summat else I think about) that makes me laugh at organised religion. The very idea that if there is a God we could be so fucking arrogant as to even think for a millisecond that we could get within a universe of even beginning to understand an omnipotent being, it's absolutely ludicrous. We can't understand anything but ourselves (and we do a pretty piss poor job of even that).

Booj, one word; "Myth". But uderstood properly.

[Guest roger]

arnold, I agree that there are a few issues here, but are they not related?

the argument against a machine being alive often comes from a concept of a soul that has been granted or maybe created, either by virtue of birth or by a higher power.

Is a soul an essential part of being alive, if so I could do with a firmer definition - obviously If I disagree I'll have a go with a rebuttal, but a friendly exploration of the issues is why I raised the question.