Will our messing with evolution finally put God to rest?

@Alan McDougall,

A computer will never have the plasticity and creativity of the human brain, whatever its capacity. All humans' brains are subtly different from one another, and unlike computers humans have a developmental process that begins even before birth. A computer may be designed that can trounce Gary Kasparov at chess, but there will never be a computer that can write Ulysses.

2 Replies

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

A computer will never have the plasticity and creativity of the human brain, whatever its capacity. All humans' brains are subtly different from one another, and unlike computers humans have a developmental process that begins even before birth. A computer may be designed that can trounce Gary Kasparov at chess, but there will never be a computer that can write Ulysses.

How have you come to the conclusion computers will never have the plasticity and creativity of the human brain? The two points you've brought to the forefront were: 1.) Because human brains are different from one another, and 2.) Because of the developmental process. However, I don't see either of these limiting the creativity we could potentially see from a computer.

What exactly is the limiting factor in a computer which will not allow it to create something novel, like the book you mentioned? A.I's are in development which can sense and therefore acquire experience. With experience these systems can combine different variables to come to "new conclusions": a form of creativity. The more intricate the system gets, the more sensory perception we incorporate into the board, the more "human" the board will become. Decades from now we could see computers "trying new things", and then what's the limit? What exactly is the quality you're referring that a computer would lack?

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

A computer will never have the plasticity and creativity of the human brain, whatever its capacity. All humans' brains are subtly different from one another, and unlike computers humans have a developmental process that begins even before birth. A computer may be designed that can trounce Gary Kasparov at chess, but there will never be a computer that can write Ulysses.

I wonder Paul they have already programmed a computer to generate a story, the outcome not very good and it fooled many people. This program also made some reasonable poetry I will recheck my facts, however, I am sure they are near the truth. Check it out if you like

Alan Turin the genius of early computer programming said that a day will come when we will be unable to differentiate between a remote computer , and a remote person. This trial was tried just the other day

Turin by the way was one of the British scientists that cracked the "impossible to crack" German Enigma code machine

We will be ably to program a computer to write a good story of that I am positive.

The present computers now do only one thing they add in binary code of on's and off's and go through special gates at the speed of light , we are fooled by our brains to think they are doing something creative. All that is an illusion today's computers are no more intelligent than a door knob

Maybe one day one will wake up and become a life system of their own and then humanity might become obsollete and redundant

Hey Zetherin

I only read your post after I read Aedes post and we agree on all points

There is no such reality as "never"

I did not read your post first I read Aedes and responded to his and saw your posts is similar to mine.

The potential of the computer is almost infinite, the quantum computer when it becomes a really will be able to solve an equation in an hour that would take all the present computing power a billion years to solve. That can be checked out? in fact I think my statement is conservative.

Computing power is advancing exponentially!!

A science fiction story by the sci-fi writer Isaac ? (forgot how to spell his name) It went like this the whole universe was populated in the far distant future and there remained only "one great question to still to be answered".

So they linked up all the countless billions of computers into great enormous giant universal cosmological colossal computer processor of near infinite speed and power

A trillion trillion trillion scientists all stood at their computer output monitors and waited anxiously

They powered it up and this was the final unanswered question!!

IS THERE A GOD THEY ALL ASKED??

A GREAT BEAM OF LIGHT CAME DOWN FROM THE SKY FROM EACH PLANET IN THE COSMOS

"NOW THERE IS ONE"

THEY TREMBLED AS THEY DIED

A little poetic licence by me, but the story went much like that

Peace

0 Replies

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;60066 wrote:

How have you come to the conclusion computers will never have the plasticity and creativity of the human brain? The two points you've brought to the forefront were: 1.) Because human brains are different from one another, and 2.) Because of the developmental process. However, I don't see either of these limiting the creativity we could potentially see from a computer.

Give somebody a stroke, and they will kill a part of their brain. While the brain itself doesn't grow back, other parts of the brain physiologically compensate for the deficit and learn new function. Tell me how you can destroy part of a computer and a different part will learn how to do the function of the first (when never programmed that way to begin with).

Zetherin;60066 wrote:

What exactly is the limiting factor in a computer which will not allow it to create something novel, like the book you mentioned?

Have you read Ulysses? The book is written in numerous different styles, there are neologisms, puns, and intentionally gramatically incorrect sections (the last chapter is a single 47-page long sentence with no punctuation).

How does a computer not only understand emotion, comedy, tragedy, yearning, i.e. these intricately human experiences, and write a novel narrative that creates a novel character, and resonates with readers partly in the way it explores human consciousness and partly in the way it breaks grammatical rules? And all the while, coincidentally, imitating the 18 chapters of the Odyssey (though in varying degrees of directness).

I can't answer your question "what exactly" except to say that the human brain is complex and variable far beyond our ability to design it. Whatever kind of processing and computing power we can design in a computer, it will ALWAYS be simpler than a human brain.

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

I can kind of see both views. In the practial sense, I'd have to agree that we're not going to see any most fully human-brain-like AI intelligence center with human-like consciousness in a long, long, super long shot. In fact, we (as in H. sapien) may never reach that point. This is the practical angle. That it would be possible to build an AI center of intelligence with a fully human-like consciousness, I would never deny, nevertheless. Again, however, I don't think it would put any 'god' concept to rest (and the present models from the old, major world religious belief-systems, have been put to rest already).

0 Replies

@Aedes,

Aedes;60100 wrote:

Whatever kind of processing and computing power we can design in a computer, it will ALWAYS be simpler than a human brain.

[SIZE="3"]Of the many concepts about the causes/source of consciousness, two views particularly disagree: that consciousness is created by (or is emergent from) brain functions, and that consciousness inhabits the CNS (i.e., from a prior and greater source), and "uses" the brain to operate through the body in this physical world.

But there is yet another distinction theorists debate, and that is what consciousness actually is (i.e., no matter what creates it or its origin). If we accept the functionalist view, such as that of Daniel Dennett, the sense of the "self" of human consciousness arises from our streams of thought; to him consciousness is grounded in the ability to think and mentally understand (and of course, as a physicalist, he'd say this happens after the brain creates the means for thinking).

Now, if consciousness is brain created and arising from thought, and therefore wholly physical-mechanical, then why shouldn't some sort of fluid computing piece of machinery some day recreate consciousness? It likely wouldn't look like any sort of computing device we have now, but theoretically speaking it seems possible.

On the other hand, if consciousness is not created by the brain, but only inhabits it as a medium for interacting with the physical universe, and if it is something other than the result of thought, then a computer will only ever be able to simulate the calculating part of human consciousness, not the more fundamental self-aware aspect we know as experience.

As someone who practices stilling the mind, I know for a fact that self-aware experience isn't created by thinking; and since in that stillness one senses a greater realm one is part of, it also doesn't seem to the serious meditator the brain has created consciousness.

Finally getting to your point about the a computer always being simpler than the human brain, I assume you meant complexity is part of the formula for creating human consciousness. But that isn't my experience at all, just the opposite in fact. The more simple my mind, and by that I mean the more still, the quicker it responds when I call on it and the more holistically it looks at situations.

If you study people who can't still their mind (the vast majority of humans), you find their interpretations of reality in numerous chunks with a common denominator (when they have one) that fails to account for crucial aspects of reality. That's why this world is full of so many conflicting opinions . . . relatively few experience the whole-view, and so whatever it is that someone does see, and usually what has "worked" for them to some degree, becomes the basis for their opinions and "philosophy." A conservative, for example, is so because his mental view exclusively looks for what "works" in conservative applications, but he does not see very well the areas of reality where conservativism doesn't apply.

So while I don't think a computer will ever create self-aware experience (my definition of consciousness), it isn't because of complexity issues, but because the basis of consciousness has nothing to do with computing.[/SIZE]

0 Replies

@Alan McDougall,

LWSLeeth wrote:

So while I don't think a computer will ever create self-aware experience (my definition of consciousness), it isn't because of complexity issues, but because the basis of consciousness has nothing to do with computing.

What is the basis of consciousness then? My conception of "self" is just that: A concept. If not for my thoughts, how would I conceive "self" (self-aware experience)?

Aedes wrote:

Whatever kind of processing and computing power we can design in a computer, it will ALWAYS be simpler than a human brain.

I can't accept this claim just yet. I'll get back to you.

1 Reply

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;60228 wrote:

What is the basis of consciousness then? My conception of "self" is just that: A concept. If not for my thoughts, how would I conceive "self" (self-aware experience)?

[SIZE="3"]The conception of self and self are two different issues. You are correct to say that if you could not form concepts, then you would have no conception of self, but that doesn't mean you'd have no self without conceptions. It might be that all you know of yourself is your ability to think, and so you've concluded that you, as consciousness, are 100% thought.

A useful analogy is a small lake that is constantly subject to seismic tremors, and so whose surface is always vibrating. If the lake were conscious, it might believe itself to be only surface vibrational activity; only if it could somehow stop the tremors would it discover it is inherently water and something much deeper the the surface it only knows.

Similarly, if the deeper "self" can't be known through thought, but all one does is think, then one will believe the "self" is a thought.

One thing I know about this is that no one can ever be convinced of such claims through reason alone because there is absolutely no way to externalize the internal experience for observation. Hook someone up to an EEG and you may observe an increase in gamma activity or brain changes (as this study demonstrated: Meditation Gives Brain a Charge, Study Finds (washingtonpost.com)) but all that tells us is how the brain is being affected, not what the experience itself is. A person can only find out by learning how to quiet the mind, and then seeing for oneself what is to be discovered.[/SIZE]

1 Reply

@LWSleeth,

LWSleeth wrote:

The conception of self and self are two different issues. You are correct to say that if you could not form concepts, then you would have no conception of self, but that doesn't mean you'd have no self without conceptions. It might be that all you know of yourself is your ability to think, and so you've concluded that you, as consciousness, are 100% thought.

A useful analogy is a small lake that is constantly subject to seismic tremors, and so whose surface is always vibrating. If the lake were conscious, it might believe itself to be only surface vibrational activity; only if it could somehow stop the tremors would it discover it is inherently water and something much deeper the the surface it only knows.

Similarly, if the deeper "self" can't be known through thought, but all one does is think, then one will believe the "self" is a thought.

One thing I know about this is that no one can ever be convinced of such claims through reason alone because there is absolutely no way to externalize the internal experience for observation. Hook someone up to an EEG and you may observe an increase in gamma activity or brain changes (as this study demonstrated: Meditation Gives Brain a Charge, Study Finds (washingtonpost.com)) but all that tells us is how the brain is being affected, not what the experience itself is. A person can only find out by learning how to quiet the mind, and then seeing for oneself what is to be discovered.

Reality is subjective to the observer and each consciousness might perceive its reality differently without ever coming to the knowledge of its uniqueness

By downloading the content of an entire human brain into a mechanical device like a computer, would it equate to human consciousness, like a ghost in the machine?

All the ghost or mind would have to do is hover over the machine as well as the person and on the death of the person become its clone in the machine and continue to hover over the computer like it did with the human when the human still existed

Thus no human consciousness would ever be lost and as each person dies its brain and content is downloaded until the computer takes over completely, the human becomes redundant and it exterminated by the machine as an unnecessary nuisance

A group mind/brain now within the machine could quickly take on godlike attributes?

There should be no difficulty for a quantum mind/soul if you like to interact with a machine instead of a biological entity like a human.

Thus we humans would have created god in our own image !!

The machine will mull over the last problem for a pico second or less and the exterminate all of humanity

0 Replies

@Alan McDougall,

LWSleeth wrote:

One thing I know about this is that no one can ever be convinced of such claims through reason alone because there is absolutely no way to externalize the internal experience for observation.

Exactly.

Thus, how would we confirm, akin to your analogy, a deeper "self" exists? Because the only way to come to a conclusion about "self" is to reason through internal experience (a conceptualization of thought). After your meditative bout, I would presume you reason what just happened, you reason your meditative experience. The reasoning then becomes the basis of your belief in whatever "self".

If there is a "deeper self", or, that is, a self which does not reside in thought, how is one to know? Because all we know is in thought. Perhaps one can reach a state of "beingness" through meditative practice, but I don't think we can refer to that "beingness" as self. For when one is completely free from thought, self, at least on the level we are speaking here, does not exist. My understanding is that the being just *is* or is just *one* with all -- there is no differentiation to be had, there is no "self".

However, I'm not quite sure how the mind and the brain correlate. It's quite possible some qualities we assign to "mind" have nothing to do with the brain. If these qualities involve on some level "self", we could be on to something.

2 Replies

@Zetherin,

[SIZE="3"]

Zetherin;60290 wrote:

Exactly. Thus, how would we confirm, akin to your analogy, a deeper "self" exists?

First, let me make a small but important point, even though I realize it isn't what you are specifically talking about. There is no confirmation by "we" of what I have been describing. Each individual explores his own being and discovers for himself. You can't know anything through others' reports.

Zetherin;60290 wrote:

Because the only way to come to a conclusion about "self" is to reason through internal experience (a conceptualization of thought).

Nope. You don't have to reason to know how deep it goes, how permanent it is, how constantly it resides inside, how much it expands awareness when you join your mind with it. Do it every day for 35 years, and every day you find it waiting at the core of your being. Applying the term self seems just fine to me, but I'm not attached to calling it that.

One can understand without reason, it's just that one can't explain it to others without reason. I am conjuring up concepts now to try to communicate a sense of how one practices and what the experience is like. But if I weren't doing that, then I'd avoid all concepts about it because concepts get in the way of the experience.

The whole point is to escape dependence on maintaining and being dependent upon a conceptual representation of reality. What a oneness practitioner is after is a direct experience of reality, sans mentality.

Yet it isn't that one never uses mentality either; rather, it's that one places on top of mentality this direct, still-mind, experience of reality, and then draws on intellect when needed, otherwise keeping it quiet.

Zetherin;60290 wrote:

After your meditative bout, I would presume you reason what just happened, you reason your meditative experience. The reasoning then becomes the basis of your belief in whatever "self".

Lol, NO! Totally incorrect. After a meditative bout I enjoy, and I remain still as much as I can. You seem determined to have the way I come to belief be modeled after how you come to belief. The thing is, I know how you come to belief, but you have no idea about knowing without mentality. So I don't see how you can have a strong opinion before you become at least somewhat accomplished at stillness.

Zetherin;60290 wrote:

If there is a "deeper self", or, that is, a self which does not reside in thought, how is one to know? Because all we know is in thought.

You mean, all you know don't you? How can you be certain about the sort of knowing stillness produces if you are inexperienced with it? I am reporting to you right now: stillness produces a kind of knowing thinking does not.

You can accept my report or refuse it, but nothing you can say will dissuade me from my certainty that not only is there another sort of knowing, but it is actually a far superior knowing to rational knowing (which I can claim since I experience and rely on both types of knowing).

Zetherin;60290 wrote:

Perhaps one can reach a state of "beingness" through meditative practice, but I don't think we can refer to that "beingness" as self. For when one is completely free from thought, self, at least on the level we are speaking here, does not exist. My understanding is that the being just *is* or is just *one* with all -- there is no differentiation to be had, there is no "self".

I can discuss the merged, still experience as true self (as several great masters have), or I can discuss it as not self (as the Buddha did); I can refer to in as nirvana or the kingdom of heaven; I can explain it as the Tao or God. I have talked to many other people who practice samadhi meditation using all those terms, and we all know what we are discussing. Nobody gets hung up on concepts or words because we actually know the experience. It's only the inexperienced who are determined to draw irrelevant distinctions between terms and concepts.

What do samadhi practitioners know? We all know there is a place at the very core of consciousness that doesn't change, and which when joined with expands one out of one's normal mental frame of reference. Because that place is always there, because it never changes, it seems the most abiding part of us and therefore a good candidate for the concept of "true self." But if you want to call it core or soul or being . . . that's fine with me. Or, if like the Buddha, you want label the body, mind, personality, beliefs, likes and dislikes, etc. as "self" (since that's what most people identify with) and then talk about the constant place as "not self," that's fine with me too.

It is an experience that needs no concepts to understand.

You know, there are other things like that, appreciation for example. If I listen to music, I can fully appreciate it without knowing it is called music, or if it is jazz or bluegrass. I don't need concepts to know I enjoy, or to listen; in fact, listening to music is one of my favorite pastimes, and when I do it, I turn off the lights, close my eyes, still my mind, and become a big sponge. I am feeling deeply, and I simultaneously understand perfectly what I am doing without a single thought or concept.

Zetherin;60290 wrote:

However, I'm not quite sure how the mind and the brain correlate. It's quite possible some qualities we assign to "mind" have nothing to do with the brain. If these qualities involve on some level "self", we could be on to something.

It seems you think mentality most defines consciousness, I believe something deeper and far, far more simple does: self-aware experience. But no matter whatever consciousness is, unless one can bring mentality to a complete stop, one will never know what is to be experienced without mentality. Don't you see? You will never understand this with your intellect.

It isn't just me who says these things. If you study the history of Zen, say, or the Christian mystics, you will find exactly the same reports. This path is well-established, and one of the basic principles is that one cannot grasp the "Way" with intellect. But if you are determined to, have at it . . . just be prepared for some major headaches.[/SIZE] :brickwall:

0 Replies

@Zetherin,

If we were able to design a computer with all the adaptability and creativity of a human brain it would no longer be a computer.

0 Replies

@Alan McDougall,

LWSleeth,

You seem to consistently misinterpret my intention whenever we discuss. It appears you maintain this impression of me that is hardened to a certain belief, but you are incorrect. The reason I even wrote to begin with, was to initiate learning, not to preach "my way is the only way". I have no strong opinion like you think I have. In fact, I only have a very weak opinion, as I'm extremely unsure about many facets of consciousness. Perhaps my prelude to anything I type to you should be, "DON'T ATTACK ME, I'M JUST TRYING TO LEARN".

I have addressed my model of belief, and I admit wholeheartedly there may be much I am short-sighted concerning; again, that's why I'm here, LWSleeth: To learn, not to bicker and be castrated whenever I don't have an understanding of something. Instead of saying, "LOL, YOU HAVE NO CONCEPTION" in some condescending tone, you could politely direct me to where I may gather the knowledge.

That said, I will look into meditative practices and see if I come to the same understanding you do. I don't expect to truly understand what you speak of instantaneously, but I shall try. Every experience I have had, I have been able to conceptualize to understand -- I can roughly put it into language. Clearly I haven't had the experiences you speak of, but it doesn't mean I haven't had experiences. Furthermore, I am well aware you shouldn't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon, which is why I will seek the experiences you seek.

In the end, I understand your frustration, because I think I know what you think I am. And because I think I know what you think I am, I'm more calm.

1 Reply

@Zetherin,

[SIZE="3"]

Zetherin;60308 wrote:

You seem to consistently misinterpret my intention whenever we discuss. It appears you maintain this impression of me that is hardened to a certain belief, but you are incorrect. The reason I even wrote to begin with, was to initiate learning, not to preach "my way is the only way". I have no strong opinion like you think I have. In fact, I only have a very weak opinion, as I'm extremely unsure about many facets of consciousness. Perhaps my prelude to anything I type to you should be, "DON'T ATTACK ME, I'M JUST TRYING TO LEARN".

Honesty, I was trying to be firm, not attack.

Zetherin;60308 wrote:

Instead of saying, "LOL, YOU HAVE NO CONCEPTION" in some condescending tone, you could politely direct me to where I may gather the knowledge.

What you think of as condescending was me losing patience. Let's not rekindle the disputes, but I believed I had directed you where to gather knowledge when I lost patience (in past discussions).

Zetherin;60308 wrote:

In the end, I understand your frustration, because I think I know what you think I am. And because I think I know what you think I am, I'm more calm.

I don't think you are anything. I have in the past believed you were, at the time, being obtuse. According to you, you were trying to understand, so I will accept that and take responsibility for losing patience.

I have had a serious talk with myself over getting frustrated at beliefs people insist are true, but who lack enough experience to be so certain. In my years of debating online, I have so regularly run into that kind of exchange that I am now intolerant of it. Such debate ruins any chance for a true philosophical discussion, so sometimes I just find myself trying to fight off the very hint of it.

But let me apologize for my lack of patience.

Zetherin;60308 wrote:

That said, I will look into meditative practices and see if I come to the same understanding you do. I don't expect to truly understand what you speak of instantaneously, but I shall try. Every experience I have had, I have been able to conceptualize to understand -- I can roughly put it into language. Clearly I haven't had the experiences you speak of, but it doesn't mean I haven't had experiences. Furthermore, I am well aware you shouldn't mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon, which is why I will seek the experiences you seek.

I have explained to many people how to proceed, and often they were people who needed an intellectual explanation that made sense. I don't mind explaining things so you can conceptualize. The thing is, for that to work I need you to tentatively accept what I say until the explanation is complete. Notice I said "tentatively." That means I don't expect anyone to "believe" without their own experience, but even a conceptualization will get bogged down by doubts and demands for proof on details to the point that a complete explanation is never completed.

Let me clear up a couple of things. First, just any ol' meditation isn't what I've been talking about; I am specifically talking about only one type known as samadhi (as it is called in the East) or union (in the West). That is what the Buddha first taught, and what a great many saints have practiced since. What is unique about samadhi/union is that mind is joined with a place inside that is already still. So one doesn't try to still one's mind, one "merges" the mind with something that is and always will be absolutely still, and then that deeper place does the job automatically. One's effort and practice then becomes learning how to stay with that beautiful inner place.

I have offered a three part thread on "God" here that discusses union at length (in Parts 2 and 3). I am qualified both scholastically and experientially to write about the subject, so you can trust, if nothing else, that the sources I refer to in those threads are worthy of study.

If after a bit of study you have questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.[/SIZE]

0 Replies

@Alan McDougall,

LWSleeth wrote:

If after a bit of study you have questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.

Thanks.

I will begin.

0 Replies

@Victor Eremita,

Victor Eremita;59193 wrote:

Evolution still doesn't explain the beginnings of the universe or why the cosmos is as it is. God still has a role to play, until we finally empirically once and for all discover all there is to know.

it's not supposed to! you can't take a theory about the development of species and apply it to the beginnings of the universe. evolution explains the development of species on this planet and has quite a large amount of evidence to prove it. evolution can't explain how the universe came to be we have the big bang to explain that. there are some questions science can't answer but that still doesn't mean that your imaginary friend has the correct answers.

1 Reply

@lovetothink,

lovetothink wrote:

it's not supposed to! you can't take a theory about the development of species and apply it to the beginnings of the universe. evolution explains the development of species on this planet and has quite a large amount of evidence to prove it. evolution can't explain how the universe came to be we have the big bang to explain that. there are some questions science can't answer but that still doesn't mean that your imaginary friend has the correct answers.

Welcome,

I agree a nice post, we must regress and regress and we always face a wall that only God can be behind

Alan

0 Replies

Will our messing with evolution finally put God to rest?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know