tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post3846801075595942074..comments2024-03-28T20:04:20.286-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: The Myopia of the Darwinian VisionGagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger55125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-77215584378227279432010-02-26T15:34:06.720-08:002010-02-26T15:34:06.720-08:00Yes, poseurs.Yes, <i>poseurs</i>.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-77892547788555699702010-02-26T15:31:21.195-08:002010-02-26T15:31:21.195-08:00Ilion said "... scientistes -- think of Miss ...Ilion said "... scientistes -- think of Miss Piggy, The Artiste..."<br /><br />Now <i>that</i> puts them into a whole new, and very appropriate, light!Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-12378524105014950172010-02-26T13:18:49.646-08:002010-02-26T13:18:49.646-08:00Anonymouse:: "The real world more subtle than...<b>Anonymouse:</b>: "<i>The real world more subtle than that.</i>"<br /><br />Ah! The "<i>look at <a href="http://iliocentrism.blogspot.com/2009/04/splitting-difference.html" rel="nofollow">all the pretty shades of grey</a>!</i>" gambit.<br /><br />But, in truth, grey is merely unresolved black-and-white.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-43990479505413544292010-02-26T13:12:45.475-08:002010-02-26T13:12:45.475-08:00Van: "What is always so amusing about such de...<b>Van:</b> "<i>What is always so amusing about such determinists, scientistic's and darwinista's ...</i>"<br /><br />I call the '<i>Science!</i> worshippers <i>scientistes</i> -- think of Miss Piggy, <i>The Artiste</i> -- because scientismist was too much a mouthful. And not nearly mocking enough.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-74298731803329471702010-02-26T13:09:33.669-08:002010-02-26T13:09:33.669-08:00Stu: "How could we know if such an entity was...<b>Stu:</b> "<i>How could we know if such an entity was actually conscious -- had free will, creative intelligence and a conscience?<br /><br />It would have to do something outside of its programming. ...</i>"<br /><br />Exactly ... and no computer program cen ever do that; it's logically impossible, therefore utterly impossible for a computer program to transcend its programming -- there will never be an Artificial Intelligence which is <i>simply</i> an intelligence.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-2029124363267894142010-02-26T13:03:13.212-08:002010-02-26T13:03:13.212-08:00Van: "If you don't believe a wooden abacu...<b>Van:</b> "<i>If you don't believe a wooden abacus could be self aware, not even if you strung a gazillion of them together, then unless you give way to sloppy thinking, you shouldn't believe a computer could become an Actual Intelligence... </i>"<br /><br />I have frequently made the same point, that an electronic computer is just a glorified abacus. And the GodDeniers juat as frequently ignore the truth of it.<br /><br />(By the way, I'm a computer programmer; though in my case I understood from the very start that the Holy Grail of AI is logically impossible, for computation -- counting -- is not thought.)Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-40299003780689468342010-02-26T12:54:12.287-08:002010-02-26T12:54:12.287-08:00Hey Rube: "And your "who can demonstrate...<b>Hey Rube:</b> "<i>And your "who can demonstrate what?" response re: the power of drugs and surgery over the functions of the brain makes me want to recruit you for troll duty. Simply stupid.</i>"<br /><br />And the fact of the placebo effect takes us right back to the truth of Gagdad Bob's position.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-1422319469694637442010-02-26T12:41:17.886-08:002010-02-26T12:41:17.886-08:00Van: "[a good post on the distinction between...<b>Van:</b> "[a good post on the distinction between doubting abd questioning]"<br /><br />Doubt as a paradigm or institution is merely the denial of reason, and knowledge, and ultimately, of truth.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-36739123228461009652010-02-26T12:25:26.372-08:002010-02-26T12:25:26.372-08:00Tasurinchi: "What can we absolutely know with...<b>Tasurinchi:</b> "<i>What can we absolutely know with certainty?</i>"<br /><br />Last, and far from least, we can know -- purely via reason and without possibility of error -- that <i><b>atheism is false</b></i>; we can know that:<br />1) there exists an entity which we may properly refer to as 'God'<br />2) God is the cause of "the universe"<br />2a) God exists logically and ontologically “prior it” and “outside of” the time-space-matter system that is “the universe”<br />3) God is a ‘who,’ not a ‘what’ -- God is not a “force,” but is rather a mind, a person<br />4) God created (‘creates’ is putting it more accurately) “the universe” … and us<br /><br />IF atheism were the truth about the nature of reality, THEN, given that there exists the physical time-space-matter system we call “the universe,” <i>materialism</i> is also the truth about the nature of reality. BUT, IF materialism is the truth about the nature of reality, THEN we do not (for we cannot) think, nor reason, nor know any truth. If materialism is the truth about the nature of reality, we may chance upon occasion to make some statement or other which just happens to accord to “the fact of the matter” … but we can never *know* that we have done so. This inescapable conclusion of materialism is absurd, and the absurdity is inescapable from the initial assertion of atheism. Therefore, atheism is itself absurd, and false.<br /><br />We can know, purely via reason and without possibility of error, that the things I’ve said about God are true because the denial of any single one of those points takes us right back to the absurd conclusions which logically follow from atheism/materialism.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-19209460604654596752010-02-26T11:37:57.102-08:002010-02-26T11:37:57.102-08:00Tasurinchi: "What can we absolutely know with...<b>Tasurinchi:</b> "<i>What can we absolutely know with certainty?</i>"<br /><br />There are all sorts of things we can know with certainty; non exhaustively, and in no particulr order:<br />1) We ourselves exist;<br />1a) Something, rather than nothing, exists.<br />1b) Something does not, cannot, come from nothing;<br />2) There is truth -- there is "a fact of the matter;"<br />2a) We can know some truths, whether or not we can know all truths;<br />3) Truth is truth -- truth does not, cannot, become untruth;<br />3a) We can frequently distinguish truth from untruth;<br />4) We can know that the logical relationships between truths are further truths;<br />4a) We can reason from what we know to what we did not know.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-44139341907219866732010-02-26T11:21:13.937-08:002010-02-26T11:21:13.937-08:00"This reminds me of what Thomas Sowell calls ..."<i>This reminds me of what Thomas Sowell calls the fallacy of "one day at a time" rationalism, which involves the strict application of logic to an artificially constrained situation -- for example, treating wildfires as discrete crises instead of predictable outcomes of environmentalist policies that create overgrowth.</i>"<br /><br />As, for instance, in my <a href="http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/02/garter-snake-immunity-sodium-channels.html?showComment=1267208602848#c6837866968812741992" rel="nofollow">little exchange (starting here)</a> with 'Nanobot74.' Darwinistic "reasoning" depends upon making and sticking to all sorts of logical errors, and <i>never</i> critically examining one's Darwinistic "explanations" in a wider context.Ilíonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15339406092961816142noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-33991138982024353262010-02-24T06:21:03.307-08:002010-02-24T06:21:03.307-08:00Bob:
You'll enjoy yesterday's post by Spen...Bob:<br />You'll enjoy yesterday's post by Spengler over at First Things:<br /><br />http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/spengler/<br /><br />Why we don't like modern classical music.<br /><br />JWMJWMhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05564732483476859555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-32163094346068681592010-02-23T11:13:57.052-08:002010-02-23T11:13:57.052-08:00Yes, someone ought to write a book along those lin...Yes, someone ought to write a book along those lines, combining evolution and Spirit... I'd do it, but I already did.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-82376038007198128942010-02-23T11:07:13.358-08:002010-02-23T11:07:13.358-08:00Of course there is an element of randomness to sel...Of course there is an element of randomness to selection. All that is required for evolution to work is that the <i>probability</i> of survival and reproduction is higher for some genomes than others.<br /><br />"The race is not always to the swift" -- but that's the way to bet.<br /><br />You need to be able to think in probabilities in order to understand evolution. Some people have trouble with that, especially if they have a tendency towards extreme either-or binary thinking. <br /><br />Ie: Either there is free will or there isn't. Either selection is utterly random or entirely determined. Either there is a god or the universe is a soulless machine.<br /><br />The real world more subtle than that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-90909079178305158202010-02-23T09:17:14.025-08:002010-02-23T09:17:14.025-08:00aninnymouse said "It is perfectly plausible t...aninnymouse said "It is perfectly plausible that a collection of a gazillion abaci has different properties than a single abacus, just as the properties of a piece of wood are much different from the properties of a single atom."<br /><br />What is always so amusing about such determinists, scientistic's and darwinista's, is their heavy reliance on complexity generating mystical properties... they are determinimystics, and for similar reasons they tend to be collectivists as well. <br /><br />More than likely your understanding of a 'property' is as bad as Humes, but here's a clue. The properties which are ultimately discovered in wood, are fully in line with the properties of it's molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles... in fact it is identifiable as Wood, because of them. Other than the fact that the wood was once alive, which those particles do not explain, the properties of the corpse left behind as wood, agree completely with the properties of its molecular, atomic and subatomic structure - and will remain the same even when carved into a bajillion Lincoln Logs - nothing new will emerge that wasn't inherent in the structure in the first place. <br /><br />With a Lincoln Log structure made up of a bajillion units, there will likely generate a resonance, particularly in a breeze, something like a flute or massive wind chime, but having lots and <i>lots</i> of chimes woven into <i>realllllly </i>intricate patterns, will not mystically endow it with capabilities of speech, not even if you substitute the Lincoln Logs for abascuses 'linked' together by dominos, and your superstitious assertion that it would, or even could, well... you should be embarrassed.<br /><br />"...k at Hofstadter's reply to Searle's Chinese room argu..."<br /><br />I'd rather listen to two 'mathematicians' argue about whether 2+2=5 or 2+2=3.<br /><br />"Yours is an old and stale argument"<br /><br />So is "<a href="http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4074" rel="nofollow">Poisoning the Well</a>", and for that matter so is two plus two equals four, not three or five... doesn't make it any less true. What it does clarify as true, is that you have no argument whatsoever, beyond complexity worship and a sad devotion to determinimysticism... IOW, you be a leftist.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-68308215963191163532010-02-23T08:28:33.298-08:002010-02-23T08:28:33.298-08:00Incorrect -- Stephen Jay Gould wrote at length tha...Incorrect -- Stephen Jay Gould wrote at length that selection is often quite random, resulting, for example, from accidents and environmental catastrophes such as asteroids that wipe out whole species.Cousin Dupreenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8303444325402772012010-02-23T08:21:01.623-08:002010-02-23T08:21:01.623-08:00Susannah: "Purpose" can have a variety o...Susannah: "Purpose" can have a variety of meanings in ordinary usage. You can have as your immediate purpose is to do the laundry (ie), and you can believe that your life's purpose is to love your fellow man (ie). Evolution explains the first kind of purpose just fine; the latter is more problematic.<br /><br />As to how purpose can arise from "a random process" -- there are dozens of introductory texts on evolution if you are actually interested. And evolution is not a random process. Mutations are random, selection is most definitely not.<br /><br />Van: It is perfectly plausible that a collection of a gazillion abaci has different properties than a single abacus, just as the properties of a piece of wood are much different from the properties of a single atom. Yours is an old and stale argument; look at Hofstadter's reply to Searle's Chinese room argument for more detailed reply.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-5733786585515953502010-02-23T06:26:00.845-08:002010-02-23T06:26:00.845-08:00Van,
Consider AI that passes the Turing test. Pe...Van,<br /><br />Consider AI that passes the Turing test. Perfect mimicry of human form, intellect, virtue and will.<br /><br />How could we know if such an entity was actually conscious -- had free will, creative intelligence and a conscience?<br /><br />It would have to do something outside of its programming. Something it was not created to do. It would have to transcend its programming, become more or less than it was programmed to be. <br /><br />I'm sure you see where I am going with this analogy by now. The only proof of consciousness in AI would be for it to grow or to Fall.<br /><br />This has interesting implications for the debate between good and bad AI... if AI were ever capable of transcending its programming. <br /><br />But the theological implications are far more interesting than the post-singularity speculation. <br /><br />The existence of transcendant growth and The Fall is demonstrable proof of human intelligence, virtue and free will.<br /><br />Checkmate, Anonymous.Stunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-41453027768996623582010-02-23T04:14:53.196-08:002010-02-23T04:14:53.196-08:00The most important element to grasp in the fundame...The most important element to grasp in the fundamentalist Darwinist approach is its self cancelling nature.<br />Which is: as a purpose driven being who intuits purpose both within the psyche and throughout nature I am informed by Darwinists that no such purpose exists. Or it only exists as an ephemeral epiphenomenon. However, they are lead to this conclusion by a purpose driven process.<br />The fact that psyche intuits purpose in its own operations and throughout manifest nature is a strong indication that it is 'real' or 'True'.<br />The same thing applies to the negation of subjectivity by people like D.Dennett. They reach the conclusion that there is no subjectivity or 'I' by using subjective processes!??<br />Talk about sawing off the branch you are sitting on.<br />Congrats to Bob for demolishing bogus materialist fundies.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-83823492629075674642010-02-22T22:08:59.830-08:002010-02-22T22:08:59.830-08:00(cont)
Now a good programmer can make things look...(cont)<br /><br />Now a good programmer can make things look pretty slick, wow the friends and family, but it's just 1's and 0's, a predetermined set of instructions for flipping switches really fast which gives the appearance of 'intelligence'.<br /><br />Most of us who've gone down the A.I. road realize this sooner or later. I've no doubt someone will eventually write a program that'll pass the Turing test... with flying colors. And seeing the advancement in robotics and the fine mechanical articulation that's being achieved (given a huge impetus by the need for veterans prosthetics), I've no doubt that at least within my kids lifetimes, reasonably spooky android machinery will be operating amongst us and giving every appearance, at least within limited ranges (and those limits will be ever diminishing over time), of human level consciousness and interactivity - Artificial Intelligence.<br /><br />But.<br /><br />Although these creations will appear conscious to us, to those who interact with it, that is, those of us on the outside of the smartbox - on the inside - nothing, nada, nihil, zilch. 1's & 0's. Sophisticated computational systems executing the code written by human programmers (for a while longer), enabling it to execute one set of instructions or another as determined by received input.<br /><br />But for all intents and purposes, no different from an abacus. 1's & 0's or pieces of wood shuttled back and forth... the only difference between the whiz bang computer and an old IBM lever operated adding machine is size and power source.<br /><br />Given an unlimited size, and time to do it, someone could design and operate a wooden computer like Babbage's original design, and have it accomplish every trick and feat of our computers today (albeit it'd be flipping colored flashcards instead of pixels, and 'speaking' through an Edison type phonograph), or even tomorrows Turing prize winner - electricity and silicon add nothing to the equation but speed and reduced space.<br /><br />If you don't believe a wooden abacus could be self aware, not even if you strung a gazillion of them together, then unless you give way to sloppy thinking, you shouldn't believe a computer could become an Actual Intelligence... and it really makes no difference if you substitute bio-materials and calories for silicon & electricity - or even a trillion genetic robots.<br /><br />The hardware is material. The operating system and software may seem a step above, but still material and non self-initiatory, non-self aware - stuff and only stuff.<br /><br />Something in us <i>IS</i>.<br /><br />I don't have any worldly clue what or how, or where our inner "I AM" came or comes from, but I do know... it ain't in the salts and proteins, and no amount of complexity worship is going to conjure a ghost out of your machinery.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-11921193213220152722010-02-22T22:08:45.550-08:002010-02-22T22:08:45.550-08:00aninnymouse said "If you were really a disemb...aninnymouse said "If you were really a disembodied spark of will, why can't you will your car to start or the ATM to dispense cash?"<br /><br />You don't seem to be following your own argument, let alone ours. If you really were a disembodied spark of will, an ATM would probably be fair game... why? who knows, but certainly nothing would keep you from it... but that's not our argument.<br /><br />Our position, or at least in my words, is that in fact we are embodied... our consciousness, that aspect which is self-aware, is very much in the body, and seems fairly well stuck there - hopefully.<br /><br />Looks like you haven't come to grips with the shortcomings of your earlier computer analogy shortcomings, so lets stick with that.<br /><br />The hardware, our brain, nerves, cells... are indeed physical, somewhat analogous to hardware, cable, etc, and deficiencies in the materials can affect it's operations as well as the functioning of the threads of executable code operating on the cpu. The operating system and applications are distributed around the physical memory of the computer, but operate in virtualized space within the computer... although it requires solid, functioning physical materials to operate within... it's less specific... difficult to pin down to physical states, and if shut down unexpectedly through a flip of the switch or a blow to the head... it's operations in RAM, or consciousness, may be lost. <br /><br />At best... with a lot of mulligan's given... this train of thought may bring you up to the level of a comatose person... but there is still no provision here for the initiator of action, the User, that which is self aware... nothing which will run or respond without having had it's specific set of logical statements first being written by a programmer. <br /><br />(break)Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-15154244221966442382010-02-22T21:19:34.727-08:002010-02-22T21:19:34.727-08:00Let me guess..."purpose" doesn't mea...Let me guess..."purpose" doesn't mean anymore what it used to mean. It's been redefined, along with so many other venerable terms. <br /><br />I don't claim to be especially bright, so "stupid" away, but how exactly does a random process grant itself purpose?Susannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381272662339466736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-16490577050437012672010-02-22T21:07:55.292-08:002010-02-22T21:07:55.292-08:00Q:
What do "smug" and "stupid"...Q:<br />What do "smug" and "stupid" have in common?<br /><br />A: <br />They both are achievable via writing on a phone on a plane.jet laghttp://www.cybernation.com/victory/quotations/subjects/quotes_intelligenceandintellectuals.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-17156341125200790812010-02-22T21:03:12.765-08:002010-02-22T21:03:12.765-08:00I can demonstrate that brains are non-physical eve...<i>I can demonstrate that brains are non-physical every time I engage in an act of free will and thereby alter my neuronal activity.</i><br /><br />So you have magical non-physical powers over your brain. Bully for you.<br /><br />Don't you think it's odd that the things you can exercise your free will over are exactly those things that either are your brain or connected to it via neurons, such as your voice or hands? If you were really a disembodied spark of will, why can't you will your car to start or the ATM to dispense cash? Why should your will be constrained by such coarse physical relations? It's weird! And it's even odder that people who damage their spinal nerves can no longer exercise will their legs or arms to move. Why should that be?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-53632161167123911502010-02-22T20:42:08.675-08:002010-02-22T20:42:08.675-08:00Great. Another one. They only come out at night. R...Great. Another one. They only come out at night. Rube thinks he spots slop when once again: Whoosh!<br /><br />Pay attention you bovine trolls! <br /><br />I'd refute further but typing on a phone on a plane. Van?Stephen Macdonaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13474300559219020772noreply@blogger.com