Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Rhi,

Yes, clearly AB is very happy with his world. On the face of it at any rate. Why would he want to be reasoned out of it? Think about how his world would come crashing down if he lost his faith - his marriage possibly, his support network, and the magic pill that makes all the bad stuff go away.

I take the point, and to an extent if he believes something that works for him as an explanatory narrative then it's no-one's business but his own. The problem though arises when he pitches up at a place like this and tries to evangelise, because as soon as some of us pull at the threads of his claims they unravel like a cheap suit. What choice is there though? If the more rational don't do that, there's no reason for not immediately converting to whichever stripe of Christianity he happens to have picked. 

Armed as AB is with just some very bad arguments and an overly-ambitious confidence in the epistemic value of his personal "faith", he seems to me to be destined to crash and burn every time he tries to do this. 

[wigginhall]

Yes, clearly AB is very happy with his world. On the face of it at any rate. Why would he want to be reasoned out of it? Think about how his world would come crashing down if he lost his faith - his marriage possibly, his support network, and the magic pill that makes all the bad stuff go away.

Well, I feel baffled by his posts.   I mean, OK,  Christians are meant to proselytize, but even AB must realize that his posts are counter-productive, because they are so stupid.    Just repeating the same things over and over again is very weird, and will make people think Christianity is very stupid.   

[ekim]

 I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

Well, I feel baffled by his posts.   I mean, OK,  Christians are meant to proselytize, but even AB must realize that his posts are counter-productive, because they are so stupid.    Just repeating the same things over and over again is very weird, and will make people think Christianity is very stupid.

Well, to be fair, whenever it’s explained to him that 2=2≠5 he’s quite proficient at dismissing the logic by telling us that it’s only “man-made”.

Makes you wonder what kind of logic he uses to programme his computers though!

[Alan Burns]

Yet again you repeat one of your mantras - totally devoid of any meaning. Computers are the recipients of information all the time - I'm typing information into one right now. Clearly you mean something else but repeating the mantra is pointless...

Computers process information.  There is nothing inside to consciously receive the information.

Perhaps the expression "Perceiver of information" would have been more appropriate that "recipient of information".  Sorry for the confusion.

[Alan Burns]

That's just another assertion.

You have totally failed to make the argument that consciousness is inconsistent with "deterministic electro-chemical activity the physical brain".

So every time you deliberately make a conscious act of any sort, you must assume that it is not "you" that is invoking the act, but the deterministic electro-chemical activity the physical brain over which "you" have no control.  If you did have conscious control of any sort, it would have to somehow interrupt the deterministic chain of cause and effect in order to exert such control.

[wigginhall]

So every time you deliberately make a conscious act of any sort, you must assume that it is not "you" that is invoking the act, but the deterministic electro-chemical activity the physical brain over which "you" have no control.  If you did have conscious control of any sort, it would have to somehow interrupt the deterministic chain of cause and effect in order to exert such control.

That's your idea of the soul, isn't it?   I mean, that it is not part of cause/effects sequences, but is able to affect them?  I guess that it floats somewhere in a non-material kind of way.   Now that's why you can't describe it!

[Stranger]

Computers process information.  There is nothing inside to consciously receive the information.

You are 'arguing' in circles. Now you've put 'consciously receive' into your 'reason' why computers can't do consciousness. This:-

Conscious awareness needs a recipient of information which is beyond the workings of any man made system.

would end up saying: "Conscious awareness needs to consciously receive information which is beyond the workings of any man made system." Which is just an assertion that computers can't do consciousness - not an argument.

So every time you deliberately make a conscious act of any sort, you must assume that it is not "you" that is invoking the act, but the deterministic electro-chemical activity the physical brain over which "you" have no control.

This is called Begging the Question (which is a fallacy). You have assumed your conclusion as the starting point for the 'argument'. You assumed that the "you" is distinct from the "deterministic electro-chemical activity the physical brain" - which is what you are actually supposed to be arguing for.

If you did have conscious control of any sort, it would have to somehow interrupt the deterministic chain of cause and effect in order to exert such control.

Again, you are just assuming that conscious control must be outside of the "deterministic chain of cause and effect".

[Rhiannon]

Well, I feel baffled by his posts.   I mean, OK,  Christians are meant to proselytize, but even AB must realize that his posts are counter-productive, because they are so stupid.    Just repeating the same things over and over again is very weird, and will make people think Christianity is very stupid.   

Yes but there's a trippy feel to them I think. It reminds me of being in labour and laughing hysterically in spite of the fact I was in agonising pain and the baby wasn't budging. AB believes in spiritual Entonox.

[Gordon]

So every time you deliberately make a conscious act of any sort, you must assume that it is not "you" that is invoking the act, but the deterministic electro-chemical activity the physical brain over which "you" have no control.  If you did have conscious control of any sort, it would have to somehow interrupt the deterministic chain of cause and effect in order to exert such control.

This seems: and I say 'seems' because it reads like a non sequitur, but it also reads like an example of the fallacy of composition since your argument in essence is that since the biological components involved in the 'electro-chemical activity' in the brain (such as neurons) aren't themselves conscious then the brain can't be conscious - hence your contrived hook of the 'soul'.

[Alan Burns]

Again, you are just assuming that conscious control must be outside of the "deterministic chain of cause and effect".

Of course it is, otherwise there would be no control - just reaction.

[Stranger]

Of course it is, otherwise there would be no control - just reaction.

This is silly. What do you mean by no control? Computers and non-human animals exercise control.

No, wait, don't tell me! .... You mean conscious control.

Round and round and round...

[ippy]

One of the most obvious demonstrations of delusion I've ever seen, it's such a sad thing to see.

ippy

[Alan Burns]

This is silly. What do you mean by no control? Computers and non-human animals exercise control.

No, wait, don't tell me! .... You mean conscious control.

Round and round and round...

Any control produced by computers is entirely defined by the programmer.
Animals react according to their programmed instincts and learnt experience.
So please tell me how any form of control can exist in a deterministic universe?

and we have not covered manipulation yet!

[Stranger]

This is silly. What do you mean by no control? Computers and non-human animals exercise control.

No, wait, don't tell me! .... You mean conscious control.

Round and round and round...

Any control produced by computers is entirely defined by the programmer.
Animals react according to their programmed instincts and learnt experience.
So please tell me how any form of control can exist in a deterministic universe?
...

You completely ignored my question. Computers and non-human animals still exercise control, regardless of the mechanism.

What sort of control do you think cannot happen in a deterministic universe? Perhaps you could try to answer without resorting to circularity by saying (explicitly or implicitly) conscious control?

[torridon]

Any control produced by computers is entirely defined by the programmer.
Animals react according to their programmed instincts and learnt experience.
So please tell me how any form of control can exist in a deterministic universe?

Learned behaviours are distinct from 'programmed' instinctive behaviours. An earthworm might 'react' predictably to light intensity and varying soil conditions; you might consider that an analogue for your computer program.  However an Alaskan brown bear does not instinctively know how to catch salmon in a river, it is something it has to learn from its mother as a cub. A bit like humans, you might say.  That's what brains give you, the capacity to extend and build on instinct through learning.

[Alan Burns]

Any control produced by computers is entirely defined by the programmer.
Animals react according to their programmed instincts and learnt experience.
So please tell me how any form of control can exist in a deterministic universe?
...


You completely ignored my question. Computers and non-human animals still exercise control, regardless of the mechanism.

What sort of control do you think cannot happen in a deterministic universe? Perhaps you could try to answer without resorting to circularity by saying (explicitly or implicitly) conscious control?

Any form of control requires a source to exert that control.  In a deterministic universe there can be no source of control because every event will be derived from a reaction to a previous event. 

[Alan Burns]

Learned behaviours are distinct from 'programmed' instinctive behaviours. An earthworm might 'react' predictably to light intensity and varying soil conditions; you might consider that an analogue for your computer program.  However an Alaskan brown bear does not instinctively know how to catch salmon in a river, it is something it has to learn from its mother as a cub. A bit like humans, you might say.  That's what brains give you, the capacity to extend and build on instinct through learning.

The capacity to learn from experience can be part of the programmed instincts.  Computerised chess players are programmed to recognise past mistakes and avoid them in future games.

We do have much in common with animals, but their behaviour is far more predictable than humans because our conscious self has the capacity to override our instincts and learnt experiences in order to do something just because we want to.

[Stranger]

Any form of control requires a source to exert that control.

Did you ever do any real-time control programming? The source of control in that case is software running on processor. You are obviously trying to introduce a different sense of the word but you seem unable to express what you mean.

In a deterministic universe there can be no source of control because every event will be derived from a reaction to a previous event.

I asked what sort of control you thought couldn't happen in a deterministic universe and your answer is effectively "the sort that has a source that is not deterministic" - which, apart from adding nothing to your original assertion, is absurd.

Remember:

To the extent something is not determined, it is random.

[Alan Burns]

That's your idea of the soul, isn't it?   I mean, that it is not part of cause/effects sequences, but is able to affect them?  I guess that it floats somewhere in a non-material kind of way.   Now that's why you can't describe it!

You are correct.
The evidence for our soul, in addition to scriptural revelations, lies in our ability to consciously choose how we interact with this universe.

[Alan Burns]

Did you ever do any real-time control programming? The source of control in that case is software running on processor. You are obviously trying to introduce a different sense of the word but you seem unable to express what you mean.

I asked what sort of control you thought couldn't happen in a deterministic universe and your answer is effectively "the sort that has a source that is not deterministic" - which, apart from adding nothing to your original assertion, is absurd.

The control exerted by real time programming has its source in the free will of the programmer who set it up.  If everything is derived from previous physical events there is no control, just inevitable chain reactions.

[Stranger]

The control exerted by real time programming has its source in the free will of the programmer who set it up.

Try not to be silly. Clearly it is the processor that controls the system.

If everything is derived from previous physical events there is no control, just inevitable chain reactions.

This is another empty assertion and another use of the word control in a sense that you refuse to define. How can you possibly have any control outside of a deterministic (physical or otherwise) "chain reaction"?

In other words: how can randomness produce control?

[Alan Burns]

Try not to be silly. Clearly it is the processor that controls the system.

Without the programmer there would be no control.  Therefore he is the source.

This is another empty assertion and another use of the word control in a sense that you refuse to define. How can you possibly have any control outside of a deterministic (physical or otherwise) "chain reaction"?

In other words: how can randomness produce control?

Of course randomness does not produce control.
The source of all control I am aware of comes from the interaction of conscious free will of human beings, not from the uncontrolled deterministic chains of physical events which began with the Big Bang.
You seem to be confusing randomness with the spiritual interaction of the human soul, which is not random.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

"Contemporary software systems are becoming increasingly large, heterogeneous, and decentralised. They operate in dynamic environments and their architectures exhibit complex trade-offs across dimensions of goals, time, and interaction, which emerges internally from the systems and externally from their environment. This gives rise to the vision of self-aware architecture, where design decisions and execution strategies for these concerns are dynamically analysed and seamlessly managed at run-time. Drawing on the concept of self-awareness from psychology, this paper extends the foundation of software architecture styles for self-adaptive systems to arrive at a new principled approach for architecting self-aware systems. We demonstrate the added value and applicability of the approach in the context of service provisioning to cloud-reliant service-based applications."

Published in: Software Architecture (WICSA), 2014 IEEE/IFIP Conference Software Architecture

Perhaps you should give these people a call to tell them they're wasting their time as - according to you - self-aware software could "never" happen?

Your thesis here seems to be:

1. Software functions as long chains of cause and effect.

2. Consciousness involves "free" will that's not constrained by cause and effect.

3. Therefore software can never be conscious.

The problem with it is step 2 - that "free" will feels outside of cause and effect does not mean that it is, and moreover introducing an agent to do the "controlling" that is itself unconstrained by cause and effect raises insurmountable problems of definition (what is this "soul" exactly?) and of logic (what would "free" even mean for this "soul"?).

As an explanation, "soul" is in other words unnecessary and incoherent.

 

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You seem to be confusing randomness with the spiritual interaction of the human soul, which is not random.

You seem to be confusing "the spiritual interaction of the human soul" with a coherent idea.