Searching for GOD...

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

Also what about young children?   I would think that they are developing a sense of self, e.g. being separate from others, being an object in the world, and so on.   Strange how AB's soul seems quite parasitic on psychological development.

It’s all very odd isn’t it. First he decides that there’s a “God”, and that for this conjecture to work there have to be things called “souls”. Then he decides that consciousness cannot be a natural phenomenon because it isn’t “fully defined”, presumably because he doesn’t understand that lots of phenomena aren’t fully defined yet still have robust scientific models to explain them.

Then he plugs the mile-wide gap in his knowledge of cognitive science with this “soul” conjecture even though he readily tells us that that he cannot define anything at all about it – apparently because the absence of a definition or even of a working model has now ceased to be a problem.

Then when the fundamental inconsistencies in his “soul” conjecture are pointed out, rather than address the problem he complains that the falsifying logic is just “man-made”, and that people aren’t seeing “the big picture” (which presumably by some unspecified means he thinks he alone can see).

Then when various attendant problems are identified about issues like infant mortality he takes his conjecture “soul” (about which he still knows nothing remember) and spins out ever more convoluted and casuistic narratives for it to "explain" how these problems might not be problems after all, even though that creates even more inconsistencies to address down the line.

Apart from all that though…

Incidentally, I saw a nice example of emergence today on my bike ride. There’s a fairly fast B road I use with a side road joining it at a right angle. Just in the centre of the junction is a perfect equilateral triangle of small stones. 

Have car designers built in a stone triangle making function? No – that’s just the bit of the road that no tyres ever go across so when pebbles have been randomly thrown around from other parts of the road and have landed there they just stay there. Rather pleasing it was too. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Incidentally, I saw a nice example of emergence today on my bike ride. There’s a fairly fast B road I use with a side road joining it at a right angle. Just in the centre of the junction is a perfect equilateral triangle of small stones. 

Have car designers built in a stone triangle making function? No – that’s just the bit of the road that no tyres ever go across so when pebbles have been randomly thrown around from other parts of the road and have landed there they just stay there. Rather pleasing it was too.

How many more pebbles will have to be thrown there randomly before it attains consciousness?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

How many more pebbles will have to be thrown there randomly before it attains consciousness?

What’s telling here is that on several occasions I’ve pointed you toward a reference source on emergence, only for you to tell me that you know about it already because you’ve read New Scientist. And then you post something like this that betrays your ignorance of the subject, specifically of the difference between a non-adaptive and an adaptive emergent property.

The emergent shapes and patterns from a game of snooker for example are non-adaptive; the behaviour of an ant colony on the other hand is adaptive. Consciousness as an emergent self-organising process fits perfectly well the model of an adaptive system.

[Alan Burns]

Vlad,

What’s telling here is that on several occasions I’ve pointed you toward a reference source on emergence, only for you to tell me that you know about it already because you’ve read New Scientist. And then you post something like this that betrays your ignorance of the subject, specifically of the difference between a non-adaptive and an adaptive emergent property.

The emergent shapes and patterns from a game of snooker for example are non-adaptive; the behaviour of an ant colony on the other hand is adaptive. Consciousness as an emergent self-organising process fits perfectly well the model of an adaptive system.

But you seem unable to grasp the fact that emergence does not generate conscious awareness.  All it can generate is a complex series of reactions, but reactions alone do not comprise awareness.   Awareness is perception of reactions, not the reactions themselves.

[Gordon]

But you seem unable to grasp the fact that emergence does not generate conscious awareness.

So you say: but that is all you do. Just repeating this mantra doesn't explain why we should think you are correct.

All it can generate is a complex series of reactions, but reactions alone do not comprise awareness.

So you say: but that is all you do. Just repeating this mantra doesn't explain why we should think you are correct
 

Awareness is perception of reactions, not the reactions themselves.

Your biology does this for you: who could ask for anything more (as the song says).

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

But you seem unable to grasp the fact that emergence does not generate conscious awareness.

That’s because just calling something "the fact" doesn’t make it one. What you have here is just a personal opinion you think validates your religious beliefs, but that has no coherent logic to support it and that contradicts the findings of people who actually work in the field. In other words, your assertion here is pretty much the opposite of a fact. 

All it can generate is a complex series of reactions, but reactions alone do not comprise awareness.   Awareness is perception of reactions, not the reactions themselves.

So you assert. You seem to think that consciousness must be some special, stand alone property because it looks, like, really complicated maaaan – an ethereal phlogiston that’s beset with logical inconsistencies but is nonetheless somehow just “out there”. What the evidence tells us on the other hand though is that relatively complex adaptive behaviours can emerge with comparatively few components (like ant colonies), and that there’s no reason to think that consciousness isn’t a perfectly feasible outcome on the same spectrum when you increase massively the number of constituent parts from which it emerges. 

You can have any personal opinions about this you like, but what you’re not entitled to is your own facts. Can I suggest you read something about the subject before you presume to dismiss out of hand again where the evidence leads.

[Sassy]

Surely then a 'soul' could be damaged or fail to grow if the person had nothing but negative experiences - would you agree?

Just as a soul can be healed from the damage and a person restored.
I have read  few articles today but not replied because what it brought to mind would be hard for those not Christians
to understand.

I have to say Gordon,  I have watched programs where people who have experienced a lot of damage and negativity
are now restored and healed through faith. When God has stepped in and helped.

[Sassy]

So what of a soul of a foetus that dies before term ? Does this mean there lots of underdeveloped or stalled souls in heaven.  For the first couple of months there is no brain cells for the soul to examine, so what is it looking at then ?

I believe they grow up and mature.

[Robbie]

Just as a soul can be healed from the damage and a person restored.
I have read  few articles today but not replied because what it brought to mind would be hard for those not Christians
to understand.

I have to say Gordon,  I have watched programs where people who have experienced a lot of damage and negativity
are now restored and healed through faith. When God has stepped in and helped.

You could talk about them on Faith Sharing area sassy, i am certain a few of us would be interested & even if didn't go along with it, there's be no criticism.

[torridon]

But you seem unable to grasp the fact that emergence does not generate conscious awareness.  All it can generate is a complex series of reactions, but reactions alone do not comprise awareness.   Awareness is perception of reactions, not the reactions themselves.

Plain wrong.

Awareness, at the level of sentient beings, derives from the constant flow of billions of reactions at lower levels.

This is what the evidence is telling us.  To understand this, all you need is the right attitude of mind, one that values learning over denial.

[floo]

Just as a soul can be healed from the damage and a person restored.
I have read  few articles today but not replied because what it brought to mind would be hard for those not Christians
to understand.

I have to say Gordon,  I have watched programs where people who have experienced a lot of damage and negativity
are now restored and healed through faith. When God has stepped in and helped.

So if the sky fairy can help people why doesn't it do it 100% of the time, instead of when it feels like it?   

[Alan Burns]

Plain wrong.

Awareness, at the level of sentient beings, derives from the constant flow of billions of reactions at lower levels.

This is what the evidence is telling us.  To understand this, all you need is the right attitude of mind, one that values learning over denial.

No matter how many reactions are involved, they are still just reactions.  The only perceiver of information among these reactions will be a human observer, as is the case with any emergent property.  Ant hills, swarms, etcetera do not perceive themselves.

[floo]

No matter how many reactions are involved, they are still just reactions.  The only perceiver of information among these reactions will be a human observer, as is the case with any emergent property.  Ant hills, swarms, etcetera do not perceive themselves.

As you cannot get into the mind of an animal of any other species, you can't say for sure what they actually perceive, you might be surprised if you could.

[torridon]

No matter how many reactions are involved, they are still just reactions.  The only perceiver of information among these reactions will be a human observer, as is the case with any emergent property.  Ant hills, swarms, etcetera do not perceive themselves.

Insect swarms provide a simpler model for us to understand the principles involved.  No one suggests that an insect swarm is conscious but it demonstrates that intelligence is something that arises out of the interactions between individuals in a large collective system and likewise it points to a way of understanding conscious awareness as scaled up coordinated elemental reactions. Everything you see, hear, touch, smell, feel, all these things start with simple reactions at the level of chemistry, light waves reacting with light sensitive pigments in a retina and so on triggering off waves of derivative chain reactions which all flow into cortex where they are assembled, refined, synchronised multiple times.  Conscious experience is the characteristic ebb and flow of all this information through a brain.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

No matter how many reactions are involved, they are still just reactions.  The only perceiver of information among these reactions will be a human observer, as is the case with any emergent property.  Ant hills, swarms, etcetera do not perceive themselves.

Because they're not complex enough – you may as well assert that a laptop cannot construct spreadsheets because an abacus can't do it. Again you fundamentally underestimate the effect of very large numbers. The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons. Each neuron could be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, transmitting signals to each other along as many as 1,000 trillion synaptic connections. Imagine for comparison purposes a computer with a 1 trillion bit per second processor.

However strong your dogmatic personal opinion that a system of such complexity could not be self-aware (how on earth would you know that?), all the evidence is against you.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

Because they're not complex enough – you may as well argue that a laptop cannot construct spreadsheets because an abacus can't do it. Again you fundamentally underestimate the effect of very large numbers. The average human brain has about 100 billion neurons. Each neuron could be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, transmitting signals to each other along as many as 1,000 trillion synaptic connections. Imagine for comparison purposes a computer with a 1 trillion bit per second processor.

However strong your dogmatic personal opinion that a system of such complexity could not be self-aware (how on earth would you know that?), all the evidence is against you.

Increasing numbers and speed just means more information is being processed.  But processing does not equate to perception.  Getting man made computers to attain true self awareness, (not just mimic it), will remain in the realms of science fiction.  It will never happen.

[Alan Burns]

Insect swarms provide a simpler model for us to understand the principles involved.  No one suggests that an insect swarm is conscious but it demonstrates that intelligence is something that arises out of the interactions between individuals in a large collective system and likewise it points to a way of understanding conscious awareness as scaled up coordinated elemental reactions. Everything you see, hear, touch, smell, feel, all these things start with simple reactions at the level of chemistry, light waves reacting with light sensitive pigments in a retina and so on triggering off waves of derivative chain reactions which all flow into cortex where they are assembled, refined, synchronised multiple times.  Conscious experience is the characteristic ebb and flow of all this information through a brain.

Intelligence does not equate to perception.  Information does not equate to perception.  Perception is what is needed to recognise these properties, but it is not defined by them.

[Gordon]

Intelligence does not equate to perception.  Information does not equate to perception.  Perception is what is needed to recognise these properties, but it is not defined by them.

Alan

Our brains seem to do the job quite well, and that we don't fully understand how as yet only requires a 'don't know'. Instead you seem intent on thrashing about trying to manufacture a gap into which you can insert your 'God', which is your preferred definitive solution to everything, and in doing so you seem oblivious to just how contrived your approach is.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Increasing numbers and speed just means more information is being processed.  But processing does not equate to perception.  Getting man made computers to attain true self awareness, (not just mimic it), will remain in the realms of science fiction.  It will never happen.

This reply betrays your fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of emergence. Living organisms are complex adaptive systems - ie, however perfect your understanding of the individual parts you do not therefore have a perfect understanding of the behaviour of the whole system. To put it another way, the behaviour of the entity is not predicted by the behaviour of its components and the "adaptive" part means that such systems mutate and self-organise in response the stimuli they encounter.

In short, all the evidence tells us that emergent self-awareness does happen – constantly asserting "it never will" is just howling at the moon.

[Alan Burns]

Alan

Our brains seem to do the job quite well, and that we don't fully understand how as yet only requires a 'don't know'. Instead you seem intent on thrashing about trying to manufacture a gap into which you can insert your 'God', which is your preferred definitive solution to everything, and in doing so you seem oblivious to just how contrived your approach is.

But it is not so much a gap as to be a huge unreachable chasm.
I am simply pointing out that you are the spiritual entity which perceives the content of your brain and interacts with it to implement acts of consciously driven will.  Neither of these properties being possible to define by deterministic physical reactions of material particles alone.

[Gordon]

But it is not so much a gap as to be a huge unreachable chasm.

There is no gap: the one you create for yourself is of your own invention.
 

I am simply pointing out that you are the spiritual entity which perceives the content of your brain and interacts with it to implement acts of consciously driven will.  Neither of these properties being possible to define by deterministic physical reactions of material particles alone.

You can point out 'spiritual entity' until you are blue in the face but it doesn't make it true: I deny being a 'spiritual entity' - I'm a biological one. I see you are falling into the fallacy of composition yet again.

[Alan Burns]

AB,

This reply betrays your fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of emergence. Living organisms are complex adaptive systems - ie, however perfect your understanding of the individual parts you do not therefore have a perfect understanding of the behaviour of the whole system. To put it another way, the behaviour of the entity is not predicted by the behaviour of its components and the "adaptive" part means that such systems mutate and self-organise in response the stimuli they encounter.

In short, all the evidence tells us that emergent self-awareness does happen – constantly asserting "it never will" is just howling at the moon.

And I suggest that your reply betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of perception.  It is more than the observed behaviour of a complex entity derived from an adaptive system.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

And I suggest that your reply betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of perception.  It is more than the observed behaviour of a complex entity derived from an adaptive system.

Then you suggest wrongly. Just out of interest, other than your assertions on the matter do you have any reasoning at all other than "consciousness looks really hard to me" and "laptops can't do it, therefore brains can't do it" that would support you?

As you have the overwhelming consensus of evidence from the multidisciplinary cognitive sciences ranged against you, surely you have more than unqualified contrary assertions in the locker haven't you?

Anything?

[wigginhall]

No, just one assertion after another, in a lovely circular pattern. 

[torridon]

But it is not so much a gap as to be a huge unreachable chasm.
I am simply pointing out that you are the spiritual entity which perceives the content of your brain and interacts with it to implement acts of consciously driven will.  Neither of these properties being possible to define by deterministic physical reactions of material particles alone.

Alan, it is your rationale which has an unbreachable gap, and it is entirely spurious, of your own making. 

In a 'materialist' account, we already accept that all matter is connected to or aware of all other matter in the cosmos.  If I click my fingers now, the rest of the cosmos has to react to that, it cannot ignore it and this is because all matter is related to all other matter in multiple ways.  There are no unbreachable gaps in physics' description of reality, apart from, possibly, where there are holes in the fabric of spacetime..

In your account however you create an unbreachable gap by claiming the soul is 'immaterial'.  Making the soul immaterial is a way out of explaining why we cannot detect the substance of this spiritual soul. But that merely creates the problem of how the soul can detect things in the material domain if it is not part of it and does not interact with it.

If you touch a hot stove, the heat is detected as a reaction between the heat of the stove and nerve endings in your fingertips, this in turn creates (inevitable) subsequent reactions of pulses flowing up nerve fibres in the arm and eventually like everything else, into cortex where it is modulated into the phenomenology of pain sensation.  There are no breaks in this, no disconnects, no chasms, it is all information flow within a system.  However if you claim there is also a soul which is not part of this system then you have just invented an unbreachable chasm that information cannot flow across, by your own definition.  Your soul is a spurious addition to a system that works quite well without it.