The Illusion of Self

[Sriram]

Some of us are interested in life though, and we want to understand it.  I don't see why that should be controversial.  Occam's razor of course is just a useful principle for anybody wanting to figure out a way to an explanation and experience shows that unnecessary complications in an explanation are a sign that it is flawed. As far as I can see, my analogy fits the available evidence neatly so is much more likely to be correct than explanations based on souls that have no evidential support.  Simple really.  The only difficulty is that my scenario is counterintuitive in some respects (aren't all significant advances in knowledge counter intuitive at first ?) and it requires us to get to grips with the hard problem of consciousness, a work in progress.  If you don't see any parallel problems with your ideas on spirits/souls it is likely because these ideas contain no comparable detail, you seem happy to run with them as vague poorly defined ideas.  But if we were to bring scientific levels of scrutiny and rigour to bear on them, start investigating how immaterial things interact with matter for instance, then you are going to run into problems orders of magnitude greater than in my much simpler scenario.  At the end of the day, if you care about whether your understanding is correct or not, then you will want to see that high level of rigour, sloppy work rarely produces good results.

torridon,

Wanting to understand anything is a natural part of being human. It is a need like hunger or sex. As children we have great curiosity and need to ask and imitate and learn, which is the means of our survival. I am not questioning that. It can however become addictive...which is another matter.

My point here is different. Never mind soul, spirit, etc.  That is a different discussion.

I am only saying that ....if all your Occam's razor and stuff lead to such conclusions as you seem to have arrived at (the self is an emergent property of the car)...then there is something dramatically wrong with the whole system of thinking and analysis.

From the car analogy it is very clear that humans are entirely responsible for the development of cars and also for the functioning of driver less cars. There is really no 'driverless' car. It is driven indirectly through sensors, GPS..whatever, that humans have created. The mechanism of control may be direct or indirect..which is not relevant here.

The point is that. Cars do have a real living thinking Self. It is the human being! Period!  There cannot be any doubts or arguments about that.

In spite of this obvious factual situation, you manage to derive from this scenario something like a 'virtual self' and the 'self being the emergent property of the car' and so on and so forth. This raises many doubts about this kind of 'scientific thinking' and its roots in reality. It is a clear instance where 'science' misleads the thinker into perverse concepts that are obviously not real.

This is what I am talking about.

How much of such perverse thinking is prevalent in theories of evolution and other areas, is frightening to imagine.

Taking pot shots at religious concepts does not solve this problem btw. 

Cheers.

Sriram

PS: Sorry if I was somewhat offensive in my earlier post! 

[SusanDoris]

torridon,

Wanting to understand anything is a natural part of being human. It is a need like hunger or sex. As children we have great curiosity and need to ask and imitate and learn, which is the means of our survival. I am not questioning that. It can however become addictive...which is another matter.

’Addictive’? What an odd word to use about  a desire to acquire knowledge.

My point here is different. Never mind soul, spirit, etc.  That is a different discussion.

Well, there could be a discussion about them if they were, in fact, things, but since they are only useful words to label different aspects of all humans, then the only discussion can be about trying to extract a reliable definition of the terms from those who believe they are things.

How much of such perverse thinking is prevalent in theories of evolution and other areas, is frightening to imagine.

I can’t think of an example of this – can you supply one?

[torridon]

..
From the car analogy it is very clear that humans are entirely responsible for the development of cars and also for the functioning of driver less cars. There is really no 'driverless' car. It is driven indirectly through sensors, GPS..whatever, that humans have created. The mechanism of control may be direct or indirect..which is not relevant here.

The point is that. Cars do have a real living thinking Self. It is the human being! Period!  There cannot be any doubts or arguments about that.

In spite of this obvious factual situation, you manage to derive from this scenario something like a 'virtual self' and the 'self being the emergent property of the car' and so on and so forth. This raises many doubts about this kind of 'scientific thinking' and its roots in reality. It is a clear instance where 'science' misleads the thinker into perverse concepts that are obviously not real.
..

Humans may have designed the driverless car, but it is a defacto reality on the streets of Pittsburgh now.  They are negotiating traffic conditions using onboard sensors and software.  Soon driverless cars will be talking to each other, negotiating unclear rights of way or warning of issues; better vehicle to vehicle communication will be a massive upgrade to the current situation where human drivers can only gesticulate or flash the headlights or blow the horn, and this will make for much safer roads.

In a sense, it is irrelevant how driverless cars came to be, but they are now. Similarly we don't know the exact pathways of how biochemistry led to biology on this planet.  It is a reality here and now.  The story of the development of life on this planet is something epic, and of all the fascinating step changes such as from single cell life to multicell life, from prokaryote to eukaryote, the development of photosynthesis, the evolution of consciousness, none are more remarkable than the evolution of homo sapiens and whilst we can talk about this in terms of this or that cognitive development, the really remarkable framing of this to my mind is the evolution of apes into persons, a step change without compare in the history of life. Understanding this cannot neglect an understanding of what substantiates personhood, where does our sense of self come from, what does it consist of, how is it maintained.  Traditional notions of souls and spirits might have sufficed in the past and might still suffice for most people who are not particularly interested in how things work under the hood. My Uber taxi analogy is meant to be illustrative of a more authentic understanding of the apparent duality of human experience which is true to current research. For sure driverless cars, although they can detect and resolve external conditions, they cannot 'see' as we do, they are not conscious, although that is not to say they will not be so far in the future.  In a sense we could liken a driverless car's perception to that of a human with blindsight - someone who sees, but does not 'know' that he can see. I know this can all be a bit much for people habituated in traditional ways of thinking, but all significant advances in thinking have been courterintuitive at first. We need to learn to think outside the box of legacy ideas.

[ekim]

We need to learn to think outside the box of legacy ideas.

I think we also need to work on what's inside the box of legacy emotions as it is this which determines the production of driverless missiles full of destructive content, (assuming it's not too late).

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

I am only saying that ....if all your Occam's razor and stuff lead to such conclusions as you seem to have arrived at (the self is an emergent property of the car)...then there is something dramatically wrong with the whole system of thinking and analysis.

When rationalism leads to the conclusion that beliefs held irrationally probably aren't true why is that a bad thing?

From the car analogy it is very clear that humans are entirely responsible for the development of cars and also for the functioning of driver less cars. There is really no 'driverless' car. It is driven indirectly through sensors, GPS..whatever, that humans have created. The mechanism of control may be direct or indirect..which is not relevant here.

The point is that. Cars do have a real living thinking Self. It is the human being! Period!  There cannot be any doubts or arguments about that.

In spite of this obvious factual situation, you manage to derive from this scenario something like a 'virtual self' and the 'self being the emergent property of the car' and so on and so forth. This raises many doubts about this kind of 'scientific thinking' and its roots in reality. It is a clear instance where 'science' misleads the thinker into perverse concepts that are obviously not real.

You've missed the point of the analogy. "But cars didn't evolve" isn't relevant to the force of the argument, namely that higher level complexity will emerge with no little man at the controls (Uber driver or "soul" alike) being necessary. 

This is what I am talking about.

How much of such perverse thinking is prevalent in theories of evolution and other areas, is frightening to imagine.

That's a pretty astonishing claim from someone who simply assumes that his local legacy myths are true. There's nothing "perverse" about investigating truth claims when they're amenable to investigation, and in being indifferent to them when they're not.

Taking pot shots at religious concepts does not solve this problem btw.

"Religious concepts" (of any stripe) are fine for those who find meaning in them, but some of us will "take pot shots" when those who have them also assert special privileges for them in the public square. Seems fair enough to me.

PS: Sorry if I was somewhat offensive in my earlier post!

You weren't. What's frustrating though is your failure to engage with the rebuttals that people bother making to your posts.

[Sriram]

Humans may have designed the driverless car, but it is a defacto reality on the streets of Pittsburgh now.  They are negotiating traffic conditions using onboard sensors and software.  Soon driverless cars will be talking to each other, negotiating unclear rights of way or warning of issues; better vehicle to vehicle communication will be a massive upgrade to the current situation where human drivers can only gesticulate or flash the headlights or blow the horn, and this will make for much safer roads.

In a sense, it is irrelevant how driverless cars came to be, but they are now. Similarly we don't know the exact pathways of how biochemistry led to biology on this planet.  It is a reality here and now.  The story of the development of life on this planet is something epic, and of all the fascinating step changes such as from single cell life to multicell life, from prokaryote to eukaryote, the development of photosynthesis, the evolution of consciousness, none are more remarkable than the evolution of homo sapiens and whilst we can talk about this in terms of this or that cognitive development, the really remarkable framing of this to my mind is the evolution of apes into persons, a step change without compare in the history of life. Understanding this cannot neglect an understanding of what substantiates personhood, where does our sense of self come from, what does it consist of, how is it maintained.  Traditional notions of souls and spirits might have sufficed in the past and might still suffice for most people who are not particularly interested in how things work under the hood. My Uber taxi analogy is meant to be illustrative of a more authentic understanding of the apparent duality of human experience which is true to current research. For sure driverless cars, although they can detect and resolve external conditions, they cannot 'see' as we do, they are not conscious, although that is not to say they will not be so far in the future.  In a sense we could liken a driverless car's perception to that of a human with blindsight - someone who sees, but does not 'know' that he can see. I know this can all be a bit much for people habituated in traditional ways of thinking, but all significant advances in thinking have been courterintuitive at first. We need to learn to think outside the box of legacy ideas.

torridon,

It is very relevant how the cars came to be...and it is also very important how and why they move. 

The entire system is human in origin. The cars themselves do not do anything nor are they capable of it. Left  to itself a driverless  car will not be able to do anything.  It is the system created AND OPERATED by humans that makes it move around. It is human intelligence that is reflected in the car at all points.

To claim that in course of time, some kind of a latent intelligence automatically emerges from the car itself and makes it driverless...is nonsense! That is not what has happened in the driverless car.  Even a driveless car  still remains a piece of metal...nothing more. 

And the fact that you and some others, seriously believe that an emergent property has actually arisen in the car....is shocking! That is the perversity I am referring to....which could perhaps be a fundamental feature of all scientific analysis. 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

It is very relevant how the cars came to be...and it is also very important how and why they move. 

The entire system is human in origin. The cars themselves do not do anything nor are they capable of it. Left  to itself a driverless  car will not be able to do anything.  It is the system created AND OPERATED by humans that makes it move around. It is human intelligence that is reflected in the car at all points.

To claim that in course of time, some kind of a latent intelligence automatically emerges from the car itself and makes it driverless...is nonsense! That is not what has happened in the driverless car.  Even a driveless car  still remains a piece of metal...nothing more.

None of which has any relevance whatever to the point of the analogy.
 

And the fact that you and some others, seriously believe that an emergent property has actually arisen in the car....is shocking! That is the perversity I am referring to....which could perhaps be a fundamental feature of all scientific analysis.

No it isn't because you clearly have no idea what emergence actually entails - the SIMS computer game for example has emergent properties too and the fact that people wrote the operating code for it makes no difference to that.

Try again.

[torridon]

torridon,

It is very relevant how the cars came to be...and it is also very important how and why they move. 

The entire system is human in origin. The cars themselves do not do anything nor are they capable of it. Left  to itself a driverless  car will not be able to do anything.  It is the system created AND OPERATED by humans that makes it move around. It is human intelligence that is reflected in the car at all points.

To claim that in course of time, some kind of a latent intelligence automatically emerges from the car itself and makes it driverless...is nonsense! That is not what has happened in the driverless car.  Even a driveless car  still remains a piece of metal...nothing more. 

And the fact that you and some others, seriously believe that an emergent property has actually arisen in the car....is shocking! That is the perversity I am referring to....which could perhaps be a fundamental feature of all scientific analysis.

I think you're still not getting the point.  I'm not saying driverless cars have evolved themselves, they are the products of human intelligent design clearly.  The point of the metaphor is to be illustrative of the nature of the relationship between body and soul, to put it in traditional terms. Clearly cars are not alive and not evolving in any biological sense, and clearly Uber taxis do not have a hologrammatic driver.  Humans however are alive and clearly are evolving, and the point of the metaphor is that what we traditionally have called the soul in analogous to a virtual driver created by the driverless car's software.  It is a product of the running car, when the car is powered down, the driver disappears, just as when a human body sleeps or dies, the self disappears too.  The virtual driver is not really driving the car, it is there for more subtle reasons.  Likewise with humans, the conscious mind is not really in control, it is an afterthought that is there for more subtle reasons. 

It has been the subject of debate among neuroscientists and philosophers as to why we have a conscious mind at all if it is essentially superfluous with deeper levels of mind really running the show. I think there will be several reasons for this, and my analogy also touches on just one aspect of that when I pointed out that Uber taxis with a hologrammatic pretend driver would probably get more rides than those with an empty 'driving' seat. I think an understanding of the evolution from ape to person should place centre-stage the evolution of the self.  I think this focuses and links all the other cognitive developments that are part of the human portfolio.  A strong sense of self and autonomy is essential to the way we live our lives. Such a sense of self is not so important if you are a dog or a horse or a rabbit, but they do have stronger sense of eyesight and smell than us; and we appear to have rescinded some of our earlier senses in buying things like a stronger sense of self.  Now our sense of self is so strong that we cannot imagine life without it, and to the extent that we all pass our lives with a defacto cognitive illusion that the self is a separate thing, a thing in its own right. So powerful has this sense become that people seem bewildered when I use metaphors like driverless cars to talk to the reality underlying the illusion.

[ekim]

A strong sense of self and autonomy is essential to the way we live our lives. Such a sense of self is not so important if you are a dog or a horse or a rabbit

I don't think that is the issue within some religions.  A baby appears to have a weak sense of self and probably identifies more with the source of its sustenance, but as life progresses it develops a 'self', perhaps to fit in with or relate to a host of already established 'selfs'.  It might be partly the result of emergent properties like instincts, appetites, drives, genetic traits but also 'inmergent' properties derived from the influence of e.g. parents, education and society.   Expressions like self centred, self important, self satisfied, self willed, self assertive derive from this constellation of 'properties'.  Conflict can result from a clash 'selfs', the ad hominem is a mild example.  Pack animals like the dog or herd animals like the horse perhaps have a rudimentary 'self' which we recognise with expressions like top-dog and under-dog.  This 'self' in Sriram's land is referred to as ahamkara, I believe.  There is another word Atman which is often translated as Self with a capital 'S' to distinguish it and which is more pristine.

[Sriram]

I think you're still not getting the point.  I'm not saying driverless cars have evolved themselves, they are the products of human intelligent design clearly.  The point of the metaphor is to be illustrative of the nature of the relationship between body and soul, to put it in traditional terms. Clearly cars are not alive and not evolving in any biological sense, and clearly Uber taxis do not have a hologrammatic driver.  Humans however are alive and clearly are evolving, and the point of the metaphor is that what we traditionally have called the soul in analogous to a virtual driver created by the driverless car's software.  It is a product of the running car, when the car is powered down, the driver disappears, just as when a human body sleeps or dies, the self disappears too.  The virtual driver is not really driving the car, it is there for more subtle reasons.  Likewise with humans, the conscious mind is not really in control, it is an afterthought that is there for more subtle reasons. 

It has been the subject of debate among neuroscientists and philosophers as to why we have a conscious mind at all if it is essentially superfluous with deeper levels of mind really running the show. I think there will be several reasons for this, and my analogy also touches on just one aspect of that when I pointed out that Uber taxis with a hologrammatic pretend driver would probably get more rides than those with an empty 'driving' seat. I think an understanding of the evolution from ape to person should place centre-stage the evolution of the self.  I think this focuses and links all the other cognitive developments that are part of the human portfolio.  A strong sense of self and autonomy is essential to the way we live our lives. Such a sense of self is not so important if you are a dog or a horse or a rabbit, but they do have stronger sense of eyesight and smell than us; and we appear to have rescinded some of our earlier senses in buying things like a stronger sense of self.  Now our sense of self is so strong that we cannot imagine life without it, and to the extent that we all pass our lives with a defacto cognitive illusion that the self is a separate thing, a thing in its own right. So powerful has this sense become that people seem bewildered when I use metaphors like driverless cars to talk to the reality underlying the illusion.

torridon,

I understand what you are saying. You are trying to use the car analogy to your advantage. It is not working.

You are imagining something you call a 'virtual self' that gets generated by the software in the car..and this virtual self is what you are equating to the soul/spirit. Thereby you want to conclude that the human Self is also not real. The problem is that this 'virtual self' is imaginary....and the logic is warped.

In reality, the true 'self' of the car is a human (or a bunch of humans). The software, hardware, sensors, GPS etc. are operated and maintained by humans. So humans really and actually do drive the car even if it seems driver less.   This fact doesn't go away.

But if the car could think, it would not be aware of any humans controlling it. The human element will probably be seen by the car as its 'unconscious mind'....which takes decisions seconds before the car is aware if it.

Similarly the real Self of a human could be something that controls and decides its actions. It could be the unconscious mind or what many call as the spirit/soul.

The distinction between the spirit and soul could be another interesting subject. The Spirit could be what I have earlier called the Higher Self and the soul could be the lower self.  This adds to the earlier thread on the two birds.

The analogy of the car however, works very well to demonstrate how the spirit/soul 'occupies' the body and why continued investigations into the mechanisms of the car cannot identify or understand the driver. 

[torridon]

In reality, the true 'self' of the car is a human (or a bunch of humans). The software, hardware, sensors, GPS etc. are operated and maintained by humans. So humans really and actually do drive the car even if it seems driver less.   This fact doesn't go away.

This is wrong though.  This would be true of normal cars but you are failing to see the difference.  In a driverless car the car drives itself without any human input.  You seem to be saying there is no difference between driven cars and driverless cars.  There is a difference, that is why the driverless cars are called 'driverless'.  Their provenance is irrelevant to the power of the metaphor.

But if the car could think, it would not be aware of any humans controlling it. The human element will probably be seen by the car as its 'unconscious mind'....which takes decisions seconds before the car is aware if it.

Irrelevant because the driverless car does not have a human driver.  That is why it is called 'driverless'.

[Alan Burns]

This is wrong though.  This would be true of normal cars but you are failing to see the difference.  In a driverless car the car drives itself without any human input.  You seem to be saying there is no difference between driven cars and driverless cars.  There is a difference, that is why the driverless cars are called 'driverless'.  Their provenance is irrelevant to the power of the metaphor.

Torri, Your analogy of the driverless car is totally dependent on human perception being used to recognise what is meant by "driverless".  The analogy breaks down without the human concept of what "driverless" actually means.  Both the driverless car and a normal car are just pieces of machinery designed to transport.

This merely confirms a point I made in an earlier post that the concept of an emergent property only exists in human perception.

[torridon]

Torri, Your analogy of the driverless car is totally dependent on human perception being used to recognise what is meant by "driverless".  The analogy breaks down without the human concept of what "driverless" actually means.  Both the driverless car and a normal car are just pieces of machinery designed to transport.

This merely confirms a point I made in an earlier post that the concept of an emergent property only exists in human perception.

Eh ?

Are you saying that the principle of emergence only started to operate when humans evolved and developed the cognitive skills to understand it ?  Fluidity is an emergent property of lots of water molecules together; I'm pretty sure that rivers were running downhill long before humans were around to observe the phenomenon.

[Alan Burns]

Eh ?

Are you saying that the principle of emergence only started to operate when humans evolved and developed the cognitive skills to understand it ?  Fluidity is an emergent property of lots of water molecules together; I'm pretty sure that rivers were running downhill long before humans were around to observe the phenomenon.

What I am saying is that outside human perception, a property such as fluidity is just sub atomic particles acting in accordance with natural laws.  It is only recognised as a property in human perception.  All examples of emergence just boil down to human recognition of some perceived pattern or functionality.  Outside human perception everything is just a continuum of material reacting in accordance with scientific rules.

[Sebastian Toe]

What I am saying is that outside human perception, a property such as fluidity is just sub atomic particles acting in accordance with natural laws.  It is only recognised as a property in human perception.  All examples of emergence just boil down to human recognition of some perceived pattern or functionality.  Outside human perception everything is just a continuum of material reacting in accordance with scientific rules.

Can you have rules outwith human perception?

[torridon]

What I am saying is that outside human perception, a property such as fluidity is just sub atomic particles acting in accordance with natural laws.  It is only recognised as a property in human perception.  All examples of emergence just boil down to human recognition of some perceived pattern or functionality.  Outside human perception everything is just a continuum of material reacting in accordance with scientific rules.

I think you are confusing a phenomenon with the description of that phenomenon.  'Fluidity' has always emerged, we just gave it a name and a description, is all.

[wigginhall]

Wow, analogies, eh?  There was a thread on it a while ago, pointing out that they are not intended to be 100% accurate.   Of course, if they were, they would not be analogies but perfect copies.   But people persist in taking up aspects of an analogy which don't fit.  Ah well.

[Alan Burns]

I think you are confusing a phenomenon with the description of that phenomenon.  'Fluidity' has always emerged, we just gave it a name and a description, is all.

Just looking at the dictionary definition of phenomenon:

    1.
    a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.
   
    2.
    Philosophy
    the object of a person's perception.

From both definitions we have the words "observed" and "perception", both of which derive from the act of human perception.  So I ask the question - does a phenomenon exist as a separate entity outside of human perception?

[torridon]

From both definitions we have the words "observed" and "perception", both of which derive from the act of human perception.  So I ask the question - does a phenomenon exist as a separate entity outside of human perception?

Yes of course it does.  This goes back to Kant who was the first to formalise the difference between a thing in itself (noumenon) and a perception of the same thing (phenomenon). My perception of the sun shining in the sky would be a phenomenon in Kantian terms, but that doesn't mean that the Sun stops shining when no one is looking.  The perception of a thing is not the same as the thing in itself, but they are related.  Hence the old Zen riddle that a tree falling in the forest makes no sound if there is no one around to hear it - this is exploiting a difference between noumena and phenomema.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

Wow, analogies, eh?  There was a thread on it a while ago, pointing out that they are not intended to be 100% accurate.   Of course, if they were, they would not be analogies but perfect copies.   But people persist in taking up aspects of an analogy which don't fit.  Ah well.

It happens quite a lot here. A perfectly good analogy will be made to illustrate a point, and someone will look for the differences between the two examples that have no relevance to the point and then claim it to be a "category f***" or similar. SOTS for example got all vexed earlier about the driverless car being man-made as if that had any relevance to the force of the analogy. The more obvious one is Russel's teapot: "but the teapot is just made up!", "You're just using ridicule" etc while completely missing the point of the analogy. 

Odd.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Just looking at the dictionary definition of phenomenon:

    1.
    a fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.
   
    2.
    Philosophy
    the object of a person's perception.

From both definitions we have the words "observed" and "perception", both of which derive from the act of human perception.  So I ask the question - does a phenomenon exist as a separate entity outside of human perception?

Whoosh!

[Sriram]

This is wrong though.  This would be true of normal cars but you are failing to see the difference.  In a driverless car the car drives itself without any human input.  You seem to be saying there is no difference between driven cars and driverless cars.  There is a difference, that is why the driverless cars are called 'driverless'.  Their provenance is irrelevant to the power of the metaphor.

Irrelevant because the driverless car does not have a human driver.  That is why it is called 'driverless'.

If the driverless car crashes somewhere, who will be arrested? Certainly not the car!  The software fellows will be hauled up. They are responsible for the mess up.

The software is the mind of the driver less car, the computer is the brain....the human is the spirit.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

If the driverless car crashes somewhere, who will be arrested? Certainly not the car!  The software fellows will be hauled up. They are responsible for the mess up.

The software is the mind of the driver less car, the computer is the brain....

Way to miss the point again.

Let's say that lots of driverless cars operate in a city and, over time, their software figures out that to get across the city efficiently routes different from those used by traditional vehicles should be used. Let's say too that these cars communicate and learn from each other, such that over millions of journeys new traffic patterns emerge.

Let's also say that the increased pollution on these new routes causes neighbourhood schools to close down, and new petrol stations to open up. Or perhaps houses will be knocked down and new road-widening schemes implemented.

Suddenly the topography of the city itself changes because of driverless vehicles, but the people who coded the software for them never for one moment intended or planned for that to happen, and nor moreover was there anything inherent in the software that would entail, say, opening new body repair shops. It's emerged bottom up from many repeated but simple actions of the cars, but not because a top down city planner decided one day to close schools and open tyre fitting shops in their place.

That's emergence - and when you look for it it's pretty much everywhere you look in nature as well as in man-made environments. Single stupid components consistently following a relatively small number of basic rules will produce much more complex emergent phenomena with no need at all for a designer to make it so.

And that's all that's being said here.

...the human is the spirit

What "spirit" would that be and how should I test your claim that it exists so as to be sure that it's not complete nonsense?   

[Dicky Underpants]

If the driverless car crashes somewhere, who will be arrested? Certainly not the car!  The software fellows will be hauled up. They are responsible for the mess up.

The software is the mind of the driver less car, the computer is the brain....the human is the spirit.

But God is in everything - isn't that what you believe?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Wow, analogies, eh?  There was a thread on it a while ago, pointing out that they are not intended to be 100% accurate.   Of course, if they were, they would not be analogies but perfect copies.   But people persist in taking up aspects of an analogy which don't fit.  Ah well.

In some cases, the analogies while helpful in explaining the point made by the poster also illustrate the problem, as shown in e.g. responses #1, #2, #9, #20 to the opening post.

Some here do not want to acknowledge the external contribution to the gain of a system because it supposedly creates an infinite regression. One attempt to get round the problem is to try and claim that any gain is actually an increase and can therefore come from within the system (extrapolating from examples where an increase can come from within the system, e.g. the example with rivers in #112). The analogies used all have the cause of the gain being external, e.g. the opening post on this thread and the SIMS example in bluehillside’s #106.