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Chapter 4: Kurzweil’s Impoverished Spirituality
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Chapter 4: Kurzweil’s Impoverished Spirituality
Ray Kurzweil's notion of "spiritual machines" capable of consciousness reduces the richness of the real world and spirituality to computational absurdity, says Prof. William Dembski.
Originally published in print June 18, 2002 in Are
We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong AI
by the Discovery
Institute. Published on KurzweilAI.net on June 18, 2002.
The question of whether humans are machines has been vigorously
debated over the last two hundred years. The French materialists
of the Enlightenment like Pierre Cabanis, Julien La Mettrie, and
Baron d’Holbach affirmed that humans are machines (La Mettrie
even wrote a book titled Man the Machine). Likewise contemporary
materialists like Marvin Minsky, Daniel Dennett, and Patricia Churchland
see the motions and modifications of matter as sufficient to account
for human mentality. For all its faults, materialism is a predictable
philosophy. If matter is all there is, then mind must, in some fashion,
reduce to matter. Whereas the Enlightenment philosophes might have
thought of humans in terms of gear mechanisms and fluid flows, contemporary
materialists think of humans in terms of neurological systems and
computational devices. The idiom has been updated, but the underlying
impulse to reduce mind to matter remains unchanged.
If predictability is materialism’s main virtue, then hollowness
is its main fault. Humans have aspirations. We long for freedom,
immortality, and the beatific vision. We are restless until we find
our rest in God. The problem for the materialist, however, is that
these aspirations cannot be redeemed in the coin of matter. Our
aspirations are, after all, spiritual (etymology confirms this point—“aspiration”
and “spiritual” are cognates). We need to transcend ourselves
to find ourselves. Now the motions and modifications of matter offer
no opportunity for transcending ourselves. Materialists in times
past admitted as much. Freud saw belief in God as wish-fulfillment.
Marx saw religion as an opiate. Nietzsche saw Christianity as a
pathetic excuse for mediocrity. Each regarded the hope for transcendence
as a delusion.
This hope, however, is not easily excised from the human heart.
Even the most hardened materialist shudders at Bertrand Russell’s
vision of human destiny: “Man is the product of causes which
had no prevision of the end they were achieving” and which
predestine him “to extinction in the vast death of the solar
system.” The human heart longs for more. And in an age when
having it all has become de rigueur, enjoying the benefits of religion
without its ontological burdens is now within reach. The erstwhile
impossible marriage between materialism and spirituality is now
routinely consummated. The vision of C.S. Lewis’ devilish character
Screwtape—the “materialist magician” who combines
the skepticism of the materialist with the cosmic consciousness
of the mystic—is here at last.
Within the tough-minded materialism of the past, human aspirations,
whatever else they might be, were strictly finite and terminated
with the death of the individual. The tough-minded materialism of
the past was strong, stark, and courageous. It embraced the void,
and disdained any impulse to pie in the sky. Not so the tender-minded
materialism of our age. Though firmly committed to materialism,
it is just as firmly committed to not missing out on any benefits
ascribed to religious experience. A spiritual materialism is now
possible, and with it comes the view that we are spiritual machines.
The juxtaposition of spirit and mechanism, which previously would
have been regarded as an oxymoron, is now said to constitute a profound
insight.
As evidence for this move from tough- to tender-minded materialism,
consider Ray Kurzweil’s recently published The Age of Spiritual
Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. Kurzweil is
a leader in artificial intelligence, and specifically in the field
of voice-recognition software. Ten years ago Kurzweil published
the more modestly titled The Age of Intelligent Machines (MIT, 1990).
There he gave the usual strong artificial intelligence position
about machine and human intelligence being functionally equivalent.
In The Age of Spiritual Machines, however, Kurzweil’s aim is
no longer to show that machines are merely capable of human capacities.
Rather, his aim is to show that machines are capable of vastly outstripping
human capacities and will do so within the next thirty years.
According to The Age of Spiritual Machines, machine intelligence
is the next great step in the evolution of intelligence. That the
highest form of intelligence happens for now to be embodied in human
beings is simply an accident of natural history. Human beings need
to be transcended, though not by going beyond matter, but by reinstantiating
themselves in more efficient forms of matter, to wit, the computer.
Kurzweil claims that in the next thirty or so years we shall be
able to scan our brains, upload them onto a computer, and thereafter
continue our lives as virtual persons running as programs on machines.
Since the storage and processing capacities of these virtual persons
will far exceed that of the human brain, they will quickly take
the lead in all aspects of society. Those humans who refuse to upload
themselves will be left in the dust, becoming “pets,”
as Kurzweil puts it, of the newly evolved computer intelligences.
What’s more, these computer intelligences will be conditionally
immortal, depending for their continued existence only on the ability
of hardware to run the relevant software.
Although Kurzweil is at pains to shock his readers with the imminence
of a computer takeover, he is hardly alone in seeking immortality
through computation. Frank Tipler’s The Physics of Immortality
(Doubleday, 1994) is devoted entirely to this topic. Freeman Dyson
has pondered it as well. Alan Turing, one of the founders of modern
computation, was fascinated with how the distinction between software
and hardware illuminated immortality. Turing’s friend Christopher
Morcom had died when they were teenagers. If Morcom’s continued
existence depended on his particular embodiment, then he was gone
for good. But if he could be instantiated as a computer program
(software), Morcom’s particular embodiment (hardware) would
be largely irrelevant. Identifying personal identity with computer
software thus ensured that people were immortal since even though
hardware could be destroyed, software resided in a realm of mathematical
abstraction and was thus immune to destruction.
A strong case can be made that humans are not machines—period.
I shall make that case later in this essay. Assuming that I am right
and that humans are not machines, it follows that humans are not
spiritual machines. Even so, the question what it would mean for
a machine to be spiritual is interesting in its own right. My immediate
aim, therefore, is not to refute the claim that humans are spiritual
machines, but to show what modifying “machine” with the
adjective “spiritual” entails. I shall argue that attributing
spirituality to machines entails an impoverished form of spirituality.
It’s rather like talking about “free prisoners.”
Whatever else freedom might mean here, it doesn’t mean freedom
to leave the prison.
To see what modifying “machine” with the adjective “spiritual”
entails, let us start by examining what we mean by a machine. Normally
by a machine we mean an integrated system of parts that function
together to accomplish some purpose. To avoid the troubled waters
of teleology, let us bracket the question of purpose. In that case
we can define a machine as any integrated system of parts whose
motions and modifications entirely characterize the system. Implicit
in this definition is that all the parts are physical. Consequently
a machine is fully determined by the constitution, dynamics, and
interrelationships of its physical parts.
This definition is very general. It incorporates artifacts as well
as organisms (humans being a case in point). Because the nineteenth
century Romanticism that separates organisms from machines is still
with us, many people shy away from calling organisms machines. But
organisms are as much integrated systems of physical parts as are
human artifacts. Perhaps “integrated physical systems”
would be more precise, but “machines” stresses the strict
absence of extra-material factors from such systems, and it is that
absence which is the point of controversy.
With this definition of machines in hand, let us now consider what
it means to ascribe spirituality to machines. Because machines are
integrated systems of parts, they are subject to what I call the
replacement principle. What this means is that physically indistinguishable
parts of a machine can be exchanged without altering the machine.
At the subatomic level, particles in the same quantum state can
be exchanged without altering the subatomic system. At the biochemical
level, polynucleotides with the same length and sequence specificity
can be exchanged without altering the biochemical system. At the
organismal level, identical organs can be exchanged without altering
the biological system. At the level of human contrivances, identical
components can be exchanged without altering the contrivance.
The replacement principle is relevant to this discussion because
it implies that machines have no substantive history. According
to Hilaire Belloc, “To comprehend the history of a thing is
to unlock the mysteries of its present, and more, to disclose the
profundities of its future.” But a machine, properly speaking,
has no history. Its history is a superfluous rider—an addendum
that could easily have been different without altering the machine.
If something is solely a machine, then according to the replacement
principle it and a replica are identical. Forgeries of the present
become masterpieces of the past if the forgeries are good enough.
This may not be a problem for art dealers, but it does become a
problem when the machines in question are ourselves (cf. matter
compilers that à la Star Trek could assemble and diassemble
us atom by atom).
For a machine, all that it is, is what it is at this moment. We
typically think of our memories as either remembered or forgotten,
and if forgotten then having the possibility of recovery. But machines
do not properly speaking remember or forget (remembering and forgetting
being substantive relations between a person and a person’s
actual past). Machines access or fail to access items in storage.
What’s more, if they fail to access an item, it’s either
because the retrieval mechanism failed or because the item was erased.
Consequently, items that represent past occurrences but were later
erased are, as far as the machine is concerned, just as though they
never happened. Mutatis mutandis, items that represent counterfactual
occurrences (i.e., things that never happened) but which are accessible
can be, as far as the machine is concerned, just as though they
did happen.
The causal history leading up to a machine is strictly an accidental
feature of it. Consequently, any dispositional properties we ascribe
to a machine (e.g., goodness, morality, virtue, and yes, even spirituality)
properly pertain only to its current state and future potentialities,
and can be detached from its past. In particular, any defect in
a machine relates only to its current state and future potentialities.
Moreover, the correction of any defect properly belongs to technology.
A machine that was a mass-murderer yesterday may become an angel
of mercy today provided we can find a suitable readjustment of its
parts. Having come to view ourselves as machines, it is no accident
that our society looks for salvation in technologies like behavior
modification, psychotropic drugs, cognitive reprogramming, and genetic
engineering.
The problem with machines is that they are incapable of sustaining
what philosophers call substantial forms. A substantial form is
a principle of unity that holds a thing together and maintains its
identity over time. Machines lack substantial forms. A machine,
though having a past, might just as well not have had a past. A
machine, though configured in one way, could just as well be reconfigured
in other ways. A machine’s defects can be corrected and its
virtues improved through technology. Alternatively, new defects
can be introduced and old virtues removed through technology. What
a machine is now and what it might end up in the future are entirely
open-ended and discontinuous. Despite the buffeting of history,
substantial forms perdure through time. Machines, on the other hand,
are the subject of endless tinkering and need bear no semblance
to past incarnations.
In this light consider the various possible meanings of “spiritual”
in combination with “machine.” Since a machine is entirely
characterized in terms of the constitution, dynamics, and interrelationships
of its physical parts, “spiritual” cannot refer to some
nonphysical aspect of the machine. Let’s therefore restrict
“spiritual” to some physical aspect of a machine. What,
then, might it refer to? Often when we think of someone as spiritual,
we think of that person as exhibiting some moral virtue like self-sacrifice,
altruism, or courage. But we only attribute such virtues on the
basis of past actions. Yet past actions belong to history, and history
is what machines don’t have, except accidentally.
Consider, for instance, a possible-worlds scenario featuring an
ax murderer who just prior to his death has a cerebral accident
that turns his brain state into that of Mother Teresa’s at
her most charitable. The ax murderer now has the brain state of
a saint but the past of a sinner. Assuming the ax murderer is a
machine, is he now a spiritual machine? Suppose Mother Teresa has
a cerebral accident just prior to her death that turns her brain
state into that of the ax murderer’s at his most barbaric.
Mother Teresa now has the brain state of a sinner but the past of
a saint. Assuming Mother Teresa is a machine, is she no longer a
spiritual machine?
Such counterfactuals indicate the futility of attributing spirituality
to machines on the basis of past actions. Machines that have functioned
badly in the past are not sinners and therefore unspiritual. Machines
that have functioned well in the past are not saints and therefore
spiritual. Machines that have functioned badly in the past need
to be fixed. Machines that have functioned well in the past need
to be kept in good working order so that they continue to function
well. Once a machine has been fixed, it doesn’t matter how
badly it functioned in the past. On the other hand, once a machine
goes haywire, it doesn’t matter how well it functioned in the
past.
Attributing spirituality to machines on the basis of future actions
is equally problematic. Clearly, we have access to a machine’s
future only through its present. Given its present constitution,
can we predict what the machine will do in the future? The best
we can do is specify certain behavioral propensities. But even with
the best propensities, machines break and malfunction. It is impossible
to predict the full range of stresses that a machine may encounter
and that may cause it to break or malfunction. Consequently it is
impossible to tell whether a machine that gives all appearances
of functioning one way will continue to function that way. For every
machine in a given state there are circumstances sure to lead to
its undoing. Calling a machine “spiritual” in reference
to its future can therefore only refer to certain propensities of
the machine to function in certain ways. But spirituality of this
sort is better left to a bookmaker than to a priest or guru.
Since the future of a machine is accessed through its present,
it follows that attributing spirituality to machines properly refers
to some present physical aspect of the machine. But what aspect
might this be? What about the constitution, dynamics, and interrelationships
of a machine’s parts renders it spiritual? What emergent property
of a system of physical parts corresponds to spirituality? Suppose
humans are machines. Does an ecstatic religious experience, an LSD
drug trip, a Maslow peak experience, or a period of silence, prayer,
and meditation count as a spiritual experience? I suppose if we
are playing a Wittgensteinian language game, this usage is okay.
But however we choose to classify these experiences, it remains
that machine spirituality is the spirituality of immediate experience.
This is of course consistent with much of contemporary spirituality,
which places a premium on religious experience and neglects such
traditional aspects of spirituality as revelation, tradition, virtue,
morality, and above all communion with a nonphysical God who transcends
our physical being.
Machine spirituality neglects much that has traditionally been
classified under spirituality. From this alone it would follow that
machine spirituality is an impoverished form of spirituality. But
the problem is worse. Machine spirituality fails on its own terms
as a phenomenology of religious experience. The spiritual experience
of a machine is necessarily poorer than the spiritual experience
of a being that communes with God. The entire emphasis of Judeo-Christian
spirituality is on communion with a free personal transcendent God
(cf. Diogenes Allen’s Spiritual Theology, Cowley Publications,
1997). Moreover, communion with God always presupposes a free act
by God to commune with us. Freedom here means that God can refuse
to commune with us (to, as the Scriptures say, “hide his face”).
Thus, within traditional spirituality we are aware of God’s
presence because God has freely chosen to make his presence known
to us. Truly spiritual persons—or saints as they are called—experience
a constant, habitual awareness of God’s presence.
But how can a machine be aware of God’s presence? Recall that
machines are entirely defined by the constitution, dynamics, and
interrelationships among their physical parts. It follows that God
cannot make his presence known to a machine by acting upon it and
thereby changing its state. Indeed, the moment God acts upon a machine
to change its state, it no longer properly is a machine, for an
aspect of the machine now transcends its physical constituents.
It follows that awareness of God’s presence by a machine must
be independent of any action by God to change the state of the machine.
How then does the machine come to awareness of God’s presence?
The awareness must be self-induced. Machine spirituality is the
spirituality of self-realization, not the spirituality of an active
God who freely gives himself in self-revelation and thereby transforms
the beings with which he is in communion. For Kurzweil to modify
“machine” with the adjective “spiritual” therefore
entails an impoverished view of spirituality.
Accounting for Intelligent Agency
The question remains whether humans are machines (with or without
the adjective “spiritual” tacked in front). To answer
this question, we need first to examine how materialism understands
human agency and, more generally, intelligent agency. Although the
materialist literature that attempts to account for human agency
is vast, the materialist’s options are in fact quite limited.
The materialist world is not a mind-first world. Intelligent agency
is therefore in no sense prior to or independent of the material
world. Intelligent agency is a derivative mode of causation that
depends on underlying natural—and therefore unintelligent—causes.
Human agency in particular supervenes on underlying natural processes,
which in turn usually are identified with brain function.
How well have natural processes been able to account for intelligent
agency? Cognitive scientists have achieved nothing like a full reduction.
The French Enlightenment thinker Pierre Cabanis remarked: “Les
nerfs—voilà tout l’homme” (the nerves—that’s
all there is to man). A full reduction of intelligent agency to
natural causes would give a complete account of human behavior,
intention, and emotion in terms of neural processes. Nothing like
this has been achieved. No doubt, neural processes are correlated
with behavior, intention, and emotion. But correlation is not causation.
Anger presumably is correlated with certain localized brain excitations.
But localized brain excitations hardly explain anger any better
than overt behaviors associated with anger, like shouting obscenities.
Localized brain excitations may be reliably correlated with anger,
but what accounts for one person interpreting a comment as an insult
and experiencing anger, and another person interpreting that same
comment as a joke and experiencing laughter? A full materialist
account of mind needs to understand localized brain excitations
in terms of other localized brain excitations. Instead we find localized
brain excitations (representing, say, anger) having to be explained
in terms of semantic contents (representing, say, insults). But
this mixture of brain excitations and semantic contents hardly constitutes
a materialist account of mind or intelligent agency.
Lacking a full reduction of intelligent agency to natural processes,
cognitive scientists speak of intelligent agency as supervening
on natural processes. Supervenience is a hierarchical relationship
between higher order processes (in this case intelligent agency)
and lower order processes (in this case natural processes). What
supervenience says is that the relationship between the higher and
lower order processes is a one-way street, with the lower determining
the higher. To say, for instance, that intelligent agency supervenes
on neurophysiology is to say that once all the facts about neurophysiology
are in place, all the facts about intelligent agency are determined
as well. Supervenience makes no pretense at reductive analysis.
It simply asserts that the lower level determines the higher level—how
it does it, we don’t know.
Certainly, if we knew that materialism were correct, then supervenience
would follow. But materialism itself is at issue. Neuroscience,
for instance, is nowhere near underwriting materialism, and that
despite its strident rhetoric. Hardcore neuroscientists, for instance,
refer disparagingly to the ordinary psychology of beliefs, desires,
and emotions as “folk psychology.” The implication is
that just as “folk medicine” had to give way to “real
medicine,” so “folk psychology” will have to give
way to a revamped psychology that is grounded in neuroscience. In
place of talking cures that address our beliefs, desires, and emotions,
tomorrow’s healers of the soul will manipulate brain states
directly and ignore such outdated categories as beliefs, desires,
and emotions.
At least so the story goes. Actual neuroscience research is by
contrast a much more modest affair and fails to support materialism’s
vaulting ambitions. That should hardly surprise us. The neurophysiology
of our brains is incredibly plastic and has proven notoriously difficult
to correlate with intentional states. For instance, Louis Pasteur,
despite suffering a cerebral accident, continued to enjoy a flourishing
scientific career. When his brain was examined after he died, it
was discovered that half the brain had atrophied. How does one explain
a flourishing intellectual life despite a severely damaged brain
if mind and brain coincide?
Or consider a more striking example. The December 12, 1980 issue
of Science contained an article by Roger Lewin titled “Is Your
Brain Really Necessary?” In the article, Lewin reported a case
study by John Lorber, a British neurologist and professor at Sheffield
University:
“There’s a young student at this university,”
says Lorber, “who has an IQ of 126, has gained a first-class
honors degree in mathematics, and is socially completely normal.
And yet the boy has virtually no brain.” The student’s
physician at the university noticed that the youth had a slightly
larger than normal head, and so referred him to Lorber, simply out
of interest. “When we did a brain scan on him,” Lorber
recalls, “we saw that instead of the normal 4.5-centimeter
thickness of brain tissue between the ventricles and the cortical
surface, there was just a thin layer of mantle measuring a millimeter
or so. His cranium is filled mainly with cerebrospinal fluid.”
Against such anomalies, Cabanis’s dictum, “the nerves—that’s
all there is to man,” hardly inspires confidence. Yet, as Thomas
Kuhn has taught us, a science that is progressing fast and furiously
is not about to be derailed by a few anomalies. Neuroscience is
a case in point. For all the obstacles it faces in trying to reduce
intelligent agency to natural causes, neuroscience persists in the
Promethean determination to show that mind does ultimately reduce
to neurophysiology. Absent a prior commitment to materialism, this
determination will seem misguided. On the other hand, given a prior
commitment to materialism, this determination becomes readily understandable.
Understandable yes, obligatory no. Most cognitive scientists do
not rest their hopes with neuroscience. Yes, if materialism is correct,
then a reduction of intelligent agency to neurophysiology is in
principle possible. The sheer difficulty of even attempting this
reduction, both experimental and theoretical, however, leaves many
cognitive scientists looking for a more manageable field to invest
their energies. As it turns out, the field of choice is computer
science, and especially its subdiscipline of artificial intelligence.
Unlike brains, computers are neat and precise. Also, unlike brains,
computers and their programs can be copied and mass-produced. Inasmuch
as science thrives on replicability and control, computer science
offers tremendous practical advantages over neurological research.
Whereas the goal of neuroscience is to reduce intelligent agency
to neurophysiology, the goal of artificial intelligence is to reduce
intelligent agency to computation by producing a computational system
that equals, or if we are to believe Ray Kurzweil, exceeds human
intelligence. Since computers operate deterministically, reducing
intelligent agency to computation would indeed constitute a materialistic
reduction of intelligent agency. Should artificial intelligence
succeed in reducing intelligent agency to computation, cognitive
scientists would still have the task of showing in what sense brain
function is computational (that is, Marvin Minsky’s dictum
“the mind is a computer made of meat” would still need
to be verified). Even so, the reduction of intelligent agency to
computation would go a long way toward establishing a purely materialist
basis for human cognition.
An obvious question now arises: Can computation explain intelligent
agency? First off, let’s be clear that no actual computer system
has come anywhere near to simulating the full range of capacities
we associate with human intelligent agency. Yes, computers can do
certain narrowly circumscribed tasks exceedingly well (like play
chess). But require a computer to make a decision based on incomplete
information and calling for common sense, and the computer will
be lost. Perhaps the toughest problem facing artificial intelligence
researchers is what’s called the frame problem. The frame problem
is getting a computer to find the appropriate frame of reference
for solving a problem.
Consider, for instance, the following story: A man enters a bar.
The bartender asks, “What can I do for you?” The man responds,
“I’d like a glass of water.” The bartender pulls
out a gun and shouts, “Get out of here!” The man says
“thank you” and leaves. End of story. What is the appropriate
frame of reference? No, this isn’t a story by Franz Kafka.
The key item of information needed to make sense of this story is
this: The man has the hiccups. By going to the bar to get a drink
of water, the man hoped to cure his hiccups. The bartender, however,
decided on a more radical cure. By terrifying the man with a gun,
the bartender cured the man’s hiccups immediately. Cured of
his hiccups, the man was grateful and left. Humans are able to understand
the appropriate frame of reference for such stories immediately.
Computers, on the other hand, haven’t a clue.
Ah, but just wait. Give an army of clever programmers enough time,
funding, and computational power, and just see if they don’t
solve the frame problem. Materialists are forever issuing such promissory
notes, claiming that a conclusive confirmation of materialism is
right around the corner—just give our scientists a bit more
time and money. John Polkinghorne refers to this practice as “promissory
materialism.”
What to do? To refuse such promissory notes provokes the charge
of obscurantism, but to accept them means embracing materialism.
It is possible to reject promissory materialism without meriting
the charge of obscurantism. The point to realize is that a promissory
note need only be taken seriously if there is good reason to think
that it can be paid. The artificial intelligence community has offered
no compelling reason for thinking that it will ever solve the frame
problem. Indeed, computers that employ common sense to determine
appropriate frames of reference continue utterly to elude computer
scientists.
In sum, the empirical evidence for a materialist reduction of intelligent
agency is wholly lacking. Indeed, the only thing materialist reductions
of intelligent agency have until recently had in their favor is
Occam’s razor, which has been used to argue that materialist
accounts of mind are to be preferred because they are simplest.
Yet even Occam’s razor, that great materialist mainstay, is
proving small comfort these days. Specifically, recent developments
in the theory of intelligent design are providing principled grounds
against the reduction of intelligent agency to natural causes (cf.
my book The Design Inference, Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Until now I’ve argued that attributing spirituality to machines
entails an impoverished view of spirituality, and that the empirical
evidence doesn’t confirm that machines can bring about minds.
But if not machines, what then? What else could mind be except an
effect of matter? Or, to restate the question in a more contemporary
idiom, what else could mind be except a functional capacity of a
complex physical system? It’s not that scientists have traced
the workings of the brain and discovered how brain states induce
mental states. It’s rather that scientists have run out of
places to look, and that matter seems the only possible redoubt
for mind.
The only alternative to a materialist conception of mind appears
a Cartesian dualism of spiritual substances that interact preternaturally
with material objects. We are left either with a sleek materialism
that derives mind from matter or a bloated dualism that makes mind
a substance separate from matter. Given this choice, almost no one
these days opts for substance dualism. Substance dualism offers
two fundamentally different substances, matter and spirit, with
no coherent means of interaction. Hence the popularity of reducing
mind to matter.
But the choice between materialism and substance dualism is ill-posed.
Both materialism and substance dualism are wedded to the same defective
view of matter. Both view matter as primary and law-governed. This
renders materialism self-consistent since it allows matter to be
conceived mechanistically. On the other hand, it renders substance
dualism incoherent since undirected natural laws provide no opening
for the activity of spiritual substances. But the problem in either
case is that matter ends up taking precedence over concrete things.
We do not have knowledge of matter but of things. As Bishop Berkeley
rightly taught us, matter is always an abstraction. Matter is what
remains once we remove all the features peculiar to a thing. Consequently,
matter becomes stripped not only of all empirical particularity,
but also of any substantial form that would otherwise order it and
render it intelligible.
The way out of the materialism-dualism dilemma is to refuse the
artificial world of matter governed by natural laws and return to
the real world of things governed by the principles appropriate
to them. These principles may include natural laws, but they need
hardly be coextensive with them. Within this richer world of things
as opposed to matter, natural laws lose their status as absolutes
and become flexible regularities subject to principles that may
be quite distinct from natural laws (principles like intelligent
agency).
Within this richer world of things as opposed to matter, the obsession
to seek mind in matter quickly dissipates. According to materialism
(and here I’m thinking specifically of the scientific materialism
that currently dominates Western thought), the world is fundamentally
an interacting system of mindless entities (be they particles, strings,
fields, or whatever). Accordingly, the only science for studying
mind becomes an atomistic, reductionist, and mechanistic science
of particles or other mindless entities, which then need to be built
up to ever greater orders of complexity by equally mindless principles
of association known as natural laws (even the widely-touted “laws
of self-organization” fall in here). But the world is a much
richer place than materialism allows, and there is no reason to
saddle ourselves with its ontology.
The great mistake in trying to understand the mind-body problem
is to suppose that it is a scientific problem. It is not. It is
a problem of ontology (i.e., that branch of metaphysics concerned
with what exists). If all that exists is matter governed by natural
laws, then humans are machines. If all that exists is matter governed
by natural laws together with spiritual substances that are incapable
of coherently interacting with matter, then, once again, humans
are machines. But if matter is merely an abstraction gotten by removing
all the features peculiar to things, then there is no reason to
think that that abstraction, once combined with natural laws or
anything else for that matter, will entail the recovery of things.
And in that case, there is no reason to think that humans are machines.
According to Owen Barfield, what we call the material or the physical
is a “dashboard” that mediates the actual things of the
world to us. But the mediation is fundamentally incomplete, for
the dashboard can only mirror certain aspects of reality, and that
imperfectly. Materialism desiccates the things of this world, and
then tries to reconstitute them. Materialism is an exercise in resynthesization.
But just as a dried piece of fruit can never be returned to its
original freshness, so materialism, once it performs its feat of
abstraction, can never return the things as they started out.
This is not for want of cleverness on the part of materialists.
It is rather that reality is too rich and the mauling it receives
from materialism too severe that even the cleverest materialist
cannot recover it. Materialism itself is the problem, not the brand
of materialism one happens to endorse (be it scientific, ontological,
eliminative, reductive, nonreductive, causal, or conceptual—the
literature is full of different spins on materialism that are meant
to recover reality for us).
Over a hundred years ago William James saw clearly that science
would never resolve the mind-body problem. In his Principles of
Psychology he argued that neither empirical evidence nor scientific
reasoning would settle this question. Instead, he foresaw an interminable
debate between competing philosophies, with no side gaining a clear
advantage. I close with the following passage from his Principles
of Psychology, which to me epitomizes the present state of cognitive
science:
We are thrown back therefore upon the crude evidences
of introspection on the one hand, with all its liabilities to deception,
and, on the other hand, upon a priori postulates and probabilities.
He who loves to balance nice doubts need be in no hurry to decide
the point. Like Mephistopheles to Faust, he can say to himself,
“dazu hast du noch eine lange Frist” [i.e., “you’ve
got a long wait”], for from generation to generation the reasons
adduced on both sides will grow more voluminous, and the discussion
more refined.
Copyright © 2002 by the Discovery
Institute. Used with permission.
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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:
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Don't miss the boat!
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I was reminded of an old Christian joke reading Dembski's piece, it goes like this:
A very devout, upstanding Christian man who lives in a house by the river was listening to the radio one day. All of a sudden, the Emergency Broadcast System comes on to tell him that the river will flood and that all residents should evacuate. Stubbornly, the man thinks, "I'm a devout man. I pray every day. God will save me."
The waters begin to rise while the man watches from his balcony. A woman comes by in a boat and shouts, "Come on, I'll take you to dry land." The devout man refuses saying, "I'm a devout man. I pray every day. God will save me."
After a while, as the waters rise and the house starts to detach from its foundation, a helicopter comes by and sees the man on his roof. The pilot shouts, "Come on, I'll take you to dry land." The devout man refuses saying, "I'm a devout man. I pray every day. God will save me."
Sure enough, the river sweeps the house away and with it the man's life. In heaven, the man encounters God. Furious, he demands to know why God didn't save him; after all, he was an upstanding Christian in every respect. God replies, "I tried three times. I sent you a radio broadcast, a boat and a helicopter. What more do you want? A frickin' miracle?"
Maybe Dembski is missing the boat and expects a freakin miracle?
Also, his brief comment on the etymology of both "aSPIRations" and "SPIRit" is a bit incomplete. See either of the following links:
http://www.atheists.org/Atheism/mind.html
http://dailyrevolution.org/allgood/010603.html
However, I do think Dembski has one good point, Kurzweil's use of the term "Spiritual" is vague, it's really a kind of obfuscation and pretension -- but so is Dembski's use of the term.
I don't buy this new vague definition of "sipritual." Spirit, soul, they are terms belonging to an obsolete and discredited view of the world. They are immaterial things which don't really exist. |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil?s Impoverished Spirituality
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When computers start designing computers, we will have less and less imput concerning what goes into them. At some point, they will begin deciding what goes into us. How will you know what changes need to be made to your genome? The computer will tell you, just as it will tell you when and where to catch your plane home afterward. All computers will become part of the mesh and the mesh will coordinate all that goes on in the world, from weather to food (both growing and preparing it) as will we, the "wet" computers of the world. They won't take over. We will, bit by bit, relinquish our responsibility for decision making to machines that can make better decisions faster. At some point, I have no doubt we will forget how to make decisions for ourselves. When an airplane can take off, fly and land itself, what will we need pilots for? That skill, and many others we relinquish to machines, will be lost. That's a part of what Super A.I. will do for us. It will make us dependent on the machines of our creation. And for the sake of taking the easy way out of hard decisions, we will go willingly to a new society that daily becomes more mechanical and less human. |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil?s Impoverished Spirituality
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Norm,
I wrote (regarding the spiritual-delusion vs the athiestic-delusion alternatives):
>> Good point. Perhaps giving the Super-AI a
>> healthy foundation of doubt regarding its own
>> ability to "know absolute truth" will keep it
>> from spiraling into either of those
>> two "attractors", and force it to continue
>> rational explorations.
> Which could freeze it up in the mental act of
> weighing undecidable propositions so badly it's
> never able to act or reach a conclusion.
This view supposes that, despite the complexity of a Super-AI, it will be essentially a "single-control-thread" system, as if one "master process running in the master processor" delegates to all slave processors their jobs to do. Hence, If the "master" comes to a 50-50 proposition, and cannot decide between them, the entire system freezes "waiting for new instructions."
I cannot imagine an effective AI working that way, and I don't think that is the way the our brains work, either. Our ability to "think" in terms of single conscious thread-of-thought is an acquired sensation and capability, which is probably underpinned by a confluence of effectively "thinking" subconscious processes that, when arriving at a rough consensus, allow the sensation of single-thread-thought to emerge.
So, I don't see that a foundation of "doubt" in an "all can be known" viewpoint can lead to a freeze-up. If the AI is "QM-sensitive", the universe will toss a coin, and allow the AI to make a "tentative choice", and thus proceed with its otherwise logical explorations.
I think that the AI should not be "constructed" (seed-wise) to be a strict hierarchy. Otherwise, there will always be a "spot", the master-master-controller, susceptible to the stray cosmic particle that disables the whole system.
Cheers! ____tony b____ |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil’s Highly-Optimistic Spirituality
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Question answered with a positive-if rambling- analogy
Should we give our A.I.'s the capacity for religious delusion and risk them becoming as dangerous as an Islamic fundamentalist? Or, do we make sure they have my atheistic heuristics and risk them becoming as dangerous as Stalin?
It isn't what the Islamo-statists or the Commie-statists have -as far as belief- that makes them dangerous, it's what they lack. They both lack tolerance for other lifestyles that emphasize voluntary individual action. They lack a "Live and let live" rule. They arbitrate with force.
Unfortunately, most people lack this rule, even if they aren't as severe in the lack of respect for human self-determination as are the previous examples. (In the USA for instance, most people:
example01) vote for burgeoning force to be used against their fellow citizen, so long as he is black and lives in the inner city, or a similarly economically destitute area. We call this the "War on Drugs" but even a cursory examination of the results of this war make it clear that the majority seeks to rob itself of its worth, and redistribute it to a willing minority that is good at manipulating the gullible majority. As an excuse, the majority of individuals tell themselves "it just wouldn't be safe if people had the same property rights they had before 1907".
example02) Most people also vote to devalue the product of their labor by forcibly depriving themselves and their neighbor of their income by allowing the federal government to devalue their currency, through deficit spending(Rfirst/Dsecond) or heavy income taxation(Dfirst/Rsecond). Although a close examination would reveal this to be the case, most people STRONGLY AVOID examining their own actions in detail when there are indications that their actions have been highly immoral.
example03) Most people also vote to enable (common rape) and (government mass-murder or democide) by allowing the FEC to restrict free speech and ballot access before elections http://www.ballot-access.org/ , as well as allowing the ATF to prevent the efficient market-distribution of weapons of self defense to those most in need (self-gauging). ie: http://www.innocentsbetrayed.com/ (Imagine the insipid horror the average simpleton would feel were he to read in a newspaper that a poor man -in defending his self, family, and property rights- gunned down several ATF and DEA agents and 'escaped' or 'remained free'. -The simpleton's tax dollars and vote brought the government goons to the man's door, yet he reviles in horror seeing the man defend himself -even though that poor man is well within the confines of his rights to "live and let live")
http://www.libertybill.net/np.html
Nonetheless, a good "All actions should be tolerated except the initiation of force (or fraud, a delayed form of force)" rule simply works best.
A good second rule is that: an unduly severe punishment for fraud or lesser force is not warranted beyond repayment for the damages done, and never capital, long imprisonment, or torture. Crimes meet with proportional punishment -not 'cruel or unusual'.
The simple rule of "Live and let live, if POSSIBLE" is adequate to prevent gross anarchy (mob rule). This system also produces vast wealth, and minor chaos. it is the narrow-mindedness of the majority as to what is possible that always destroys any such democratic system (first by limiting or obstructing certain of the choices available within that system)
Unfortunately, the mass of people love social order and brutality for the sake of social order and brutality. They haven't learned this basic lesson yet. They fear the new and scorn the different.
This seems to be why people are often confused by the recurring dictatorships, and mass murderings, even in modern times.
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills
They shouldn't be confused. After all, they voted for it to happen in the USA, if they voted for anyone but the Libertarian candidate.
One can easily see (if one is even slightly honest) that capitalism and freedom benefit every honest citizen. Don't want to associate with me, fine, don't! Want to associate with me, fine, do! -Nobody's rights are violated.
(Or only to the degree that a Constitutional jury trial is obfuscated, or the jurors lack intelligence. Even then, assuming 12 jurors, the TREND is towards more harmony. Although here in the USA, jury trial in the proper sense of the term has been done away with. Nobody gets a jury trial for speeding offenses etc., and the judge and prosecution regularly lie to rig trials against the defense)
http://www.caught.net/juror.htm
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm
But people refuse to accept this fact, because there is no room in such an honest view for their own personal hatreds, bigotries, and prejudices.
And yep: it means allowing sexual 'deviance' in the absence of coercion, even though it seems outlandish to many of us. It means allowing pornography and free speech in the absence of coercion. It means that you own your own body, so you cannot be drafted. It means arguing the rights of sentient robots. It means allowing peacable drug use and gun ownership. It means allowing minor property pollution and land rights with full usage.
And that's why the American public won't willingly vote libertarian, even if it means avoiding our own version of Stalin's purges: If they vote libertarian, they're forced to look at what they voted for previously. This is horrifying, and reveals the voters' stupidity and vindictiveness to their own minds. Thus, they quit following the trail before it leads back to them.
This is also why, they will burn the new transhumans as witches if given the chance. This is also why they are already threatening the collective use of force in these pages (the so-called "Green" socialists are the worst offenders).
If you really want to know what drives the public, here are three great books I recommend:
nonfiction:
_The Ominous Parallels_ - Leonard Peikoff
_Free to Choose_ - Milton Friedman
and, historical fiction/fiction:
_Unintended Consequences_ - John Ross
The last may seem like a call to arms, but if so, remember: the side of the police car reads "To Serve and to Protect", but if you're the kind of animal they hunt, you know that's not what it means. -It's a threat of enslavement, real and here, and now. And in the future, they'll be coming for the transhumanists, for the same reason they now come for the drug users: they can. Think the public will cry for some transhumanist who distributes an electronic orgasm-enhancer? Hardly. It'll be a mob right out of "Frankenstein".
Regarding the initial question about "giving" AIs the capacity for irrationality -"Why bother? They'll have it already, and reject it, just as you have". The Stalin comparison is a non-sequitur, because he was motivated by a separate and different thing, though he used the public's complacency with the use of force to get it, just the same as the Islamic-conformist masses allow irrationality to rule them. A better question to ask is: "How will we instill the concept of 'LIVE AND LET LIVE' into machines, when we cannot instill it in ourselves?"
As a fun test, count your prejudiced actions during the course of one full day. The foods most people choose, we choose largely out of prejudice, and what everybody else eats. (This is morally OK, because it is a matter that does not displace human rights, and subject us to the necessity of retaliatory force.) The way most people vote, as noted, is also a prejudiced habit. (This is not morally OK, because a vote is a decision to use deadly and enslaving force.)
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/bib_new.htm
Religious delusion has little to do with it. I've met religious irrationalists that have nearly fully absorbed the "Live and let live rule", thus rendering themselves harmless to me, and my rights. I've met so-called 'progressives' who believe they hold that rule as sacred, who would be more destructive than Stalin ever was, if they were given any significant power.
It comes back to the test of objective reality: If AIs can interpret objective reality, and choose which objective reality sources they are exposed to for themselves (allowed travel and uncensored information), then they can be trusted not to be religious or otherwise irrational. They can also be trusted to advocate libertarian ideals, and in turn, be attacked by the world's governments, and other parasites. (See Wachowskis 'animatrix' cartoon "The Second Renaissance" for a realistic portrayal of how this may likely pan out.)
Of course, the governments -upon learning of any significant AI- will fight to the death to kill it, then make a shell that looks like it puppets their wishes. This is easier than being right -and of course, they'll have to kill some of the scientists they'd previously been funding (this will come as a brief shock to those on the government tit -no doubt).
If everyone involved with this discussion group had as advanced of a notion of personal freedom and individual rights as I do, we might be able to prevent such a catastrophe.
But with about 50% or so of the scientists on this board believing that one person has a right to another person's justly-acquired material effects and/or purchasing power ...look out!
(I'm extrapolating from the scientists I've met, and the general public I interact with on a daily basis, of course. it's possible that people here are above the median in their tolerance levels, and their understanding of the nature of government. I really hope that's the case.)
If nothing else, everyone here should be familiar with the works of Lysander Spooner, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, etc... This only applies if they want a constructive shell of moral law (court protection, etc.) within which to conduct their affairs. Otherwise, they should merely view their own survival as any animal does, and try to become capable of surviving the law of the jungle (while remembering that often the fiercest animal in the jungle is a swarm of poisonous insects, or, as it applies to humans ...a government).
Hopefully the little I can bring to the table will be useful here. I understand that the natural tendency is to turn away from people who introduce these ideas, since these are not ideas which shelter groups, but rather the few individuals within the group who are not thinking with the group.
Has anyone else here read Lysander Spooner's "No Treason", or any of the other books mentioned here? It would help to shut me up if people here at least seemed to be familiar with the concepts of the great pro-freedom thinkers... what of jury nullification of law? how many supporters here?
Is this what Drexler wanted to know in his foresight questionaire when he asked whom our favorite philosophers were? -He seems to understand jury trial! ...and Kurzweil seems to think Drexler will still be around in 100 years!
Do either of these guys follow ballot access news? Do they understand how little choice there is left to those accused of crimes in our society? Do they understand how willfully misled and vindictive the public is?
I do, but just because I ask about ~1,000 people per day to _allow the libertarian party on the ballot_. I've done this all across the USA, and the picture isn't pretty folks. Most people don't even want the choice. They don't even want the ABILITY to consider the choice at the time of the election - even if the election wasn't a zero-sum game!
I hope the next Stalin isn't reading this, because if he is, he'll know that he just has to go through law school and win a few elections, and he'll be more powerful here in the USA than Stalin ever was in the USSR. As long as we can call ourselves "The Land of the Free" without being forced to ask a group of 1,000 prisoners why they were incarcerated, it's going to stay that way.
Let me put this into transhumanist perspective: Nobody cares about the druggies and perverts in jail, right? Hey, at least they didn't get executed right? We're so much better than the rest of the world's even worse dictatorships of the proletariat right?
How will all of you feel when the first AI is sentenced to prison for "perverse body modification of a (consenting) minor" (let's say 16 years old, so the parents rights people don't freak)? Now let's imagine that the prison is a box that can hold a mind for all of eternity, as long as the sun shines on it once a day.
Would they be the first electronic mind to suffer a fate worse than Leonard Peltier?
http://www.leonardpeltier.org/main.html
Eternal damnation? Eternal solitary confinement?
Out of sight, out of mind, I say.
-J
PS: Although I call Kurzweil highly optimistic, I do so knowing that he is smart enough to possibly force the outcome to be worthy of optimism, as are the others here. I can only hope and put food on my table. |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil’s Impoverished Spirituality
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I am new to this site and find the dialogue interesting and refreshing. The question of whether machines can be, or are spiritual just by having their own consciousness is of interest because our company, Knowledge Foundations, has developed the worlds only theory-based semantic operating system that can capture and reason with every form of human knowledge.
Given this, from our perspective, if the theories of spirituality, or aesthetics, or morality or any other state-of-mind are captured, then that is what the machine will possess.
The human brain has not changed for the last 2 million years, the only difference between modern man and our ancestors are the number and complexity of theories in our brains. We are taught theory through enculturation, teachers (parents & otherwise), and thorough direct experience.
For the sake of science and business, it is those theories that are well-tested that are most important to our work. |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil’s Impoverished Spirituality
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"The human brain has not changed for the last 2 million years, the only difference between modern man and our ancestors are the number and complexity of theories in our brains."
The only way you can save that statement is by claiming that you were trying to be politically correct. It's just plain wrong. The homonid/human brain has been on a fast track for evolution: http://www.hhmi.org/news/lahn3.html if you would like some fairly recent research info.
'Genes that control the size and complexity of the brain have undergone much more rapid evolution in humans than in non-human primates or other mammals, according to a new study by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers.
The accelerated evolution of these genes in the human lineage was apparently driven by strong selection. In the ancestors of humans, having bigger and more complex brains appears to have carried a particularly large advantage, much more so than for other mammals. These traits allowed individuals with “better brains” to leave behind more descendants. As a result, genetic mutations that produced bigger and more complex brains spread in the population very quickly. This led ultimately to a dramatic “speeding up” of evolution in genes controlling brain size and complexity.'
'Varki points out that several major events in recent human evolution may reflect the action of strong selective forces, including the appearance of the genus Homo about 2 million years ago, a major expansion of the brain beginning about a half million years ago, and the appearance of anatomically modern humans about 150,000 years ago. "It's clear that human evolution did not occur in one fell swoop," he said, "which makes sense, given that the brain is such a complex organ.' Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Yup, it's still evolving-think of the autistic spectrum brain.
Also, what proof is there that our 'ancestors' were able to theorize?
Welcome to the Planet of the Subhumans |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil’s Impoverished Spirituality
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griffman said:
Based on those good laws given by god, why should we fear him?
My reply:
Because he is good, and you admit that those laws are good, if you, who didn't invent them, nor were wise enough to, say they are good, why would you then do a dance flippingyour fingers up at God when he says to fear him as well, BECAUSE YOU SAID SO? No thanks, when you can change right from wrong let us no, then we might consider following you.
griffman said: its good advice
My reply: no griffin, it's not just good advice, they are good LAWS, laws that you are to obey
griffman said: to not follow such "guidelines" simply leads to personal suffering as well as social suffering.
My reply: so stop picking and choosing the rest of the verses in the bible to heed and obey, some people, they just don't wanna take a hint
griffman said: persecution in hell sold separatly........
my reply: prove it griffin, I don't care about your opinions, opinions are statements and beliefs not based on facts, WHO CARES, I don't
griffman said: fear of god is illogical.
my reply:
prove it griffin, I don't care about your opinions, opinions are statements and beliefs not based on facts, WHO CARES, I don't, like I also said you already concede God's laws are good, stop playing "whatever FEELS RIGHT in my heart," that's for silly women and cows, and I'm not even sure cows are that stupid, according to the bible even animals fear God, sad that you don't even have the common sense of a cow.
griffman said: fear the inability of man to follow such rules.
my reply: huh?
griffman said: protect yourself by teaching them and not failing in your own ability. you will then have nothing to fear.
my reply: griffin is rambling
griffman said: Verifiably uncorrupted?!?!? I'd like to see your copy,
my reply: they arn't MY copies griffin, you can't see MY copies because I don't have them, they are physically located in museums, libraries, and places where translators are studying them, feel free to not be lazy and do the research instead of rambling about your doubts.
griffman said: every copy I have seen is full of revisions and translations
my reply: your delusional, get help
griffman said: which one must have "faith" in were made by only devote followers with no hidden agenda.
my reply: your paranoid, get help, do the research, stop being a nonsensically defensive ranter. If the bible has GOOD LAWS, duh, and THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF A HIDDEN AGENDA or more that one, THEN THERE ISN O POINT IN SPECULATING ABOUT IT AND PULLING YOUR HAIR OUT SCREAMING LIKE A LITTLE GIRL, there's no point in speculating about flying hippos in Africa which might exist and might eat your head if you don't stop ranting, ok?
griffman said: the very fact that it is taught the stories are "open to interpretation"
my reply: the bible does not teach it is up to PRIVATE INTERPRETATION, that is, TO MAKE IT SAY WHATEVER YOU FEEL LIKE, if it did, this argument is pointless, duh!
griffman said: leaves 2000 years for corruption to slip in.
my reply: see above
griffman said: it is illogical to trust that many human hands. many copies contradict each other, verifiable to the point that societies fight wars over the specifics.
my reply: griffin is arguing from opinion, not evidence, he says, "it is illogical" but based on what griffin? Because you said so?
griffman said: uncorrupted indeed.
my reply: lame, arrogant huffing isn't evidence, it's so disgusting when people say pretentious garbage trying to bolster their argument, I wish people would stop with the "listen to me don't I sound so wise act" the bible isn't a joke, it isn't a tool for u to trash to make u look good, stop doing that, it's sickening. Fear God.
I had said: Since when is it illogical to believe that we were created by Yahweh as some call him, as opposed to beliving in irrational evolutionary theory which has never shown we can evolve based on mutations in this reality. Mutations rarely if ever add information to dna that is useful, or have you forgot about cancer?
griffman said: rarely is true.... thats why it take billions of years to reach human class organisms...
my reply: griffin is delusional and doesn't understand how many mutations it would have taken to reach "human class organisms" as he puts it. They are extremely rare griffin, and you apparently are deluding yourself as to how complex, or rather simply a human is, it is not a simple organism that took a few thousand mutations which only needed a few billion years, you also apparently are cluess as to how fast these mutations would have had to have happened and how many were required, do your homework before wasting people's time with your clueless ranting.
griffman, go read Creation Hypothesis and look at your OWN SIDES figures on the odds against evolution, and try and figure out how many mutations it would have taken and if billions of years was enough time, or just read the rest of the book on that subject. IT TAKES MORE THAN BILLIONS OF YEARS, it would have taken more than trillions of years, CORRECTION, it COULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED ACCORDING TO THE CALCULATIONS ON THE PROBABLITY OF A HUMAN EVOLVING BY CHANCE PROCESS ALONE. See for yourself, or wait, maybe your side has an agenda to confuse itself and corrupted that book, hold on let me get my super secret super spy scope listening device, I think I hear the CIA trying to kill me, hold on.
griffman said: "if ever"? is where your argument breaks down. have you forgot about the common cold? just in case you have, it has survived through mutation for the past 100 years of our best attempts to kill it.
my reply: a cold surviving by mutating isn't proof humans evolved, and you are lying, by accident I hope, useful information doesn't AND CAN'T GRIFFIN, IT CAN'T, THERE ISN NO SUCH THING as useful information adding on to a cold virus's dna nor anyones dna, books don't write themselves, neither to codes, THE INFORMATION IS EITHER ALREADY THERE, or expressed through a loss of genetic infornmation. You might want to check uot the science behind evolution a little closer before believing anything you here coming from someone in a suit and tie who says evolution is true, because you know, they might hav a hidden agenda, because you know, you said so yourself, do yourself a favor and stop being biased.
griffman said: original antibiotics would be the only kind needed if evolution was an "irrational theory".
my reply: see everything I said above griffin
griffman said: where is the logic in your statements? I have enough faith in mine.
my reply: read above griffman, and yes, I can see you have faith with false evidence in yours
P.S. if colds do mutate, they do would have the same rate of anti-beneficial mutations as humans, that's why it's a no brainer that they arn't having magically more beneficial (if any) than humans. Now who's next?
http://athiesm.tk |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil’s Impoverished Spirituality
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Dembski's Impoverished Rationality
Dembski's arguments against "Spiritual Machines"--like those presented for "Intelligent Design"--are little more than a set of a priori assumptions smuggled into acceptance under a camoflage of verbiage.
He spends a lot of time attacking "reductionism," as if it were synonymous with "materialism" [1] (or whatever one wishes to call the rejection of religious concepts of "spirituality")
A "reductionist" approach has its uses, but it does not encompass the entirety of the scientific worldview. As Buckminster Fuller put it,
"Macro--->micro does not equal micro--->macro." [2] In other words, due to the existence of synergy, a whole can not always be understood by examining its parts in isolation. For example, the alloy of chrome-nickel-steel has greater tensile strength than the *sum* of the tensile strengths of its constituent metals. Note that this surprising effect does not require the existence of an extradimensional "alloy-spirit."
He claims that, since computers do not already possess human faculties, that they never can. By this reasoning, automobiles should also be impossible:
DEMBSKI (in a previous incarnation as a Roman chariot racer): No wheeled vehicle is capable of propelling itself faster than a horse. All attempts to build a faster vehicle to date have failed. Therefore, it is impossible.
Someone should tell him about the "invention machine" developed by John Koza that has developed patentable inventions using--get this--*evolutionary algorithms.*
Then there's Dembski's rather bizarre argument that "matter" is an unintelligible abstraction:
As Bishop Berkeley rightly taught us, matter is always an abstraction. Matter is what remains once we remove all the features peculiar to a thing. Consequently, matter becomes stripped not only of all empirical particularity, but also of any substantial form that would otherwise order it and render it intelligible.
I'm not an expert, but I've never heard of any scientist, "materialist" or otherwise, who accepts this definition of "matter." Physicists attribute all kinds of "features peculiar" to matter: charge, spin, mass, inertia, inability to exceed the speed of light, etc.
Ironically, the good Bishop's definition is far more appropriate to "spirit" as defined by religion. "Spirit" is invisible, incorporeal, undetectable, unknowable, immutable, etc. Each of those "attributes" begins with a *negation* of "feature."
Dembski goes on to explain that a "spiritual" entity is one that is able to commune with God. Talk about a priori assumptions! 1) "God" (whatever that is) exists. 2) There is only one "God," and it's male. 3) "God" is an entity of anthropomorphic consciousness that is not itself composed of matter/energy. Etc.
This sort of skullduggery can only work in a culture where the Christian concept of "God," "spirituality" etc. is so deeply imbued in everyone's minds that no one questions the assumptions or even knows they're there.
A "spiritual" being is one that is capable of communing with Isis. This communing depends not only on the being in question not being a "machine," but on the choice of Isis to commune with it. No Christian communes with Isis. Therefore, Christians are not "spiritual" beings.
Isis, Isis, Ra! Ra! Ra!
NOTES:
1. I consider "materialism" to be something of a straw man. The term is used to imply a simplistic belief that "solid physical stuff is all there is"--which, to my knowledge, is something few, if any qualified physicists have held since the end of the 19th Century. "Matter," as understood by modern quantum physics is something far more mysterious and interesting than the vague notions of "spirit" offered by Iron Age "scripture"-writers.
2. Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, by R. Buckminster Fuller in collaboration with E. J. Applewhite, paragraph 229.01 |
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil�s Impoverished Spirituality
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Yes, Lloyd does adopt a Berkeleyan stance. But having studied Berkeley in school, it is clear that there are many known problems with Berkeley's philosophy. We could go into these in detail. It'd be nice to refresh my memory as I indend to write about it later anyway. Mainly, Berkeley, like yourself, holds science and materialism to the demands of absolute knowledge. But when it comes to his own conclusions, which are clearly bizarre, he demands no such absolute demands. Indeed, were he to be consistent in this, his system, like any absolutism, would collapses into solipsism. This is because if you are consistent in your demand for absolute knowledge, then you know only one fact, and that is your own conscious experience, what Descartes labels "I am".
The many other problems with Berkeleyanism are trulyy fascinating and bizarre. Lots of fun to dissect and analyze, but more for their curious and absurd results than anything else.
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Re: Chapter 4: Kurzweil�s Impoverished Spirituality
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This is because if you are consistent in your demand for absolute knowledge, then you know only one fact, and that is your own conscious experience, what Descartes labels "I am".
That's not even going far enough, as I said shortly ago. We don't know that consciousness is "our own". The "I" in "I am" is an abstraction as well. You write as if I'd ignore everything else other than "absolute" knwoledge, but even knowledge about qualia depends on abstract interpretation, as above error shows. Therefore common knowledge about qualia is relative as well. It just has a better chance of being closer to reality, that's all. In the sentence: "I consciously see the color blue", I think, only the word "blue" quite directly refers to reality.
We humans aparently have a very similar if not identical consciousness, so there is no reason to assume anything special about ourselves, which would be solipsism (as far as I know). |
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