Philosophical Question - Amiguing

[commodorejohn]

Oh, don't get me started on transhumanism/Singularitarians; we'll be here all week.

[Iggy]

Doesn't answer the question, if a machine can be sentient?

And, further, how will we tell?
What if its just a really good simulation of sentient thought?

[bloodline]

And, further, how will we tell?
What if its just a really good simulation of sentient thought?

Ahhh, the Chinese Room argument

[Mrs Beanbag]

Thought is a process, not an object. There's no reason I can think of that brain cells should be able to implement a process that silicon can't.

[NovaCoder]

Doesn't answer the question, if a machine can be sentient?

Aren't we just sophisticated machines?

If so then the answer is yes

[Thorham]

The real problem is determining whether a person is just a part of the information in the brain, or something external (there's our soul again .

Aren't we just sophisticated machines?

Our physical bodies certainly are, but is that all there's to it?

[bloodline]

The real problem is determining whether a person is just a part of the information in the brain, or something external (there's our soul again .

Our physical bodies certainly are, but is that all there's to it?

I would suggest looking at what happens when the body, or more specifically the information stored in the brain is damaged... If the person is more than just the information stored in the brain, the I would suggest that the damage or loss of information would have no effect upon the person.

I know from experience that if there is degradation in the information stored in the brain, then we have a stark and often upsetting change in the "person" I once knew. This has a profound effect upon how I view what makes a person, a person!

[psxphill]

Oh does it I'm glad you know everything.
 
So do tell me, where does my imagination get it from?

At a fundamental level it's chemical releases caused by pattern matching.
 
Ideas that feel right match patterns that trigger chemicals that hit the pleasure sensors.
 
If you want to know how the brain works then there is plenty of information from the scientific community, not so much from the religious community.
 

Our physical bodies certainly are, but is that all there's to it?

There is no proof either way, most religions do require you to believe there is more to it.
 
Science isn't as bold as religion in an answer to that question. A scientific answer would be, does there need to be anything more for the system to work? Is what we consider a soul just the configuration of neurons in the brain?
 
Science can't prove there isn't a soul, isn't a god or that god doesn't communicate directly with a soul. A scientist will only ever offer proof for an alternative explanation. Religion requires you to believe in things with no proof.
 
There is very little different in a theist and an atheist. An atheist disbelieves in all religions, a theist disbelieves in all but one religion. I don't know what makes someone believe in one religion over others, when none of them offer proof. It seems to me that people fall in love with religion the same way they fall in love with people.

[gertsy]

I would suggest looking at what happens when the body, or more specifically the information stored in the brain is damaged... If the person is more than just the information stored in the brain, the I would suggest that the damage or loss of information would have no effect upon the person.

I know from experience that if there is degradation in the information stored in the brain, then we have a stark and often upsetting change in the "person" I once knew. This has a profound effect upon how I view what makes a person, a person!

To those around them yes, upsettingly so, but It's a bit of a catch 22 or vicious circle. A brain injured or degrading individual may have perfect reason, consciously to themselves, but the outward manifestations of their disease may result in gobbledegook speech or noises that result in feedback frustration to the individual. Wouldn't that cause you to shutdown, go crazy or hit out!
We guess or hope that people in those situations are vegetables. Unfeeling incognisant. The alternate is unthinkable but unfortunately probably closer to the truth, when you examine the enlightenment of discoveries of bad CP sufferers or stroke victims. Everything is okay intellectually on the inside but the interfaces are scrambled. Input and output. Determining intelligence and sentience is impossible as our measures are based on inputs and outputs.

As long as we think, we are. We are not just the inputs and outputs of a moment in time. We are what we are on the inside and what we have done, achieved, become. We need to be mindful of what those individuals are to themselves and not just to those around them in the current state.

This thread has become very depressing now.  Mia culpa!


Amigas don't think. They are what the

[gertsy]

At a fundamental level it's chemical releases caused by pattern matching.
 
Ideas that feel right match patterns that trigger chemicals that hit the pleasure sensors.
 
If you want to know how the brain works then there is plenty of information from the scientific community, not so much from the religious community.

Hmm. Sounds like at a fundamental level you're quoting religion to me or at best hypothesis.  Certainly not science fact.

[Mrs Beanbag]

At a fundamental level it's chemical releases caused by pattern matching.
 
Ideas that feel right match patterns that trigger chemicals that hit the pleasure sensors.

Where do these "ideas" originate from, right-feeling or otherwise? And where do the patterns come from, for them to match?

[ChaosLord]

Hmm. Sounds like at a fundamental level you're quoting religion to me or at best hypothesis.  Certainly not science fact.

His explanation isn't quite right because sometimes when the patterns match you get a sudden feeling of terror, fear, dread, anger, or sadness.

[Thorham]

I would suggest looking at what happens when the body, or more specifically the information stored in the brain is damaged... If the person is more than just the information stored in the brain, the I would suggest that the damage or loss of information would have no effect upon the person.

I know from experience that if there is degradation in the information stored in the brain, then we have a stark and often upsetting change in the "person" I once knew. This has a profound effect upon how I view what makes a person, a person!

If a person is external, then the brain is an interface into the physical world, and when this interface malfunctions, then the person may not be able to manifest itself through the body in the normal way anymore. The problem is figuring out what really happens.

There is no proof either way, most religions do require you to believe there is more to it.

Proof isn't required for things to exist. Many of the things we know today were completely ridiculous a thousand years ago. 'Simple' things we take for granted such as radio waves. In the case of the most fundamental existential questions you can't necessarily turn to sciences such as physics, because they're concerned with physical phenomena such as the speed of light and gravity, while there may very well be more than just that. In fact, physics can often not even explain why things are the way they are, because the ultimate fundament is unknown.

A scientific answer would be, does there need to be anything more for the system to work?

What if it does? How do we find out? And can we even find out by just examining the brain?

[nicholas]

Let's lighten this thread up a bit with a joke a Christian friend sent me.
"An atheist was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned to her and said, "Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."*
**
The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger, "What would you want to talk about?"*
**
"Oh, I don't know," said the atheist. "How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?" as he smiled smugly.*
**
"Okay," she said. "Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"*
**
The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence, thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea." *

To which the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, Heaven and Hell, or life after death, when you don't know sh!t?"*
**
And then she went back to reading her book.”

Please feel free to throw back some theist jokes.

[commodorejohn]

I would suggest looking at what happens when the body, or more specifically the information stored in the brain is damaged... If the person is more than just the information stored in the brain, the I would suggest that the damage or loss of information would have no effect upon the person.

I know from experience that if there is degradation in the information stored in the brain, then we have a stark and often upsetting change in the "person" I once knew. This has a profound effect upon how I view what makes a person, a person!

That doesn't follow. Damage to the brain would only have no effect on personality if the brain played absolutely no part in things beyond mechanical coordination, which I don't think most people who believe in a soul are claiming.

Science isn't as bold as religion in an answer to that question. A  scientific answer would be, does there need to be anything more for the  system to work? Is what we consider a soul just the configuration of  neurons in the brain?

Again, though, the problem with that idea is that a "soul" that exists within a biologically-deterministic flesh-and-blood creature doesn't fit the general definition of a soul at all, because it's still (theoretically) bound by biochemical determinism.

[psxphill]

That doesn't follow. Damage to the brain would only have no effect on personality if the brain played absolutely no part in things beyond mechanical coordination, which I don't think most people who believe in a soul are claiming.

I was under the impression that souls were autonomous as they can carry on existing after we are dead. No religion has provided any explanation of that though, so it is possible that your brain and soul could work together and when your brain died your soul goes off in some form of emergency mode.
 

Again, though, the problem with that idea is that a "soul" that exists within a biologically-deterministic flesh-and-blood creature doesn't fit the general definition of a soul at all, because it's still (theoretically) bound by biochemical determinism.

There is no general definition of soul. I googled definition of soul and it came back with:
 
 
1. The spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.
2. A person's moral or emotional nature or sense of identity.
 
 
The visible effects of a person's "soul" are what everyone can agree to, where that comes from is what is up for debate. Religion's don't own the word soul.
 
I believe the human "soul" is deterministic, it's just currently too impossibly complex to model it. The idea of the soul being separate came because they couldn't comprehend that anything in the human body could do something that complex, they didn't have digital watches then either though.