BRAND NEW "EVOLUTION" THREAD

[fishonjazz]

It is true if you are not girly man. I battled tiger in Siberian Forest and subdued it for domestic uses.

You confuse tiger with own mother

 

[fishonjazz]

You ought to try out for naked and afraid.

Well I have the naked part mastered

 

[babe]

Why do you think these things are ultimately unpredictable and un-programmable? They are physically encoded into the human brain, and thus are perfectly programmable. Any book about neurological disorders would tell you that things like ambition, love, hate, or any emotional and personality traits can change if the brain is damaged. Through out the many years I've been debating you, I've yet to hear one objective argument from you as to why you think these attributes are beyond the reach of materialist understanding. I've heard you go on about my blind faith in logic or science, and about the tyranny of the humanists, and so on. But why do you actually believe what you believe when the evidence to the contrary is quite staggering? I'd like an answer in a simple way that I can comprehend. Do you agree that a human can be changed beyond recognition through changes to his or her brain? If so, then how are humans not programmable? If not, then how do you explain the numerous cases that show it to be so?



But that is precisely what makes computers better than humans at chess. They can calculate a bazillion possibilities in a fraction of a second. Human intuition cannot save you because chess is a game of logic. To have a chance against a computer, you need to get the program source code, study it carefully in order to find out how to force a miscalculation, have an agreement with the programmers to keep the program static through out this whole process, and finally, be a world-class chess player. And all of that is theoretical. I am not aware of anyone who successfully been able to reliably beat a leading chess program in a very long time. This is as clear a case as any for computers surpassing humans at something. If an alien invasion came to Earth, and agreed to settle the war in a game of chess, then you would have a computer do the playing. You would not ask them to give you their brain structure and infinite time and chances.

So I really ought to take this back to my LTE where I've been dealing with these things, but I'll do a brief run at it here, piece by piece. Bolded part is what I'm responding to.

A pure materialist admits of no reality but the material world as we define it, and hence is self-blinded to things that run outside that materialism. While neurology is generally studied "scientifically" on a strictly "material" basis, with no "peer review" possible without demonstrable results lying squarely in the physical world we can test with "material" instrumentation, there is a lot that can not be explained strictly on that basis.

I am myself one case of that.

At one point in my life I was blind, 100% blind, and medical science had nothing they could try to do about it at that time. Nowadays maybe they might transplant something, or implant something, that could send signals to my visual center which I might then "learn" to interpret and create an "image" in my brain with. I had one of the top ophthalmologists in the country as my doctor. He was the head of the department at the University of Utah at that time, and soon after went to Bethesda as their chief. He had his staff of interns take state-of-the art (1975) brain CAT scans, and do every test in use at that time. He had a camera that could take pictures of the back of my eyes, of the optic nerve and general array of receptors. He said it was the worst case of optic neuritis he'd ever seen. He made slides of those pics to use in lectures, and publish in a textbook. He told me there was nothing that could be done, and sent me home with a followup appointment six weeks later.

When I went back I was carrying a book on partial differential equations, and sat reading it in the waiting room. The intern who came out for me was surprised and with some amusement asked what the book was for. I said I was reading it, and he was already realizing that I was, in a state of complete amazement. They hurried me back to do all the tests again, including a color vision test with pastel dots in the shape of numbers and other things pretty well hidden in a field of random dots of similar colors. I cheated on the test, and the intern actually realized what I was doing. The optic nerve was still pretty inflamed and my visual field was weak, with lots of small "blind spots", but I was figuring out what letters and numbers were from actually being able to see only bits and pieces of them. In short, I was augmenting my visual center function with a very high level of function in other centers. This is not something that would happen if there were no actual will being imposed on the process of "seeing".

The medical scientists, nevertheless, included the second set of "material" results in the slide show and lecture, and in the text book. The text was modified with a statement that nobody understands how this happened, only that it did.

my vision continued to improve to where it approaches "normal", but sometimes if I'm looking for a piece of baling wire in the field I'm baling, I can't see it when someone else, say my kids, will see it readily. Situations like that bedevil my logic and prevent me from putting the picture together quickly. We have computers that do that kind of "filling in the picture" that enhance the physical input captured in the photographic lens today. Maybe some of those programs can "see" better than me, given the same physical inputs. . . . but they still need some human to tell them to do it.

You would deny the reality of Jesus giving sight to the blind, I would not. I admit to some things being possible though beyond the reasonable projections of logic or materialism, you do not. It is your choice what you will see. You in your own will actually provide the perfect example of my assertion. You choose to limit your sight. That is not something that is determined by the material world, but by your will.

 

[babe]

Why do you think these things are ultimately unpredictable and un-programmable? They are physically encoded into the human brain, and thus are perfectly programmable. Any book about neurological disorders would tell you that things like ambition, love, hate, or any emotional and personality traits can change if the brain is damaged. Through out the many years I've been debating you, I've yet to hear one objective argument from you as to why you think these attributes are beyond the reach of materialist understanding. I've heard you go on about my blind faith in logic or science, and about the tyranny of the humanists, and so on. But why do you actually believe what you believe when the evidence to the contrary is quite staggering? I'd like an answer in a simple way that I can comprehend. Do you agree that a human can be changed beyond recognition through changes to his or her brain? If so, then how are humans not programmable? If not, then how do you explain the numerous cases that show it to be so?



But that is precisely what makes computers better than humans at chess. They can calculate a bazillion possibilities in a fraction of a second. Human intuition cannot save you because chess is a game of logic. To have a chance against a computer, you need to get the program source code, study it carefully in order to find out how to force a miscalculation, have an agreement with the programmers to keep the program static through out this whole process, and finally, be a world-class chess player. And all of that is theoretical. I am not aware of anyone who successfully been able to reliably beat a leading chess program in a very long time. This is as clear a case as any for computers surpassing humans at something. If an alien invasion came to Earth, and agreed to settle the war in a game of chess, then you would have a computer do the playing. You would not ask them to give you their brain structure and infinite time and chances.

The simple answer here is because you stipulate the basis for proof to be the set of observations which occludes the only possible proofs.

If a human being is something more than an array of material features acting on reflexive determinates defined by chemistry, physical structures, and other strictly physical capabilities arising from a purely material nature, you have already decided to deny the validity of everything that would challenge your theory.

The non-material hypothesis, or rather the supra-material hypothesis, requires another kind of evidence, and other "proof".

The "religion" of the Biblical tradition includes of lot of things akin to magic in that something beyond our "material" existence is affirmed. Some of the regular christian folks believe in a God that is three persons in one will, in one central essence that complies strictly with pure monotheism. Mormons will deny that, and affirm three separate persons functioning separately with a perfect unity of purpose and committment. The material universe seems to offer no support for either view, and we cannot catch "God" and perform experiments on "Him".

Personally, I would expect that "God" does whatever He does from a material existence that might transcend our present definition of the material universe, but I would anticipate that our approach to understanding that nature will require probing some other dimensions than the ones we are presently operating in. So while I'm not about to write a paper on my hypothesis and advance data to prove it, I feel I have to recognize the likelihood of some things beyond our present understanding.

The reason I advance my ideas in the face of the oncoming UN governance movement is because I consider the UN a fascist organization that will do great harm to the humans on this planet. We should instead affirm the views of the American founding fathers on inherent human rights and a limited governance defined by and limited by a meaningful constitutional constraints. We are nowhere near "good enough" to empower an elite corps of managers and an even more powerful set of "movers and shakers" to define our purposes and goals globally. It is all just a huge offensive against humanity.

 

[babe]

Why do you think these things are ultimately unpredictable and un-programmable? They are physically encoded into the human brain, and thus are perfectly programmable. Any book about neurological disorders would tell you that things like ambition, love, hate, or any emotional and personality traits can change if the brain is damaged. Through out the many years I've been debating you, I've yet to hear one objective argument from you as to why you think these attributes are beyond the reach of materialist understanding. I've heard you go on about my blind faith in logic or science, and about the tyranny of the humanists, and so on. But why do you actually believe what you believe when the evidence to the contrary is quite staggering? I'd like an answer in a simple way that I can comprehend. Do you agree that a human can be changed beyond recognition through changes to his or her brain? If so, then how are humans not programmable? If not, then how do you explain the numerous cases that show it to be so?



But that is precisely what makes computers better than humans at chess. They can calculate a bazillion possibilities in a fraction of a second. Human intuition cannot save you because chess is a game of logic. To have a chance against a computer, you need to get the program source code, study it carefully in order to find out how to force a miscalculation, have an agreement with the programmers to keep the program static through out this whole process, and finally, be a world-class chess player. And all of that is theoretical. I am not aware of anyone who successfully been able to reliably beat a leading chess program in a very long time. This is as clear a case as any for computers surpassing humans at something. If an alien invasion came to Earth, and agreed to settle the war in a game of chess, then you would have a computer do the playing. You would not ask them to give you their brain structure and infinite time and chances.[/QUOTE]

I have to confess I formed my opinion on AI in the 1970s, and I should probably concede that the computing power we have achieved today pretty well washes out my hopes for beating a programmed computer opponent. But even then, the argument was constructed on a higher level than this discussion has been. Even then, AI went to the lengths of describing computers that could imitate human will, human unpredictability or randomness, even computers that could write computer programs, and computers that could build new and better computers. . . . in short, that could totally supplant humanity and maybe even decide we are no longer needed and dispense with us entirely.

I take exception the the movement called "transhumanism", which is sort of a "cutting edge" agenda that is much advocated by some. Folks like David Rockefeller, with billions of spare change to squander on the effort, hire the best doctors and achieve longevity well beyond the norm. But Lord Byron spoke to the notion of transhumanism over 150 years ago, with literature like "Frankenstein" as well as mysticism like vampire people. I suppose I will myself live well beyond the "norm", and I shouldn't kick at others who try to. But I love the "humans" and it would be my purpose to actually enhance life, and improve living conditions and the infrastructure of general human opportunities en masse, and not selectively target a few "elites".

AI has been the darling of a lot of very bad philosophers who actually want to displace a lot of humans from this global sphere of life. I don't mind letting humans move on from being bookkeepers and clerical drones, or improving efficiencies at market checkout lanes, or even robots that can weld or assemble machinery and consumer items, but I gag at the idea we have too many people and we need to reduce world population. I assert, instead, that we need more people along with better energy, transportation, food, housing, and resource utilization, achieving "sustainable" practices on a much higher level of science and technology that we presently have. So we need to educate people in a way that will enable and empower them to pursue those aims, rather than teach on a "train to the task" goal of filling existing niches in a workforce when we know the workforce demands will continually advance.

I don't even gag at having computers with AI on an essentially "human" level of competence, except I think even the lowest caste of humans has inherent rights that a computer cannot be allowed to assert. . . . .

The essential human "rights" include things in the range of independent will, independent cognition, independent choice, with the subset "rights" of religion, belief, speech, and self-preservation, property ownership, and a whole nest of associated"rights"including the power to replace or re-direct "government" and the power to impose limits on government.

The view that AI or computers can supplant humans,or the view that humans are merely "material" objects that a powerful alpha human or set of elites should manage is just morally reprehensible. A lot of very smart folks who have chosen to fly with that flock can make their case on grounds of "materialism", but the people who follow the Biblical tradition in some way, affirming a higher power that has affirmed the primacy of human rights, are actually the people who will make a better world of what we have.

Materialists have nothing to check their stupidity, and they are infinitely stupid as a matter of fact. They think they know, but they do not know. They think they see, but they do not see. They want to dictate their way, imposing it on others to an absolutely totalitarian extent. They think they have all the answers, and the right to impose their "solutions", when they should not be tolerated in even defining the problems for everyone else.

The Bible was unique in it's origins, in the world view it advanced, from time of Moses onward. It advanced the hypothesis of a "God" that was not arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable, and a law that was designed to protect human rights in the context of a larger world of other beliefs where no human rights were even acknowledged. It attempted from the outset to set rules and limits on common practices like slavery. Yah,in the course of time Bible believers became abolitionists and crusaders for specific improvements in human rights leading up the American Revolution,which is about as far as we have really ever achieved in "social justice". . . .

Today, under materialist world views including liberal progressive agenda items, our world has gone to fascism, to governments immune from voters because news cycles are managed and targeted, and political parties have been co-opted to essentially the level of being right- and left-handed puppets of the same manipulators. . . .Today, the whole of mankind is being reduced to the status of slavery, except for the very few rich and their management team.

These fascists put an essentially zero value on human beings,and the belief that a human being is merely an objective material thing actually plays a role in that fascism. If we say humans are "creatures", we are at least admitting the high status of being possible "created" and being made with a purpose. The belief in a God who would do that,who would make humans and do so with a purpose that empowers us with choice, will, cognition, real intelligence. . . . all that goes to enhancing the value of humans.

Ideas that reduce humans to mere accidental apparitions of material functioning on merely reflexive processes reduce the value of humans, and undermine human rights.

Be a materialist if you choose, but I challenge you to try to find a reason for human rights, and try to find an enhanced list of what those rights are. You will soon see, in your progressive mentality, that "good management" always runs to reducing human choice. The only way you can get out of that trap is by "seeing" humans as something special, as having a nature that transcends materialism.

 

[One Brow]

In short, I was augmenting my visual center function with a very high level of function in other centers. This is not something that would happen if there were no actual will being imposed on the process of "seeing".

This is a process that occurs in every living thing that has eyes. Most of them have no more will than a rock.