Re: Evolutionary question concerning God.

In article <1157989144.440571.181760@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Ymir wrote:
In article <1157931354.441209.90460@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Ymir wrote:
In article <1157913777.283790.225770@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Ymir wrote:
In article <1157883314.617697.242360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"someone2" <glenn.spigel2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We are presented with the physical world based upon our neural
state.
The physical world is not the source of the presentation. The
reason
we
are presented with a physical world with unbiased (towards Good
or
Evil) rules is that the reason for the presentation is that it is
a
game between God and the Devil about which it is better to be,
selfless, or selfish. Things within the presentation follow the
rules
of the presentation, but the presentation allows us to make
choices,
to
caste our vote if you like. Though God rewards those that follow
it
with heaven.

If the physical world is not the source of our knowledge, and god
imparts some representation directly onto our brain, then why do we
have
senses? Why do we go blind if we seriously damage our eyes?
Couldn't
god
continue to impart his presentation of the world onto our brains
without
requiring photons to strike our retinas? Why does he limit his
visual
presentation to those things which are detectable within the fairly
limited band of the EM spectrum that our retinas are sensitive to?


Because it is just a game, and there are rules to what you are
presented with. You could look at it as though some of the rules are
effectively written in the structure of the brain itself.

This is a complete non sequitur. How does this even begin to address
the
questions which I asked? Are you trying to claim that god has
established some 'rule' that even though eyes don't play any role in
perception that he's not allowed to provide us with perception unless
we
have functioning eyes? If so, what possible rationale could there be
underlying such a rule, and what possible evidence could you provide to
suggest that this is actually how things work?


I thought it answered your question, it just seems like you are asking
for more detail. What are you finding hard to understand about your
experience being a translation of neural state?

What does 'it is just a game' have to do with 'translations of neural
states'? How does it being a game account for the fact that damage to
our eyes impairs our vision? You also completely fail to provide any
evidence supporting this rather peculiar view.


It means that there is a translation layer (the source) that causes
your experience based on neural state.

This is simply a repetition of your earlier claim. It doesn't contribute
anything new. The source of our experience is the physical world around
us. The only 'translation layer' involved is our senses.

Some of the rules of the game are actually in the presentation itself.
For example the rules by which the physical presentation is governed,
physics and chemistry, rules about how you will experience the physical
world, in the structure of the brain.

The original post is a proof beyond reasonable doubt that the physical
world is not the source as you are suggesting.

If it were proof beyond a reasonable doubt then there would not be so
many people reasonable people doubting your conclusion.

I admit that you can say that I am saying more than what has been put
forward in the proof, and that it is unjustified. If that is how you
feel we can restrict the conversation to the original post.

What's wrong with the rules, how would you have done it?

How would I have done what? Accounted for the fact that you need eyes
for vision? Given that the retina is necessary to produce neural stimuli
in response to photons, the answer seems fairly obvious. If you
interrupt a link in the causal chain between photons and our visual
experience, visual experience will be affected.


How would you have decided on the rules by which beings experience
being an organism? Obviously you would have to be looking at it from
the same perspective as myself, but you seemed to be suggesting that
having the rules in the structure of the brain was not a good idea.

What I'm suggesting is that if, as you assert, our experience stems
wholly from some outside entity then there would be no reason why the
brain or senses should play any role in conscious experience at all, and
yet they clearly do, as evidenced by the fact that altering our brain or
senses clearly affects how we experience the world.

Personally I think it can be useful to be able to modify the experience
in some situations,

Example please? Perhaps then I could understand what you are talking
about.

which is possible because the rules are within the
presentation of the physical world which we can modify.

Ok, I assume that you have agreed to the debate, and that that was
your
first question, which I have answered, so here is my question for
you:

You haven't answered anything. I see no need to agree to any set of
rules which you might wish to impose unless you can give some
compelling
reason for why they are necessary.


Well I thought they might lead to people avoiding answering questions,
which is quite different from people giving answers that the questioner
doesn't like.

Generally, a given post raises more than a single question. Asking a
single question among many will very often prevent one from getting to
the heart of the matter.


I find it makes it easier for people to get to more depth on a
particular matter, and thus the heart of the matter is reached.

Perhaps we can carry on like this, and if after say another 20 posts,
if we have made no more progress, we can try it the way I suggested,
what do you think?

I think that this would proceed much more clearly if you would actually
take into account the various points which have been made in the
totality of people's previous posts, something which your proposed rules
allow you to easily sidestep by focussing only on those questions which
you want to deal with.

Could you please answer why a robot should ever experience
consciousness without assuming your own conclusion that our brain
causes our consciousness, or if you are unable to do that, could you
be
more specific about what you are suggesting the mechanism is by which
the states of different neurons are all known (to the conscious
experience) at the same time.

What I have said in the past and I will repeat here is that if an
artificial entity were created which exhibited the same range of
responses as a human we would have no reason to assume that it was
anything other than conscious. Would we know for certain? No. But then
again, I don't know for certain that other people are conscious either;
I assume that they are because they exhibit behaviour which tends to
suggest consciousness. If a robot were to exhibit such behaviours, what
reason would I have for establishing a different set of criteria for
judging it than the one which I apply to humans? Your position would
seem to make sense only if you start from the assumption that
consciousness is something which is unique to humans (or to organic
lifeforms). What basis do you have for making this assumption?

The second part of your question also fails to make sense. The states
of
different neurons are not known to conscious experience. They *result*
in conscious experience, but it is certainly not the case that we are
aware of them individually. It is quite possible to be conscious
without
even being aware of the existence of neurons, let alone their
individual
states.

All of the details of how our neural states give rise to consciousness
are not yet completely understood. However, I would not use the absence
of a completely understood mechanism as an argument in favour of your
position unless you are actually in possession of a completely
articulated mechanism which accounts for all of the facts and which
makes concrete predictions. The claim that it is all a game played by
some divine beings hardly constitutes that.


The proof is in the original post, that the physical is not the source
of our experience, but you can't understand it.

It's not that I didn't understand it. It's that it failed to constitute
a proof for reasons which I outlined in my previous posts.


So which is the first sentance do you disagree with in the original
post? Is there anything in it we haven't defined through our
conversation so far that you need clarification on before you undertake
such a task?

This has already been addressed ad nauseam both by me and by other
posters. You, however, have answered our various objections by simply
reasserting your initial claim rather than by addressing the various
points which have been made. In particular, you stand by your rather
strange view that conscious experience does not provide any selective
advantage and maintain without any evidence the view that our behaviour
could be entirely the same in absence of such experience.

It doesn't even mention
God.

Which is why I still don't understand how you would get from the
argument you laid down in your original post to anything having to do
with god.


I can see how it must be hard for you to make the link with the source
of our experience not being the physical world, beyond reasonable
doubt, and yes it is that you seem unable to follow reason.

What you are trying to do now, is show how it could even be a
coincidence.

I have never claimed that there is anything coincidental involved. Quite
the opposite.


So why was it expected?

It seems like you tried to answer the first part, but failed to give a
reason why a robot following its program would cause you to think it
was conscious.

Because it follows its program is not really an answer.

Nor is it the answer I gave.


What did your answer imply other than the robot will follow its
program?

I think you have a rather narrow definition of both 'program' and
'robot' in mind which is preventing you from following what others have
been trying to explain to you.

You seem to treat a 'robot', by definition, as something which lacks
consciousness rather than simply as something constructed. You also seem
to want to view a program as something like a large case statement which
dictates responses to particular stimuli.

You want to assert that it would be possible to behave in a particular
manner without having conscious experience and want to use a robot to
somehow demonstrate this point.

If you believe that people are conscious, then in order to assert that a
robot could not be conscious you would need to demonstrate something
which is fundamentally different between robots and people and you have
failed to do so.

Consciousness results from having an internal representation/simulation
of the environment (or at least those aspects of the environment which
are accessible to us) and of ourselves which allows us to respond to
external events, including novel ones. Why do you feel that a program
could not construct such a representation.

Also, what makes you believe that people do not simply follow something
analogous to a program?

As for your attempt at the second part, well it was more of a side step
really.

To highlight the issue, imagine the robot had four CPUs, but the
program makes it behave like a human. Which CPU is conscious, or is
there one consciousness, if there is one consciousness, then what is it
that is connecting the four CPUs simultaneously? Is it the circuit
board that is conscious. What causes it to experience. Does it metal
with a current through it experience?

This question does not make sense. This is analogous to asking of a
human being which specific neuron is the conscious one. Consciousness is
not a property of individual neurons, but of the overall organisation of
the neural system. In your robot example, the answer would be 'the robot
experiences consciousness'. This does not entail that its individual
parts all experience it, nor does it entail that consciousness can be
isolated to a single subcomponent. There will be components which
contribute to it and those which do not, but there is no necessary
reason to believe that one single component would be somehow privileged
in this regard.


You are funny,

"There will be components which contribute to it and those which do
not, but there is no necessary reason to believe that one single
component would be somehow privileged in this regard."

You talk as though you believe you know what you are talking about,
when obviously you know yourself that you haven't got a clue, and yet
you think your confident lack of understanding will convince others
that you do.

Oh one who thinks he has more understanding than God, tell us what
distinguishes between which components contribute to consciousness and
those which do not.

Those components not involved in the simulation of the world would not
contribute to consciousness; those that were involved would. In people
the components of the nervous system contribute more to consciousness
than, say, the components of the skeletal system do. It hardly takes a
god to comprehend that claim.

and that it isn't that you are just an egotistical,
blasphemous, fraud.

Would that make you, who seems to think he understands exactly how god
does things an egotistical, pious, fraud?

Are you suggesting that there is some kind of energy linking the
neurons that can be experienced?

Once again I suspect that you are using the term 'energy' in some
non-standard sense which you will need to define. There will, of course,
be signals between the various neurons, and these signals will involve
energy, but not, I suspect, in the sense that you are using the term.


I just was giving you a chance to claim a physical link in a vague
term, so I could show how even that doesn't work.

And how did you plan on showing that?

Also why given that there can be no evolutionary advantage in creating
a translation layer so that the experience made sense do we not
experience the states of different neurons?

Thus far, I have not claimed that there is no evolutionary advantage to
experience, nor have I claimed that a 'translation layer' is somehow
necessary for our experiences to make sense. Having experiences which
make sense provides an extreme evolutionary advantage. Having
experiences which failed to make sense (by which I assume you mean form
a representation which bears some relation to the external world) would
probably make one considerably worse off than having no experience at
all.


So what would have happened if the universe had been organised in such
a way that the organisms were all set up the same e.g. in terms of
brain structure, but that there was no consciousness. In what way would
the behaviour differ and why?

Once again, you ignore all previous posts.

My claim has been, and remains, that one could *not* set up organisms in
such a way that they were the same but had no consciousness. One could
create things which were structured *differently* and which had no
consciousness, of course, but that wouldn't accomplish what you seem to
desire. To answer your second point, though, an organism which lacked
consciousness would lack any coherent internal model of the world and as
such, would lack the ability to respond to the environment in a flexible
manner which could accommodate novel stimuli since it would have no
means of modelling its own behaviour. Such an organism could only
flourish in an environment which closely matched the environment which
it had evolved to respond to in which all stimuli to which it was
exposed were included in its predefined repetoire of responses.

André

--
use rot thirteen to email
ntvfnnx (at) tznvy.pbz

.

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