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yrope; erections
Topic Started: Apr 30 2014, 06:39 AM (3,463 Views)
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Jam
May 7 2014, 06:56 PM
gs
May 6 2014, 11:39 PM
yeah which is only a matter of time. or, alternatively computers could learn so quickly that they end up implementing consciousness in their own way.

i think consciousness is just an upper level brain function which is combining the information from other brain functions in order to paint a full picture of the situation we are currently in so that it can efficiently determine what it should be focusing its attention on. whatever it ends up focusing its attention on is currently "on your mind".

that scenario seems the most likely to me, at least. this brain function is intelligent enough to notice that we are an object among many other objects which gives us the idea of a "self". if a function like this would ever be implemented into a robot's software, then yes it would become self aware. it would see its arms and legs move independently from the earth and notice how it can control them which would make it self-aware.

consciousness is not that magical at all and doesn't deserve the hype. it is just an important function of a well-developed brain, like a patch for any software. oh and btw, i laugh at the general human assumption that we are the only conscious animal.

really guys, our brains are not magic it's just a bunch of neurons either shouting yes or no which is the exact same thing as binary code. neurons. one of nature's best inventions. a way for our cells to exchange information. it's like nature invented the internet and we just rebuilt it with computers, which is yet another similarity between human evolution and computer evolution. good stuff
Consciousness is a process that arises from electrochemical interactions within physical scaffold of the brain. That scaffold is a complex network of specialized neurons, the whole brain is, but not of all the brain is responsible for producing consciousness. There is something inherent in the physical organization of some brain tissues that enables them to produce consciousness.

In a traditional computer, the processor is performing many calculations to solve the complex algorithms of the software code, but no matter what the software is, the hardware functions the same way. That is why I don't believe the software can be conscious and that we need to understand what consciousness is based on the brain, which our only working model. It's not what's being done, it's how. Software that emulates intelligence just tells the hardware what to do, but won't somehow make the hardware aware of what it's doing.

Once we have a clear understanding of consciousness then we can design hardware that functions in the same way. I'm not saying it has to be an exact replica of a brain, it just has to have that same method of functioning which is inherently capable of producing consciousness. There may be multiple ways to achieve that, we don't know yet.
software can simulate everything. there are infinite different sequences of 1's and 0's and a finite way to arrange all the atoms within our brain. why would we have to redesign the hardware?
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simulate random then
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there's no such thing as random
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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nuclear decay
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what makes you think that's random?

just because it doesn't happen in constant intervals doesn't mean it's random. that we think it's random just means we don't fully understand it yet. true randomness can never exist because things don't just happen for no reason and as long as there's a cause for everything then everything is, in theory, predictable = not random.
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It's impossible to determine whether a particular nucleus will be the next to decay, and when it will decay. The actual decay, when it occurs, is completely unaffected by external influences.

Of course, it could possibly be the case that there's something uniform and deterministic going on behind the scenes that we aren't aware of. But all of our current observations indicate otherwise. It's not good science to just say 'Well, we could be wrong so we may as well avoid making conclusions.' The best we can do when developing our understanding of the physical world is to rely on the data we've already collected, rather than on the assumption that everything we supposedly 'know' could be wrong.
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but im not saying it could be wrong im saying it definitely is wrong because true randomness simply cannot exist. while it may seem random based on the data we have, questioning that conclusion is actually good science because it will only help us find the actual cause faster. saying "it just happens" and being done with it is bad science.
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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but im not saying it could be wrong im saying it definitely is wrong because true randomness simply cannot exist


Why not?
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because things don't just happen for no reason. how could they?
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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I thought you would know. You're God, after all.
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well, i'm pretty sure. however you don't seem to agree which is interesting to me because this seemed like such a no brainer. which is why i ask, how could something happen for no reason? if there is no cause, then why would it happen?
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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Knowledge of reality comes from experience.
We have no experience of causal relations.
Hence there are no causal relations that we know of.

Jam
 
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i don't think i'm getting what you're saying with that. what isn't causal in the relationship between my mouse and my cursor? and in the relationship between the trigger of a gun and the bullet flying out?

in other words, what makes you say that we have no experience in causal relationships? we even build them ourselves (above examples).

and even if we didn't, why would it be possible for something to happen without a cause? that doesn't only contradict most of our laws of physics, it also makes no logical sense.
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it also makes no logical sense.

Not really. I can easily imagine a gun going off without the trigger being pulled, or a fire popping into existence out of nowhere. There's no law of nature stating that any given event should always be connected by a causal relationship to some other event. It seems counter-intuitive, but there's nothing logically absurd about it. Just because two events occur at roughly the same moment in time doesn't mean that there's some property in one which necessitates the existence of the other.
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it also makes no logical sense.

Not really. I can easily imagine a gun going off without the trigger being pulled, or a fire popping into existence out of nowhere. There's no law of nature stating that any given event should always be connected by a causal relationship to some other event. It seems counter-intuitive, but there's nothing logically absurd about it.
sure there is. the energy necessary for a certain object to go from 1 state to another has to come from somewhere. this energy just appearing out of the blue actually does contradict our laws of physics. a gun can go off without someone pulling the trigger, but the energy for that gun to go off did have to come from somewhere else if not from the trigger.
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Just because two events occur at roughly the same moment in time doesn't mean that there's some property in one which necessitates the existence of the other.
true, but irrelevant. i'm saying that everything has a cause, not that i know what that cause is.
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sure there is. the energy necessary for a certain object to go from 1 state to another has to come from somewhere. this energy just appearing out of the blue actually does contradict our laws of physics. a gun can go off without someone pulling the trigger, but the energy for that gun to go off did have to come from somewhere else if not from the trigger.


The image still fits. The potential energy in the gunpowder is converted into kinetic energy in the bullet, and I'm saying that there doesn't need to be something which causes this event to take place.

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true, but irrelevant. i'm saying that everything has a cause, not that i know what that cause is.


So long as we assume that experience provides us with the basis of knowledge, our knowledge that there are causal relationships comes from observation. Since we can't observe the relationships directly, we infer their existence from the fact that two events often occur at roughly the same time. But just because it frequently happens that a tree is felled whenever a nearby nucleus decays, doesn't mean that the two are causally related. The necessity that one particular thing has to follow from another particular thing can't be ascertained simply by watching events unfold.
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ryker
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Again I have to side with GS on this one. We once believed there to be light and dark, hot and cold, etc. Now we understand that there really is no such thing as dark or cold, they are the absence of light or heat. We created the word dark and cold to explain something we did not understand, they really do not exist fundamentally speaking. Random is the same way. It is a word to describe something we do not yet understand. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Of course when you get down to quantum physics, the physics DO change and that is currently a breakdown in our physics being unable to link the two. That being said, I think it is because we haven’t figured it out yet, not that it doesn’t exit. The entire universe is based off of cause and effect logic. In order for there to be an effect, there has to be a cause. Nuclear decay may seem random but it is because our understanding of physics and math is unable to identify why that particular atom decayed and its closest radioactive neighbor did not.
Ultra, your way of thinking on this,
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The best we can do when developing our understanding of the physical world is to rely on the data we've already collected, rather than on the assumption that everything we supposedly 'know' could be wrong.
is completely wrong in the eyes of science. This is actually following a religious approach to science. In science everything is a theory. These theories are the basic understanding of knowledge or accepted truth until it is otherwise proven wrong. It is however encouraged now a day to try to prove it wrong. If we prove it wrong, we might find the real answer in the process. All most all scientific principles are constantly under constant bombardment in an attempt to find the truth.
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Not really. I can easily imagine a gun going off without the trigger being pulled, or a fire popping into existence out of nowhere. There's no law of nature stating that any given event should always be connected by a causal relationship to some other event. It seems counter-intuitive, but there's nothing logically absurd about it.
please don’t tell me you are going to argue GS point with this? Of course the trigger may not be the reason the gun goes off but you leave out that there had to be something else to trigger it. Whether it is severe heat, electric charge, dropping the gun, etc., there will always be a reason the gun went off. You can’t just set it there in a controlled area where nothing changes and say it could go off. Unless another force acts on it, it is impossible to go off.
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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That being said, I think it is because we haven’t figured it out yet, not that it doesn’t exit.

I'm not saying causal relationships don't exist. I'm suggesting that it's reckless to assume that they must exist in all cases based on what we can observe alone. I'm suggesting that we should keep our minds open to the possibility that there are some events, such as, perhaps, nuclear decay, which we may not be able to explain thoroughly by making reference to external causes.

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In order for there to be an effect, there has to be a cause.

Let's not get involved in a debate on semantics. By excluding the 'cause' I'm prepared to drop the use of the word 'effect' and just settle for the possibility that all events stand alone.

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This is actually following a religious approach to science.

The science-religion antithesis isn't so pronounced as it might seem from the perspective of the Southern United States. All of scientific research is based on a leap of faith; collections of assumptions that we can have no hope of ever proving. The whole essence of my way of thinking is that taking this leap of faith, and using it to inform our understanding, is the best we can do for now.

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please don’t tell me you are going to argue GS point with this? Of course the trigger may not be the reason the gun goes off but you leave out that there had to be something else to trigger it. Whether it is severe heat, electric charge, dropping the gun, etc., there will always be a reason the gun went off. You can’t just set it there in a controlled area where nothing changes and say it could go off. Unless another force acts on it, it is impossible to go off.

You're missing my point. My point here is that we are perfectly capable of imagining a universe in which causal relationships do not exist, hence there is nothing logically absurd about thinking that the universe that we inhabit lacks causal relationships.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 12 2014, 02:53 PM
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sure there is. the energy necessary for a certain object to go from 1 state to another has to come from somewhere. this energy just appearing out of the blue actually does contradict our laws of physics. a gun can go off without someone pulling the trigger, but the energy for that gun to go off did have to come from somewhere else if not from the trigger.

The image still fits. The potential energy in the gunpowder is converted into kinetic energy in the bullet, and I'm saying that there doesn't need to be something which causes this event to take place.
then you are straight up contradicting the law of conservation of energy. gunpowder has to be heated to ignite. the conversion you speak of only happens when there is energy (in the form of heat) added to the gunpowder, it doesn't "just happen".
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So long as we assume that experience provides us with the basis of knowledge, our knowledge that there are causal relationships comes from observation. Since we can't observe the relationships directly, we infer their existence from the fact that two events often occur at roughly the same time. But just because it frequently happens that a tree is felled whenever a nearby nucleus decays, doesn't mean that the two are causally related. The necessity that one particular thing has to follow from another particular thing can't be ascertained simply by watching events unfold.
science itself is based on watching things unfold (another word for this is observation), so ultimately you're questioning science itself. and yes, obviously i'm aware that seeing 2 events happen one after another is not reason enough to conclude that they are related in any way.
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This is actually following a religious approach to science.

The science-religion antithesis isn't so pronounced as it might seem from the perspective of the Southern United States. All of scientific research is based on a leap of faith; collections of assumptions that we can have no hope of ever proving. The whole essence of my way of thinking is that taking this leap of faith, and using it to inform our understanding, is the best we can do for now.
i agree, but you don't seem to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

what you are ultimately saying is that this law could be wrong, because you're suggesting that energy can be created out of nowhere. while i don't pretend to understand the universe completely and do admit to my inability to prove you wrong, saying the scientific "leap of faith" is the best option we have is rather contradictory to your blatant questioning of our laws of physics. while i agree that questioning everything is great science, some scientific facts are best left unquestioned until there is a valid reason to (which quite frankly in this case there is not).
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then you are straight up contradicting the law of conservation of energy. gunpowder has to be heated to ignite. the conversion you speak of only happens when there is energy (in the form of heat) added to the gunpowder, it doesn't "just happen".


I'm not; the total energy after the reaction is still the same as the total energy before. All the chemical energy in the gunpowder gets converted into kinetic energy in the bullet. In broad terms, I'm suggesting that any energy conversion can take place without having to be triggered by an external event. Once again, this seems counter-intuitive, but it's not logically impossible, and therefore we should at least be willing to consider the possibility that, in some cases, it may be true that there are events without causes.
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so how is the gunpowder being heated in your scenario? or are you saying it doesn't need to be?
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081225195839AAyUhLZ
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The_Fry_Cook_of_Doom
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sigh I give up.
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i think existence itself is an event without cause.

I'm not sure about existence, you see. But I don't want to get too far into this discussion it hurts my brain to think too hard.
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tldr read david hume
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 13 2014, 05:44 AM
sigh I give up.
you don't get off that easy. you can't create energy, so where is that energy coming from?
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tldr read david hume
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The whole essence of my way of thinking is that taking this leap of faith, and using it to inform our understanding, is the best we can do for now.
which is it
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Incog
May 13 2014, 05:44 AM
i think existence itself is an event without cause.

I'm not sure about existence, you see. But I don't want to get too far into this discussion it hurts my brain to think too hard.
yes, existence (as in its origins) is a major crack in our otherwise solid laws of nature but this doesn't mean we should throw these laws overboard. like andy said and later contradicted, scientific observations are the best we have for now in our pursuit to understand how things work and while we have no observational evidence that contradicts them we're best off taking them as fact in future scientific endeavours.

we're bordering on the paradoxical ultimate truth that nothing we know is definitely true because we are in many ways subjective. it's always such a shame when people argue all kinds of ridiculous shit and then just retreat to that philosophical bottomless pit in order to never be proven wrong. let's not go there, i've so had it with useless arguments about objective truth.
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you don't get off that easy. you can't create energy, so where is that energy coming from?


Energy isn't being created in my example. Which is beside the point; I'm not trying to prove that guns actually fire spontaneously, because they obviously don't. I'm trying to show you that we can easily imagine such a thing happening, which implies that there's nothing problematic about it from a strictly logical point of view. Hence we shouldn't shut ourselves off completely from the possibility that there may be events without causes.

Even if I was trying to suggest that the law of conservation of energy doesn't always apply, it wouldn't contradict what I was saying earlier. I'm investing faith in scientific observations themselves, not the conclusions that we infer from them, since we may be forced to change these conclusions as new discoveries are made. If at some point we collected observations showing that energy isn't conserved in some interactions, we would be forced to adjust our ideas about conservation, but we would still be committed to the method of systematic observation which we used as the basis for those ideas in the first place.
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also have you noticed that my signature is now a plane

huehue
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gs
May 13 2014, 11:09 AM
Incog
May 13 2014, 05:44 AM
i think existence itself is an event without cause.

I'm not sure about existence, you see. But I don't want to get too far into this discussion it hurts my brain to think too hard.
yes, existence (as in its origins) is a major crack in our otherwise solid laws of nature but this doesn't mean we should throw these laws overboard. like andy said and later contradicted, scientific observations are the best we have for now in our pursuit to understand how things work and while we have no observational evidence that contradicts them we're best off taking them as fact in future scientific endeavours.

we're bordering on the paradoxical ultimate truth that nothing we know is definitely true because we are in many ways subjective. it's always such a shame when people argue all kinds of ridiculous shit and then just retreat to that philosophical bottomless pit in order to never be proven wrong. let's not go there, i've so had it with useless arguments about objective truth.
I really understand what you're getting at; I'm going to be perfectly clear, many of the thoughts here I've had before.

"There's no such thing as random" is something I completely agree with, it's difficult to disagree. I was playing devil's advocate earlier. Anyway, it's as simple as this:

If you take a ball and let go of it 1m off the ground, the ball WILL hit the ground. Of that, we're completely certain. If you take a glass (like drinking glass) and do the same thing, the glass WILL hit the ground and it WILL break.

^If we are able to make predictions such as this one at our level (which is a very basic level) and we're also able to make predictions at a much lower level (ie, we know that electrons moving will cause a light-bulb to light up), then it's pretty obvious that you could predict anything if you go far enough down the "levels". This in turn means that at the ultimate level, the very smallest form of existence of something (which we're far from getting to, obviously) can be used to predict shit. That in turn means that nothing ever happens randomly and it also means that everything that we do is supposed to happen. This is true at such a minute level though that it doesn't matter to us and I doubt that any living species would ever be able to get to that level.
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Ultra-Musketeer
May 13 2014, 11:44 AM
also have you noticed that my signature is now a plane

huehue
i chuckled
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