DRFseven

Uh, Koy, you'll have to excuse me while I attempt to borrow some intellect....I'll get back with ya.

Koyaanisqatsi

I told you it was convoluted.

Now you see why I redacted it from the original post...

[ June 25, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

DRFseven

First of all, I don't know from string theory. Something about long cracks in the universe that are full of dimensions and energy; beats me if it's true. I'm having trouble relating it to intent, since I look at intent without invoking the universe. Yet I know that psychological determinism is related to universal determinism as part and parcel, so I'm not saying string theory and consciousness are not related; I just don't know how to relate them yet. So, maybe if I take some other parts of your post and respond, we can get more on the same level.

I don't see how I'm saying the secular equivalent of "Goddidit." I don't postulate a spooky driver of the car; my driver comprises the car, itself, as well as the drive. Maybe you are saying I refer to spooky emergent properties because I don't really address consciousness or *I*-ness. I'm guessing that the *I* may be a sort of qualia like the personal experience of cognition, itself. In any case, I don't see how a real *I* is necessary for the driving of the car. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that maybe we don't physically exist; I'm asking why a car that runs itself needs a homunculus for a driver.

More later.

Koyaanisqatsi

Well, I think that's the crux right there. A car cannot "run itself."

It requires a driver, just as a computer cannot run itself in the "self aware" sense we're discussing; it requires a user in order for those functions to have any relevance beyond mere functionality.

That's what I'm getting at, probably luvluv, but again, he's on his own.

luvluv

Koy, I don't see your statement as being anything but a very long explanation of what a soul may be, but it is still basically a restatement of the concept of the soul.

Lets say for the sake of argument your statement of what a soul constitutes is the true one. If a prophet or a man of learning was able to figure this out, how would he go about explaining it to the average, unlearned, largely illiterate populace? Might he not use short-hand, and call this "tenth dimensional" feedback a 'soul'? And would he at that point be "selling snake oil" or speaking in the only terms his hearers could understand?

Though this has nothing to do with your argument overall, I would certainly deny that the primary image of humanity is imprisonment. And many religions claim freedom as their ultimate goal (Jesus declared in what is recorded as the first official act of his ministry that he came "to set the captives free." Freedom of intellectual inquiry is only one type of freedom. There is also freedom from fear, freedom from insecurity, freedom from a sense of hopelessness and worthlessness. Relgion has proved to be better at providing this type of freedom than science. People who are afraid, insecure, hopeless, and who lack a belief in their worth rarely seek or find solace in science.)

Where we do agree, though, is in the mistake of the Cartesian concept of the mind/soul duality. One of my favorite sayings is "The soul is the part of the body you can't touch, and the body is the part of the soul you can touch." I have always believed that the soul and the body are not equal and opposite propreties but one continuous organism: your body IS your soul, and vice versa. This is one reason why Christians believe in a PHYSICAL ressurection.

Your concept of ten dimensions is remarkably similar to an idea that is held by Hugh Ross, the astronomer and Christian apologist, who maintains that God actually INHABITS all twenty-six dimensions hypothesised by string theory, and that heaven is actually in one of those dimensions. He too posits that "heaven" is not a "spiritual" (i.e. etheral or magical) place, but simply a PHYSICAL dimension outside of the perceivable 4 dimensions of space time. So it seems a theist beat you to at least a few aspects of your theory.

DRF:

I think what koya is trying to say is that if all you say is true, what is the evolutionary purpose of the phenomenon which we call "the self"? If we really AREN'T choosing behavior, and if our decisions proceed directly from deterministic properties reducible to physics, what is the need for the "self", or consciousness at all? Surely we would behave more efficiently if the material decision making processes proceeded to action without the interference of the, in your theory, entirely superflous illusion of a "self" making a choice?

You have often said that some action is determined because I enjoyed the benefits of one decision over another. What, exactly, is that "I" which enjoys one thing over the other? You might say memory, but "I" is more than memory, "I" is identity. Not just what "I" has done, but who "I" perceives itself to be.

DRFseven

The evolutionary use of the self-concept would be optimization of interaction between individual and environment. As I said before, obviously there is an evolutionary gain to be realized in the universal human feeling of selfhood. Some think that gain lies in the ability to understand others because if we know what WE are thinking, we might extrapolate to what others could be thinking.

No, no, no, we wouldn't behave more efficiently, as individuals who lack self-concepts show. I never meant to imply that we don't need the *I* concept; I am saying we don't need it to initiate intent. Obviously, plenty of other animals who lack a self-concept intend things all the time and successfully carry out those things.

I think that perception of "*I*-ness changes on a moment-by-moment basis to constantly incoporate the results of the lastest moment of experience. Who we are reflects not only the boundaries of our bodies, but the physical structures of our attitudes and the mental artifacts that are produced by them.

excreationist

The "computer" (a neurocomputer in fact) is self-motivated - it doesn't need a user to keep on directing it. The computer is the user. Its original program was developed through the evolution of DNA. On the other hand computers are programmed by people.

This sentience just involves years of self-motivated learning done by a complex fuzzy-logic/inference machine (our neural network with about 100 billion neurons). It needs the right kind of learning too - if you raise a human in a sensory isolation tank I doubt it would develop adult-level consciousness. It wouldn't have had any experiences of the outside world. I'm saying that our brains *learn* to be conscious. Their intelligence develops, like in the way <a href="http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html" target="_blank">Piaget described</a>.
This could be preceeded by these kinds of "intelligences":

1. Processing Systems [or Programmed Systems]
...receive [or detect], process and respond to input.

2. Aware Systems
...receive input and respond according to its goals/desires and beliefs learnt through experience about how the world works
(self-motivated, acting on self-learnt beliefs)

Ordinary computers would be at stage 1. In fact perhaps only a small portion of A-Life can learn for themselves how the world works.

Well I'd say that being conscious involves <a href="http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/cogsys/piaget.html" target="_blank">Piaget's final stages</a>. So anyway, you said that all matter is conscious and I guess you'd think that a pile of rocks - or a single rock - *could* be thinking "to be or not to be" - even though it mightn't be writing it down....

I'd say that the subconscious is made up of memories that haven't been properly integrated into language. They would partly be memories from the time before we learnt language properly. They are how animals think - weighing up many factors without the train of thought being commentated by a voice. This weighing up of things could have been done a long time ago which would mean that it would be hard to figure out the reasons behind the intuition. BTW, if I raised a kid on a white cell and taught them some English, do you think it would be possible for someone to teach them, through meditation or something, how to tap into the collective unconscious? i.e. I would have taught them basically nothing... would they know about different countries, religions and languages in rich detail? Or would they just get it a tiny bit right, just because they had some lucky guesses? (My relationship with the kid would be a bit like God and a pet human so there already are the seeds for a religion idea - and the kid could think that I go to another place ["country"] when I'm not around - rather than literally disappear)

What about these examples: steel wool can burn because of all the gaps in the wire that let the oxygen in... but if there are no gaps and just pure metal, it doesn't burn as easily. And paper drifts down if you drop it. If you screw it up it falls down quicker. If you fold it into a paper airplane it can glide. If it is folded back and forth it can become a bridge that can support quite a lot of weight. So basically it is about new properties that come about according to how the materials are arranged. Another example is an electric generator which is basically made up of some magnets and lots of wire. If this is hooked up to some water and the motor is made to spin you would get oxygen at one of the wires and hydrogen at the other (I think). Maybe those gases could be used to power a motor which drives the electric generator... (eventually the machine would stop though). So it started off with some metal and H2O, etc, and eventually there was a hydrogen powered generator. On their own those things would just sit around - but depending on how they are arranged, they can do other things. I guess you're right assuming that the "emergent qualities" claim hasn't been properly justified, but I'm saying that consciousness involves a properly organized living brain plus lots of experience so that it goes through most or all of Piaget's stages of cognitive development.

Koyaanisqatsi

Yes, I already stipulated that. It is, as I pointed out repeatedly, an attempt to reconcile blind, ignorant "belief" with scientific theory; to bridge the gap and explain what cult leaders are actually talking about.

A subtle but salient caveat: my theory is not what constitutes a soul, it is what cult leaders take advantage of to make you follow their agenda, thereby sidetracking your intelligence from exploring the possible truth.

Snake oil. It tastes like medicine, but is not, so you drink it thinking you will be cured and instead you become violently ill and possibly die, all for a quick buck.

By telling them the truth, of course. That's what a "man of learning" does. You can drop the "prophet" childishness, by the way. We're all adults.



Why would he? He's the one explaining what it is, i.e., instigating the concept.

For example, I would be the "man of learning" who came along to explain what everyone else called a "soul."

I wouldn't use the word "soul" to say what a "soul" actually is. That would be ludicrous, since all I would be saying is, "A soul is a soul."

You're not making any sense. Are you saying that the audience has already been indoctrinated with the "soul" concept, in which case the "man of learning" (MOL) would be correcting their false indoctrination?

Or are you saying that this is the first time such a concept has ever been introduced into the lexicon, in which case, the MOL would be telling them the truth and would have no need to refer to another concept they've never heard before either?

"Selling snake oil" means the MOL is lying to them; telling them just enough truth in order for them to give him their attention, which he then manipulates into exploting them for his own malicious goals; i.e, the christian cult, so no MOL (or prophet, if you like) would ever do such a thing and if they did, it would be proof positive that they deserve death, IMHO.

Use just enough of the truth to preach fear and obedience and blind, unthinking allegiance to a lie and face the hangman's noose, IMO.

"Deny" it? Ok...

Did you mean "disagree" with it?

They certainly do claim it, which is of course, the watered down whiskey in the snake oil mixture that fools the ignorant into thinking they're drinking medicine instead of snake oil and urine.

Yeah I vaguely recall something also about a sword not peace and the fact that the "captives" were the Jews, not all of humanity, depending, upon which author you read and from what century that author embellished the first myth, and blah, blah, blah.

So what's your point? The Nazis wrote "Work Shall Set You Free" above Auschwitz.

It was a meaphore; a clue I think our meta or "sub" conscious repeats over and over again as a message for us to reflect upon and learn from.

This is all an extension of Freudian projection theory, only instead of stopping at emotions, I've exapanded it to include empirical information about the nature of our existence, so any constructs you imagine (literally) would be part and parcel to this concept.

All of which was largely inflicted by cult dogma. What is your point?

Categorically false on so many levels. First of all, religion causes these feelings and preys upon them in order to maintain their cult.

Do you know how addiction to nicotine works; why a smoker can only feel relaxed once they light up and describe their lives as riddled with anxiety except for the times when they can just take a break from it all and light up? What happens is, nicotine is ingested into your system and then stays there. The reason you feel anxious is because the nicotine makes you feel anxious until you ingest more nicotine to "calm the beast" as it were, so although smokers all think that it is their lives that cause all that stress and smoking a cigarette is the only thing that will calm their nerves, it is actually the exact and total opposite.

The same thing is true of most drug addictions, of which cult mentality, IMO, qualifies, if only analogously.

People are afraid, insecure and hopeles because their beliefs force them to be afraid of god, insecure about being born in original sin and hopeless because there's no salvation in this life; wait until the after life for your reward!

You could not have provided me with a more perfect example of the detriments of the cult mentality and how that mentality makes otherwise intelligent people such as yourself think that "black" is actually "white."

My theory seeks to erradicate such cognitive dissonance so that everyone can see that "black" is actually "black."

No, it is not. They believe in a bodily resurrection and then only of Jesus because they are programmed sheep who read the GJohn and swallowed whole the crap therein.

My theory, by the way would necessarily ential no such resurrection, because it would also mean that there is no such thing as death and never has been. It would be classified under the exact same illusion as linear time.

Please keep this straight: cult mentality and words like "soul" in the context that you are using them are the antithesis to my thesis, not merely analogous, because they are, IMO .0001 percent "the truth" and .9999 deliberate lies forced upon you (aka, innocent, ignorant, whatever people) as a means to fool you into following an agenda you normally would never have followed in a million years, had it not been for the hook (usually at an early, impressionable age) of that .0001 percent "truth."

Is that clear?

No, actually it is not similar at all, since what Ross is doing would be the exact same thing as the .0001 vs. .9999 snake oil salesmanship.

All "theists" "beat" me to my theory! That's the whole point I was making and why I conceived of the theory.

They took "the truth" and corrupted it to fool innocent people. This is what my theory seeks to correct.

Koyaanisqatsi

I know that's what is claimed by all of this, but it doesn't fit, unless, as I contend all matter is conscious, thus turning:

into my construct mindbody. Does that make sense?

To just state "the computer is the user" without being able to provide a logical mechanism, for me, I should definitely qualify, doesn't "fit."

So, perhaps (perhaps) the "missing" ingredient is the notion of all matter being conscious; that there being no distinction between mind and matter (hence, mindmatter).

It would be the equivalent of what you're saying (computeruser), only it would provide at least the next logical step to explaining how such a merger takes place. Actually, "merger" is wrong; marriage may be the better term, the notion that two distinctive constructs retain their distinction as they become one (sound family to any of you christian cult members out there?)

Just as Einstein showed space and time are one, yet distinct, and that's what explains the phenomenon of relativity, so too would positing mindbody explain (or, better, reconcile) "where" and "what is" consciousness?

As I said before, however, not "whence consciousness," though at least it may bring us one step closer.

Certainly closer than just stating "the car drives itself," which we all intuitively (as well as literally) know is not the case. To say that the car drives itself is absurd or that a computer is it's own user is absurd

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the computer is the user and vice versa, but I feel that the only way that would be logically possible (or reconcilable) is if there is a marriage (computeruser) and not simply a merger (i.e., the computer is the user).

Again, as we all know, a computer is not a user and cannot be a user; it is, by definition, the one being used, unless there is some mechanism that allows for this.

I am contending that the mechanism--the same thing that cults co-opt, augment and ultimately use to manipulate and control, BTW--is the notion that is at the heart of what you were getting at, but stopped at with "the computer is the user."

That's like saying "space is time" and leaving it at that, when the more proper (and subtle, no doubt) concept is that they are one yet distinctly two, so you must simply call "it" spacetime to satisfy that paradox.

Is this too esoteric? Too semantic? Again, I don't know, but please remember the attempt here is to reconcile beliefs with reality/theory; the "I" ness that is intuitive and innate no matter how objective we pretend we are in reviewing data.

Again, I don't know. It's a hypothesis.

And there's the disconnect that becomes connected with the assertion of mindbody. "Its original program was developed" must be equivalent to "computers are programmed by people" or else it simply is the equivalent of "Goddidit."

In other words, the phrase "the evolution of DNA" has as much qualitative sentient inducing meaning as saying, "if you pile more rocks on top of each other, eventually they will group and magically be alive" (aka, God took a pile of dirt and presto change, Adam).

The "spark of life" if you will, is what I am contending never occurred as a necessary quality of life (which, by the way, is also what you and DRF are contending, only without the logical explanation that supports it, IMO and I certainly could be and have been dead wrong, so please bear that in mind).

We've all been searching (ultimately) for that "spark;" that "mysterious" element that separates us from a pile of rocks and what I am contending, positing, hypothesizing about is the idea that no such spark ever existed and is not a necessary element to consciousness because all matter is conscious; that we've been looking under rocks instead of at the rocks (again, as so many cult members misconstrue) and realizing that the pile of rocks is conscious; they are all consciously "rocks."

Is this clearing things up or simply further confusing them?

Einstein gave us (if you'll pardon the pun) a quantum leap by showing us that is isn't "space" or "time," it is spacetime and I think the same leap can be made by positing mindbody.

You've just negated your point by falsely including the term "self" in that phrase. Sentience is "self" so how could sentience involve years of sentience; be a function of itself?

See what I mean. Just as dark matter serves as the mechanism for explaining universal symmetry, so to must there be an equivalent mechanism of some kind that answers that question (or, rather, removes the illogic from that question).

In some manner, which I haven't arrived at, of course, but merely posit what I've so far developed.

Irrelevant qualification.

The problem is that "it" already comes with consciousness, yet tracing that consciousness is impossible by a physical only approach, since on a physical level it results in an unsolvable logical paradox.

Which came first (again, pardon the pun), the sperm or the ovum?

If however we abandon the current "either/or" mentality of mind over matter; fiction over fact; belief over empiricism; etc., and posit mindmatter--wherever that may take us--I contend will allow us to overcome this particular hurdle in the same manner that "spacetime" allowed us to arrive at quantum mechanics and string theory.

As well as, of course, finally dispense with the stronghold of cult mentality, since it is entirely based upon an innate .0001 percent truth that current compartmentalized scientific disciplines refuse to address, choosing instead (in spite, almost) to leave such things up to the philosophy/theology schools; i.e., "the spark of life."

Also irrelevant to the fact that it would still come out of the oven "conscious" (i.e., sentient).

I know and I agree with much of it, but there is still the missing link that I think my hypothesis addresses better than Piaget's (forgive me) Germanic approach.

Feedback loops can certainly be said by an outside observer to give the appearance of sentience to the point that there seems to the outside observer no difference and one can certainly argue that to the machine itself, "If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck...", etc., but it still does not make it a duck.

Now, perhaps such a distinction (as Piaget certainly claims) is too trivial to matter, I disagree. Or better, offer this hypothesis as a means to agree.

I'll respond more later if anyone is still interested in exploring this (work actually calls), but again, please keep in mind that the primary genesis of all of this was to explain and reconcile belief as opposed to reality, while at the same time attempt to leap frog the sentient "missing link" that makes people intuitively state, "But a computer cannot be said to ever actually or non-trivially use itself, so there's something missing that just won’t float that boat no matter how closely you study all the circuitry."

(edited for lysdexia - Koy)

[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

DRFseven

Can you say why it doesn't fit? What is it you think I'm saying the brain does or doesn't do that you don't agree with?