Do Unbiased events actually exist?
jodhbir
unbiased towards its results?
Is it possible to generate a totally unbiased event??
Jodhbir.
Bobby D. Bryant
If you think a coin is biased, just relabel "heads" and "tails" on
alternate flips.
Of course, that solution requires an infinite number of flips in order to
be _exact_. But I think you could use some kind of scheme like that to
get the bias down below any specified threshold.
I would guess that quantum mechanics might provide the desired solution,
though I have to defer to the physicists on that one.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
Kamerynn
Kam:
What you seem to be asking is if an event can be
uncaused/undetermined/truely random. If there is such
a thing, then it is literally unexplainable - that event
won't make any sense to us. I don't believe that there
is such a thing, but that might just be my bias.
AE
I'd even say whatever apparatus one is designing, it is impossible to
make sure there's not the slightest bias.
jodhbir schrieb:
Dave Odden
Yes; events have no consciousness, and bias is a property of consciousness.
On the other hand, if you're really asking whether events violate the law of
causality, then the answer is no.
Robert J. Kolker
Kamerynn wrote:
>
> Kam:
> What you seem to be asking is if an event can be
> uncaused/undetermined/truely random. If there is such
> a thing, then it is literally unexplainable - that event
> won't make any sense to us. I don't believe that there
> is such a thing, but that might just be my bias.
Not so. Polarizing filters work just fine.
Bob Kolker
>
Robert J. Kolker
Dave Odden wrote:
>
> Yes; events have no consciousness, and bias is a property of consciousness.
> On the other hand, if you're really asking whether events violate the law of
> causality, then the answer is no.
He is asking whether the odds are -instrinsically- more in favor of one
outcome than another. The real question is whether the odds are
intrinsic or whether the notion of odds is simply a measure of our our
ignorance of the underlying causes.
Bob Kolker
>
>
Sir Frederick
I know "consciousness" is a folk
psychology term. Other than that,
what does it (with any reality)
mean?
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill/
*************************
Phrase of the week :
I have never met a bored biologist. Biologists suffer from
paranoia, frustrated ambition, angst about their sex lives, lack
of hard cash, and all the usual frets that beset mankind. But
they are not bored.
-- Martin Wells
:-))))Snort!)
*************************
Tom Clarke
Albert
Well, make up your mind, Bob. What is the meaning of 'ignorance
of the underlying causes'? Either your polarizing lens is
polarizing something or it is not.
--
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
-- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"
Albert
> Dave Odden wrote:
>
>>"jodhbir" wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Can an event like tossing a coin or rolling a dice be completely
>>>unbiased towards its results?
>>>Is it possible to generate a totally unbiased event??
>>
>>Yes; events have no consciousness, and bias is a property of consciousness.
>>On the other hand, if you're really asking whether events violate the law of
>>causality, then the answer is no.
>
>
> I know "consciousness" is a folk
> psychology term. Other than that,
> what does it (with any reality)
> mean?
Why ask a question when you have already prejudged the reply as
'folk psychology'? BTW, the term is widely used in more fields
than just 'folk psychology'.
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
>
> Well, make up your mind, Bob. What is the meaning of 'ignorance of the
> underlying causes'? Either your polarizing lens is polarizing something
> or it is not.
I go with the polarizer. I favor the intrinsic probablility hypothesis.
It accords with the observed outcomes and explains what happens when a
polarizer with a 45 degree axis is interposed between orthogonal
polarizers. Quantum theory wins every time, so I go with instrisic
probability. Any science which predicts outcomes to the 12 to 15 decimal
place accuracy every time, each time is not to be taken lightly. Quantum
electrodynamics is the greatest scientific work since Galileo kicked off
the process 400 years ago.
Bob Kolker
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
>
> Why ask a question when you have already prejudged the reply as 'folk
> psychology'? BTW, the term is widely used in more fields than just
> 'folk psychology'.
He is somewhat biased toward the emprical, just as I am.
If it ain't empirical it is either math, philosophy, religion or nonsense.
Facts rule, theories serve.
Bob Kolker
Albert
So, you 'believe' that your randomly generated replies are
statistically 'correct' replies?
Albert
And where there are no facts, then Bob is free to claim them anyway.
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
>
> So, you 'believe' that your randomly generated replies are statistically
> 'correct' replies?
I draw the obvious conclusion from the experiments. Quantum
Electrodynamics is a winner.
Bob Kolker
>
>
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
>
>
> And where there are no facts, then Bob is free to claim them anyway.
Who is claiming what? You claim that mind exists without a scintilla of
objective evidence.
Bob Kolker
>
Sir Frederick
Sorry, just trying to figure out
how to build a causal structure
with consciousness.
Wordsmith
The universe itself is a biased event simply because it exists. Therefore,
everything happening within it must exhibit bias.
Wordsmith :)
Dave Odden
> I know "consciousness" is a folk
> psychology term. Other than that,
> what does it (with any reality)
> mean?
It's a mental state. I assume you're not asking a serious question.
Dave Odden
> He is asking whether the odds are -instrinsically- more in favor of one
> outcome than another. The real question is whether the odds are
> intrinsic or whether the notion of odds is simply a measure of our our
> ignorance of the underlying causes.
No, he did not ask that. Perhaps he wished he had, or maybe you wish he had,
but you can't change reality. What is this "odds" stuff, anyway? Are you
saying that your failure at predicting the outcome of coin tossing is due to
ignorance, or lack of control? Those are different things.
Immortalist
"Robert J. Kolker" <robert...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2ojqhdF...@uni-berlin.de...
Do you mean, just outside the range of what we could theoretically determine?
> Bob Kolker
>
> >
>
Immortalist
"Dave Odden" <od...@ling.ohio-state.edu> wrote in message
news:_s1Vc.194401$fv.1...@fe2.columbus.rr.com...
If one controls causality in one instance and lacks control of causality in
another instance, is there a difference in this "theory of causality" of yours
that you claim is a law and always outside of consciousness?
>
Immortalist
But aren't "facts" really very good "folk (theories)"
CARLSON: Ms. Scott -- hold on. That's not -- in some ways, that's not really
the question. I mean, the question is: Shall we admit the truth that
evolution is a theory? It's the theory of evolution, not the law of
evolution. And what's wrong with admitting that?
SCOTT: Well, in science, a theory is an explanation. Of course evolution is
a theory, just like gravitation. But what we should be...
CARLSON: Wait, I thought gravity was a law. The law of gravity, right...
SCOTT: No, gravity...
CARLSON: ... or is this so far over my head I don't know what you're talking
about? I thought it was a law.
SCOTT: Well, I'll tell you what, if you drop something, it's going to fall.
That's an observation: unsupported things fall. But you explain that
observation with the theory of gravity, which is that the mass of what
whatever it is you dropped, a pencil or a pen or something, is attracted by
the mass...
CARLSON: Well you are blowing my mind...
SCOTT: That's not an observation.
CARLSON: ... law of gravity. Honestly, is it not the law, it's really a
theory of gravity?
SCOTT: It's a theory of gravity. But remember, a theory is an explanation.
SPRIGG: ... should point out, Scott, though, that theories of origins and
theories that are testable in terms of current experimentation are somewhat
different in a scientific perspective. We can't experimentally confirm
evolution.
SCOTT: Sure we can...
CNN Crossfire:
Secret Court Stymies Justice Department; Creationists Square off with
Evolutionists; Should Bush Be Telling Americans to Exercise?
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/24/cf.00.html
> Bob Kolker
>
1Z
Since the bias comes from minute variations and imperfections in a
macroscopic object, the solution would presumably be to deal
with single particles.
Tom Clarke
Give the man a cigar!
From
http://www.randomnumbers.info/content/Generating.htm
"Formally, quantum random number generators are the only
true random number generators."
Assuming, of course, that Jodhbir meant
bias = "deviation of the expected value of a statistical
estimate from the quantity it estimates"
Dave Odden
> > > Can an event like tossing a coin or rolling a dice be completely
> > > unbiased towards its results?
> > > Is it possible to generate a totally unbiased event??
> > Yes; events have no consciousness, and bias is a property of
consciousness.
> > On the other hand, if you're really asking whether events violate the
law of
> > causality, then the answer is no.
> If one controls causality in one instance and lacks control of causality
in
> another instance, is there a difference in this "theory of causality" of
yours
> that you claim is a law and always outside of consciousness?
Sorry, I can't figure out how to relate your question to what I said. An
event has no consciousness so it can have no bias. A person can, of course,
and a person can (in principle) use their bias to cause specific events and
prevent others. So, suppose you have a bias against spiders and happen to be
free to drop a brick on one (knowing a little bit about basic physics and
how letting go of the brick while it's above the spider will cause the brick
to fall, and squish the spider). You can use your consciousness in two ways,
one to act on a bias (which is intrinsically consciousness related) and two
to control the causal events. But events that aren't triggered by a
conscious being are not caused due to a bias.
Paul Bramscher
Since consciousness is arguably a subset of natural phenomena, whether
one argues for an organic or electrical foundation, like everything else
-- then it may be overly restrictive to limit bias to the subset of
nature we call consciousness.
Engineers deal with physical bias all the time. A coin with heads on
both sides is biased in flipping toward a result of heads, as are dice
loaded with weights under one side. Or the spin of an object. All
movements of matter, living or dead, are alive with the same subatomic
energy.
Events are bias-in-action.
Robert J. Kolker
Dave Odden wrote:
>
> No, he did not ask that. Perhaps he wished he had, or maybe you wish he had,
> but you can't change reality. What is this "odds" stuff, anyway? Are you
> saying that your failure at predicting the outcome of coin tossing is due to
> ignorance, or lack of control? Those are different things.
Ignorance of all the relevent physical conditions affecting the outcome
prevents a determination of the outcome. The next best thing is to
assume some of these factors cancel out over a large ensemble of tosses.
It turns out this is the case. Coin tosses with well made balanced
coins, tossed in a way that does not strongly affect the outcome
preduces the expected 50-50 distribution or something close to it.
If we know every force operating on the coin and the distribution of
metal mass in the coin exactly we could predict the outcome with
certainty or near certainty. Under most circumstances we do not have all
this information.
Bob Kolker
>
>
>
>
Dave Odden
> > > The real question is whether the odds are
> > > intrinsic or whether the notion of odds is simply a measure of our our
> > > ignorance of the underlying causes.
> > No, he did not ask that. Perhaps he wished he had, or maybe you wish he
had,
> > but you can't change reality. What is this "odds" stuff, anyway? Are you
> > saying that your failure at predicting the outcome of coin tossing is
due to
> > ignorance, or lack of control? Those are different things.
> Ignorance of all the relevent physical conditions affecting the outcome
> prevents a determination of the outcome.
Yes, yes, that's obvious. Now what do you do if you know the causal factors
but can't control them? You have this idea that uncontrolled outcomes only
arise from ignorance. You left out one of the two possibilities -- it's not
just about ignorance. Ignoring half the problem doesn't make it go away.
Dave Odden
> Since consciousness is arguably a subset of natural phenomena, whether
> one argues for an organic or electrical foundation, like everything else
> -- then it may be overly restrictive to limit bias to the subset of
> nature we call consciousness.
This isn't a question of being restrictive, it's just about correctly
identifying what "bias" is. I'm not unfamiliar with that metaphor, but if
you want to ask basic philosphical questions about the nature of reality,
it's important to actually ask what you want to know, and not throw up a
metaphorical smokescreen. It's easy to do, but that doesn't make it a good
thing to do.
> Events are bias-in-action.
No, events are relations (of action) between entities.
Robert J. Kolker
Dave Odden wrote:
> Yes, yes, that's obvious. Now what do you do if you know the causal factors
> but can't control them? You have this idea that uncontrolled outcomes only
> arise from ignorance. You left out one of the two possibilities -- it's not
> just about ignorance. Ignoring half the problem doesn't make it go away.
>
Then you -measure them- and use the information to make a prediction.
Next question?
Bob Kolker
>
Albert
Poor try, Bob. QM was not the topic. I'm paying attention, even
if you are not.
Albert
You claim to know, without objective evidence, that the
phenomena of mind, consciousness, reason and will, are explainable
by reductionism. Plus you have recently introduced QM into
the mix with absolutely no objective evidence that
quantum phenomena have anything to do with consciousness,
reason or will. For someone who worships reductionism,
you sure take a lot on faith.
Paul Bramscher
> "Paul Bramscher" wrote:
>
>
>>Since consciousness is arguably a subset of natural phenomena, whether
>>one argues for an organic or electrical foundation, like everything else
>>-- then it may be overly restrictive to limit bias to the subset of
>>nature we call consciousness.
>
>
> This isn't a question of being restrictive, it's just about correctly
> identifying what "bias" is. I'm not unfamiliar with that metaphor, but if
> you want to ask basic philosphical questions about the nature of reality,
> it's important to actually ask what you want to know, and not throw up a
> metaphorical smokescreen. It's easy to do, but that doesn't make it a good
> thing to do.
No smokescreen. I'm suggesting that consciousness offers nothing at the
relevant level here that unconsciousness offers, both arise from the
same source (sub-atomic mass/energy) and are held in the same container
(nature). So, arguably, bias is not restricted to consciousness.
>
>
>>Events are bias-in-action.
>
>
> No, events are relations (of action) between entities.
I differ. Events are shifts of state. No state change, no event. What
makes an object change state is (a) some reconfiguration, introduction
or loss of mass/energy and (b) a tendency to behave a certain ways in
response to it (or "bias" if you will). For example, increasing
pressure, allowing a chemical reaction to occur, etc. At least at the
level of chemistry (not sure about quantum mechanics), substances
interact fairly predictably following rules intrinsic to their current
states + some factor which causes them to change, and the substance
changes accordingly.
Since everything has a chemical makeup, and is subject to the laws of
space, geometry and physics, I conclude that events are the unfolding of
natural bias -- no more, no less.
Dave Odden
> > > > > The real question is whether the odds are
> > > > > intrinsic or whether the notion of odds is simply a measure of our
our
> > > > > ignorance of the underlying causes.
> > > > No, he did not ask that. Perhaps he wished he had, or maybe you wish
he
had,
> > > > but you can't change reality. What is this "odds" stuff, anyway? Are
you
> > > saying that your failure at predicting the outcome of coin tossing is
due to
> > > > ignorance, or lack of control? Those are different things.
> > > Ignorance of all the relevent physical conditions affecting the
outcome
> > > prevents a determination of the outcome.
> > Yes, yes, that's obvious. Now what do you do if you know the causal
So you are saying that you measure a factor which you know about, then that
automatically gives you the magic ability to control that factor?
Dave Odden
> No smokescreen. I'm suggesting that consciousness offers nothing at the
> relevant level here that unconsciousness offers, both arise from the
> same source (sub-atomic mass/energy) and are held in the same container
> (nature). So, arguably, bias is not restricted to consciousness.
Well, if you can demonstrate purposive choice by rocks and cars, go for the
gusto.
> > No, events are relations (of action) between entities.
> I differ. Events are shifts of state. No state change, no event.
Isn't that implicit in the concept "action"?
> Since everything has a chemical makeup, and is subject to the laws of
> space, geometry and physics, I conclude that events are the unfolding of
> natural bias -- no more, no less.
Are you claiming that Mother Nature is sentient?
Robert J. Kolker
Dave Odden wrote:
>
> So you are saying that you measure a factor which you know about, then that
> automatically gives you the magic ability to control that factor?
No, you putz. It gives you the ability to predict an outcome.
Bob Kolker
>
>
>
Robert J. Kolker
Dave Odden wrote:
>
>
> Are you claiming that Mother Nature is sentient?
Probably not. But sentience reduces to physical processes.
Bob Kolker
>
>
Dave Odden
> > Are you claiming that Mother Nature is sentient?
> Probably not. But sentience reduces to physical processes.
Although you have no clue how; nor do you have any evidence that it is a
"reduction".
Dave Odden
> > So you are saying that you measure a factor which you know about, then
that
> > automatically gives you the magic ability to control that factor?
> No, you putz. It gives you the ability to predict an outcome.
That's irrelevant, you putz. You still haven't acknowledged that ability to
predict an outcome is not the same as the ability to control an outcome.
You've failed: now explain why you failed. Because you lack control over the
situation, or because you don't understand the situation?
Robert J. Kolker
Dave Odden wrote:
>
> That's irrelevant, you putz. You still haven't acknowledged that ability to
> predict an outcome is not the same as the ability to control an outcome.
I so acknowledge. It doesn't bother the astroners and it doesn't bother me.
Bob Kolker
Matt Giwer
> Can an event like tossing a coin or rolling a dice be completely
> unbiased towards its results?
> Is it possible to generate a totally unbiased event??
If you generate it, probably not because the generating equipment
would introduce bias. Intel just announced a random number chip based
on thermal noise. Radioactive decay is another method however
measuring it without bias is an issue.
--
All Iraqis must ask themselves, are they better
off now than they were two years ago.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3225
Albert
>
>
> Dave Odden wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Are you claiming that Mother Nature is sentient?
>
>
> Probably not. But sentience reduces to physical processes.
Except where you claimed in an earlier post that sometimes shit
just happens without a cause. Apparently, your religious
adherence to reductionism comes and goes as the spirit moves you.
LOL. BTW, you *still* have presented *no* objective evidence
that sentience reduces to physical processes. Your religious
faith in reductionism is showing, Bob.
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
> Robert J. Kolker wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Dave Odden wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Are you claiming that Mother Nature is sentient?
>>
>>
>>
>> Probably not. But sentience reduces to physical processes.
>
>
> Except where you claimed in an earlier post that sometimes shit just
> happens without a cause. Apparently, your religious adherence to
> reductionism comes and goes as the spirit moves you. LOL. BTW, you
> *still* have presented *no* objective evidence that sentience reduces to
> physical processes. Your religious faith in reductionism is showing, Bob.\
It is currently and open question. I am betting on reduction and you are
betting against it. We have no falsifiable theories of mind and our
theories about how the brain works get better by the year. The matter
(or is the the mind) will be decided when someone builds something like
an Asimov positronic brain that gives the impression that it is
supporting a mind. At that point we know mind is material. Until then we
can either argue or wait for the results. I prefer to wait for the
results. If you can make it out of stuff, it is stuff.
At present reduction is ahead of anything else by at least two to one.
Bob Kolker
Sir Frederick
>
> "Sir Frederick" wrote:
>
> > I know "consciousness" is a folk
> > psychology term. Other than that,
> > what does it (with any reality)
> > mean?
>
> It's a mental state. I assume you're not asking a serious question.
Do you mean that when people
use the term (such as here),
hey are joking?
Interesting cultural habit.
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcn...@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill/
*************************
Phrase of the week :
I have never met a bored biologist. Biologists suffer from
paranoia, frustrated ambition, angst about their sex lives, lack
of hard cash, and all the usual frets that beset mankind. But
they are not bored.
-- Martin Wells
:-))))Snort!)
*************************
tg
Under which circumstances *do* we have all of this information?
-tg
> Bob Kolker
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
David Schwartz
> Dave Odden wrote:
>> Are you claiming that Mother Nature is sentient?
> Probably not. But sentience reduces to physical processes.
Again Bob demonstrates that he uses the word "reduces" in a very
non-standard way. When he "reduces" the sensation of pain in this way, he
can explain everything except the painfulness. The problem is, that's all
there is to the *sensation* of pain.
His solution is to claim that the sensations don't exist. This is far
different from "reducing" them.
DS
David Schwartz
> No smokescreen. I'm suggesting that consciousness offers nothing at
> the relevant level here that unconsciousness offers, both arise from
> the same source (sub-atomic mass/energy) and are held in the same
> container (nature). So, arguably, bias is not restricted to
> consciousness.
I don't understand what you mean by "bias" in this context. I'm assuming
you mean what I think you mean (the ability to create information), but I
could be totally wrong.
Yes, if consciousness can exhibit true free will (by creating
information), then it's certainly possible that things that are not
conscious could create information as will. Information can potentially be
created by processes other than free will, and presumably free will itself
implements such a process.
> I differ. Events are shifts of state. No state change, no event. What
> makes an object change state is (a) some reconfiguration,
> introduction or loss of mass/energy and (b) a tendency to behave a
> certain ways in response to it (or "bias" if you will). For example,
> increasing pressure, allowing a chemical reaction to occur, etc. At
> least at the level of chemistry (not sure about quantum mechanics),
> substances interact fairly predictably following rules intrinsic to
> their current states + some factor which causes them to change, and
> the substance changes accordingly.
Hmm, now I'm pretty sure I don't know what you're talking about. These
'tendencies' either make future events/states inevitable or they don't.
> Since everything has a chemical makeup, and is subject to the laws of
> space, geometry and physics, I conclude that events are the unfolding
> of natural bias -- no more, no less.
This says nothing more than that whatever happens happens, but it
ignores all of the real questions. Certainly even if free will can create
information and can make something happen even if other outcomes were
consistent with all physical laws previously, it can still be described as
things doing what they do, which is all you seem to mean by "unfolding of
natural bias".
Do you agree that free will cannot exist if at any time, only one
outcome of future events is consistent with all physical laws?
DS
Albert
<snip>
> At present reduction is ahead of anything else by at least two to one.
Two whats to one what?
Robert J. Kolker
tg wrote:
>
> Under which circumstances *do* we have all of this information?
For ordinary coin tossing? No. Maybe coin tossing in a laboratory can be
made more predictable. However if there are chaotic dynamics involved (I
do not know if there are or not) forget it. That is why we cannot
predict the weather ten days out with accuracy, regardless of how many
measurements we make.
Bob Kolker
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
> Robert J. Kolker wrote:
> <snip>
>
>> At present reduction is ahead of anything else by at least two to one.
>
>
> Two whats to one what?
Relative frequency of success. Success = correct predictions as verified
by experiment and promotion of theory to useful technology.
So far the greatest triumph of the mentalists and the cartesians has
been Freudian psychoanalysis and we all know how good that is.
Looney manic depressive behaviour was not brought under control by Mind
Science, but by lithium. All the successes in treating so-called mental
diseases has come out the the pharmacutical industry. Sanity in a pill,
that is what works.
Albert, the sooner you catch on to the fact that we are meat that walks
and talks the sooner you will be enlightened. We are made of exactly the
same stuff as trees, rocks and shit. There is nothing spirutual about
humans. We are beasts of the field. We just happen to talk better than
most mammals. We are born, we live a little while, then we die and rot.
That is the epic story of human existence. If God made us then He did a
shitty job. If God exists then He is a Cosmic Incompetent. I could do a
better job and I am not even that smart.
Bob Kolker
Bob Kolker
Paul Bramscher
> Paul Bramscher wrote:
>
>
>>No smokescreen. I'm suggesting that consciousness offers nothing at
>>the relevant level here that unconsciousness offers, both arise from
>>the same source (sub-atomic mass/energy) and are held in the same
>>container (nature). So, arguably, bias is not restricted to
>>consciousness.
>
>
> I don't understand what you mean by "bias" in this context. I'm assuming
> you mean what I think you mean (the ability to create information), but I
> could be totally wrong.
Information is assembled from data, and is strictly a human construct in
relation to a question posed by a human being -- despite its
reappropriation by physicists and communications experts (Claude Shannon).
I'm using bias the way an engineer or electrician talks about resistors,
or in the way that a social scientist talks about culture, politics
and media. It has nothing to do with
ephemeral/abstraction/reappropriated notions of "information." It's
quite simple: the tendency to reach some states instead of others.
> Yes, if consciousness can exhibit true free will (by creating
> information), then it's certainly possible that things that are not
> conscious could create information as will. Information can potentially be
> created by processes other than free will, and presumably free will itself
> implements such a process.
Where is there free will? A shrieking infant, someone in a drunken
stupor or coma, the mentally retarded, chemically addicted,
pathological, a senile person, when we're asleep every night? Free will
is an oxymoron, requiring a set of impossible conditions to become
possible. The only thing we can demonstrate about "will" is that no
brain = no consciousness, that our brain chemistry and culture/stimuli
affects our moods and decisions, and that chemistry enjoys no freedom:
the laws of chemistry do not change. Many human cultures have no
concept of free will in their own cosmologies. Where comes an
underlying free will out of this? It's a problem of its own creation in
that it requires a set of impossible conditions to be true (like god,
theodicy, and others perhaps).
>>I differ. Events are shifts of state. No state change, no event. What
>>makes an object change state is (a) some reconfiguration,
>>introduction or loss of mass/energy and (b) a tendency to behave a
>>certain ways in response to it (or "bias" if you will). For example,
>>increasing pressure, allowing a chemical reaction to occur, etc. At
>>least at the level of chemistry (not sure about quantum mechanics),
>>substances interact fairly predictably following rules intrinsic to
>>their current states + some factor which causes them to change, and
>>the substance changes accordingly.
>
>
> Hmm, now I'm pretty sure I don't know what you're talking about. These
> 'tendencies' either make future events/states inevitable or they don't.
Do they? If you weigh down the side of a die such that it is no
overbearing, you may roll a 6 with higher than ordinary frequency -- but
not always. Indeed, if you always rolled a six, your opponent would
immediately suspect cheating. So the "tendency" I'm refering to is a
"tendency", not a deterministic inevitability -- check www.webster.com?
>>Since everything has a chemical makeup, and is subject to the laws of
>>space, geometry and physics, I conclude that events are the unfolding
>>of natural bias -- no more, no less.
>
>
> This says nothing more than that whatever happens happens, but it
> ignores all of the real questions. Certainly even if free will can create
> information and can make something happen even if other outcomes were
> consistent with all physical laws previously, it can still be described as
> things doing what they do, which is all you seem to mean by "unfolding of
> natural bias".
No. Take life -- while it must adhere to the laws of space, physics and
chemistry, there is still "wiggle room" for mutation, deformation,
innovation, even sterility and non-viability in offspring. There is a
bias in fertiziling a zygote to produce offspring similar to -- yet
different from -- its parents. Do you see the world only in terms of
utterly chaotic spontaneous change vs. single-track determinism? No
room for bias, tendency, probability, trend, inclination, temperament?
> Do you agree that free will cannot exist if at any time, only one
> outcome of future events is consistent with all physical laws?
I'm not sure what you're asking, but free will has shown itself to be
artifact of early Western church doctrine, important to considerations
of sin/faith/redemption, but absolutely non-demonstrable, with no
physical basis, and not even internally consistent with itself.
Dave Odden
> > It's a mental state. I assume you're not asking a serious question.
> Do you mean that when people
> use the term (such as here),
> hey are joking?
> Interesting cultural habit.
No, on the contrary, when somebody uses the term "consciousness", I assume
they are serious, and they mean what they say. It's when somebody asks "What
do you mean by consciousness?", I assume they are joking. Well, not always;
I also allow the possibility that they don't speak English as their first
language, but usually gonna say English words not put together good, I
figger out it a language problem not a joke.
Dave Odden
> Where is there free will?
Did you have a metaphysically irresistable urge to post that question?
> The only thing we can demonstrate about "will" is that no
> brain = no consciousness, that our brain chemistry and culture/stimuli
> affects our moods and decisions, and that chemistry enjoys no freedom:
> the laws of chemistry do not change. Many human cultures have no
> concept of free will in their own cosmologies.
What makes you think such a thing? Do you want to name names? And why would
it be significant if some culture didn't have a sufficiently developed
philosophy that there didn't have a theory of knowledge, consciousness and
cause-and-effect?
1Z
>
> I know "consciousness" is a folk
> psychology term. Other than that,
> what does it (with any reality)
> mean?
What do "reality" and "mean" mean ?
Paul Bramscher
I'm speaking from earning a triple-major in anthropology, history, and
computer science with some graduate work under my belt, so I have a
different take on machines and mind than people with other backgrounds.
Philosophy doesn't "develop" in any linear sense. Philosophy is a
cultural byproduct, shooting off in many different directions. And, so,
from a pan-epistemological perspective (not simple cultural relativism).
while I can say for certain that A + A = 2A, as a hermetic tautology, I
cannot say that one particular strain of Western philosophical thinking
on the issue of free will is better than or worse than another. So I
deliberately limit myself to observables and simple maxims which can be
confirmed with experiment. atoms->molecules->DNA->nervous
system->brain->brain waves->thought. And then move on from there.
If we might make a generalization about the "paleolithic world view" or
traditional societies everywhere we typically find that rather than
emphasizing the individual differentiated ego, the lowest "unit" may be
the family or clan. And so the concept of free will -- present or not
-- is unimportant, even useless or heretical.
I believe that cultures are "in charge" of themselves in the sense that
internally justified norms emerge from them, with feedback mechanisms
which confirm them to their adherrents. And if, for example, the Amish
or Hutterites believe in God's Will and the Will of the Colony -- and
that individual free will is by nature sinful (if it were truly
possible) -- then I acknowledge that one particular Western take on free
will, if based on abstract argument and not on physical evidence, is no
more legitimate than the next abstract epistemology.
Something which can be confirmed with experiment or observation of
phenomena is far safer ground to tread upon.
The word "free" in the phrase "free will" parts ways with reality
immediately. Free is a concept with an infinitude imbedded within it.
There are no known natural phenomena which contain a infinite property
or quantity of something. The universe appears to be discrete. So
while "will" is an abstraction, we know immediately that "free" doesn't
exist in the "real world". So immediately we must speak of "discrete
will" or "limited will".
Albert
>
>
> Albert wrote:
>
>> Robert J. Kolker wrote:
>> <snip>
>>
>>> At present reduction is ahead of anything else by at least two to one.
>> Two whats to one what?
> Relative frequency of success. Success = correct predictions as verified
> by experiment and promotion of theory to useful technology.
Of course, we were *not* discussing 'technology'. We were
discussing mind. Mind is one of those areas where reductionism
has so far failed miserably.
> So far the greatest triumph of the mentalists and the cartesians has
> been Freudian psychoanalysis and we all know how good that is.
Irrelevant.
> Looney manic depressive behaviour was not brought under control by Mind
> Science, but by lithium. All the successes in treating so-called mental
> diseases has come out the the pharmacutical industry. Sanity in a pill,
> that is what works.
Also, irrelevant.
> Albert, the sooner you catch on to the fact that we are meat that walks
> and talks the sooner you will be enlightened. We are made of exactly the
> same stuff as trees, rocks and shit. There is nothing spirutual about
> humans. We are beasts of the field. We just happen to talk better than
> most mammals. We are born, we live a little while, then we die and rot.
I agree, but you stop short of the whole truth.
> That is the epic story of human existence. If God made us then He did a
> shitty job. If God exists then He is a Cosmic Incompetent. I could do a
> better job and I am not even that smart.
Strawman. Bait not taken. The argument was about reductionism
and mind. No mention was made in this thread about God. You
have painted yourself into a corner and hope to obscure the
issue; Reductionism has not yet explained the very real
phenomena of mind: consciousness, reason and will.
If you can compose no reply, then let the subject drop. I would
rather not continue with your obfuscations and my constant
recalling of you to the topic. It is tedious and boring.
Rick Russell
Dave Odden <od...@ling.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
> No, on the contrary, when somebody uses the term "consciousness", I
> assume they are serious, and they mean what they say. It's when
> somebody asks "What do you mean by consciousness?", I assume they
> are joking.
I don't see why you think it's a joke. It's not a trivial
question. I've discussed it with many people, and found that people
mean very different things by "consciousness" (*). It's perfectly
reasonable to ask what someone means by consciousness.
(*) For example, on sci.skeptic, try chewing on this incredibly
long thread from May 2003:
http://groups.google.com/groups?th=8072da630c9fa631
Rick R.
tg
Ignorance of all the relevent physical conditions affecting the
outcome
prevents a determination of the outcome. The next best thing is to
assume some of these factors cancel out over a large ensemble of
tosses.
It turns out this is the case. Coin tosses with well made balanced
coins, tossed in a way that does not strongly affect the outcome
preduces the expected 50-50 distribution or something close to it.
If we know every force operating on the coin and the distribution of
metal mass in the coin exactly we could predict the outcome with
certainty or near certainty. Under most circumstances we do not have
all
this information.
Bob Kolker
So how about a simple example of having all the information---where
there is no acceptance of some margin of error?
-tg
Robert J. Kolker
tg wrote:
>
> So how about a simple example of having all the information---where
> there is no acceptance of some margin of error?
>
As long as we use instruments which are succeptable to thermal
perterbation, there is always a margin of error. We our not Gods and our
instruments are not Perfect.
Bob Kolker
tg
Then all predictions are statistical, and there is no such thing as determinism.
This observation does not require the existence of quantum theory.
-tg
Robert J. Kolker
tg wrote:
>
> Then all predictions are statistical, and there is no such thing as determinism.
>
All verifications of predictions are measured with instruments with a
jiggle. That is why an error bracket is associated with the experiments.
It is entirely possible for the world to be both statistical and
deterministic. If we could control quantities to an infinite number of
decimal places we would have determinism, but we can't so we don't.
The world could be theoretically determinstic even though we are stuck
with the jiggles. That is a practical matter.
Here is an example. Ed Lorenz non-linear differential equation for air
convection are perfectly deterministic, but small differences in initial
conditions lead to big differences in outcome (the so-called butterfly
effect). That is how Lorenz re-discovered chaotic dynamics which had
been researched by Henri Poincare toward the end of the 19-th century.
The more serious limitation is the Heisenberg Indeterminacy Principle.
There is no way of getting around that, even with perfect instruments.
To the extent that quantum theory is true, the world is indeterminate.
Bob Kolker
Albert
Including the activities of the brain? Does 'indeterminate' mean
'cause unknown' or 'without cause'? Where does the term
'indeterminate' fit in reductionism.
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
> Including the activities of the brain? Does 'indeterminate' mean 'cause
> unknown' or 'without cause'? Where does the term 'indeterminate' fit in
> reductionism.
The quantum wave function obeys a very determinate differential
equations until an observation is made. Reductionism means explaining
the whole in terms of the parts and their interactions. Holism is
predicated on the assumption that there are laws of the system that
cannot be so reduced. It may be that the reduction is mathematically
difficult or even intractable so we may be forced to make holistic
assumptions for purely practical reasons. That is why there are
principles in chemistry which are not laboriously derived from
Schroedinger's equation or such like.
As to cause, it depends on which is means. If you mean efficient cause
which requires each effect have a specific and proximate cause, that
simply does not fit in with quantum theory. If you mean formal cause,
then we have definite laws (even if they be probablistic) that stand in
the place of Aristotle's formal causes. There are perfectly specific and
definite laws in quantum theory. So in that sense formal cause is alive
and well. We also have the conservation laws and their associated
symmetries (see Noether's Theorem). In that sense our understanding of
reality is quite causal, but not necessarily deterministic.
Bob Kolker
>
>
Keynes
Reason is easily explained as the function of the brain-nerve-net.
Channels are established and connections are electro-chemical.
Computers can do reasoning better and faster than we can.
There is no mystery about human reasoning.
Will is the ability to to what you want to do. What you want to do
is determined by instinct and nurture. Free will is the impression
that doing what you want is some sort of freedom. But the need
to forever do what you want is as unfree as never being able to
do what you want. Besides, one doesn't choose his likes and
dislikes. They are mechanically produced apart from will, and
afterwards determine what our will must be.
Consciousness is the only mystery. It can't be explained by
any reductionist mechanical means. There is a disconnect between
electro-chemistry and consciousness. If there weren't, then even
every computer and uninhabited chem lab would be conscious.
Consciouness appears to be an undeniable subjective phenomena
with NO outwardly observable qualities. We all know it in ourselves,
but there is no way to observe or prove it in any other person or thing.
The apparent intelligence of the insects has been explained as genetic
habits. No doubt much of human intelligence is the same. Babies all
go through an aquatic stage and only become air-breathers at birth,
(a clever trick that requires no ordinary intelligence.) We deny
will and consciousness to the insects and claim it for ourselves.
But complex adaptive behaviors don't require flexible will or
consciousness in bees, ants, termites, and babies. Behavior
can't define consciousness as we know it.
Can you imagine human existence without consciousness? We may
lose a leg or a liver and still be human, but without consciousness
there can be no 'being' at all. A person is conscious of a body
and a mind, but those don't produce consciousness, they are
merely objects of consciousness, just like the trees and the sky.
The mind seems to be an effect of the brain. We have memories,
moods, thoughts, etc. Brain damage and chemicals can affect the
mind no doubt. But the mind is an object of consciousness, not
a producer of consciousness. We can be conscious of a body
and a mind in the world, but we can't be conscious of consciousness.
We just have it. And when we don't have it we don't exist.
Ultimately, how can there be a universe if there is no consciousness
of it? There may be infinite unconscious universes, but if no one
or nothing knows them, can they be said to exist?
Consciousness must be the absolute irreducable ground of being.
And we have no explanation for it. We can't produce it artificially,
or perceive it naturally. We can't get our hands on it.
tednat
Michael Gray
wrote:
:
>Consciousness is the only mystery. It can't be explained by
>any reductionist mechanical means. There is a disconnect between
:
>Consciousness must be the absolute irreducable ground of being.
>And we have no explanation for it. We can't produce it artificially,
:
Have you read "Freedom Evolves"?
(Dennet 2003)
It doesn't sound like you have.
tg
No, it isn't possible for the world to be both statistical and
deterministic.
To say that the world is deterministic but we are stuck with the
jiggles is like saying God exists but is unknowable. Neither is a
scientific statement.
Either uncertainty or indeterminacy is intrinsic to all measurements,
or it isn't. If you wish to claim that it isn't, it is necessary to
demonstrate that.
So far, we have demonstrated success in *reducing* indeterminacy, but
that is hardly sufficient.
The world is indeterminate, whether quantum theory is true or not.
-tg
Albert
Excellent piece of Newspeak.
Albert
<snip>
> Have you read "Freedom Evolves"?
> (Dennet 2003)
> It doesn't sound like you have.
Have you read Steiner? It doesn't sound like you have.
http://www.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA004/TPOF/
Robert J. Kolker
Keynes wrote:
> Consciousness is the only mystery. It can't be explained by
> any reductionist mechanical means. There is a disconnect between
> electro-chemistry and consciousness. If there weren't, then even
> every computer and uninhabited chem lab would be conscious.
Not necessarily. Conscousness requires a very complicated physical
entity to manifest it. Our computers are simple and crude by comparison
to the teeny brain of an ant.
>
> Consciouness appears to be an undeniable subjective phenomena
> with NO outwardly observable qualities. We all know it in ourselves,
> but there is no way to observe or prove it in any other person or thing.
Which is why empirical science has a hard time with it. One of the
requirements of empircal science is experimental corroberation and
reproduction of the observation. So far you are the only person in the
universe that can claim to have a mind and have the evidence to prove
it. You have no way of showing that the rest of us are mere automata. I
will make you a little bit happy. I am a mere automaton so you are right
about me.
>
> The apparent intelligence of the insects has been explained as genetic
> habits. No doubt much of human intelligence is the same. Babies all
> go through an aquatic stage and only become air-breathers at birth,
> (a clever trick that requires no ordinary intelligence.) We deny
> will and consciousness to the insects and claim it for ourselves.
> But complex adaptive behaviors don't require flexible will or
> consciousness in bees, ants, termites, and babies. Behavior
> can't define consciousness as we know it.
Consciousness is only known subjectively, so how can you make that
statement?
>
> Can you imagine human existence without consciousness?
I can. I do not have a mind. I never had a mind. I never will have a
mind. I am living proof that a physical entity can simulate intelligence
without a mind.
> We may
> lose a leg or a liver and still be human, but without consciousness
> there can be no 'being' at all. A person is conscious of a body
> and a mind, but those don't produce consciousness, they are
> merely objects of consciousness, just like the trees and the sky.
Oh yea. How much consciousness would you have if your brain were turned
to Jello by a 45 calibre slug.
>
> The mind seems to be an effect of the brain. We have memories,
> moods, thoughts, etc. Brain damage and chemicals can affect the
> mind no doubt.
Finally you have it. What you call mind is something the brain does.
Period. The stomach digests and the brain minds.
Bob Kolker
Albert
<snip>
> mind. I am living proof that a physical entity can simulate intelligence
> without a mind.
> What you call mind is something the brain does.
> Period. The stomach digests and the brain minds.
Interesting bit of logic, Bob: (1) mind is something the brain
does (2) you don't have a mind (so you say above). Therefore, is
it fair to say that your brain doesn't work correctly?
Robert J. Kolker
Albert wrote:
>
> Interesting bit of logic, Bob: (1) mind is something the brain does (2)
> you don't have a mind (so you say above). Therefore, is it fair to say
> that your brain doesn't work correctly?
Shame on me for not being more precise. I do not possess a mind in the
sense of a separate independent substance different from my brain. Maybe
you do, but I don't. All I ever had were brains, nerves and glands plus
all the fleshy infrastructure necessary to maintain them. I am meat. I
always was meat. When I die I will become rotting meat.
Bob Kolker
Wordsmith
Does freedom itself evolve...or just our perception of it?
W :)
Immortalist
"Albert" <alwa...@tcac.net> wrote in message
news:10ih7r0...@corp.supernews.com...
> Michael Gray wrote:
> <snip>
> > Have you read "Freedom Evolves"?
> > (Dennet 2003)
> > It doesn't sound like you have.
>
Freedom Evolves
by Daniel Clement Dennett
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670031860/
Trading in a supernatural soul for a natural soul-is this a fair
bargain?" Dennett, seeking to fend off "caricatures of Darwinian
thinking" that plague his philosophical camp, argues in this
incendiary, brilliant, even dangerous book that it is. Picking up
where he left off in Darwin's Dangerous Idea (a Pulitzer and National
Book Award finalist), he zeroes in on free will, a sticking point to
the opposing camp. Dennett calls his perspective "naturalism," a
synthesis of philosophy and the natural sciences; his critics have
called it determinism, reductionism, bioprophecy, Lamarckianism.
Drawing on evolutionary biology, neuroscience, economic game theory,
philosophy and Richard Dawkins's meme, the author argues that there is
indeed such a thing as free will, but it "is not a preexisting feature
of our existence, like the law of gravity." Dennett seeks to counter
scientific caricature with precision, empiricism and philosophical
outcomes derived from rigorous logic. This book comprises a kind of
toolbox of intellectual exercises favoring cultural evolution, the
idea that culture, morality and freedom are as much a result of
evolution by natural selection as our physical and genetic attributes.
Yet genetic determinism, he argues, does not imply inevitability, as
his critics may claim, nor does it cancel out the soul. Rather, he
says, it bolsters the ideals of morality and choice, and illustrates
why those ideals must be nurtured and guarded. Dennett clearly
relishes pushing other scientists' buttons. Though natural selection
itself is still a subject of controversy, the author, director of the
Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts, most certainly is in the
vanguard of the philosophy of science.
An aggressive writer certain of his positions (he titled an earlier
book Consciousness Explained, 1991), philosopher Dennett here
continues his quest to demolish metaphysical conceptions of human
nature. Our cherished concept of free will is the subject of this
work. It may relieve those delving into his dense Darwinian
argumentation that Dennett decides that such an attribute of humanity
does indeed exist, albeit as a product of aimless evolution. He builds
up to his conclusion by first breaking down a definition of
determinism, illustrated with references to atoms, Martin Luther, and
a computer model of evolution. Dennett then upholds the principles of
Darwinian algorithms, which endlessly iterated created robotlike cells
and, ultimately, us. The latter topic will perk up general readers'
interest, as Dennett advances the nitty-gritty of his view of free
will by seeking out logical flaws in a no-free-will interpretation of
neurological experiments, and by insisting on an evolutionary picture
of altruism and responsibility. In a complex presentation, Dennett's
essential points will be plain to the serious readership for this
work.
Daniel C. Dennett is a brilliant polemicist, famous for challenging
unexamined orthodoxies. Over the last thirty years, he has played a
major role in expanding our understanding of consciousness,
developmental psychology, and evolutionary theory. And with such
groundbreaking, critically acclaimed books as Consciousness Explained
and Darwin's Dangerous Idea (a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize
finalist), he has reached a huge general and professional audience.
In this new book, Dennett shows that evolution is the key to resolving
the ancient problems of moral and political freedom. Like the planet's
atmosphere on which life depends, the conditions on which our freedom
depends had to evolve, and like the atmosphere, they continue to
evolve-and could be extinguished. According to Dennett, biology
provides the perspective from which we can distinguish the varieties
of freedom that matter. Throughout the history of life on this planet,
an interacting web and internal and external conditions have provided
the frameworks for the design of agents that are more free than their
parts-from the unwitting gropings of the simplest life forms to the
more informed activities of animals to the moral dilemmas that
confront human beings living in societies.
As in his previous books, Dennett weaves a richly detailed narrative
enlivened by analogies as entertaining as they are challenging. Here
is the story of how we came to be different from all other creatures,
how our early ancestors mindlessly created human culture, and then,
how culture gave us our minds, our visions, our moral problems-in a
nutshell, our freedom.
Daniel C. Dennett is a university professor and the director of the
Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. In addition to
Darwin's Dangerous Idea, he is also the author of Kinds of Minds and
Consciousness Explained.
Strange, if you bust your brain on all the latest science, these
philosophers only appear to graze the surface. [physical space &
design space, AKA micro meso macro, with circuit properties
undetermined by only one necessity.
http://tinyurl.com/isml
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/dennett.html
http://www.kenanmalik.com/reviews/dennett_freedom.html
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/~ddennett.htm
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/
> Have you read Steiner? It doesn't sound like you have.
> http://www.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA004/TPOF/
>
Interesting link, looking it over.
Keynes
How do you know that?
>Our computers are simple and crude by comparison
>to the teeny brain of an ant.
>>
Yes and no. My bank uses no ants on my account.
Modern dogma is that human brains produce consciousness.
Granted, the brain is the mechanical mind. What has that to do
with consciousness? To be conscious of a mind is not equivalent
to the mind itself producing that consciousness.
There is no evidential link here.
It's an unscientific 'just so story' accepted without any proof.
(Or logical basis.)
>> Consciouness appears to be an undeniable subjective phenomena
>> with NO outwardly observable qualities. We all know it in ourselves,
>> but there is no way to observe or prove it in any other person or thing.
>
>Which is why empirical science has a hard time with it. One of the
>requirements of empircal science is experimental corroberation and
>reproduction of the observation. So far you are the only person in the
>universe that can claim to have a mind and have the evidence to prove
>it.
Evidence for mind is easy to come by. Mind is mechanical in
construction and observably mechanical in operation. Human
mind is a particular case of certain behaviors. But all of nature
behaves in it's own ways just as we do in our own ways.
Saying that the human mind has a physical electro-chemical basis is to
admit mind-ness to all physical reactions even down to the elementary
chemical and immaterial energy fields.
But mind is not the issue.
Where does indetectable consciousness enter in?
(And what would a mind be without a conscious observer?)
>You have no way of showing that the rest of us are mere automata. I
>will make you a little bit happy. I am a mere automaton so you are right
>about me.
>>
We're all automatons. Everything we do is a reaction, not an action.
Rational explanations all depend on cause and effect. Reductionists
will say that the mind is no more than an electro-chemical pinball
machine bubbling with inevitable chain reactions. All of human
life can be reduced to minute chemical reactions in the brain-
sense-thought factory. That's true from a physical point of
view. But what's missing from this picture? It could apply
equally to any complex chemistry (in a septic tank for example).
Does anyone actually believe the reductionist premise that
one's own life is trivial, worthless and not worth the trouble?
Where's the mass suicide by demoralizing ennui of all the
rational physicalist thinkers? They're just striking a pose
and don't really believe it themselves.
Beyond that, how can chemistry produce consciousness?
>> The apparent intelligence of the insects has been explained as genetic
>> habits. No doubt much of human intelligence is the same. Babies all
>> go through an aquatic stage and only become air-breathers at birth,
>> (a clever trick that requires no ordinary intelligence.) We deny
>> will and consciousness to the insects and claim it for ourselves.
>> But complex adaptive behaviors don't require flexible will or
>> consciousness in bees, ants, termites, and babies. Behavior
>> can't define consciousness as we know it.
>
>Consciousness is only known subjectively, so how can you make that
>statement?
>>
So called intelligent behavior is the supposed criteria for consciousness.
(Doesn't apply to computers, insects, animals or plants though.)
It's claimed that successful variable reactions to external events are
the mark of consciousness. If so, then plants have it, and atoms have it,
and energy has it as well. What doesn't react lawfully and 'rationally'?
>> Can you imagine human existence without consciousness?
>
>I can. I do not have a mind. I never had a mind. I never will have a
>mind. I am living proof that a physical entity can simulate intelligence
>without a mind.
>
Consciousness has nothing to do with intelligence.
The mind is an object of consciousness, not the creator of it.
>
>> We may
>> lose a leg or a liver and still be human, but without consciousness
>> there can be no 'being' at all. A person is conscious of a body
>> and a mind, but those don't produce consciousness, they are
>> merely objects of consciousness, just like the trees and the sky.
>
>Oh yea. How much consciousness would you have if your brain were turned
>to Jello by a 45 calibre slug.
Irrelevant, but certainly not immaterial, you rascal.
You are confusing brain-mind with consciousness,
taking the object for the subject. If you can't prove a
living person is conscious, how can you go beyond that
and argue about consciousness of the dead?
>>
>> The mind seems to be an effect of the brain. We have memories,
>> moods, thoughts, etc. Brain damage and chemicals can affect the
>> mind no doubt.
>
>Finally you have it. What you call mind is something the brain does.
>Period. The stomach digests and the brain minds.
>
>Bob Kolker
I made a distinction between mind and consciousness.
Did you miss that?
The brain-mind opperates mostly beneath the level of consciousness.
We're not conscious of our cells hormonal traffic, our digestion,
immune system, breath, heartbeat, etc. We don't rejoice at cell
divisions or mourn the constant death of skin cells.
The mechanical intelligence of any cell is currently beyond our
comprehension. Isn't it fortunate that we're so much smarter
than any miniscule cell? The brain-mind is made of ignorant
little cells supposedly doing our will and not their own. Ha!
They actually made and operate and completely control the brain,
the ignorant little twitchers. It's time we showed them who is the boss.
Mechanism rules the world from a physicalist point of view.
Unfortunately physicalists can't account for consciousness.
Lacking any evidence and contrary to wit, they just proclaim
that it's merely more of the same.
Keynes
Must you wait? ;-)
I agree that we are all meat to the bone. Yet we make an
absurd distinction between wives and hamburger. What's
the difference? Can you say there is no difference?
Immortalist
"Wordsmith" <word...@rocketmail.com> wrote in message
news:cddcc385.04082...@posting.google.com...
Free will is something bubbling up out of the activities of the brain that when
constantly combining exert influence upon themselves. This process may involve
100 billion nerve cells, various organizational stabilities in an emerging
hierarchal influence, influences from changing sensory data. I am an sharer in
control freely steering an vast system which steers the elements of freedom. Some
of these activities are identical to my subjectivity.
Mill used to say something along the lines that the steering of the self by will
makes the system end up somewhere else where we decide and our progress is
checked by "stored memory" accessed in the future and slight course details
adjusted appropriately. Therefore if this is what Mill believed then free will is
"extended in and across time?"
"Mill's argument is basically that we have free will, but that we will
almost always choose to act the same way if faced with the same
circumstances. The reason for this according to Mill is because of who we
are, what our characters are, what beliefs, desires, and motivations we
have. These factors influence our actions, and because we don't usually
change the core of our person, we are fairly regular in our actions, unless
we purposefully choose to act against our normal characters."
http://www.elliotcross.com/essays/essay4.html
Free will is an personalized interaction in an massive field of interactive
causes. If the motive rolls out the organizational structure that steers the rest
it is free. If an system is imposed down upon it from the top down it is not
free. There is an spectrum of Control; centralized and decentralized.
Decentralized control of simple factors that grow into massive events are free.
Like people voting for politicians the will is an summed set of cycles ever
changing into an free choice. Where is the freedon/causation here?
The notion that in an ecosystem view of parallel processes some point in an
attempt to reduce it all would show that smaller units in the ecosystem might
similar to serial computers but an ecosystem by this symbology would consist of
trillions of serial computers organized into a multi-layered grammatical
structure of organizational entities each with threir sphere of influence all at
once contributing to the overall emerging waves of influence pon the backs of
various levels of activity.
It seem to me that it is more appropriate to consider free will in the context of
a herd. All the individuals influence the direction of the mass of individuals.
Maybe the sense of self and freedom comes from an overall activity but the means
that initiate these activities are like Shpherders or sheep dog. By a few simple
rules and with a few individuals the entire masses of individuals can be herded
in this direction of that. The sheep dog has a few simple rules to simulate an
objective movement of the herd like; if the dog sees some individuals moving and
steering in an undesired direction he runs over and nips the heels of a few
select sheep and a wave of exponentially growing movement increases across the
herd that may alter the general trajectory of the population.
For us there may be a disconnect because our sense of being, consciousness and
freedom may be major cross regional and mode locked regions of the brain but the
stimulants to these vaster activities are small groups of herding impulses. Up
and down back and forth in scale the dynamic fluctuates. These small influences
have to grow so the initial state can lead to very complex results and some
information trickles back down so that a monitoring effect takes place etc....
------------------------------------------
...It's an election hall of idiots, for idiots, and by idiots, and it works
marvelously. This is the true nature of democracy and of all distributed
governance. At the close of the curtain, by the choice of the citizens, the swarm
takes the queen and thunders off in the direction indicated by mob vote. The
queen who follows, does so humbly. If she could think, she would remember that
she is but a mere peasant girl, blood sister of the very nurse bee instructed (by
whom?) to select her larva, an ordinary larva, and raise it on a diet of royal
jelly, transforming Cinderella into the queen. By what karma is the larva for a
princess chosen? And who chooses the chooser?
"The hive chooses," is the disarming answer of William Morton Wheeler, a natural
philosopher and entomologist of the old school, who founded the field of social
insects. Writing in a bombshell of an essay in 1911 ("The Ant Colony as an
Organism" in the Journal of Morphology), Wheeler claimed that an insect colony
was not merely the analog of an organism, it is indeed an organism, in every
important and scientific sense of the word. He wrote: "Like a cell or the person,
it behaves as a unitary whole, maintaining its identity in space, resisting
dissolution...neither a thing nor a concept, but a continual flux or process."
It was a mob of 20,000 united into oneness.
http://www.kk.org/outofcontrol/
> W :)
Albert
Thanks. It will be interesting to see if he pulled it off.
<snip>
Albert
>
>
> Albert wrote:
>
>>
>> Interesting bit of logic, Bob: (1) mind is something the brain does
>> (2) you don't have a mind (so you say above). Therefore, is it fair
>> to say that your brain doesn't work correctly?
>
>
> Shame on me for not being more precise. I do not possess a mind in the
> sense of a separate independent substance different from my brain. Maybe
As I have already pointed out before, I never argued for a
separate 'mind substance'; In fact, I don't remember arguing
*for* anything but the existence of mind and denying that mind
can be explained by your ridiculous, all encompassing, reductionism.
JonTi
> <snip!>
> Consciousness is the only mystery. It can't be explained by any
> reductionist mechanical means. There is a disconnect between
> electro-chemistry and consciousness. If there weren't, then even every
> computer and uninhabited chem lab would be conscious.
>
> Consciouness appears to be an undeniable subjective phenomena with NO
> outwardly observable qualities. We all know it in ourselves, but there
> is no way to observe or prove it in any other person or thing. <snip!>
This sounds like the Zombie problem -- how can we have confidence that
other people are conscious? Or, to put it another way, how can we have
confidence in the existence of other minds?
Practically speaking, we do have that confidence, and, in this paper
http://www.zynet.co.uk/imprint/Moody_zombies.html
"an argument is presented that the presence of consciousness is indeed
marked by a behavioural difference, but that this should be looked for at
the _cultural_ level of speech communities."
JonTi
I think the joke is that one has to assume one's debating partners know
what it like to be conscious, otherwise they could shed little light on
the matter.
As the saying goes, "there is something which it is like, to be conscious"
-- that's just the way it is.
Michael Gray
>Michael Gray wrote:
><snip>
>> Have you read "Freedom Evolves"?
>> (Dennet 2003)
>> It doesn't sound like you have.
>
>Have you read Steiner? It doesn't sound like you have.
>http://www.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA004/TPOF/
Thanks. :-)
No, I haven't, but I will now.
Paul Bramscher
There is one missing component in your reductionism, however, and that's
electricity. The body doesn't "create" electricity, but through complex
metabolic processes renders food into the "meat" you refer to, but
also into signals passing through it.
The nervous system cannot be reduced to one's own "meat". It is part of
a larger organism, including the food you take in, and physically
possible states and viable configurations through which electricity flows.
So in a sense, the brain is like a cup holding water. It doesn't create
the water, but its form helps to shape it. When the brain rots, the
energy which one passed through it does not rot. What's left
dissipates, and the system it relied on to introduce new energy is broken.
1Z
> Philosophy doesn't "develop" in any linear sense.
So you say.
>
> The word "free" in the phrase "free will" parts ways with reality
> immediately. Free is a concept with an infinitude imbedded within it.
So you say. Is someone who has just been freed from jail , *infinitely* free ?
> There are no known natural phenomena which contain a infinite property
> or quantity of something. The universe appears to be discrete.
FYI, "discrete" does not mean "finite".
1Z
Actually, that's Dennet's attempt to explain/reduce/eliminate free will.
His attempt to explain/reduce/eliminate consciousness is "consciousness explained".
Both are worth reading. Neither should be taken without a bucketload
of salt.
JonTi
> Paul Bramscher <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
> news:<cg5di1$se3
>
>> Philosophy doesn't "develop" in any linear sense.
>
> So you say.
>
>
>> The word "free" in the phrase "free will" parts ways with reality
>> immediately. Free is a concept with an infinitude imbedded within it.
>
> So you say. Is someone who has just been freed from jail , *infinitely*
> free ?
>
>
Sure, no-one is *infinitely* free. Even so, I'd say that we either
have freewill, or we do not. That's not the same as having freedom --
there are degrees of freedom.
I like the analogy of someone in a voting booth. That person can use their
*freewill* as they choose, to vote for anyone on the ballot, or spoil
their paper. They can choose freely ... but their *freedom* is limited
to the choices on offer.
Paul Bramscher
> On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:59:03 -0700, 1Z wrote:
>
>
>>Paul Bramscher <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
>>news:<cg5di1$se3
>>
>>
>>>Philosophy doesn't "develop" in any linear sense.
>>
>>So you say.
>>
>>
>>
>>>The word "free" in the phrase "free will" parts ways with reality
>>>immediately. Free is a concept with an infinitude imbedded within it.
>>
>>So you say. Is someone who has just been freed from jail , *infinitely*
>>free ?
>>
>>
>
>
>
> Sure, no-one is *infinitely* free. Even so, I'd say that we either
> have freewill, or we do not. That's not the same as having freedom --
> there are degrees of freedom.
Then it's a misnomer. Let's speak of "will" -- not freewill. If you
advertise Free Beer and charge a price, however small, it's not free is it?
> I like the analogy of someone in a voting booth. That person can use their
> *freewill* as they choose, to vote for anyone on the ballot, or spoil
> their paper. They can choose freely ... but their *freedom* is limited
> to the choices on offer.
You realize the fallacy in your definition of free and freedom? You've
categorically eliminated the converse: limitation, restriction,
imprisonment, lack of freedom, etc. You're basically suggesting that
freedom is ever-present (unlike anything else: neither matter, energy,
love, hate, beer or anything else is capable of this).
One might argue that a prisoner is free: he can freely pace his cell.
He is free to blink his eyes, free to breathe (except perhaps in Abu
Ghraib). A slave is free: he can kill himself. A person being tortured
is free: he can think about something other than his pain. Not quite!
Free and freedom are perfect ideals, never realized. So to speak of
freewill is an abstract ideal, an imaginery concept. The "free" part
simply makes no sense.
JonTi
If we take the definition of freewill to be the ability to add new
information to a situation, then one is either capable of adding
information, or not. You may wish to say that some entities (organisms)
are able to add a great deal of info, whereas others, only a tiny bit. But
there is still an absolute distinction between blind mechanism
(computability) and actors able to add information to their world.
> One might argue that a prisoner is free: he can freely pace his cell. He
> is free to blink his eyes, free to breathe (except perhaps in Abu
> Ghraib).
> A slave is free: he can kill himself. A person being tortured is free:
> he can think about something other than his pain. Not quite!
Well, OK, it may well be possible to so constrain an actor that he cannot
act at all, not even in terms of directing his own attention or attitudes.
I accept that. Yes, if one is sufficiently evil, one can foreclose
another's freewill, reducing them to an object. What of it?
> Free and freedom are perfect ideals, never realized. So to speak of
> freewill is an abstract ideal, an imaginery concept. The "free" part
> simply makes no sense.
I think you reject a priori the idea of freedom (un- or under-determined
actions). I don't. So what you say does not sound right to me. It kinda
sounds like ...
Circles and squares, wheels and pulleys are perfect ideals, never
realised. So to speak of freewheeling is an abstract ideal, an imaginary
1Z
> >>>The word "free" in the phrase "free will" parts ways with reality
> >>>immediately. Free is a concept with an infinitude imbedded within it.
> >>
> >>So you say. Is someone who has just been freed from jail , *infinitely*
> >>free ?
> >>
>
> You realize the fallacy in your definition of free and freedom? You've
> categorically eliminated the converse: limitation, restriction,
> imprisonment, lack of freedom, etc. You're basically suggesting that
> freedom is ever-present (unlike anything else: neither matter, energy,
> love, hate, beer or anything else is capable of this).
>
> One might argue that a prisoner is free: he can freely pace his cell.
> He is free to blink his eyes, free to breathe (except perhaps in Abu
> Ghraib). A slave is free: he can kill himself. A person being tortured
> is free: he can think about something other than his pain. Not quite!
They don't have enough freedom to qualify as 'free' by common-sense
standards. But it remains a fallcy to suppose that the only
amount of freedom that qualifies someone as free is an infinite
amount. That would be, as you put it, "unlike anything else".
We don't say that people are not rich unless they have
an infinite amount of money, etc, etc.
> Free and freedom are perfect ideals, never realized.
That answers the question. Someone who has been let out of
jail isn't free....by your sense of 'free'. But they
are free by everyone else's sense, so your sense is idiosyncratic.
JonTi
No, I explicitly used the ideas of limitation and restriction to draw a
distinction between having freewill, and having the freedom to exercise
that freewill.
> One might argue that a prisoner is free: he can freely pace his cell. He
> is free to blink his eyes, free to breathe (except perhaps in Abu
> Ghraib).
> A slave is free: he can kill himself. A person being tortured is free:
> he can think about something other than his pain. Not quite!
>
> Free and freedom are perfect ideals, never realized. So to speak of
> freewill is an abstract ideal, an imaginery concept. The "free" part
> simply makes no sense.
>
>
No, I don't understand what you're getting at here. I imagine a person
under torture wills himself free -- that's why he will confess to anything
the torturer suggests.
I can accept that, in the term "freewill", the "free" adds little to the
"will", but I don't accept that "free" makes no sense, anymore than I
accept that "will" makes no sense.
I think you reject a priori the idea of freedom of action (of
underdetermined or undetermined actions). But I think it's an empirical
question. An organism has freewill if it is able to add information to
its situation. Some organisms may be able to do this to a greater extent
than others. But there is still an absolute difference between those that
can add information to the world, and mechanisms that cannot.
1Z
> Saying that the human mind has a physical electro-chemical basis is to
> admit mind-ness to all physical reactions even down to the elementary
> chemical and immaterial energy fields
Of course not. To say that computers have a physical basis
does not mean individual silicon atoms have "computerness".
To say the digestive system has a physical basis does
not mean electrons have "digestiveness". "Computerness",
etc, only exists at a much higher level than fundamental paricles--
yet it is entirely composed of fundamental physical going-on.
It is high-level but reducible.
> It's claimed that successful variable reactions to external events are
> the mark of consciousness. If so, then plants have it, and atoms have it,
> and energy has it as well. What doesn't react lawfully and 'rationally'?
How can a reaction be lawful AND variable ?
Keynes
>Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote in message
>
>> Saying that the human mind has a physical electro-chemical basis is to
>> admit mind-ness to all physical reactions even down to the elementary
>> chemical and immaterial energy fields
>
>Of course not. To say that computers have a physical basis
>does not mean individual silicon atoms have "computerness".
Then why do we use them in computers?
Why not use bacon?
>To say the digestive system has a physical basis does
>not mean electrons have "digestiveness".
If they don't, how can we digest?
>"Computerness",
>etc, only exists at a much higher level than fundamental paricles--
>yet it is entirely composed of fundamental physical going-on.
>It is high-level but reducible.
>
Good point.
Configuration is the thing.
How does necessary complexity arise?
Isn't it a feature of the competition in natural selection?
(And even geological processes?)
Looks like the trend to complexity is built into nature.
How random can that be (statistically speaking)?
>
>> It's claimed that successful variable reactions to external events are
>> the mark of consciousness. If so, then plants have it, and atoms have it,
>> and energy has it as well. What doesn't react lawfully and 'rationally'?
>
How does a plant 'know' to send roots down and stems up?
How does it follow the sun? How do trees count the days
and the hours of sunlight in order to retrieve the chlorophyll
from their leaves and then drop them (even before frost).
>How can a reaction be lawful AND variable ?
If behavior has a physical basis, then it must be lawful.
If behavior is variable, then there must be a means for selecting
optimum tactics, rather than rote procedures. We call this
intelligence. The social insects are not believed to be thinkers.
Their cooperative intelligence has been built in by natural selection.
(Of course this can't apply to humans who are all their own intelligent
masters and each entirely self made. ;-P )
My point was that apparently intelligent behaviors are built
into nature, both in living things and likely in the non-sentient.
Non-sentient matter and energy have rote intelligence which
we take for granted and manipulate successfully. Science says
that the four forces did not exist in the beginning. They have
evolved 'naturally' from a hypothetical single force.
The test for consciousness cannot be behaviors.
Paul Bramscher
The availability of ingredients, proximity and time -- thus the observed
artifact of variability is the sum of the number of laws observed.
Which basically suggests to me that the term "law" is a pre-scientific
anthropomomorphic reading into nature. We want nature to obey like a
good servant or slave. We certainly need a new language to describe
things in non-deterministic, non-chaotic, and non-anthropomorphic terms.
I suggest we use the term "emergence" instead, to dodge the whole
issue of law and (by implication) lawyer and legislator.
Consciousness is defined in too many ways, by too many epistemologies,
cultures and writers, that it's alongside "intelligence" and "love" in
its ambiguity.
Probably the working definition that most people expect out of
consciousness is (a) the ability to capture external stimuli (visually,
aurally, etc.) into memory representation, (b) the ability to act upon
it, and (c) the ability to discuss it in hindsight, relating
observation, action, and result of action together. In this sense
"action" could also be merely mental state, in other words a "reaction".
Clearly computers qualifiy as conscious. So most people seem to add (d)
anthropomorphic ego. I think therefore I am. The "thinking" is only
possible, according to the anthropomorphic interpretation, by humans.
But how do we know that the person next to us is conscious unless he
tells us? So, perhaps, we just need to be "believers" when the first
machine tells us it's conscious: printf("I'm conscious.");
It may be all in the mind of the beholder...
Keynes
Are they free to vote for the candidate they don't want?
The ability to do as we please is stronger than steel bars.
We not only have that ability -- it is an inflexible necessity.
And the critieria we choose by are never chosen by anyone.
They are planted in us without our willing it. We are born
with instintive inclinations. Our parents show us the world
and we accept their instructions innocently without doubt
or question. Comes the age of reason and we accept this
mentor or that according to previous programming.
Following our conscience and better nature are unbreakable
rules of personal behavior. We are rigidly programmed to
do as we do. (And quite self-righteous about it too.)
JonTi
> On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 18:57:11 +0100, JonTi <jo...@london.com> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 09:59:03 -0700, 1Z wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Bramscher <brams00...@tc.umn.edu> wrote in message
>>> news:<cg5di1$se3
>>>
>>>> Philosophy doesn't "develop" in any linear sense.
>>>
>>> So you say.
>>>
>>>
>>>> The word "free" in the phrase "free will" parts ways with reality
>>>> immediately. Free is a concept with an infinitude imbedded within it.
>>>
>>> So you say. Is someone who has just been freed from jail , *infinitely*
>>> free ?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Sure, no-one is *infinitely* free. Even so, I'd say that we either have
>>freewill, or we do not. That's not the same as having freedom -- there
>>are degrees of freedom.
>>
>>I like the analogy of someone in a voting booth. That person can use
>>their *freewill* as they choose, to vote for anyone on the ballot, or
>>spoil their paper. They can choose freely ... but their *freedom* is
>>limited to the choices on offer.
>
> Are they free to vote for the candidate they don't want?
> <snip!>
I daresay for plenty of folks that's the only choice there is ...
Eric Rowley
> On 24 Aug 2004 07:15:18 -0700, peter...@yahoo.com (1Z) wrote:
> >Keynes <Key...@earthlinkspam.net> wrote in message
> >> Saying that the human mind has a physical electro-chemical
> >>basis is to admit mind-ness to all physical reactions even
> >>down to the elementary chemical and immaterial energy fields
> >Of course not. To say that computers have a physical basis does
> >not mean individual silicon atoms have "computerness".
> Then why do we use them in computers?
> Why not use bacon?
Because bacon tends to decompose and also attracts wasps and mice.
Besides it's hard to train the pigs to grow them little transistor
thingies.
<snip>
Eric
Keynes
wrote:
I'd call computers 'aware' in that they are responsive to stimuli
in a more useful and apparent way than other mechanical reactions.
All the world is responsive and aware of it's surroundings, reacting
to heat, cold, gravity, polarity, pressure, etc. The computations of
physical nature, the cosmic abacus, are what we call physical reality.
But consciousness is not the same as this responsive awareness.
>But how do we know that the person next to us is conscious unless he
>tells us? So, perhaps, we just need to be "believers" when the first
>machine tells us it's conscious: printf("I'm conscious.");
>
>It may be all in the mind of the beholder...
I make a distinction between mind and consciousness.
Mind is explicable in mechanical electro-chemical terms.
But consciousness is not explainable. We don't even
understand what it is, so how can we say how it is produced?
(Somewhat like the concept of time.)
Mind is a process of time, linear and plodding along with
atomic motions. (Time is cause and effect motion in space.)
We can change our mind over and over and still feel that
we are the same observer as we ever were. That observing
' I ' is our consciousness.
Mechanical mind is a feature of physical time.
Consciousness as we experience it is outside of time.
It's not of the past nor the future, but only now and
forever now. The body is meat. The mind is a computer.
But consciousness is of a different order entirely.
We can see life of the mind-impaired. We can imagine
body-less life after death. But can anyone imagine human
life without consciousness? It's our one indispensable feature.
Without it we are nothing.
Call it anthropomorphism or the agrandizing of human nature,
but I think that without some consciousness somewhere,
there can be nothing at all. Let there be infinite universes
without consciousness, and they would amount to nothing.
Does this really promote mankind to godhood? Only if we
imagine that consciousness is uniquely produced in humans
by timely physical means. Many today think that's the case.
If so, let them show a physical time-related cause for
the timelessness of consciousness.
If humans don't physically produce consciousness, then
where does it come from? Could it be the very cause
of all being-existence?
Kamerynn
Robert J. Kolker wrote:
>
>
> Albert wrote:
>
>> Robert J. Kolker wrote:
>> <snip>
>>
>>> At present reduction is ahead of anything else by at least two to one.
>>
>>
>>
>> Two whats to one what?
>
>
> Relative frequency of success. Success = correct predictions as verified
> by experiment and promotion of theory to useful technology.
Kam:
Elsewhere, I've argued against the very possibility of
the reduction of consciousness, and you had nothing to say
in criticism of that argument.
Reduction carves off the subjective feel of a phenomenon
and focuses on what we find important. Reduction itself does
not lend predictive power to science. The (evidenced) hypothesis
that heat is *caused* by kinetic molecular energy *does* lend
predictive power; the consequent reduction - that heat is *nothing
but* kinetic molecular energy - merely carves off the subjective
feel from heat, and adds no predictive power whatsoever. Reduction
focuses on what gives us predictive power, but it doesn't, to
be precise, give us any predictive power itself.
>
> So far the greatest triumph of the mentalists and the cartesians has
> been Freudian psychoanalysis and we all know how good that is.
Kam:
Not every opponent of eliminative materialism is a mentalist
or Cartesianist. Many who believe in the irreducibility of
consciousness believe that it is none the less physical.
>
> Looney manic depressive behaviour was not brought under control by Mind
> Science, but by lithium. All the successes in treating so-called mental
> diseases has come out the the pharmacutical industry. Sanity in a pill,
> that is what works.
>
> Albert, the sooner you catch on to the fact that we are meat that walks
> and talks the sooner you will be enlightened. We are made of exactly the
> same stuff as trees, rocks and shit. There is nothing spirutual about
> humans. We are beasts of the field. We just happen to talk better than
> most mammals. We are born, we live a little while, then we die and rot.
> That is the epic story of human existence. If God made us then He did a
> shitty job. If God exists then He is a Cosmic Incompetent. I could do a
> better job and I am not even that smart.
>
> Bob Kolker
>
>
> Bob Kolker
>