psychology - the study of the soul

[iaoua iaoua]

We often use words in our modern version of the English language with
no real understanding of where they came from or what they may have
originally meant. Take 'psychology' for example - obviously a word
that makes use of roots of Greek origin. More precisely it is a
combination of the Greek words Psyche and Logos - mind and word
(literally) but soul and study (more abstractly). Yes, we use the root
logos for many modern English words indicating a science or a study of
some kind. Biology, geology, phonology to name but a few. Of course,
this is nothing new. Everybody already knows that much right. So what
is being presented that is not trivial and that is interesting here.
Well, not very many people know that the Greek word which translates
the Hebrew concept of nephesh (often poorly translated as soul) is
'psyche' the very object of Augustus study which he concluded to be
immortal and indestructible.

So what is this psyche? Just what are all those psychologists devoting
so much time to understanding? What is the mind? What is the soul? Is
is but a configuration of some hardware, the brain, or is it something
immaterial which exists in parallel with, uses and receives sensory
information from the hardware, the brain? We are of course touching on
that problematic and very much unsolved area of the mind versus
machine. Can the mind be adequately described with the machine or do
we need to imagine some operator some homunculus in order to make our
explanation complete?

That is the question.

Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
the question of immortality. If the mind is merely a combination of
parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were
in before the body died?

JC

[Tim Anderson]

Who is "we" in this rant, paleface?

[Kleuskes & Moos]

On Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:13:35 -0700, iaoua iaoua wrote:

> We often use words in our modern version of the English language with no
> real understanding of where they came from or what they may have
> originally meant. Take 'psychology' for example - obviously a word that
> makes use of roots of Greek origin. More precisely it is a combination
> of the Greek words Psyche and Logos - mind and word (literally) but soul
> and study (more abstractly). Yes, we use the root logos for many modern
> English words indicating a science or a study of some kind. Biology,
> geology, phonology to name but a few. Of course, this is nothing new.
> Everybody already knows that much right. So what is being presented that
> is not trivial and that is interesting here. Well, not very many people
> know that the Greek word which translates the Hebrew concept of nephesh
> (often poorly translated as soul) is 'psyche' the very object of
> Augustus study which he concluded to be immortal and indestructible.

I think you mean Augustinus. Augustus wasn't exactly one of the church-fathers.

> So what is this psyche? Just what are all those psychologists devoting
> so much time to understanding? What is the mind? What is the soul? Is is
> but a configuration of some hardware, the brain, or is it something
> immaterial which exists in parallel with, uses and receives sensory
> information from the hardware, the brain? We are of course touching on
> that problematic and very much unsolved area of the mind versus machine.
> Can the mind be adequately described with the machine or do we need to
> imagine some operator some homunculus in order to make our explanation
> complete?

If so, what makes the homunculus operate? What does it use to make decisions?
Why hasn't some 'homunculus' been detected yet?

> That is the question.

Hmmm... I don't think so.

> Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
> the question of immortality.

Ok. I'll answer that: you're not immortal and you _will_ die.

> If the mind is merely a combination of
> parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
> could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
> resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
> resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
> needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were in
> before the body died?

I don't think so.

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/ Why are these athletic shoe salesmen \
\ following me?? /
--------------------------------------
\
\
___
{~._.~}
( Y )
()~*~()
(_)-(_)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[David Iain Greig]

iaoua iaoua <iaoua...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We often use words in our modern version of the English language with
> no real understanding of where they came from or what they may have
> originally meant.

In your case, 'science' seems to be a roadblock for starters.

--D. 'see also: sane'

[Connie]

Just one small correction, which I offer without meaning to offend:
the etymology of a word is not its meaning.

[iaoua iaoua]

On Oct 17, 1:42 pm, Kleuskes & Moos <kleu...@somewhere.else.net>
wrote:

Ever hear about the paper which took some people and gave them an
inverted mouse and gave them a simple task to do on a computer? They
had to get used to the fact that moving the mouse right made the
cursor move left etc. i.e. it was a learning a new task with enough
knowledge from related tasks exercise. What did it show. It showed
that the cerebellum lit up like a house on fire for several hours
until they had learned how to use the inverted mouse and then
cerebellar activity decreased considerably. Now I'm not saying that
the homunculus lives in the cerebellum but I did find it an
interesting experiment.

In any case, you seem to be making prejudiced assumptions about what I
am saying. I am saying I don't whether we can explain the mind by
machine alone with no recourse to some kind of homunculus. But our
perception of vision would seem to point us in a determined direction.
By examining the machinery we can see a number of processing stages
until a 3D image is constructed and presented to the perception. But
what is that conscious perception which is able to watch that video
and make sense of it? We do not seem to have any empirical machine
based answer to this question. We do have a handful of hypotheses
which seem worth pursuing.

> > That is the question.
>
> Hmmm... I don't think so.
>
> > Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
> > the question of immortality.
>
> Ok. I'll answer that: you're not immortal and you _will_ die.

I am not yet immortal. Whether I die or not will depend on God
Almighty's decision. I am confident that I will not. You are free to
interpret this in one of two ways. Either a) arrogance and self
righteousness or b) an expression of great faith in God's desire and
ability to save me and make me immortal, sinless and clean. No prizes
for guessing which way you are likely to judge.

>
> > If the mind is merely a combination of
> > parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
> > could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
> > resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
> > resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
> > needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were in
> > before the body died?
>
> I don't think so.
>

So, you disagree that if we construct a machine brain to the exact
same parameters as the current state of your brain then that mind will
be your mind and will, in deterministic fashion, go on to behave and
make the same decisions as you would have done given the same inputs?
If so, what do you think you have that cannot be implemented in
machinery? Do you believe in some immaterial homunculus? If so, that
would seem to contradict your attitude above.

JC

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----

[iaoua iaoua]

In no way was it suggested that it was.

>> or what they may have
> > originally meant

note 'may have'

JC

[Arkalen]

(2011/10/17 21:13), iaoua iaoua wrote:

Hey, you're branching out into another scientific field ! Cool.

> We often use words in our modern version of the English language with
> no real understanding of where they came from or what they may have
> originally meant. Take 'psychology' for example - obviously a word
> that makes use of roots of Greek origin. More precisely it is a
> combination of the Greek words Psyche and Logos - mind and word
> (literally) but soul and study (more abstractly). Yes, we use the root
> logos for many modern English words indicating a science or a study of
> some kind. Biology, geology, phonology to name but a few. Of course,
> this is nothing new. Everybody already knows that much right. So what
> is being presented that is not trivial and that is interesting here.
> Well, not very many people know that the Greek word which translates
> the Hebrew concept of nephesh (often poorly translated as soul) is
> 'psyche' the very object of Augustus study which he concluded to be
> immortal and indestructible.
>
> So what is this psyche? Just what are all those psychologists devoting
> so much time to understanding? What is the mind? What is the soul? Is
> is but a configuration of some hardware, the brain, or is it something
> immaterial which exists in parallel with, uses and receives sensory
> information from the hardware, the brain? We are of course touching on
> that problematic and very much unsolved area of the mind versus
> machine. Can the mind be adequately described with the machine or do
> we need to imagine some operator some homunculus in order to make our
> explanation complete?

But how would an operator or homunculus make the explanation complete ?
If we explain our consciousness by including a conscious operator or
homunculus then we still haven't explained *consciousness*. We just push
back the question to how the operator or homunculus works.

Do you remember this story about how decisions get made in the brain
before we know we made them ?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm

That was pretty cool.

>
> That is the question.
>
> Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
> the question of immortality. If the mind is merely a combination of
> parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
> could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
> resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
> resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
> needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were
> in before the body died?

"All that needs to be done" is quite a lot though. We don't know what
those parameters are or how they function. Besides consciousness isn't a
snapshot, it's a continuous process. Some people propose that our minds
could be uploaded into computers, but we must not only code the brain's
state into the computer, but how that state evolves. If we just upload a
snapshot of the brain it won't be conscious. And even if we imposed that
snapshot on a real or simulated brain so that consciousness could
resume, would it evolve in the same way it would have in the original
brain ?

But then again, wouldn't it evolve in different ways in different
circumstances in any case, even in the original brain ?

[Kleuskes & Moos]

I have a little secret... You won't be. Ever.

> Whether I die or not will depend on God Almighty's decision.

Where's the evidence showing that this "God" character exists?

> I am confident that I will not.

Ah... Overconfidence. Always amusing...

> You are free to interpret this in one of two ways.

I'm free to interpret it any which way i bloody well like.

> Either a) arrogance and self
> righteousness or b) an expression of great faith in God's desire and
> ability to save me and make me immortal, sinless and clean. No prizes
> for guessing which way you are likely to judge.

No prizes if I guess which way I am going to judge? Bummer! From what i
can see, though, the selfrighteousness is dripping from the virtual page.
I don't know whether or not some eternal being will like that or not.

>> > If the mind is merely a combination of parameters, a state of
>> > machine, an abstract mathematical concept which could be reproduced
>> > in software is the mind therefore not at least resurrectable, if not
>> > immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to resurrect any given
>> > mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that needs to be done is
>> > set the parameters right - to the state they were in before the body
>> > died?
>>
>> I don't think so.
>>
>>
> So, you disagree that if we construct a machine brain to the exact same
> parameters as the current state of your brain then that mind will be
> your mind and will, in deterministic fashion, go on to behave and make
> the same decisions as you would have done given the same inputs?

Yes. Build a machine brain and prove me wrong.

> If so, what do you think you have that cannot be implemented in machinery?

The physical expirience of having a body (and associated bodily functions)
for one. A human, after all, is more than just a brain. Social interaction
might also be a problem.

> Do you believe in some immaterial homunculus?

Nope.

> If so, that would seem to contradict your attitude above.

It would, wouldn't it?

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/ Maybe we could paint GOLDIE HAWN a rich \
\ PRUSSIAN BLUE -- /
-----------------------------------------

[Arkalen]

(2011/10/17 22:50), iaoua iaoua wrote:
> On Oct 17, 1:42 pm, Kleuskes& Moos<kleu...@somewhere.else.net>

Why would the homunculus live in the cerebellum as opposed to any other
brain area ?

>
> In any case, you seem to be making prejudiced assumptions about what I
> am saying. I am saying I don't whether we can explain the mind by
> machine alone with no recourse to some kind of homunculus. But our
> perception of vision would seem to point us in a determined direction.
> By examining the machinery we can see a number of processing stages
> until a 3D image is constructed and presented to the perception. But
> what is that conscious perception which is able to watch that video
> and make sense of it? We do not seem to have any empirical machine
> based answer to this question. We do have a handful of hypotheses
> which seem worth pursuing.

We do see that this conscious perception itself is affected by the
brain, and even often illusory. For example we don't perceive a blank
where our blind spot is, we don't notice how incredibly blurry and
color-blind our vision gets as soon as you move away from the incredibly
tiny field that covers the fovea, we're subject to selective attention
and change blindness, what we see affects what we hear and smell and
taste (see the McGurk effect for example)... And it gets really extreme
in cases of people who have brain damage and who have lost a whole half
of their field of vision but don't realize it.

So... is the brain lying to the homunculus ? Is the homunculus lying to
us ? Is our perception of our own consciousness as fundamental,
continuous and complete just one more illusion ?

[Jeffrey Turner]

On 10/17/2011 9:50 AM, iaoua iaoua wrote:
> On Oct 17, 1:42 pm, Kleuskes& Moos<kleu...@somewhere.else.net>

Which part of your computer does the homunculus live in?

> In any case, you seem to be making prejudiced assumptions about what I
> am saying. I am saying I don't whether we can explain the mind by
> machine alone with no recourse to some kind of homunculus. But our
> perception of vision would seem to point us in a determined direction.
> By examining the machinery we can see a number of processing stages
> until a 3D image is constructed and presented to the perception. But
> what is that conscious perception which is able to watch that video
> and make sense of it? We do not seem to have any empirical machine
> based answer to this question. We do have a handful of hypotheses
> which seem worth pursuing.
>
>>> That is the question.
>>
>> Hmmm... I don't think so.
>>
>>> Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
>>> the question of immortality.
>>
>> Ok. I'll answer that: you're not immortal and you _will_ die.
>
> I am not yet immortal. Whether I die or not will depend on God
> Almighty's decision. I am confident that I will not. You are free to
> interpret this in one of two ways. Either a) arrogance and self
> righteousness or b) an expression of great faith in God's desire and
> ability to save me and make me immortal, sinless and clean. No prizes
> for guessing which way you are likely to judge.

How about just silly superstition and some wishful thinking?

>>> If the mind is merely a combination of
>>> parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
>>> could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
>>> resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
>>> resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
>>> needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were in
>>> before the body died?
>>
>> I don't think so.
>
> So, you disagree that if we construct a machine brain to the exact
> same parameters as the current state of your brain then that mind will
> be your mind and will, in deterministic fashion, go on to behave and
> make the same decisions as you would have done given the same inputs?
> If so, what do you think you have that cannot be implemented in
> machinery? Do you believe in some immaterial homunculus? If so, that
> would seem to contradict your attitude above.

We can't construct any of it. And even in theory I don't see how we
could measure and place every ion in every nerve cell.

--Jeff

[iaoua iaoua]

On Oct 17, 3:18 pm, Kleuskes & Moos <kleu...@somewhere.else.net>

I beg to differ. As sure as I have no desire to die I will live
forever if my heart remains humble enough for God to forgive it for
the badness it leads me to do.

> > Whether I die or not will depend on God Almighty's decision.
>
> Where's the evidence showing that this "God" character exists?
>
> > I am confident that I will not.
>
> Ah... Overconfidence. Always amusing...
>

He who laughs last...

> > You are free to interpret this in one of two ways.
>
> I'm free to interpret it any which way i bloody well like.
>

And yet...

> > Either a) arrogance and self
> > righteousness or b) an expression of great faith in God's desire and
> > ability to save me and make me immortal, sinless and clean. No prizes
> > for guessing which way you are likely to judge.
>
> No prizes if I guess which way I am going to judge? Bummer! From what i
> can see, though, the selfrighteousness is dripping from the virtual page.
> I don't know whether or not some eternal being will like that or not.
>

How boringly unsurprising. And yet at the same time how typical of a
person who is the very living definition of self righteousness to
project that quality to those who are not. Notice the word 'self'' in
self righteous? What do you think that means? Self righteousness is,
contrary to popular belief, when you believe your'self' to have a
morality superior to all others that you have defined your 'self'.
Quite contrarily Christians acknowledge that no system of morality of
their own invention could ever even equal nevermind excell the
righteousness that is defined by God and, in fact, is God. It is this
realisation and this humble attitude that makes it possible for God to
forgive his servants and to help them on their way to attain
immortality by putting off that which is rotten and corrupt and *self*
righteous. You see, the day you can be saved depends on your
understanding this very subtle and yet most salient point. Contrary to
your belief you do *not* know better than God and eating the fruit of
the knowledge of good and bad (i.e. deciding for yourself what is
right and wrong) is not the path that leads to being able to eat from
the tree of life and to attaining the immortal, the incorruptible
state of being truly righteous.

> >> > If the mind is merely a combination of parameters, a state of
> >> > machine, an abstract mathematical concept which could be reproduced
> >> > in software is the mind therefore not at least resurrectable, if not
> >> > immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to resurrect any given
> >> > mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that needs to be done is
> >> > set the parameters right - to the state they were in before the body
> >> > died?
>
> >> I don't think so.
>
> > So, you disagree that if we construct a machine brain to the exact same
> > parameters as the current state of your brain then that mind will be
> > your mind and will, in deterministic fashion, go on to behave and make
> > the same decisions as you would have done given the same inputs?
>
> Yes. Build a machine brain and prove me wrong.
>

I didn't claim it was practically easy. I merely posited that if there
is no homunculus, no soul, no immaterial driving the material then
such should as a natural consequence at least be theoretically
possible.

> > If so, what do you think you have that cannot be implemented in machinery?
>
> The physical expirience of having a body (and associated bodily functions)
> for one. A human, after all, is more than just a brain. Social interaction
> might also be a problem.
>

So, you seem to be in agreement with me. If there is no homunculus all
we need to do is reproduce everything in fine detail and resurrection
has been attained. However, I could further argue that we don't
actually need to model a body to give the experience to the machine.
Simply modelling the whole nervous system and giving the right inputs
should be sufficient.

> > Do you believe in some immaterial homunculus?
>
> Nope.
>

Why not? Because you feel uncomfortable with such an idea or because
you really have some strong scientific basis for your conclusion?
Please don't be vague. Be specific. I can assure you that the problem
is far less solved than you seem to think it is.

> > If so, that would seem to contradict your attitude above.
>
> It would, wouldn't it?

Glad we agree.

JC

>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----

[iaoua iaoua]

On Oct 17, 3:10 pm, Arkalen <arka...@inbox.com> wrote:
> (2011/10/17 21:13), iaoua iaoua wrote:
>
> Hey, you're branching out into another scientific field ! Cool.
>

I've been hired to make a dialog system in a massively funded AI
project. So naturally stuff like consciousness has become recently of
great interest to me.

>
>
>
>
> > We often use words in our modern version of the English language with
> > no real understanding of where they came from or what they may have
> > originally meant. Take 'psychology' for example - obviously a word
> > that makes use of roots of Greek origin. More precisely it is a
> > combination of the Greek words Psyche and Logos - mind and word
> > (literally) but soul and study (more abstractly). Yes, we use the root
> > logos for many modern English words indicating a science or a study of
> > some kind. Biology, geology, phonology to name but a few. Of course,
> > this is nothing new. Everybody already knows that much right. So what
> > is being presented that is not trivial and that is interesting here.
> > Well, not very many people know that the Greek word which translates
> > the Hebrew concept of nephesh (often poorly translated as soul) is
> > 'psyche' the very object of Augustus study which he concluded to be
> > immortal and indestructible.
>
> > So what is this psyche? Just what are all those psychologists devoting
> > so much time to understanding? What is the mind? What is the soul? Is
> > is but a configuration of some hardware, the brain, or is it something
> > immaterial which exists in parallel with, uses and receives sensory
> > information from the hardware, the brain? We are of course touching on
> > that problematic and very much unsolved area of the mind versus
> > machine. Can the mind be adequately described with the machine or do
> > we need to imagine some operator some homunculus in order to make our
> > explanation complete?
>
> But how would an operator or homunculus make the explanation complete ?

If the homunculus were immaterial it would make the explainable, the
physical, part of the explanation complete. The rest would remain
unexplainable with a coherent explanation of why.

> If we explain our consciousness by including a conscious operator or
> homunculus then we still haven't explained *consciousness*. We just push
> back the question to how the operator or homunculus works.
>

We take consciousness out of the machine and put it into the spirit.
It's a bit of copout I admit. But nontheless a possiblity that we
should not eliminate until we are able to explain it by purely
physical means.

> Do you remember this story about how decisions get made in the brain
> before we know we made them ?http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
>

It is not surprising that subconscious processes prime decisions later
made by the consciousness. The conscious by and large serves for the
bits of decision making that do not lend well to simple reflexive
stimulus response. This requires stimulated inputs and in the majority
of simple cases it is unsurprising and trivial that subconscious
processes are a good indication of what will later be consciously
decided upon. What is interesting is what happens when the subject is
presented with inputs that lead to a real conundrum. Methinks that
subconscious processes will not be so indicative of what the
consciousness will eventually decide in these special cases.

> That was pretty cool.
>
>
>
> > That is the question.
>
> > Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
> > the question of immortality. If the mind is merely a combination of
> > parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
> > could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
> > resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
> > resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
> > needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were
> > in before the body died?
>
> "All that needs to be done" is quite a lot though. We don't know what

Agreed. The question wasn't meant to suggest triviality in the sense
of easy to do. It was meant to suggest triviality in the sense of
trivially true.

> those parameters are or how they function. Besides consciousness isn't a
> snapshot, it's a continuous process. Some people propose that our minds

Yes. I wasn't suggesting for one moment that a photograph could be the
same as a moving picture.

> could be uploaded into computers, but we must not only code the brain's
> state into the computer, but how that state evolves. If we just upload a
> snapshot of the brain it won't be conscious. And even if we imposed that
> snapshot on a real or simulated brain so that consciousness could
> resume, would it evolve in the same way it would have in the original
> brain ?
>

Of course, you may recall I used the word 'machine'. My intention was
to suggest a device that works not just some memory device.

> But then again, wouldn't it evolve in different ways in different
> circumstances in any case, even in the original brain?

What makes you think that? It is a hypothesis that is impossible for
us to test and so we have no basis other than an intuitional one to
conclude that that is so.

JC

[iaoua iaoua]

If the homunculus is none physical we would conclude it does not even
live in this physical universe. If our consciousness is instead a
perceptive illusion generated by the behaviour of hardware to be
contrasted with hardware that provides inputs to the consciouness
(like the optic and auditory nerves and the thalamus for example) then
the cerebellum would definitely be a strong candidate of being a
significant part of it, it being shown to be actively involved in
supervised learning tasks such as the inverted mouse experiment.

>
>
> > In any case, you seem to be making prejudiced assumptions about what I
> > am saying. I am saying I don't whether we can explain the mind by
> > machine alone with no recourse to some kind of homunculus. But our
> > perception of vision would seem to point us in a determined direction.
> > By examining the machinery we can see a number of processing stages
> > until a 3D image is constructed and presented to the perception. But
> > what is that conscious perception which is able to watch that video
> > and make sense of it? We do not seem to have any empirical machine
> > based answer to this question. We do have a handful of hypotheses
> > which seem worth pursuing.
>
> We do see that this conscious perception itself is affected by the
> brain, and even often illusory. For example we don't perceive a blank
> where our blind spot is, we don't notice how incredibly blurry and
> color-blind our vision gets as soon as you move away from the incredibly
> tiny field that covers the fovea,

This all happens at levels of processing before signals arrive at the
conscious level of perception we are used to experiencing.

we're subject to selective attention
> and change blindness, what we see affects what we hear and smell and
> taste (see the McGurk effect for example)... And it gets really extreme
> in cases of people who have brain damage and who have lost a whole half
> of their field of vision but don't realize it.
>
> So... is the brain lying to the homunculus ? Is the homunculus lying to

More accurately, you should be asking if the hardware which
collectively produces the picture presented to our conscious
perception is lying to the homunculus and/or bits of the brain that
are responsible for the illusion of consciousness. We have good basis
to conclude yes. Audio and visual signals are allowed to communicate
in the thalamus and we have good reason to believe that the thalamus
is a last stop gateway which filters combined sources of information
before they are presented to the cortex. This gives us ground to
consider whether the cortex is directly linked to that experience we
call consciousness.

> us ? Is our perception of our own consciousness as fundamental,
> continuous and complete just one more illusion ?
>

Possibly.

JC

[iaoua iaoua]

Last time I checked my computer was making claims and showing no signs
of being a conscious sentient entity.

>
>
>
>
> > In any case, you seem to be making prejudiced assumptions about what I
> > am saying. I am saying I don't whether we can explain the mind by
> > machine alone with no recourse to some kind of homunculus. But our
> > perception of vision would seem to point us in a determined direction.
> > By examining the machinery we can see a number of processing stages
> > until a 3D image is constructed and presented to the perception. But
> > what is that conscious perception which is able to watch that video
> > and make sense of it? We do not seem to have any empirical machine
> > based answer to this question. We do have a handful of hypotheses
> > which seem worth pursuing.
>
> >>> That is the question.
>
> >> Hmmm... I don't think so.
>
> >>> Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
> >>> the question of immortality.
>
> >> Ok. I'll answer that: you're not immortal and you _will_ die.
>
> > I am not yet immortal. Whether I die or not will depend on God
> > Almighty's decision. I am confident that I will not. You are free to
> > interpret this in one of two ways. Either a) arrogance and self
> > righteousness or b) an expression of great faith in God's desire and
> > ability to save me and make me immortal, sinless and clean. No prizes
> > for guessing which way you are likely to judge.
>
> How about just silly superstition and some wishful thinking?
>

Thanks for that contribution. Very professionally worded and so full
of insights.

>
>
>
>
> >>> If the mind is merely a combination of
> >>> parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
> >>> could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
> >>> resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
> >>> resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
> >>> needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were in
> >>> before the body died?
>
> >> I don't think so.
>
> > So, you disagree that if we construct a machine brain to the exact
> > same parameters as the current state of your brain then that mind will
> > be your mind and will, in deterministic fashion, go on to behave and
> > make the same decisions as you would have done given the same inputs?
> > If so, what do you think you have that cannot be implemented in
> > machinery? Do you believe in some immaterial homunculus? If so, that
> > would seem to contradict your attitude above.
>
> We can't construct any of it.  And even in theory I don't see how we
> could measure and place every ion in every nerve cell.
>

The question is a theoretical one not a practical one.

A bit like asking if we could make a Sun. Theoretical answer is
probably yes as we have enough knowledge about fusion to do it.
Practical answer is no as we lack the sufficient quantity of hydrogen
to do so.

JC

> --Jeff

[Arkalen]

How so ? What does "immaterial" mean ? And how can an explanation that
contains unexplainable elements be considered complete ?

>
>> If we explain our consciousness by including a conscious operator or
>> homunculus then we still haven't explained *consciousness*. We just push
>> back the question to how the operator or homunculus works.
>>
>
> We take consciousness out of the machine and put it into the spirit.
> It's a bit of copout I admit. But nontheless a possiblity that we
> should not eliminate until we are able to explain it by purely
> physical means.

Sure. But I'm not talking about eliminating the possibility; I'm
wondering about your assertion that it would be an explanation. How can
something that's "a bit of a copout" be an explanation ?

>
>> Do you remember this story about how decisions get made in the brain
>> before we know we made them ?http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
>>
>
> It is not surprising that subconscious processes prime decisions later
> made by the consciousness. The conscious by and large serves for the
> bits of decision making that do not lend well to simple reflexive
> stimulus response. This requires stimulated inputs and in the majority
> of simple cases it is unsurprising and trivial that subconscious
> processes are a good indication of what will later be consciously
> decided upon. What is interesting is what happens when the subject is
> presented with inputs that lead to a real conundrum. Methinks that
> subconscious processes will not be so indicative of what the
> consciousness will eventually decide in these special cases.

Why not ?

This is all stuff we can't test; I was speculating about what mind
downloading might entail, as has been done many times in this group. In
a materialistic context I think it's a truly interesting question of
biology, technology and identity, and with your discussion of how we
might achieve immortality you seemed to be having this discussion. But I
see you were really just making an abstract point about dualism vs
materialism, in which case it's much less interesting.

Note that in a materialistic context immortality isn't the most
interesting consequence of downloading minds. Not when there's all that
messing around with the concept of "identity" happening.

[iaoua iaoua]

It's only complete in the sense that all the physical phenomenon have
been explained. We then observe that even with all the physical
phenomena accounted for the explanation is still missing something.
Accepting the possibility of something nonphysical being in control of
the device gives us a coherent explanation of how it could be that
when all that is physical is accounted for there remains some
phenomenon that is unexplained i.e. consciousness. Accepting the
possibility of something none material gives us a way of understanding
how this can be so even though it then becomes difficult to test other
than through windows to the soul type tests.

>
>
> >> If we explain our consciousness by including a conscious operator or
> >> homunculus then we still haven't explained *consciousness*. We just push
> >> back the question to how the operator or homunculus works.
>
> > We take consciousness out of the machine and put it into the spirit.
> > It's a bit of copout I admit. But nontheless a possiblity that we
> > should not eliminate until we are able to explain it by purely
> > physical means.
>
> Sure. But I'm not talking about eliminating the possibility; I'm
> wondering about your assertion that it would be an explanation. How can
> something that's "a bit of a copout" be an explanation ?
>

It's only a copout when it's not true right. If it turns out that we
are able to account for everything with physical explanations to the
point where we can even implement them then it will have been proved
to have been a copout rather than an explanation. It's only an
explanation if it turns out to be true.

>
>
> >> Do you remember this story about how decisions get made in the brain
> >> before we know we made them ?http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
>
> > It is not surprising that subconscious processes prime decisions later
> > made by the consciousness. The conscious by and large serves for the
> > bits of decision making that do not lend well to simple reflexive
> > stimulus response. This requires stimulated inputs and in the majority
> > of simple cases it is unsurprising and trivial that subconscious
> > processes are a good indication of what will later be consciously
> > decided upon. What is interesting is what happens when the subject is
> > presented with inputs that lead to a real conundrum. Methinks that
> > subconscious processes will not be so indicative of what the
> > consciousness will eventually decide in these special cases.
>
> Why not ?
>

Think about it.

I'm talking about the stuff of the soul. What is the soul? Is it
merely a machine? Or is it something immaterial that drives the
machine? I find it interesting because this transcends science and
also has strong theological and philosophical implications as well as
ones that are purely natural science based. I find it interesting that
the Greek text of the NT uses a word psyche whose primary meaning is
mind and yet many have translated it as soul and therefore enforced a
lot of baggage of later church tradition onto its translation (i.e.
immortality of the soul, immateriality of the soul) concepts which
have little to no support from either NT or OT texts.

I find the prospect the theoretical question of being able to
resurrect a person merely by reproducing the machinery in the correct
way an interesting one as it takes the story of Christ's and Lazarus
resurrection out of the realms of fanciful fiction and into the realms
of events with a demonstrable scientific basis. If one is to conclude
that the mind is merely a machine then one must also accept that
machines can be rebuilt and that resurrection is a scientifically
sound and acceptable theoretical concept. An entity that can remember
the right configuration and has the right materials at disposal and
the knowledge to build such a machine is quite clearly capable of
rebuilding a broken machine just as a mechanic is capable of stripping
down an engine and rebuilding it again.

JC

[Arkalen]

But you haven't explain what "nonphysical" means. How can the
nonphysical interact with the physical ? And if it does interact, why
can't that interaction be studied, and doesn't that come down to
studying the nonphysical ?

And if after all the physical effects have been accounted for some part
of the explanation is still missing... How does adding an unexplainable
element complete the explanation ? Isn't it just another way of saying
"we don't have a complete explanation", which was already the case ?

>>>> If we explain our consciousness by including a conscious operator or
>>>> homunculus then we still haven't explained *consciousness*. We just push
>>>> back the question to how the operator or homunculus works.
>>
>>> We take consciousness out of the machine and put it into the spirit.
>>> It's a bit of copout I admit. But nontheless a possiblity that we
>>> should not eliminate until we are able to explain it by purely
>>> physical means.
>>
>> Sure. But I'm not talking about eliminating the possibility; I'm
>> wondering about your assertion that it would be an explanation. How can
>> something that's "a bit of a copout" be an explanation ?
>>
>
> It's only a copout when it's not true right. If it turns out that we
> are able to account for everything with physical explanations to the
> point where we can even implement them then it will have been proved
> to have been a copout rather than an explanation. It's only an
> explanation if it turns out to be true.
>

It being a copout has nothing to do with whether physical explanations
explain everything or not. Say physical explanations *don't* explain
everything. How is "consciousness is caused by a unexplainable
homunculus" an explanation ? Isn't it just another way of saying
"consciousness is unexplainable", which we knew already ?
(I repeat myself ? Very well, I repeat myself)

>>
>>
>>>> Do you remember this story about how decisions get made in the brain
>>>> before we know we made them ?http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
>>
>>> It is not surprising that subconscious processes prime decisions later
>>> made by the consciousness. The conscious by and large serves for the
>>> bits of decision making that do not lend well to simple reflexive
>>> stimulus response. This requires stimulated inputs and in the majority
>>> of simple cases it is unsurprising and trivial that subconscious
>>> processes are a good indication of what will later be consciously
>>> decided upon. What is interesting is what happens when the subject is
>>> presented with inputs that lead to a real conundrum. Methinks that
>>> subconscious processes will not be so indicative of what the
>>> consciousness will eventually decide in these special cases.
>>
>> Why not ?
>>
>
> Think about it.
>

If a decision takes a long time to ponder I'd expect all the
decision-making processes to work even more, and since an important part
of the decision-making process appears to work unconsciously I'd expect
the unconscious processes to work overtime too, so a real conundrum
might have an even longer "lead time" than an average decision would. No
particular reason to think it would have a shorter one.

How were you thinking about it ?

What... are you trying to link a mechanistic understanding of
consciousness to the Christian belief of resurrection ?
Whatever floats your boat, but why ? God is usually considered powerful
enough to dispense with such niceties following scientifically sound and
acceptable theoretical concepts.

And when I say that the question of identity is much more interesting
than that of immortality - it's more than that, it *swamps* the concept
of immortality. Because how does copying your consciousness make you
immortal ? If your consciousness gets copied just before or after you die.
But why would it be copied then ? It could also be copied while you're
alive, so there would be two entities who equally feel like they're you,
and have an equal claim to actually *being* you. Why not make a thousand
copies while we're at it ?
If the copies are perfect, and I expect that for resurrection to be a
satisfying concept to you they'd have to be, you've completely gotten
rid of the concept of a unique continuous identity. And that makes the
concept of personal immortality rather... quaint.

[alextangent]

On Oct 17, 11:39 am, iaoua iaoua <iaoua.ia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 17, 3:10 pm, Arkalen <arka...@inbox.com> wrote:
>
> > (2011/10/17 21:13), iaoua iaoua wrote:
>
> > Hey, you're branching out into another scientific field ! Cool.
>
> I've been hired to make a dialog system in a massively funded AI
> project. So naturally stuff like consciousness has become recently of
> great interest to me.
>

I misread this as "massively fundie AI project", which seemed to fit.

As an aside, that would be a really simple dialog for you to start
with. Given a program like Elisa or some of the dialog systems that
win the Loebner prize, simply stuff it full of bible verses and press
go.

[David Hare-Scott]

Of what possible use is a purported explanation that has no means of being
tested? We can all have our shot at describing the nature and properties of
this non physical entity and then go on to its purpose and origins. You
could construct as many of such "explanations" as you like, all
contradictory, and no way to say which if any is correct. Actually there
is no need for any construction as we have that situation right now. You
and a few billion other dualists can argue the toss for another few thousand
years and still not advance the state of knowledge one bit.

David

[SortingItOut]

On Oct 17, 7:13 am, iaoua iaoua <iaoua.ia...@gmail.com> wrote:
> We often use words in our modern version of the English language with
> no real understanding of where they came from or what they may have
> originally meant. Take 'psychology' for example - obviously a word
> that makes use of roots of Greek origin. More precisely it is a
> combination of the Greek words Psyche and Logos - mind and word
> (literally) but soul and study (more abstractly). Yes, we use the root
> logos for many modern English words indicating a science or a study of
> some kind. Biology, geology, phonology to name but a few. Of course,
> this is nothing new. Everybody already knows that much right. So what
> is being presented that is not trivial and that is interesting here.
> Well, not very many people know that the Greek word which translates
> the Hebrew concept of nephesh (often poorly translated as soul) is
> 'psyche' the very object of Augustus study which he concluded to be
> immortal and indestructible.
>
> So what is this psyche? Just what are all those psychologists devoting
> so much time to understanding? What is the mind? What is the soul? Is
> is but a configuration of some hardware, the brain, or is it something
> immaterial which exists in parallel with, uses and receives sensory
> information from the hardware, the brain? We are of course touching on
> that problematic and very much unsolved area of the mind versus
> machine. Can the mind be adequately described with the machine or do
> we need to imagine some operator some homunculus in order to make our
> explanation complete?

Well, as you say, it's very much unsolved. I doubt we'll solve it
here. Until we understand how consciousness works we won't know that
a machine description is adequate, but neither will a homunculus-type
operator make the explanation complete. Nothing will make the
explanation complete. But I agree it's an interesting topic.

Personally, I don't see the need for the addition of an immaterial
component. When I consider the effects that drugs, alcohol, disease,
injury, hormones, and anesthetic have not only on sensory perception
but also on memory, personality, emotions, decision-making, etc., I
don't see what an immaterial component helps explain. And if the
immaterial is so at the mercy of the brain that it is effectively shut
down in the case of anesthetic or a powerful blow to the head, then I
don't understand what purpose it actually serves. What does it add to
the explanation?

Considering an immaterial component to consciousness seems to just
create more unanswered questions, such as:
1) How does an immaterial object interact with a material brain? This
seems to require an undiscovered branch of physics.
2) Where does it come from? If our DNA, then how? If not, then where
does it come from?
3) Is it destroyed when our brain dies? If not, why not? And where
does it go? And since it seems to rely on the brain in order to do
anything useful, what is it capable of doing without a brain?
4) The introduction of an immaterial component just moves the
problem. We're then left with wondering how the immaterial object
actually works. What other imaginary objects must we introduce to
"complete the explanation"?

>
> That is the question.
>
> Of course, once we have answered that question we need then to answer
> the question of immortality. If the mind is merely a combination of
> parameters, a state of machine, an abstract mathematical concept which
> could be reproduced in software is the mind therefore not at least
> resurrectable, if not immortal, by virtue of the fact that in order to
> resurrect any given mind/soul (configuration of the brain) all that
> needs to be done is set the parameters right - to the state they were
> in before the body died?

Yes, and no (in my opinion). Yes, in that in principle the mind could
be reconstructed somewhere other than in the original brain. But I'm
not convinced that it could function as software running on any old
machine. I'm guessing it's very hardware dependent, but since I don't
know how the mind works, I don't know what the minimum hardware
requirements are.


>
> JC

[Mark Isaak]

Consciousness is not unexplained; it is undefined. I suspect that when
it is understood enough to define it, it will be found that people use
the word to encompass at least half a dozen different mental processes.

> Accepting the
> possibility of something none material gives us a way of understanding
> how this can be so even though it then becomes difficult to test other
> than through windows to the soul type tests.

That's true. Unfortunately, if the non-material understanding is wrong
(as history would suggest is the case), accepting that possibility would
hinder the acceptance of any possibility that happens to be true.

On the other hand, we could also accept the possibility that we don't
know everything yet. (Well, you can't, but others can.) Accepting
*that* possibility not only lets us understand how consciousness is not
understood; it allows us -- even encourages us -- to ultimately
understand it.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"It is certain, from experience, that the smallest grain of natural
honesty and benevolence has more effect on men's conduct, than the most
pompous views suggested by theological theories and systems." - D. Hume

[iaoua iaoua]

You know what physical means right?

> nonphysical interact with the physical ?

And you really expect me to be able to answer this?

> And if it does interact, why
> can't that interaction be studied, and doesn't that come down to
> studying the nonphysical ?
>

Well let's take prayer as an example. One could take a group of people
with faith and those without faith and observe them without their
knowing it. One could observe the prayers that a person of faith makes
and observe the outcomes i.e. what happens in the physical world. Just
a hypothetical suggestion. Don't go observing people without their
permission.

In the case of the mind we already conduct many different kinds of
'window to the soul' psychological experiments with no foreknowledge
of whether the behaviour we observe as a result can be entirely
explained with physical phenomenon. In any case, you seem to be giving
me the impression that you are not willing to entertain the
possibility of non physical factors and at the same time forcing me to
become their advocate as if I was insisting they exist. Let me make it
absolutely clear that I have vested interest in such a position and
consider that there is a possibility that consciousness may one day be
explained by physical phenomena alone. Not that this is not
problematic of course.

> And if after all the physical effects have been accounted for some part
> of the explanation is still missing... How does adding an unexplainable
> element complete the explanation ? Isn't it just another way of saying

It doesn't complete the explanation. It just explains why we can't
explain it at present. You seem to find the notion of nonphysical a
scary and challenging and uncomfortable concept?!

> "we don't have a complete explanation", which was already the case ?
>

More complete in the sense of all physical phenomena explained as far
as is possible.

> >>>> If we explain our consciousness by including a conscious operator or
> >>>> homunculus then we still haven't explained *consciousness*. We just push
> >>>> back the question to how the operator or homunculus works.
>
> >>> We take consciousness out of the machine and put it into the spirit.
> >>> It's a bit of copout I admit. But nontheless a possiblity that we
> >>> should not eliminate until we are able to explain it by purely
> >>> physical means.
>
> >> Sure. But I'm not talking about eliminating the possibility; I'm
> >> wondering about your assertion that it would be an explanation. How can
> >> something that's "a bit of a copout" be an explanation ?
>
> > It's only a copout when it's not true right. If it turns out that we
> > are able to account for everything with physical explanations to the
> > point where we can even implement them then it will have been proved
> > to have been a copout rather than an explanation. It's only an
> > explanation if it turns out to be true.
>
> It being a copout has nothing to do with whether physical explanations
> explain everything or not. Say physical explanations *don't* explain
> everything. How is "consciousness is caused by a unexplainable
> homunculus" an explanation ? Isn't it just another way of saying
> "consciousness is unexplainable", which we knew already ?
> (I repeat myself ? Very well, I repeat myself)
>

This is fast turning into a meaningless exchange where I just repeat
the obvious over and over again.

The present situation is that we cannot explain consciousness and we
are by no means uncomfortable with this because there is much about
the physiology of the brain which we do not understand. When the day
comes that we understand all there is to know about the brain and yet
still do not understand consciousness then we start to become
uncomfortable because the possibility of non physical entities
interacting with our physical universe becomes something that we have
to start taking very very seriously. Again, I am suggesting that this
is definitely the case. Just a possibility.

You see here you are touching on all of the most fundamental
questions. The most fundamental of which is who or what is you? If we
were to start cutting disfunctional bits of body off a person and
replacing them with mechanical replacements at which point would the
person be justified in saying that they are no longer themselves? Does
replacing a person's leg change their soul, their mind, their
configuration of beliefs, opinions and experiences? What about a
mechanical heart? Would that stop a person from being themselves? Even
if it had the same hormonal responses and everything? What about
lungs? What about tactile sensors in the fingers and hands? What about
the spinal cord? What about the midbrain? What about the cortex? What
about the whole brain? How much of a person could surgeons replace
before you were no longer willing to accept that this was the same
person as before the operation?

JC

[iaoua iaoua]

This is quite simply not true. Not unless you dismiss the entire field
pyscholinguistics and possibly psychology en masse.

JC

[iaoua iaoua]

It's Eliza not Elisa by the way. Yes, one of my mates Yorick who I was
going to do a PhD in MT with before he was massively betrayed once
made a system that won the Loebner prize. I once thought about making
an automated missionary to make my life easier. It would go around the
internet on newsgroups, IIRC channels, email people and only return to
me the ones that seemed most promising. Good idea. I'll get round to
it one day.

JC

[Burkhard]

On Oct 17, 11:25 pm, alextangent <b...@rivadpm.com> wrote:

Been done:
http://www.titane.ca/main.html

outperforms Eliza (sic)

and that one apparently, but I can't vouch for that one
http://last-software.com/effective_prayer_free_self_help_chatterbot_2_02_02-download-14465.html

A bit of extremely hazy memory coming back from my Intro to AI class
from decades ago, but I think one of the first attempts at an
automated translation tool came form the Middle Ages, and would have
allowed missionaries to translate key biblical terms from Latin into a
number of languages they were likely to encounter

[Arkalen]

In some contexts, yes. In this context, no.

>
>> nonphysical interact with the physical ?
>
> And you really expect me to be able to answer this?

You're the one suggesting that nonphysical entities could interact with
the physical. I don't see how something can interact with the physical
without itself being physical.

>
>> And if it does interact, why
>> can't that interaction be studied, and doesn't that come down to
>> studying the nonphysical ?
>>
>
> Well let's take prayer as an example. One could take a group of people
> with faith and those without faith and observe them without their
> knowing it. One could observe the prayers that a person of faith makes
> and observe the outcomes i.e. what happens in the physical world. Just
> a hypothetical suggestion. Don't go observing people without their
> permission.

Such studies have been made, in the case of prayers for sick people.
They found no effect. Maybe the people praying didn't have "real" faith.
But then that's an issue with your proposed study : it requires an
objective criterion for who has faith and who doesn't.

If faith has an effect on the world how do we know it's nonphysical ?

>
> In the case of the mind we already conduct many different kinds of
> 'window to the soul' psychological experiments with no foreknowledge
> of whether the behaviour we observe as a result can be entirely
> explained with physical phenomenon. In any case, you seem to be giving
> me the impression that you are not willing to entertain the
> possibility of non physical factors and at the same time forcing me to
> become their advocate as if I was insisting they exist. Let me make it
> absolutely clear that I have vested interest in such a position and
> consider that there is a possibility that consciousness may one day be
> explained by physical phenomena alone. Not that this is not
> problematic of course.

The issue is that I don't even see how the concept of the "nonphysical"
is even logically tenable. I don't think you're saying they exist but
you're suggesting they might, so I want to know what you mean by
"nonphysical".

>
>> And if after all the physical effects have been accounted for some part
>> of the explanation is still missing... How does adding an unexplainable
>> element complete the explanation ? Isn't it just another way of saying
>
> It doesn't complete the explanation. It just explains why we can't
> explain it at present. You seem to find the notion of nonphysical a
> scary and challenging and uncomfortable concept?!

But it *doesn't* explain "why we can't explain something". How can we
rule out some physical factor we haven't come up with yet ? Or a
fundamental failing in our reasoning abilities ?

It's not even as if I'm dogmatic about the "nonphysical" being a
meaningless term - for example I think the concept of the "supernatural"
referring to mind-like entities with no underlying structure is
interesting. But here's the thing : that's a defined, constrained concept.

Equating "nonphysical" with "what we can't explain physically" isn't a
constrained concept; it's slapping a random name onto a concept that
already has a description : "what we can't explain physically".

I don't find the nonphysical a scary concept (confusing, absolutely, but
not particularly scary), but I can turn the question back to you. Why do
you feel the need to invoke the word "nonphysical" for things we can't
explain instead of just accepting there's something we can't explain ?
Especially since that statement will always end in "yet" in the
foreseeable future.

>
>> "we don't have a complete explanation", which was already the case ?
>>
>
> More complete in the sense of all physical phenomena explained as far
> as is possible.

But you're talking about invoking the nonphysical when all the physical
phenomena have *already* been explained as far as is possible, so that's
already a given. What does "nonphysical" add ?

That's not such a difficult question. Replacing body parts doesn't
change someone's identity unless they tell themselves it does; the
concept isn't exactly science-fiction nowadays. From all we're able to
tell identity lies in the brain.

What parts of the brain can be replaced while keeping a continuous sense
of identity depends on how identity is constructed in the brain, and we
don't know that yet. It seems pretty robust though - I've heard of
people with brain damage who lose various perceptual abilities, who
change personalities, who have parts of their bodies sometimes working
against them, who lose their memories in various ways... But I've never
heard of a brain disorder that leads someone not to feel they have an
identity. If there is one and I missed it I'd love to see a link.

But before we consider pathological cases of brain damage and brain
replacement there's a much simpler context to consider - are we the same
people we were as children ? Why, why not ?

[iaoua iaoua]

Why would you think in this context it differs from your usual
understand of physical?

>
>
> >> nonphysical interact with the physical ?
>
> > And you really expect me to be able to answer this?
>
> You're the one suggesting that nonphysical entities could interact with
> the physical.

Advocating and acknowledging the possibility are two very quite
different things my dear.

>I don't see how something can interact with the physical
> without itself being physical.
>

You don't properly understand quantum mechanics but don't seem to have
a problem with accepting that it might have something useful to say.

>
>
> >>   And if it does interact, why
> >> can't that interaction be studied, and doesn't that come down to
> >> studying the nonphysical ?
>
> > Well let's take prayer as an example. One could take a group of people
> > with faith and those without faith and observe them without their
> > knowing it. One could observe the prayers that a person of faith makes
> > and observe the outcomes i.e. what happens in the physical world. Just
> > a hypothetical suggestion. Don't go observing people without their
> > permission.
>
> Such studies have been made, in the case of prayers for sick people.
> They found no effect. Maybe the people praying didn't have "real" faith.
> But then that's an issue with your proposed study : it requires an
> objective criterion for who has faith and who doesn't.
>

Indeed. Also, usually the cure depends on the faith of the person
being cured rather than the faith of the curer.

> If faith has an effect on the world how do we know it's nonphysical ?
>

Good question. Are you suggesting that if God exists he might be
physical? I don't see how he could see everything if he were.

>
>
> > In the case of the mind we already conduct many different kinds of
> > 'window to the soul' psychological experiments with no foreknowledge
> > of whether the behaviour we observe as a result can be entirely
> > explained with physical phenomenon. In any case, you seem to be giving
> > me the impression that you are not willing to entertain the
> > possibility of non physical factors and at the same time forcing me to
> > become their advocate as if I was insisting they exist. Let me make it
> > absolutely clear that I have vested interest in such a position and
> > consider that there is a possibility that consciousness may one day be
> > explained by physical phenomena alone. Not that this is not
> > problematic of course.
>
> The issue is that I don't even see how the concept of the "nonphysical"
> is even logically tenable. I don't think you're saying they exist but

Under what constraints of what is logically tenable?

> you're suggesting they might, so I want to know what you mean by
> "nonphysical".
>

You put me in an awkward position. You evidently understand the
concept of physical and the concept of non and so I am having
difficulty seeing how the combination of the two concepts is causing
you difficulties.

>
>
> >> And if after all the physical effects have been accounted for some part
> >> of the explanation is still missing... How does adding an unexplainable
> >> element complete the explanation ? Isn't it just another way of saying
>
> > It doesn't complete the explanation. It just explains why we can't
> > explain it at present. You seem to find the notion of nonphysical a
> > scary and challenging and uncomfortable concept?!
>
> But it *doesn't* explain "why we can't explain something". How can we

Really? I could say yes it does and you could continue to answer no it
doesn't. Other than resembling the interaction of 2 three year olds I
fail to see how such an interaction would help the discussion proceed.

> rule out some physical factor we haven't come up with yet ? Or a
> fundamental failing in our reasoning abilities ?
>

Why should we rule those things out? You are discussing with me right?
Not some imaginary person who said different things to what I said?

> It's not even as if I'm dogmatic about the "nonphysical" being a

Well you certainly seem to be coming across that way.

> meaningless term - for example I think the concept of the "supernatural"
> referring to mind-like entities with no underlying structure is
> interesting. But here's the thing : that's a defined, constrained concept.
>
> Equating "nonphysical" with "what we can't explain physically" isn't a
> constrained concept; it's slapping a random name onto a concept that
> already has a description : "what we can't explain physically".
>

You don't seem to understand. It's not just a case of 'things we
currently can't explain with physical phenomena' it's more a case of
'when all the physical phenomena are understood and yet none of them
explain a phenomena we see...'

> I don't find the nonphysical a scary concept (confusing, absolutely, but
> not particularly scary), but I can turn the question back to you. Why do
> you feel the need to invoke the word "nonphysical" for things we can't
> explain instead of just accepting there's something we can't explain ?

Who said I feel the need? You see this is your problem. Just who are
you discussing with? If you would like to discuss with me instead of
this imaginary figure you keep inventing for yourself then you might
want to use the things I write as a rough guide to the things I am
saying.

> Especially since that statement will always end in "yet" in the
> foreseeable future.
>
>
>
> >> "we don't have a complete explanation", which was already the case ?
>
> > More complete in the sense of all physical phenomena explained as far
> > as is possible.
>
> But you're talking about invoking the nonphysical when all the physical
> phenomena have *already* been explained as far as is possible, so that's
> already a given. What does "nonphysical" add ?
>

You really don't like the idea of anything being nonphysical don't
you?

Surely if you believe we are basically machines with no nonphysical
parts then you have no problem accepting that we could change all bits
and as long as they did the same thing no identity would be lost.

> people with brain damage who lose various perceptual abilities, who
> change personalities, who have parts of their bodies sometimes working
> against them, who lose their memories in various ways... But I've never
> heard of a brain disorder that leads someone not to feel they have an
> identity. If there is one and I missed it I'd love to see a link.
>
> But before we consider pathological cases of brain damage and brain
> replacement there's a much simpler context to consider - are we the same
> people we were as children ? Why, why not ?

Quite clearly not. Our configuration is totally different. What we
were is merely a part of what are now.

JC

[Arkalen]

I know what physical exercise is. I don't know what "physical" in the
context of "are there things in this Universe that aren't physical ?"
means. What does it mean to not be physical ? I can see several
different things it could mean : "not made of ordinary matter", "not
made of matter or energy or other things discovered by science", "not
explainable by science"... but I don't know which one *you* are using.

I don't need an all-encompassing definition - just something that serves
for this specific conversation is fine. So we can be talking about the
same thing.

>
>>
>>>> nonphysical interact with the physical ?
>>
>>> And you really expect me to be able to answer this?
>>
>> You're the one suggesting that nonphysical entities could interact with
>> the physical.
>
> Advocating and acknowledging the possibility are two very quite
> different things my dear.

Did I say "advocating" ? No, I didn't, I said "suggesting". If you
prefer "acknowledging the possibility" I can say that too.
What could that possibility mean ?

>
>> I don't see how something can interact with the physical
>> without itself being physical.
>>
>
> You don't properly understand quantum mechanics but don't seem to have
> a problem with accepting that it might have something useful to say.

And I consider quantum mechanics to be physical. See why I want to know
what you mean with the word ?

>>>> And if it does interact, why
>>>> can't that interaction be studied, and doesn't that come down to
>>>> studying the nonphysical ?
>>
>>> Well let's take prayer as an example. One could take a group of people
>>> with faith and those without faith and observe them without their
>>> knowing it. One could observe the prayers that a person of faith makes
>>> and observe the outcomes i.e. what happens in the physical world. Just
>>> a hypothetical suggestion. Don't go observing people without their
>>> permission.
>>
>> Such studies have been made, in the case of prayers for sick people.
>> They found no effect. Maybe the people praying didn't have "real" faith.
>> But then that's an issue with your proposed study : it requires an
>> objective criterion for who has faith and who doesn't.
>>
>
> Indeed. Also, usually the cure depends on the faith of the person
> being cured rather than the faith of the curer.
>
>> If faith has an effect on the world how do we know it's nonphysical ?
>>
>
> Good question. Are you suggesting that if God exists he might be
> physical? I don't see how he could see everything if he were.

Well... what do you mean by "physical", again ? Surely you don't mean
"made of ordinary matter", scientists have known about energy since
forever and they're finding out about other previously undiscovered
kinds of matter and energy now. They're not unexplainable, which is the
context in which you seem to use the word "nonphysical". I consider all
those things to be physical : they're part of the Universe, they
interact with it in detectable ways (otherwise we wouldn't know about
them) and their existence and properties can potentially be investigated.

If God could be systematically investigated by science I don't see why
he couldn't be considered as physical as dark matter. On what basis
would you consider such an entity to be non-physical ?

>
>>> In the case of the mind we already conduct many different kinds of
>>> 'window to the soul' psychological experiments with no foreknowledge
>>> of whether the behaviour we observe as a result can be entirely
>>> explained with physical phenomenon. In any case, you seem to be giving
>>> me the impression that you are not willing to entertain the
>>> possibility of non physical factors and at the same time forcing me to
>>> become their advocate as if I was insisting they exist. Let me make it
>>> absolutely clear that I have vested interest in such a position and
>>> consider that there is a possibility that consciousness may one day be
>>> explained by physical phenomena alone. Not that this is not
>>> problematic of course.
>>
>> The issue is that I don't even see how the concept of the "nonphysical"
>> is even logically tenable. I don't think you're saying they exist but
>
> Under what constraints of what is logically tenable?

Insofar as you've only seemed to use the word "nonphysical" for
phenomena that are unexplainable by science, I see no logical
distinction between "nonphysical" and "unexplainable by science", which
makes the idea that the word refers to a single coherent entity untenable.

But I'm sure that's not how you define "nonphysical" and "physical", so
please lift my confusion by explaining what you mean by those words already.

>
>> you're suggesting they might, so I want to know what you mean by
>> "nonphysical".
>>
>
> You put me in an awkward position. You evidently understand the
> concept of physical and the concept of non and so I am having
> difficulty seeing how the combination of the two concepts is causing
> you difficulties.

I "evidently" understand the concept of physical and your "evidence" for
this is... *that I asked you several times what you mean by the word
"physical"* ?

>
>>>> And if after all the physical effects have been accounted for some part
>>>> of the explanation is still missing... How does adding an unexplainable
>>>> element complete the explanation ? Isn't it just another way of saying
>>
>>> It doesn't complete the explanation. It just explains why we can't
>>> explain it at present. You seem to find the notion of nonphysical a
>>> scary and challenging and uncomfortable concept?!
>>
>> But it *doesn't* explain "why we can't explain something". How can we
>
> Really? I could say yes it does and you could continue to answer no it
> doesn't. Other than resembling the interaction of 2 three year olds I
> fail to see how such an interaction would help the discussion proceed.

Or you could read the next two lines that illustrate why "we can't
explain something" can have causes other than "it's nonphysical",
depending on what "nonphysical" means...

>
>> rule out some physical factor we haven't come up with yet ? Or a
>> fundamental failing in our reasoning abilities ?
>>
>
> Why should we rule those things out? You are discussing with me right?
> Not some imaginary person who said different things to what I said?

You asked whether we could say something has a nonphysical cause when
we've looked at all physical phenomena and none explain that thing. But
there are different reasons something could be unexplained by all
physical phenomena; I've suggested two, which are extremely different
from one another, one of which is *explicitly* incompatible with "it has
a nonphysical cause" and the other which makes the whole notion of
"cause" dodgy.

So there are two ways it can go : either "nonphysical" includes those
two possibilities, in which case it looks to me as if "nonphysical"
means "hasn't been explained by physical phenomena", nothing more and
nothing less; or "nonphysical" excludes one or both of those
possibilities, in which case saying that a phenomenon has a nonphysical
cause absolutely does require ruling them out.

It all hinges on what you mean by "nonphysical". What do you mean by
"nonphysical" ?

>
>> It's not even as if I'm dogmatic about the "nonphysical" being a
>
> Well you certainly seem to be coming across that way.
>
>> meaningless term - for example I think the concept of the "supernatural"
>> referring to mind-like entities with no underlying structure is
>> interesting. But here's the thing : that's a defined, constrained concept.
>>
>> Equating "nonphysical" with "what we can't explain physically" isn't a
>> constrained concept; it's slapping a random name onto a concept that
>> already has a description : "what we can't explain physically".
>>
>
> You don't seem to understand. It's not just a case of 'things we
> currently can't explain with physical phenomena' it's more a case of
> 'when all the physical phenomena are understood and yet none of them
> explain a phenomena we see...'

But that's a self-contradictory sentence. If we see a phenomenon, how do
we know it isn't physical ? And if we haven't explained it, how do we
know we understand all physical phenomena, when there's that phenomenon
we haven't explained that might be physical ?

>
>> I don't find the nonphysical a scary concept (confusing, absolutely, but
>> not particularly scary), but I can turn the question back to you. Why do
>> you feel the need to invoke the word "nonphysical" for things we can't
>> explain instead of just accepting there's something we can't explain ?
>
> Who said I feel the need? You see this is your problem. Just who are
> you discussing with? If you would like to discuss with me instead of
> this imaginary figure you keep inventing for yourself then you might
> want to use the things I write as a rough guide to the things I am
> saying.

You give me a definition of "nonphysical" with more substance to it than
"what we can't explain", and I'll stop wondering why you want to slap
the word "nonphysical" on something just because we can't explain it.

>
>> Especially since that statement will always end in "yet" in the
>> foreseeable future.
>>
>>
>>
>>>> "we don't have a complete explanation", which was already the case ?
>>
>>> More complete in the sense of all physical phenomena explained as far
>>> as is possible.
>>
>> But you're talking about invoking the nonphysical when all the physical
>> phenomena have *already* been explained as far as is possible, so that's
>> already a given. What does "nonphysical" add ?
>>
>
> You really don't like the idea of anything being nonphysical don't
> you?

I don't UNDERSTAND the idea of anything being nonphysical. I'm fine with
the idea of things not being explained. I'm puzzled by the idea of
giving a random contentless name to those things.

Yep. I actually went further if you pay attention - I said that maybe
people can keep feeling the same identity even after the things we think
of as defining identity - personality, memories - are altered.

>
>> people with brain damage who lose various perceptual abilities, who
>> change personalities, who have parts of their bodies sometimes working
>> against them, who lose their memories in various ways... But I've never
>> heard of a brain disorder that leads someone not to feel they have an
>> identity. If there is one and I missed it I'd love to see a link.
>>
>> But before we consider pathological cases of brain damage and brain
>> replacement there's a much simpler context to consider - are we the same
>> people we were as children ? Why, why not ?
>
> Quite clearly not. Our configuration is totally different. What we
> were is merely a part of what are now.

Then why are you speculating on brain replacements ? You already think
identity isn't a constant over time.

[Kermit]

Most of the scientists in psychobiology do not consider the mind
to be non-physical. Why do you want to dismiss them?

Kermit

[Kermit]

On Oct 17, 6:39 pm, SortingItOut <eri...@home.com> wrote:
> On Oct 17, 7:13 am, iaoua iaoua <iaoua.ia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

<snip>

> Yes, and no (in my opinion).  Yes, in that in principle the mind could
> be reconstructed somewhere other than in the original brain.  But I'm
> not convinced that it could function as software running on any old
> machine.  I'm guessing it's very hardware dependent, but since I don't
> know how the mind works, I don't know what the minimum hardware
> requirements are.

It's conceivable that the biological brain we all know and love
is about as efficient a foundation as a mind like can get. Other,
less efficient but sufficiently complex hardware might be able to
mimic the human mind but not in real time. We can simulate
a nuclear explosion on a supercomputer, but it takes a *lot longer.
>
> > JC

Kermit

[David Hare-Scott]

I see no need at all to dismiss these disciplines, please explain why
psycholinguists or psychologists require that something non physical is in
charge.

David

[Earle Jones]

In article
<c4f29c0e-ab28-4b65...@gy7g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,

*
Dr. Kenneth Kosik believes that the neuroscience community is coming to
the conclusion that the mind (the sum total of your beliefs, knowledge,
etc.) is contained in that fist-sized organ in your head. It's *only*
inputs are through your physical senses.

"Siding with evolution does not really pose a serious problem for
many deeply religious people, because one can easily accept
evolution without doubting the existence of a non-material being.
On the other hand, the truly radical and still maturing view in the
neuroscience community that the mind is entirely the product of the
brain presents the ultimate challenge to nearly all religions."

--Kenneth S. Kosik (Nature vol 439, p138)

earle
*

[iaoua iaoua]

On Oct 19, 1:17 am, Earle Jones <earle.jo...@comcast.net> wrote:
> In article
> <c4f29c0e-ab28-4b65-8680-ab8031a26...@gy7g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,

How so? It takes the idea of resurrection out of the ethereal and
gives us a strong physical basis for believing in its feasibility.

JC

[iaoua iaoua]

Nobody said that the studies *require* something non physical to be in
charge. Both carry out tests with a view to understanding responses of
something they do not know in advance whether it is material or
immaterial.

JC

> David

[Jeffrey Turner]

Creating a star is theoretically possible, but what exactly would it
mean to recreate our Sol? The rate of spin? Probably. The plasma
flows? The magnetic field? Every planet, major and minor, has a
gravitational effect on the sun. Would a star behave as our sun does
without the solar system around it? OK, maybe the last isn't the point,
but getting all the rest exactly as they are in Sol? We'd have to
measure all sorts of parameters inside a very, very hot ball of plasma.
And then place and adjust new plasma in the same configuration - getting
it all in place at one simultaneous point. Can't be done, even in
theory. Heisenberg, for one, tells us so. We're not living in a
Newtonian universe any more, where postulating exact placement and
energy was possible. So, no, creating Sol, or you, isn't possible even
within the confines of a thought experiment.

--Jeff

[iaoua iaoua]

Nothing you have said suggests it to be impossible just very very
difficult.

JC

[alextangent]

On Oct 18, 7:15 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Oct 17, 11:25 pm, alextangent <b...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 17, 11:39 am, iaoua iaoua <iaoua.ia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Oct 17, 3:10 pm, Arkalen <arka...@inbox.com> wrote:
>
> > > > (2011/10/17 21:13), iaoua iaoua wrote:
>
> > > > Hey, you're branching out into another scientific field ! Cool.
>
> > > I've been hired to make a dialog system in a massively funded AI
> > > project. So naturally stuff like consciousness has become recently of
> > > great interest to me.
>
> > I misread this as "massively fundie AI project", which seemed to fit.
>
> > As an aside, that would be a really simple dialog for you to start
> > with. Given a program like Elisa or some of the dialog systems that
> > win the Loebner prize, simply stuff it full of bible verses and press
> > go.
>
> Been done:http://www.titane.ca/main.html
>
> outperforms Eliza (sic)
>

> and that one apparently, but I can't vouch for that onehttp://last-software.com/effective_prayer_free_self_help_chatterbot_2...

>
> A bit of extremely hazy memory coming back from my Intro to AI class
> from decades ago,

Donald Michie?

> but I think one of the first attempts at an
> automated translation tool came form the Middle Ages, and would have
> allowed missionaries to translate key biblical terms from Latin into a
> number of languages they were likely to encounter

Google translate is surprisingly good; "in principio creavit Deus
caelum et terram. terra autem erat inanis et vacua et tenebrae super
faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas" is translated as
"In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But the earth was
without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep and
the Spirit of God moved upon the waters".

[Burkhard]

On Oct 19, 8:38 pm, alextangent <b...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
> On Oct 18, 7:15 am, Burkhard <b.scha...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 17, 11:25 pm, alextangent <b...@rivadpm.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Oct 17, 11:39 am, iaoua iaoua <iaoua.ia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > On Oct 17, 3:10 pm, Arkalen <arka...@inbox.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > (2011/10/17 21:13), iaoua iaoua wrote:
>
> > > > > Hey, you're branching out into another scientific field ! Cool.
>
> > > > I've been hired to make a dialog system in a massively funded AI
> > > > project. So naturally stuff like consciousness has become recently of
> > > > great interest to me.
>
> > > I misread this as "massively fundie AI project", which seemed to fit.
>
> > > As an aside, that would be a really simple dialog for you to start
> > > with. Given a program like Elisa or some of the dialog systems that
> > > win the Loebner prize, simply stuff it full of bible verses and press
> > > go.
>
> > Been done:http://www.titane.ca/main.html
>
> > outperforms Eliza (sic)
>
> > and that one apparently, but I can't vouch for that onehttp://last-software.com/effective_prayer_free_self_help_chatterbot_2...
>
> > A bit of extremely hazy memory coming back from my Intro to AI class
> > from decades ago,
>
> Donald Michie?

Ah, regrettably not. I studied in Munich and came to Edinburgh
relatively late in life, to my first (OK, techncially second, but I
don;t talk about the first one, lalallalalal it never happened and
tehre is no evidence anyway) academic job. Mitchie had by then long
left for Glasgow.

[David Hare-Scott]

I think it is fine that psycholinguists and psychologists should be agnostic
about the existence of the soul if they are doing science. Your last
paragraph seems to be hinting that you agree but the subject of the thread
and taking exception to "Of what possible use is a purported explanation
that has no means of being tested?" suggest otherwise. Which is it?

David

[Jeffrey Turner]

> Nothing you have said suggests it to be impossible just very very
> difficult.

Heisenberg tells us we can't measure the position and velocity of a
particle (ion, electron, whatever) with perfect accuracy. So there's
no way to take anything but a blurry picture of the state of one's
brain. And you can't make a perfect replica from a blurry picture.

--Jeff

[iaoua iaoua]

Frame of reference my friend. Frame of reference.

JC

[SortingItOut]

But it may not be necessary to copy the position of every particle in
order to effectively copy a brain. You may still be able to capture
memories, personality, thought processes, etc., in the same way that a
computer can be copied without knowing the exact position or
quantities of all of the atoms that make it up. A brain is of course
much more complex, but may still lend itself to this kind of
duplication.

[Mark Isaak]

On 10/19/11 12:38 PM, alextangent wrote:
> [...]

> Google translate is surprisingly good; "in principio creavit Deus
> caelum et terram. terra autem erat inanis et vacua et tenebrae super
> faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas" is translated as
> "In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But the earth was
> without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep and
> the Spirit of God moved upon the waters".

That was probably one of the sample texts that the translator was
trained with.

[Mitchell Coffey]

On 10/20/2011 1:35 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 10/19/11 12:38 PM, alextangent wrote:
>> [...]
>> Google translate is surprisingly good; "in principio creavit Deus
>> caelum et terram. terra autem erat inanis et vacua et tenebrae super
>> faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas" is translated as
>> "In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But the earth was
>> without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep and
>> the Spirit of God moved upon the waters".
>
> That was probably one of the sample texts that the translator was
> trained with.

It seems unlikely that a pure translator would translate "spiritus Dei
ferebatur super aquas" as "the Spirit of God moved upon the waters"
without being tweaked to do so whenever it is asked to translate that
particular collection of words. It translates "Ursus ferebatur super
aquas" as "A bear moved over the waters."

Mitchell Coffey

[iaoua iaoua]

On Oct 20, 6:35 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@curioustaxonomyNOSPAM.net>
wrote:

I would agree with everything Mark said except for one word 'probably'
which I would replace with 'certainly'. What you are seeing is not
really an automatic translation. It is a stored human translated
sentence in a translation memory.

JC