24 replies to this topic

[AdamLink]

Life can, and may be, described in many ways. Certainly we could say: "From the electric impluses in our brain." And I might ask: "Where does that electic pulse originate?" And you may reply: "From a combination of gravity and two cemicals smacking into each other." And I would say while scratching my head: "Intresting..."

Needless to say this could go on for a while.

Edited by AdamLink, 27 May 2003 - 07:53 PM.

[Casanova]

Life, or consciousness? Where does consciousness come from? Life can be cynically described as biological robotry. But asking where does consciousness come from, brings us closer to the question not only of the origin of consciousness, but of spirit, and soul, too.
In my opinion, and of course I know I'm right, hee, hee, it reads like this:
"Matter is an epiphenomenon of Consciousness ( Godhead )"
Life is composed of matter, ... etc.

Edited by Casanova, 31 May 2003 - 09:56 PM.

[Aegist]

As casanova said, you need to keep 'life' seperate from 'consciousness'. Although they are usually both called 'life' in common usage, when asking the hard questions, it is important to keep them seperate.

Where does life, the biological thing, come from? My answer to that is that life is just another level of complex organisation, continuing up from the organisation within an atom, the organistion within a molecule, the organisation within a stabley interacting system of molecules... From there, the next level of complex organisation appears to be classified as living whenever the system of molecules interacts in a way which is not only stable, but also replicating.

As for the mind...well, i have only just recently started dancing with the idea that the mind, ie: consciousness = experience = subjectivity primarily, evolved because a concept of 'self' is a much more powerful motivator for procreation and survival than the mindless automaton which follows instincts, reacts to stimuli, and has programmed learning capabilities, but no experience/consciousness/subjective view to bring its world to life.

This is the only reason i have been able to think of to explain 'Why' we have a mind..'how that mind is created is not such an easy question. In fact, not only have many many many people spent a lot of time trying to explain it, but many people have even written papers about just how hard this problem is!

I think experience is arbitrarily designated as a representation of regularly recieved sensory inputs...but this is an entirely conceptual idea with no empirical evidence so far. I'd be interested to find out more about it though.

[Discarnate]

As for the mind...well, i have only just recently started dancing with the idea that the mind, ie: consciousness = experience = subjectivity primarily, evolved because a concept of 'self' is a much more powerful motivator for procreation and survival than the mindless automaton which follows instincts, reacts to stimuli, and has programmed learning capabilities, but no experience/consciousness/subjective view to bring its world to life.

Neat idea! Hadn't run across quite that take on the concept before...

-snip-
I think experience is arbitrarily designated as a representation of regularly recieved sensory inputs...but this is an entirely conceptual idea with no empirical evidence so far. I'd be interested to find out more about it though.

I don't know if that is a completely valid definition. Rather, there appears (to my poorly educated mind! *grin*) to be at least an initial link between physical sensation (typically pain) and what becomes termed 'experience' but may initially be equally well considered 'conditioning'. "We are the sum of our experiences" ain't that far off, but the biological instincts (pain flinch, fight/flight response, etc) are also contributors to our development.

Yes, experience is based on sensory inputs, but regularly received? I don't think so - I doubt you can remember the first time you were bored as a child, for instance, but may remember your first painful incident quite well. . .

-Discarnate

[Lazarus Long]

The "regularly recieved" is the "awareness" of a temporal linearity. If you do not "order" the sequence into a definitive past, present, future, that is structured on a continuum from past memory(experience) to future hope/fear then many people become quite litterally insane, seemingly prescient, or both.

This is one reason for the problem with understanding that physics may in fact describe a "conceptual form of insanity" at a quintessential Cosmic level and is so profoundly rejected by many that desire an orderly rule. But Physics is or isn't; it isn't about what we "want to be true." Though you see how this confuses matters.

What if we discover forces that imply that physics can be bent to the will?

How much of all of this is about "creating a reality" that is sane (rational) so as to maintain rather than explain it? Sanity is better understood as a survival related behavior than a product of pure reason for most people.

As for the sensory input it is no accident that we use almost entirely the same lexicon for emotion as for all forms of physical sensory evaluation. Linguistically this is true for virtually all cultures and languages so it implies a univerality of experience for humans.

to feel = sensory experience

to feel - emotional experience

Try it? Plug in a sensory word like to feel pleasure/pain, or even love/hate and they will all be understood as dualistic, This overlap of cognition is probably a result of evolution and cannot be considered mere accident or concidence. I like ice cream, I like your ideas.

Whether you "remember" everything that occured to you consciously is not as relevant as the fact that you "can" remember it if the correcct methodology to access the memory is applied. This can be an externally or internally applied method of recall as complex as hypnosis or as simple as concentration and association. What is vastly more important is that the memory is a "cumulative experience" with a formative result in your "personality & self identification/awareness."

See where this is going? Even when yours, Discarnate, is the initial response of most people to what Anothergod has expressed, it is almost as if the denial is a safety measure that protects the self from pushing too hard at its own limits of definition. Once you take the time to analyze the proposition carefully you see it isnt so easilly dismissed no matter how unsettling some of the results to that analysis are.

Edited by Lazarus Long, 05 June 2003 - 09:47 AM.

[Aegist]

I don't know if that is a completely valid definition. Rather, there appears (to my poorly educated mind! *grin*) to be at least an initial link between physical sensation (typically pain) and what becomes termed 'experience' but may initially be equally well considered 'conditioning'. "We are the sum of our experiences" ain't that far off, but the biological instincts (pain flinch, fight/flight response, etc) are also contributors to our development.

Yes, experience is based on sensory inputs, but regularly received? I don't think so - I doubt you can remember the first time you were bored as a child, for instance, but may remember your first painful incident quite well. . .

I get the impresion that we aren't using the word 'experience' the same way here.

See, there is sensory stimulation (retinal response to light, nervous response to heat etc), which sends a signal to the brain > Which receives the sensory input... And the brain then does whatever it needs to do with that sensory input. (It pulls the stimulated part of the body away from the heat for example).

You then have this whole other concept of 'Experience'. Pain is an experience. Red is an experience. C minor is an experience. These experiences only exist within our own personal subjective world, and exist no-where in the objective universe. (ie: LIghtwaves exist...and there is a frequency which correspondes to our experience of red...but that lightwave is not the same thing as the experience of red.)

So, the questions are, why and how do we have these experiences? The flinch response you mentioned can quite easily occur from sensory stimulation, leading to the brain reacting appropriately. (or for that matter, the nervous system itself is the thing which react in a flinch! The brain doesn't know about it until after your body has reacted!!!) So we can react to the external world without 'experiencing' it...why would we have experience?

Thats how I mean 'Experience'.

And as for my explanation of how experience comes about, it as a pretty daring proposal...and this is the tenuous bit. If my theory was true, then it would mean that for the first portion of our life, we would not 'experience' anything at all. For my theory says that in the begining, we only receive sensory input. The brain reacts appropriately to these sensory inputs, but records all of them. As a collection of these inputs is built up, the brain develops a shorthand system for representing those inputs. In this way, as our brain is exposed to the stimuli which it already knows how to deal with (because evolution has programmed it how to react to them), it is also developing an internal world from scratch. It is recording all sensations, grouping those sensations into 'similar' categories, and then comparing and contrasting those sensations which fall into similar categories, and assigning those sensations appropriate 'experiental' representations.

So sound and sight come from entirely different sensory inputs, so they must be dissimilar. Hence, sound and light are incomparable as experiences.. (red is nothing like c minor...) But within the range of sensations that come from the ear, some sensations are more simialr then others... and so the brain compares all of the sensations appropraitely, and then assigns arbitrary experiential representations to those sensory inputs. Over time, this cataloguing and representing improves, and our ability to 'experience' develops.

Thats my theory anyway.

It has plenty of bold statements in it just waiting to shoot it down. I know it will happen, but its given me something interesting to think about.

[Lazarus Long]

Anothergod what you are describing is not so radical to cognitive theorists that deal with developmental awareness. We are experiential sponges as infants before we begin to get beyond the most simplistic process of evaluating experience as pleasure/pain.

What I "thought" you were discussing was the difference between the "event" of “experience or awareness” and the manner by which we assimilate that "experience" into our being as a cumulative aspect of building our self awareness. This is more than just a question of memory feedback because the assimilation involves a "rationalization process" that requires a "meaning" be placed on an event in "terms" that describe it personally and pragmatically.

This is where the belief/knowledge distinction weighs in so prominently because survival demands action based judgment experientially in very short time periods and if we encounter a void in comprehension to our "knowledge" then we switch from a reason based rational ordinal system to a belief mode that is related to an order of "conviction" to determine action. This can occur in a startling short time and when we experience this it actually is often associated with a perceived attenuation of time as during a traumatic event.

This is why a computer can have no survival based behavior as currently understood because no matter how fast it can think if it is confronted with a paradoxical conundrum it locks up until resolution and cannot make a leap of faith in order to act. Faith does not compute.

In the real Universe this makes you prey and food for the next critter. For humans a subtle example is that basically this caused the death of Archimedes in one interpretation of legend.

Am I making sense?

And is this relevant to what you are trying to describe?

[Discarnate]

Quoth Anothergod - "I get the impresion that we aren't using the word 'experience' the same way here."

Seems like it...

Anothergod again - "See, there is sensory stimulation -snip- You then have this whole other concept of 'Experience'. -snip- These experiences only exist within our own personal subjective world, and exist no-where in the objective universe"

First off - sure they do, in whatever manner we encode our memories. Just because we don't understand it, we can observe its usage everytime we remember something - complete with the subjective details, and warped by the filters of our perceptions at the time of the event, at the time of the recollection, and as other events impinged on our concepts between.

Second off - I was unclear from you explanation - I assume you meant that the 'subjective' memory rather than the 'objective' sensory impression is your definition of Experience. Am I correct?

Again, Anothergod - "So sound and sight come from entirely different sensory inputs, so they must be dissimilar. Hence, sound and light are incomparable as experiences.. (red is nothing like c minor...) But within the range of sensations that come from the ear, some sensations are more simialr then others... and so the brain compares all of the sensations appropraitely, and then assigns arbitrary experiential representations to those sensory inputs. Over time, this cataloguing and representing improves, and our ability to 'experience' develops.

Thats my theory anyway."

How 'bout aphasia? When sensory information bleeds across our self-defined boundaries, and you start to 'hear' green or 'smell' soft or 'see' hot?

And I agree w/ Laz - I doubt you'd shock many cog sci practitioners. Even if I believe that Laz isn't correct about there being a 'belief/knowledge' dichotomy. IMO, everything we have go thru our heads is a 'belief'. Some just have more supporting evidence than others, and some have more emotional affect than others. . .

-Discarnate

[Lazarus Long]

"Belief is that which you cannot know"

F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind

Reverse the conundrum, can humans know anything?

Or are you saying all belief is knowledge?

Or how about this, does a computer know its database, or does it only believe its database?

Is there a qualitative difference for a machine and if so why do you suspect there is no such distinction in humans?

Concreteness and conviction stem from very different cognitive processes that DO very much influence one another and in that sense are "related", but that does not make them the same.

Perhaps GIGO is the result of absolute faith in a perfect knowledge of one's own memory with no concordant ability to disbelieve (skepticism)?

So by that criterion computers ONLY believe and they cannot know anything, hence are unintelligent. Well this appears to still be the case pragmatically speaking. [ph34r]

[Mind]

When trying to pin down what life is I usually ask the question "When I see/encounter something, how do I know it is alive?" I see the grass on my lawn and I say "it is alive because it grows". Humans grow and thus they are alive. They have life.

What about the earth? It grows. According to some the earth gains 10 tons of mass each day collecting space dust (it also looses gases and energy to space each day...so the mass gain is probably not as high as some think). But anyway the earth changes, but I do not think of it as alive. I think of all the things on the surface and near sub-surface as alive, but not the earth itself. The act of growing may not be a sufficient determinant of life. Other things that could be added are, he ability to reproduce/replicate or the presence of a program/algorythm that drives the growth of an organism. In that case I would have to say that computer programs are alive (and only as intelligent as grass in some cases). Back to the propect of the earth being alive. It seems it does not have a program to replicate even though it may be growing. One could make an argument that the laws of physics are the "program" by which the earth "lives". I am not sure on that one...I will have to think about it.

[Discarnate]

(This one's to Laz...)

There's a difference, IMO, between what a computer can access and what a person believes. Computers have only 'objective' reason, not 'subjective'. . . That is, it can find out that register 3 has a bit pattern of '10101110'. It (unless/until we get AI) won't understand what that bit pattern means.

People, however, place meaning on top of meaning, innuendo on top of definition, spin on top of apprehension. To us, a cigar isn't always a cigar, to misquote Freud.

Thus, humans - perhaps better stated, self-aware intellect - has belief, and computers - restated, data handling devices - have access to pre-filled data.

Thus to say a computer 'knows' or 'believes' a database is somewhat of a misnomer. The closest of the two is 'knows', but that misses the point, IMO. It can access its database and utilize it in preprogrammed manners - perhaps even in some self-adaptive yet self-coherent manner, eventually.

As to WHY this is, perhaps it's because the rules humans use to process data are meant to be (or, at least ARE) broken. The rules computers use can't be broken. I don't know for sure, have to think about it more, but that's my first reaction.

GIGO - the 'garbage in garbage out' thumbnail rule of computers - is more an anthropormorphistic error I believe. That is, you the user assume that it the computer will be able to determine your 'true' meaning from whatever you feed its input stream(s). They ain't that smart. Yet. Heck, even people fail at that task - how else do miscommunications happen?

And your last statement, Laz, is so far off from what I meant as to make me chuckle and shake my head. At myself, that is - I coulda thought I was a little better at communicating than that. Obviously, I ain't.

IMO computers can only handle data. They don't understand it - and that's the critical difference. People are 'programmed' or 'hardwired' or whatever to do more than just handle the data. Call it pattern analysis, call it insight, call it quantum computing, call it a mess - it's something more. What 'it' is, I dunno - but I'd love to hear your perspective on it - and on anyone else's POV, too!

-Discarnate

Edited by Discarnate, 06 June 2003 - 12:05 AM.

[Discarnate]

Mind - how about organizations? They struggle to grow, often reproduce 'asexually' and/or 'sexually' by either fractioning into smaller groups or fusion between two groups, etc...

I don't know about 'em - I tend to treat organisms and organizations similarly in my head, actually. Where organisms store core information in genes, organizations tend to store their core information in memes. Where organisms grow by gaining cells, organizations grow by gaining people. etc - lots of potential analogies.

The big one is that organisms tend to defend themselves from encroachment by other organisms, and so do organizations...

-Discarnate

[Lazarus Long]

Why do you assume you understand data Discarnate?

Most learned information is NOT comprehended it is only relationally organized to define a general awareness. You can learn a lot of data that you memorize, the vast majority amount of which is basic ROM, commonly called facts, but have you personally derived and tested all this information you have copy/pasted into your head at school, from books, over the internet, and from general exposure?

Give me your best and honest estimate; go ahead do you think you can claim to have tested 10% of assumed data personally? 5%? 1%? 0.1%?

Catch my drift? No your cigar is an example of an artificial fact not a Natural Law, you can make it do what ever you want including explode.

But as a subjective quality it is ALSO what we define it to be by definition. Your cigar can suggest many things but it would be foolhardy for me to suggest it was really a can of tuna and I could chop it up and eat it. )

Is memory the same as knowledge?

Do you believe your memory?

Is the belief in your own existence sufficient to define it?

Is "learning" the same as memory, or is learned data RAM instead of ROM? ROM is like saying I believe my data base, it is immutable fact I cannot refute; true Belief. But human law as opposed to natural law (despite legal theorists to the contrary like Hans Kelsen) is not immutable by virtue of its subjectivity.

The idea is that we believe it by "convention" not true conviction. Hence it can be altered it must be known as input/output data different qualitatively from ROM, and for the sake of argument, not true belief (we haven't reached knowledge except tautologically), but it is like RAM, our operational memory suspects and subjects to constant checking and updating all incoming information like a browser window that’s been open a long time.

So while the data that feeds our everyday memory is a hodgepodge of miscellaneous facts and relationships we must continuously update our "awareness" of this RAM and ROM organization in our Operating System called an individual identity. But all we can know is what we believe is perhaps you are trying to say. But do we know that either?

So here you have a data stream of events feeding a RAM like memory function that is modified by learned ROM programs like say dentistry, history, astronomy, physics, methods for playing a guitar, how to mix pigments, are you getting the drift now?

You believe what you have learned but is this yet what many want to distinguish as knowledge?

You would leave us here Discarnate and say the machine is unaware,

IMO computers can only handle data. They don't understand it - and that's the critical difference. People are 'programmed' or 'hardwired' or whatever to do more than just handle the data. Call it pattern analysis, call it insight, call it quantum computing, call it a mess - it's something more.

Call it knowledge and intuitive reasoning (a sixth “sense”); or do you still want to claim that knowledge and belief are equivalent?

OK, let’s keep looking at that. You see what happens is that you can't prove the machine doesn't understand qualitatively less than you do, only quantitatively, because you haven't sufficiently programmed it to... Yet.

The computer doesn't "know," which is equivalent in meaning, as you have used it to mean "understand" the information but it certainly believes what it possesses in its databank. The machine has no choice that is what its programming determines. The machine can even be required to update and test its information, but it can't understand it you say because the organization is too complex. Why?

You need to go back and re-read what you wrote because while you denied the distinction that knowledge and belief are distinct you were actually utilizing the definition of knowledge as distinct from belief with regard to machines to distinguish ourselves from one. To understand is a property of knowledge, not belief, by definition.

We do not necessarily understand what we believe in, we know (maybe) what we believe, and we claim to understand what we know, hence we know what our beliefs are (questionable but I’ll let it ride) but we believe also that which we do not know, like an intuition (that intelligent “sense” again) into the fabric of the Universe that can only be said to become knowledge after it has survived a series (subjected to a gauntlet of replicable scientific tests) of objective proofs. This very educated guess is derived from belief and it is called a hypothesis as opposed to theory to distinguish it from belief, which of course describes what we believe we know. [wacko]

"Faith" is the basis of belief and it is what people claim they possess in God, or themselves, or in their systems and institutions that they may depend upon but have little in-depth comprehension of, also like the general sensory input that you take for granted as valid (put a lot of faith into) but do not know except existentially and only assume to be true.

I was teasing a little above and here too but do you see how easy it is to get in trouble if you do not distinguish between belief and knowledge? lol

That is how and why the two words entered the lexicon in the first place, out of necessity to define the distinction. Generally we use knowledge in the weak not strong sense. I know how to play a D scale, I know mechanical engineering, it isn’t; “I believe how to play a D scale” or “I believe mechanical engineering.” I may only believe I know and find this to be a false belief but I either know it, or not. [!]

We refer to what we have given serious study to, and "memorized" by wrote, to mean something we know, but when we say understand, or comprehend, we are referring to a STRONG category of knowledge. This is why I can suggest that Newton's belief in the true Nature of Gravity constituted a form of knowledge to the limits (testable) possible of his day. While for you, me, and most people it is really still just an article of faith that things fall towards the center of the Earth; faith based upon repeated experience. [huh]
We may have a life long experience of the event to support the belief but it requires more than that to claim knowledge, it requires true understanding or any mythological interpretation of genesis would be just as good as any modern cosmological theory predicated on astrophysics. [B)]

Let’s look at a different angle: So why doesn't a fancy calculator programmed with all the formulation for gravity and now relativity "know" what it has "memorized"?

Because it didn't discover or invent the formula? [ggg]

Neither did you. No, we say the bearer of this information still doesn't "know" the physics and true nature of gravity till the data can be organized (explained) into a much larger model of comparative information, say like a weather model. Oh but that is still something a machine can do and it doesn't understand the weather, and of course you do? [ph34r]

Well you know when it’s raining and sunny because you 'feel” the sensory data stream, but so does the computer. You can go learn how the weather works with all the various interactive forces and then you can claim you know the weather better than the machine but again, why? [unsure]

Oh yeah you understand the weather and the computer doesn't... [wacko]

I wish I could sound more reassuring about this. Maybe you are right there is no difference but then the computer knows as well as believes just like we do. The reason I said the computer only believes is because the computer is not trying to comprehend facts, it is only recording them and comparing them to its gospel, I mean algorithms, and assessing validity to determine (judge) if the data is consistent with the predetermined criterion of the "belief system," oh I mean program, that of course the computer knows, I mean memorizes, oh you know what I mean.

Right? )

[Lazarus Long]

What about the earth? It grows. According to some the earth gains 10 tons of mass each day collecting space dust (it also looses gases and energy to space each day...so the mass gain is probably not as high as some think). But anyway the earth changes, but I do not think of it as alive.

I think of all the things on the surface and near sub-surface as alive, but not the earth itself. The act of growing may not be a sufficient determinant of life. Other things that could be added are, he ability to reproduce/replicate or the presence of a program/algorithm that drives the growth of an organism.

You are applying a strict quantitative measure, "mass" to define growth. What about a qualitative measure like "evolves"?

By that measure the Earth is clearly a living and vibrant creature birthing generation after generation of evolving life as well as ourselves.

OK let's not restrict ourselves to complex concepts like evolution what about simply change? As in life is change, life adapts? Has the Earth adapted? Could be, this one is very tough to assert but lets think tectonically. Change, no matter how excruciatingly slow, is real and there is a mountain (pun) of corroborative evidence to support that change for the entire planet is ongoing, but is this a cognitive process of change?

Wheew, I wish I could say I knew, but I don't. I do however "sense" an area of investigation that is needed. One that is becoming apparent as we refine definitions like cognizance and intelligence and life to mean things that can be applied to constructs like "Artificially Intelligent" machines and "Uplifted Animals".

Does the Earth possess an energetic field? Yes.

Does the Earth have a complex fluid interior of plasma that operates by a complex circulatory and regulatory system? Yes.

Can the Earth be seen to have metamorphosed itself from a lifeless orb surrounded by a methane/ammonia atmosphere through the assistance of organized proteins that it created before any other organized system subsequently called "alive"? Yes.

Did these complex environmental amino acids begin to organize into Archae even before bacteria, and then went on to collectively reorganize (terraform) the entire planet making life as we understand it normally possible? Yes.

Is there any evidence this process was Intelligent a priori such that it could be said to have been intentional? No.

But here we are already discussing a phenomenon of rational order for the Universe that is also not a testable hypothesis at our current level of ability. It is valid however to BOTH make a leap of faith, and rationally demand all such beliefs so derived are subject to all manner of test to determine their validity.

[Discarnate]

Why do you assume you understand data Discarnate?

Most learned information is NOT comprehended it is only relationally organized to define a general awareness.  You can learn a lot of data that you memorize, the vast majority amount of which is basic ROM, commonly called facts, but have you personally derived and tested all this information you have copy/pasted into your head at school, from books, over the internet, and from general exposure?

Give me your best and honest estimate; go ahead do you think you can claim to have tested 10% of assumed data personally? 5%? 1%? 0.1%?

Ding, Ding! Round 3 - FIGHT!!!! (*chuckle* couldn't resist the humor...)

Laz - This is why I draw the distinction between computer 'intelligence' (if you can apply that word fairly - atm I don't think you can) and human intelligence. Computers can spit the facts they've been given out and they can apply the rules they've been given to those facts in some very deliberate, highly orchestrated dance. Humans, however, BELIEVE. We don't KNOW. Whole point of the post to you a little bit ago.

I HIGHLY doubt that I've tested the underlying assumed data of what I believe by anything even beginning to APPROACH .1% of the whole. Aside from a few labs in highschool and college, I have a very weak physical experimentation history. My focus has been elsewhere, and I freely (gladly!) admit this.

-snip-
Is memory the same as knowledge? 

Do you believe your memory?

Is the belief in your own existence sufficient to define it?

Is "learning" the same as memory, or is learned data RAM instead of ROM?  ROM is like saying I believe my data base, it is immutable fact I cannot refute; true Belief.  But human law as opposed to natural law (despite legal theorists to the contrary like Hans Kelsen) is not immutable by virtue of its subjectivity. 

Memory is the precursor to knowledge. If you can't remember it, you can't know it, now can you? (Caveat - physical response may be drilled into the body to generate physical reaction to specific stimuli - but I don't know of a case where mental, thought-out response may be drilled in) Are they the same? No - heck no. Knowledge is memory which has been tested, tweaked to cover weaknesses, verified by others, etc - as appropriate.

Do I believe in memory? I believe in it as much as I believe in myself. *wry grin*

The belief in my own existance is all I got. There's lots of wonderful theories as to how I exist, but I emphasize they're THEORIES. There are to the best of my knowledge no falsifiable theories which are completely proven to cover all the details which lead up to 'me.' (An aside - this isn't a depressive thought. It is a fact that I have no reference on which I can base my existance. I can either choose to curl up in a corner somewhere, or I can keep on living. I personally choose to keep on living.)

Learning is a RAM process, from my understanding and personal experience. I don't think of fire the same way I did as a kid. I 'understand' (yes, those're definitely scare quotes) fire's physical properties better today than at 5, but tis' still just as fascinating, as beautiful to watch in the fireplace then as now. On another aspect, some dogs once scared the crap outta me when I was young and delivering newspapers. My memories show me the relative size of those noisy dogs, and I realize that the dog coulda hurt me at that time, but it was MUCH more bark than bite. Thus, the memories reveal different things to me now, as compared to then, as I have other 'facts' to bounce the alleged sensory impressions off of to generate different conclusions.

The idea is that we believe it by "convention" not true conviction.  Hence it can be altered it must be known as input/output data different qualitatively from ROM, and for the sake of argument, not true belief (we haven't reached knowledge except tautologically), but it is like RAM, our operational memory suspects and subjects to constant checking and updating all incoming information like a browser window that’s been open a long time. 

If you mean 'knowledge' as what we believe, or science, or natural law - I agree. It's a faith-based event, UNLESS you can say you've examined the underpinnings. The problem lies in that the amount of underpinnings we currently have - a *LOT*. Too much - it'd take a whole lifetime and then some as we are today to verify the underpinnings.

So while the data that feeds our everyday memory is a hodgepodge of miscellaneous facts and relationships we must continuously update our "awareness" of this RAM and ROM organization in our Operating System called an individual identity.  But all we can know is what we believe is perhaps you are trying to say.  But do we know that either?

So here you have a data stream of events feeding a RAM like memory function that is modified by learned ROM programs like say dentistry, history, astronomy, physics, methods for playing a guitar, how to mix pigments, are you getting the drift now?

You believe what you have learned but is this yet what many want to distinguish as knowledge?

Actually, it's quite a LOT worse than that. Everything I "know" is a belief. I don't know that I am me. There is no provable continuity between one moment and the next due to Planck's seminal work and the Planck constant, to say nothing of the psychological ramifications of sleep, and also the whole simulation worldview.

Without that foundation, how'n'heck can I 'know' anything? I can always fall back on that wonderfully annoying Berkleyite stance that the world is something feeding my neurons stimuli, and it puts up a wonderfully cohesive front, but I cannot PROVE any of it. (Always loved Dr Johnson's response to that.)

You would leave us here Discarnate and say the machine is unaware, "IMO computers can only handle data. They don't understand it - and that's the critical difference. People are 'programmed' or 'hardwired' or whatever to do more than just handle the data. Call it pattern analysis, call it insight, call it quantum computing, call it a mess - it's something more.'

Call it knowledge and intuitive reasoning (a sixth “sense”); or do you still want to claim that knowledge and belief are equivalent? 

I'm sorry if I gave you that impression, Laz - was NOT the intent. Rather, let me restate my belief - human knowledge in the 'I know without the slightest doubt' sense is at best a psychological crutch, at worst an hallucination. I freely admit to using the conventional 'know' instead of 'believe' in day-to-day communication - I *need* people to continue to exist, and don't want to alienate too many - but 'believe' is, IMO, the proper term.

Hopefully, this clarifies the matter...

-Discarnate

[immortalitysystems.com]

The question was "where does live come from?", the next question could be "where will it lead/go".

On the level of genes, mutations make evolution/change possible. Mutations are the breaking of codes (DNA) that change organisms. Live as we know it could not exsist without it.

What has to happen on the level of memes to make evolution/change possible?

What will, or how can the rules/cultures of organizations be broken?

What will change the meme "we all must die", that rules the organization we presently live in?

What could be the "cosmic rays" that triger change on the memetic level?

[Lazarus]

hmmmm...a buddhist monk once told me when I asked hima similar question, "in order to understand consciousness one must allow themselves to go without it for a single day, only in this can they understand consciousness, by appreciating what they have been without". So I asked him ok well then i will just have somonone knock me out right? the monk the said" to loose conciousness is to be in a state where you wish to regain all of it, however to wish is to be somewhat conscious, even if only in a small level. so I asked him, well how does one go about doing this? he replied "become without consciousness and when you have regained it you will know" so a bit unsatisfyed I asked, well has anyone ever done this before..and lived? the monk yeplied "yes, and yes". I then asked him what did that mean. he said "every man goes without consciousness when he dies, he then is conscious again when he is reborn, and then he understands, but then his mind is filled with so many other things of life, that he soon forgets this divine secret not knowing its value. and the other yes I aksed. "buddha".

it may not offer an awnser, but it was a conversation I had a long time ago that has never stoped chnaging my view of life, who knows maybeone day i wil become enlightened too, yippidy skippidy doo!!!

[imminstmorals]

In another words, if you are conscious you don't wanna be a monk and whipsers some else's wisdom =D



Where does life come From?
who noes
Chance? Aliens?

=D, i'm pretty sure aliens are more humane than humans unless we did somefin selfish hehe

[chubtoad]

To the best of my knowledge, the real way life started was through the chemistry of the primordial soup(life on earth anyway). There has been many experiments in which life like chemical compounds have bean created in various lab set ups mimicking those conditions. An interesting idea I have seen is that evelution actually started before life in complex compounds and perhaps gave rise to life.

Edited by chubtoad, 27 October 2004 - 02:41 AM.

[bacopa]

Lazarus your knowledge base never ceases to amaze me I enjoy just reading your posts as it gives me inspiration to continue to seek out knowledge the way I wish I did growing up. It's as if your mind is one big library of knowledge, free thought, logic and optimism all rolled up into one forward moving chess game.

Back to the topic I agree with all of your explanations as to how the brain, memory, knowledge vs. belief works and I would have to add that as we take in info and process like a computer we are also as Laz said not necassarily drawing on all that much actual learned knowledge instead it's a combination of instinct, some knowledge of a general sort pertaining to a situation similar to one that you may have dealt with in the past. It would seem that memory is imperfect and we memorize archetypes of sitauations that fit into general categories and make decisions according to that.

I really think we are an accumulation of experiences, knowledge, and instinct and belief seems to be that thing that throws us off every now and than. We may want to believe in the continuity of the self but are not necassarily correct in that belief. I think free will plays a role in this argument as well because depending on how much we have of it will obviously determine how much of our "self" is actually real vs. percieved/fabricated.

So we're like a computer that processes information slower but can think in more complex ways and yes we seem to have the unique ability to progressively layer ideas on top of each other and we are capable of inuendo as well.

As to where life came from I would have to agree with the primordial soup explanation and that little by little life evolved working systems of organization...we are one manifestation of that organization. It's bizzarre that it turned out this way and yes our ability to reason should be separated from the rest of the animals but it's important to realize that we developed this ability really as a stroke of luck. And once one is able to reason even at a simpler level... than that solves the whole puzzle simply because we than have that ability to now go beyond our limitations and through our collective efforts we can get amazing things done.

Is memory the same as knowledge? 

Do you believe your memory?

Is the belief in your own existence sufficient to define it?


The computer doesn't "know," which is equivalent in meaning, as you have used it to mean "understand" the information but it certainly believes what it possesses in its databank.  The machine has no choice that is what its programming determines.  The machine can even be required to update and test its information, but it can't understand it you say because the organization is too complex.  Why? 

"Faith" is the basis of belief and it is what people claim they possess in God, or themselves, or in their systems and institutions that they may depend upon but have little in-depth comprehension of, also like the general sensory input that you take for granted as valid (put a lot of faith into) but do not know except existentially and only assume to be true.


Let’s look at a different angle: So why doesn't a fancy calculator programmed with all the formulation for gravity and now relativity "know" what it has "memorized"? 
[wacko]

I wish I could sound more reassuring about this.  Maybe you are right there is no difference but then the computer knows as well as believes just like we do.  The reason I said the computer only believes is because the computer is not trying to comprehend facts, it is only recording them and comparing them to its gospel, I mean algorithms, and assessing validity to determine (judge) if the data is consistent with the predetermined criterion of the "belief system," oh I mean program, that of course the computer knows, I mean memorizes, oh you know what I mean.

Right?  )

[bacopa]

Lazarus your knowledge base never ceases to amaze me I enjoy just reading your posts as it gives me inspiration to continue to seek out knowledge the way I wish I did growing up. It's as if your mind is one big library of knowledge, free thought, logic and optimism moving progressively forward like a chess game gone awry

Back to the topic I agree with all of your explanations as to how the brain, memory, knowledge vs. belief works and I would have to add that as we take in info and process like a computer we are also as Lazarus said not necassarily drawing on all that much actual learned knowledge instead it's a combination of instinct, some knowledge of a general sort pertaining to a situation similar to one that you may have dealt with in the past. It would seem that memory is imperfect and we memorize archetypes of situations that fit into generalized categories and make decisions according to that.

I really think we are an accumulation of experiences, which consist of knowledge which we get from memory I assume, and instinct and belief seem to be the things that are more tenuous in humans. We may want to believe in the continuity of the self but are not necassarily correct in that belief. Our instincts may tell us there is a God but that may be wrong. I think free will plays a role in this argument as well because depending on how much we have of it will obviously determine how much control over ourselves we really have.

So we're like a computer that processes information slower, can think in more complex and creative ways and yes we seem to have the unique ability to progressively layer ideas on top of each other and we are capable of weird human based things like inuendo as well. But where human beings are at fault is in our imperfect evolutionary based brains that screws up our potential to be truly logical all the time. Our primitive instincts compel us to become overly emotional quite often causing irrational behavior, and our beliefs can cause us to make poorly informed decisions not based on empirical realities.

As to where life came from I would have to agree with the primordial soup explanation and that little by little life evolved working systems of organization...humans are one manifestation of that organization. It's bizzarre that it turned out this way and yes our ability to reason should be separated from the rest of the animals because we developed this ability really as a stroke of luck. And once one is able to reason even at a simple level than you have a starting ground for which you can do just about anything assuming the laws of physics apply universally.

Is memory the same as knowledge? 

Do you believe your memory?

Is the belief in your own existence sufficient to define it?

"Faith" is the basis of belief and it is what people claim they possess in God, or themselves, or in their systems and institutions that they may depend upon but have little in-depth comprehension of, also like the general sensory input that you take for granted as valid (put a lot of faith into) but do not know except existentially and only assume to be true.

Right?  )

Memory is not the same as knowledge as memory can be fabricated

I don't always believe my memory for the previous reason.

The belief in my own existence is insufficient to define it because that relies partially on my senses. In this case an intuitive type of sense and as Descarte said our senses can decieve us.

Faith like belief can be decieving and existentialism is a belief system therefore in my mind it's kind of like having a faith kind of system but without reason.

[Lazarus Long]

As to where life came from I would have to agree with the primordial soup explanation and that little by little life evolved working systems of organization...humans are one manifestation of that organization.

It's bizzarre that it turned out this way and yes our ability to reason should be separated from the rest of the animals because we developed this ability really as a stroke of luck. And once one is able to reason even at a simple level than you have a starting ground for which you can do just about anything assuming the laws of physics apply universally.

Leaving aside the qualitative assumption that we are so distinct from the rest of the food chain for a moment I would ask you and everyone reading this to answer; does this mean that ultimately you have decided to place your "faith" in luck?

Or do you claim to "know" luck to be the determining factor?

Or is the default option simply "luck" (plus faith in self) because we simply still lack a sufficient and adequate database to make a valid judgments and so must pragmatically rely on a determination for behavioral choice predicated on belief?

Putting our "faith" in luck is the basis of almost all religious doctrine when studied from a psychological combined with historical perspective, hence the importance of "signs" to the "faithful".

The distinction of placing our "faith" in science as opposed to "luck" is when we determine ALL evidence to be both quantifiable and qualified, as much more important than mere chance.

In fact chance itself becomes an additional definable element of the analysis that also must be addressed as per Heisenberg, Quantum Mechanics, and even Relativity. However the religious "mindset" is predicted on a "God" that never rolls dice, but ask instead what if an omnipotent & omniscient God likes to gamble?

Can an omnipotent and omniscient being ever rely on chance?

Einstein posed this question best but as an assumption: "God never rolls dice". I however view it as one of my favorite paradoxes. I see it as more subtle and interesting IMO than the classic variations of the "immovable rock struck by the unstoppable force" arguments.

Can an omnipotent & omniscient force be trapped by determinism?

Welcome to chaos theory and the search for intelligence and free will in the Universe.

[Da55id]

Laz - Enjoyed your post. It seems to me based on current evidence that if the Universe can be compared to a program, it is coded to ensure the possibility of unpredictable surprise.

It is easy for me to conceive of infinitely long lived beings deliberately introducing uncertainty into existence. Such is a necessary precursor for the true existence of novelty - and free will - and sharing and caring. One of the greatest challenges of a video game designer is introducing sufficient randomness into a game to keep it interesting.

I disagree with Einstein. The very first thing the Bible describes in Genesis is God rolling dice - with us...will they - or won't they eat the fruit.

[bacopa]

Leaving aside the qualitative assumption that we are so distinct from the rest of the food chain for a moment I would ask you and everyone reading this to answer; does this mean that ultimately you have decided to place your "faith" in luck?

Or do you claim to "know" luck to be the determining factor?

Can an omnipotent and omniscient being ever rely on chance?

Einstein posed this question best but as an assumption: "God never rolls dice".  I however view it as one of my favorite paradoxes. I see it as more subtle and interesting IMO than the classic variations of the "immovable rock struck by the unstoppable force" arguments. 

Can an omnipotent & omniscient force be trapped by determinism?

I have not placed my faith in luck that is why we as humans are striving towards the control over our scientific creator evolution. That seems to be the premise of AI and the singularity to surpass the luck of the draw that evolution seems to stem from.

Luck is a determining factor not necessarily the only determining factor, the abilty to choose anything, whether with total or partial free will, is another determining factor as well

According to the Bible no but than again i'm not religious. if there were an omnipotent being than I would imagine he'd be pretty stupid to rely on chance because he or she would not be utilizing the full extent of their omnipresent power to control and manipulate human beings!

that would negate the whole premise of what an omniscient being is, now wouldn't it? Determinism seems more in line with the world of the mortals, mankinds "doomed fate" like in a mythological paradox. Oedipus Rex comes to mind fated to kill his father and bed his mother... there's hard core determinism for you. Interestingly enough the Greek Gods were fated just like the mortals to be punished if they stepped out of line. So that shows that even Gods are not fully in control, what's even worse is that the Greek Gods celebrated their freedom of thought and choice almost like mortals who are just realizing that they can be free in a deterministic world

[bacopa]

The distinction of placing our "faith" in science as opposed to "luck" is when we determine ALL evidence to be both quantifiable and qualified, as much more important than mere chance. 

That seems to be the only right answer as we see what is correct as opposed to what we wish things to be, I also think we should find a way to develop complete free will if this is indeed what will make the difference between a mind that sees the truth vs. one that deludes itself through fantastical belief systems of faith. When we can truly see that which is quantified and qualified than we will have true appreciation predicated on the what's real not fantasy.