Life after Death? The mechanics of it?
Discussion
Chris GB said:
Formal thinking is thinking that conforms to patterns such as those of maths or logic. If I times n by n, I am carrying out a pure function, squaring.
Could you give me an example of 'formal thinking' that a computer cannot do? The example you keep repeating (n x n = n²) can be done by a computer. The conclusion is therefore there is nothing special about humans (or even any living animal).We're going to have to agree to disagree on those other points.
alock said:
Could you give me an example of 'formal thinking' that a computer cannot do? The example you keep repeating (n x n = n²) can be done by a computer. The conclusion is therefore there is nothing special about humans (or even any living animal).
We're going to have to agree to disagree on those other points.
I think the argument was that the computer cannot do this without the aid of a human (programmer and operator). The computer then isn't doing any formal thinking, it's just following instructions.We're going to have to agree to disagree on those other points.
From there perhaps one might ask if the brain is not simply a very advanced computer, and that man-made computers may one day be able to form ideas and concepts as a human mind does, but cannot yet. There is some indication that this could happen - scientists have successfully built a functioning model of a roundworm's brain. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/21/tech/mci-lego-wo... - and if it does and AI becomes a reality, then formal thinking is no longer the exclusive domain of the organically minded.
In addition, the premise that free will is an illusion and that every decision we make can - in principle but possibly not in practice - be predicted from birth and even earlier, is once again gaining favour. Without free will we are most definitely simply a collection of electrical and chemical actions and this very sentence I am typing is an inevitable consequince of my life to this point and that of those that came before me and possibly of the planet itself. To show that free will is an illusion would be to show that formal thinking can be, and indeed is, performed by a machine.
My opinion is that the formal thinking argument is simply, depending on your starting point of view, exploiting or theorising on a large gap in knowledge about how a brain works. However, as always, I remain agnostic until someone can unarguably demonstrate what the hell is really going on in this weird place.
Edited by kiseca on Wednesday 20th May 18:39
Edited by kiseca on Wednesday 20th May 18:40
Mafffew said:
J4CKO said:
I am kind of thinking that I am dead it will be like before I was born, i.e. nothing and I wont be around to ponder it being nothing, my carcass will be burnt away in a big industrial incinerator and someone will fell duty bound to say some nice stuff, life will go on, I will be a few photographs that over time will be deleted, fade and be disposed of by subsequent generations. The cells that make you up go on, as smoke and ground up bone which will be sprinkled, by your family at some place off your choosing, once you get rid of the water as vapour, a couple of pounds of ash dumped on beaches, in the sea, on sporting venues or if they are really lazy dumped in the garden.
I quite like being me now but appreciate that it is transient, I will not exist at some point but billions of others like me will continue, we don't really matter in the scheme of things, might as well just get on with it, not be a
, try to enjoy the good bits and gloss over the bad bits.
The afterlife, I cant see that existing, religions are all different and have differing criteria, some are more bks than others but they are all without exception, utter bks but saying this gets you closer in a lot of cases to the answer that you are seeking, but you wont be able to ponder it, you will be dead and your head held up by someone chanting how the non existent deity is great.
So, enjoy it whilst it lasts, make the most of it whilst not being a (so as not to compromise others enjoyment of the temporary phenomena of life) as soon enough you will be dust and memories.
The 10 commandments really were a bit much. One would have been enough, "Thou shall not be a cI quite like being me now but appreciate that it is transient, I will not exist at some point but billions of others like me will continue, we don't really matter in the scheme of things, might as well just get on with it, not be a
, try to enjoy the good bits and gloss over the bad bits.The afterlife, I cant see that existing, religions are all different and have differing criteria, some are more b
ks than others but they are all without exception, utter bks but saying this gets you closer in a lot of cases to the answer that you are seeking, but you wont be able to ponder it, you will be dead and your head held up by someone chanting how the non existent deity is great.So, enjoy it whilst it lasts, make the most of it whilst not being a
(so as not to compromise others enjoyment of the temporary phenomena of life) as soon enough you will be dust and memories. t"RizzoTheRat said:
Carrot said:
You have both just founded my New religion...
Watch Adam Hill's Happyism show, I think he might have beaten you to it. Touch the frog!ATG - Is there a way of getting a determinate outcome from a process that can only yield underdetermination? It sounds like a flat contradiction.
Ross's point with belief is that no-one could consistently act as if there were no validity - your act of arguing against validity must appeal to validity, otherwise there is no argument being made. And if there is validity, there can't be only ever underdetermination.
When you say we can build physical systems that look like formal thinking, I agree completely. Why do they look like formal thinking? "Because there is no such thing" would be an odd answer? I'd say because we, capable of it, design / program / run / interpret them. Without this thinking from us, there is nothing that approximates formal thinking - there is no syntax, no semantics, no meaning.
Formal thinking produced by a system by chance while being underdetermined in a world where there is only underdetermination would go completely unrecognized. If everything is underdetermined, we have no grounds for ascribing any conclusion to any physical process. The fact we do with certainty give certain conclusions to physical processes is because there is something determinate.
Ross again - to define formal thinking is to model it - the short of it is that we could have no definition of formal thinking if all is underdetermined - we could only have an infinite number of possible definitions, in fact we couldn't even get that far.
Ross's point with belief is that no-one could consistently act as if there were no validity - your act of arguing against validity must appeal to validity, otherwise there is no argument being made. And if there is validity, there can't be only ever underdetermination.
When you say we can build physical systems that look like formal thinking, I agree completely. Why do they look like formal thinking? "Because there is no such thing" would be an odd answer? I'd say because we, capable of it, design / program / run / interpret them. Without this thinking from us, there is nothing that approximates formal thinking - there is no syntax, no semantics, no meaning.
Formal thinking produced by a system by chance while being underdetermined in a world where there is only underdetermination would go completely unrecognized. If everything is underdetermined, we have no grounds for ascribing any conclusion to any physical process. The fact we do with certainty give certain conclusions to physical processes is because there is something determinate.
Ross again - to define formal thinking is to model it - the short of it is that we could have no definition of formal thinking if all is underdetermined - we could only have an infinite number of possible definitions, in fact we couldn't even get that far.
Edited by Chris GB on Wednesday 20th May 21:24
kiseca - if free will is an illusion then you aren't really choosing to remain agnostic, there are no choices.
Ross's argument on formal thinking isn't exploiting a gap in knowledge - we know that all physical processes are underdetermined, we also know that there is something determinate, else we couldn't know anything validly, such as physical processes being underdetermined.
Modeling a roundworm's brain doesn't tell us about formal thinking - a roundworm isn't making logical arguments or squaring.
Ross's argument on formal thinking isn't exploiting a gap in knowledge - we know that all physical processes are underdetermined, we also know that there is something determinate, else we couldn't know anything validly, such as physical processes being underdetermined.
Modeling a roundworm's brain doesn't tell us about formal thinking - a roundworm isn't making logical arguments or squaring.
Edited by Chris GB on Wednesday 20th May 21:35
Chris GB said:
ATG - Is there a way of getting a determinate outcome from a process that can only yield underdetermination? It sounds like a flat contradiction.
Ross's point with belief is that no-one could consistently act as if there were no validity - your act of arguing against validity must appeal to validity, otherwise there is no argument being made. And if there is validity, there can't be only ever underdetermination.
When you say we can build physical systems that look like formal thinking, I agree completely. Why do they look like formal thinking? "Because there is no such thing" would be an odd answer? I'd say because we, capable of it, design / program / run / interpret them. Without this thinking from us, there is nothing that approximates formal thinking - there is no syntax, no semantics, no meaning.
Formal thinking produced by a system by chance while being underdetermined in a world where there is only underdetermination would go completely unrecognized. If everything is underdetermined, we have no grounds for ascribing any conclusion to any physical process. The fact we do with certainty give certain conclusions
to physical processes is because there is something determinate.
Ross again - to define formal thinking is to model it - the short of it is that we could have no definition of formal thinking if all is underdetermined - we could only have an infinite number of possible definitions, in fact we couldn't even get that far.
I've been dead, your belief system is flawed. Sorry for that but that's just the way it is.Ross's point with belief is that no-one could consistently act as if there were no validity - your act of arguing against validity must appeal to validity, otherwise there is no argument being made. And if there is validity, there can't be only ever underdetermination.
When you say we can build physical systems that look like formal thinking, I agree completely. Why do they look like formal thinking? "Because there is no such thing" would be an odd answer? I'd say because we, capable of it, design / program / run / interpret them. Without this thinking from us, there is nothing that approximates formal thinking - there is no syntax, no semantics, no meaning.
Formal thinking produced by a system by chance while being underdetermined in a world where there is only underdetermination would go completely unrecognized. If everything is underdetermined, we have no grounds for ascribing any conclusion to any physical process. The fact we do with certainty give certain conclusions
to physical processes is because there is something determinate.
Ross again - to define formal thinking is to model it - the short of it is that we could have no definition of formal thinking if all is underdetermined - we could only have an infinite number of possible definitions, in fact we couldn't even get that far.
Edited by Chris GB on Wednesday 20th May 21:24
The light at the end of the tunnel, it's just your brain starting to shutdown...
Einion Yrth said:
Richard Feynman, one of the giants of 20th century physics, is known to have remarked that if you cannot explain something in simple terms then you, quite simply, do not understand it. ChrisGB fails on this count.
I explained it in three lines with only one word of more than 3 syllables. About Feynman - taking things in his authority has led to some of the conceptual mess in QM - for example, his dictum that if you think you've understood QM you haven't. Where does that leave us? A Copenhagen interpretation that doesn't know whether it's talking about physical objects or mathematical abstractions. Feynman has encouraged physicists to not bother with the conceptual framework that might sort out such messes. But anyway, all O/T.
Chris GB said:
Einion Yrth said:
Richard Feynman, one of the giants of 20th century physics, is known to have remarked that if you cannot explain something in simple terms then you, quite simply, do not understand it. ChrisGB fails on this count.
I explained it in three lines with only one word of more than 3 syllables. About Feynman - taking things in his authority has led to some of the conceptual mess in QM - for example, his dictum that if you think you've understood QM you haven't. Where does that leave us? A Copenhagen interpretation that doesn't know whether it's talking about physical objects or mathematical abstractions. Feynman has encouraged physicists to not bother with the conceptual framework that might sort out such messes. But anyway, all O/T.
Chris GB said:
kiseca - if free will is an illusion then you aren't really choosing to remain agnostic, there are no choices.
Ross's argument on formal thinking isn't exploiting a gap in knowledge - we know that all physical processes are underdetermined, we also know that there is something determinate, else we couldn't know anything validly, such as physical processes being underdetermined.
Modeling a roundworm's brain doesn't tell us about formal thinking - a roundworm isn't making logical arguments or squaring.
Whether by choice or not, as I said, I remain agnostic.Ross's argument on formal thinking isn't exploiting a gap in knowledge - we know that all physical processes are underdetermined, we also know that there is something determinate, else we couldn't know anything validly, such as physical processes being underdetermined.
Modeling a roundworm's brain doesn't tell us about formal thinking - a roundworm isn't making logical arguments or squaring.
Edited by Chris GB on Wednesday 20th May 21:35
We cannot know that all physical processes are underdetermined until we can show that formal thinking is not a function of the physical brain.
The roundworm experiment is not an example of formal thinking. It is an example of a neural network being successfully modelled. It means that the possibility remains open that more complex neural networks, for example a human brain, may also be modelled.
If this model comes to pass and demonstrates formal thinking, it will show that formal thinking is a physical process. That one does not need anything other than a brain to achieve it.
kiseca - "We cannot know that all physical processes are underdetermined until we can show that formal thinking is not a function of the physical brain."
As Ross says, a decisive reason why no physical process can be determinate, even one as complex as the whole cosmos, is that a physical process will always be compatible with counterfactually opposed predicates, as he puts it - i.e. there will always be mutually exclusive possible explanations for any physical process. This will hold for any arrangement of neural firing or wiring in the brain as much as for everything else.
As Ross says, a decisive reason why no physical process can be determinate, even one as complex as the whole cosmos, is that a physical process will always be compatible with counterfactually opposed predicates, as he puts it - i.e. there will always be mutually exclusive possible explanations for any physical process. This will hold for any arrangement of neural firing or wiring in the brain as much as for everything else.
Edited by Chris GB on Thursday 21st May 22:57
ATG - I agree wrt pigs, but to define formal thinking is to do it.
When I add 11 and 11 and get the answer that would have been 44 had I used 22 and 22, I am adding - understanding what the pure form is, and this constitutes the formal thinking; there are no infinite mutually exclusive functions being performed here. Wouldn't you have to show that there are? Can you?
If my arguments have infinite incompatible possible explanations, being underdetermined, there is no way any one could do more than take my words as noise, is there?
I couldn't actually argue for underdetermination of apparently formal thinking, because to do so is to say there is no such thing as a proper argument or logical demonstration?
What is your way out of this?
When I add 11 and 11 and get the answer that would have been 44 had I used 22 and 22, I am adding - understanding what the pure form is, and this constitutes the formal thinking; there are no infinite mutually exclusive functions being performed here. Wouldn't you have to show that there are? Can you?
If my arguments have infinite incompatible possible explanations, being underdetermined, there is no way any one could do more than take my words as noise, is there?
I couldn't actually argue for underdetermination of apparently formal thinking, because to do so is to say there is no such thing as a proper argument or logical demonstration?
What is your way out of this?
Edited by Chris GB on Thursday 21st May 23:01
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