Randall
J. Randall Murphy
An excellent post actually. It would have been more relevant over here on this thread though
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Philosophy, Science, & The Unexplained - Main Thread
- Thread starter Randall
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nameless
Paranormal Adept
F**ck me thats some hardcore riding. I hope that fella was alright. He did well to keep it a controlled release.
aye 37 miles a lap, record is 132mph av, 270+ corners and bends per lap, on roads 40ft wide including pavements, nobody does it, like we do it.
very late edit.
yes he was ok, in the end broken sternum, and collar-bone, [maybe some ribs, cant rember ] and i guess some serious road burn to backside/hips.
very late edit.
yes he was ok, in the end broken sternum, and collar-bone, [maybe some ribs, cant rember ] and i guess some serious road burn to backside/hips.
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Interesting paper, but it has the same issues as all other papers when it comes down to the crunch. Consider this quote from the paper regarding what Reflexive Monism is:
"Reflexive Monism is a dual-aspect theory (in the tradition of Spinoza) which argues that the one
basic stuff of which the universe is composed has the potential to manifest both physically and as
conscious experience."
basic stuff of which the universe is composed has the potential to manifest both physically and as
conscious experience."
But for the sake of analysis, let's suppose that it is the case that there is only one "basic substance", how does that change the fact that the various configurations of this substance produce new contexts in which mind and matter are obviously separate? It doesn't. Dualism ( the mind/matter situation ) in general ( not identical to substance dualism ) is simply a closer look at the bigger picture, and therefore the argument that Monism and Dualism are mutually exclusive is a faulty position to take right from the start. Trees and people are both made out of the same "basic stuff", but that doesn't justify the argument that trees and people are therefore identical.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Chalmers' assumption that "hardware isn't the problem" ( 5:15 ) is problematic because we still don't know what the full requirements are, mainly because the details of what constitutes intelligence and how it applies to AI is still a matter of debate in and of itself, and even if we get that figured out, it isn't simply a "software problem" as he suggests. For example, some CPU circuitry is designed to specifically accommodate the software that will be run on it, so we can't know for sure what the engineering of the hardware will entail until the "software bottleneck" as he calls it is resolved. It may be an architecture that is much different than a vast array of CPU chips like we see in use today.
The interesting part happens after 25:00 when he starts talking about integration. While I see intellectual enhancement as plausible, I'm not convinced that you can upload consciousness itself. I think it is entirely possible, if not likely, that consciousness goes beyond sheer computational power. That's not to say that I don't believe that consciousness is the product of a functioning brain ( emergence ). I think that emergence is the theory that makes the most sense of the bunch, but I'm not convinced that it [ consciousness ] can emerge from just any kind of brain. I think that it is the circumstance for AI, that only a brain specifically engineered to give rise to consciousness can give rise to it, and an electronic CPU wafer may not facilitate emergence.
S
smcder
Guest
I originally posted this in the "Consciousness and the Paranormal" thread - there is a lively discussion going on over there now, you all are welcome to join in!
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Yes, right, that's the thread Tyger derailed this one to. I won't be posting there and I'm removing or moving most my content from it.
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Randall
J. Randall Murphy
RELOCATED POST
In the example above, the woman experienced what could fairly be called a psychic phenomena in the form of dream-visions. Additionally the woman was part of a prayer group, and prayers are essentially telepathic requests to what people believe is God. So here we have a situation where a psychic process was thought to have been used to elicit help from an unseen mystical third party with the power to influence the situation, and arising out of this situation, some sort of feedback seems to have followed which appears to have been a key factor in finding the missing girl. So looking at this situation without the religious filter, it seems fair to ask: What is this mystical third party entity?
Redmond Teenager Survives 8 Days Stuck in Car Wreck ( Reported Monday, October 11, 2004 )
A Redmond teenager, missing for eight days, was found alive yesterday at the bottom of a woodsy ravine by a member of her church who said a vision led her to the girl ... Nohr, who belongs to an online prayer group for women, said she had several vivid dreams of a wooded area. In the dreams, she said, she heard the message "Keep going. Keep going." Yesterday morning, Nohr said, she woke up and felt an urgency to look for Hatch. She asked her daughter to go along. They drove to the Union Hill area and pulled over. Nohr said she got out, but "it just didn't feel right."
So the two drove farther and stopped again in about the 20200 block of Northeast Union Hill Road. All the while, Nohr said, she prayed. "I just thought, 'Let her speak out to us.' " At one spot, Nohr said she felt something draw her down a steep embankment. Her daughter waited up on the road while Nohr scrambled over a concrete barrier and inched her way more than 100 feet down through thick vegetation. At the bottom, Nohr said, she saw nothing at first. She was about to leave, thinking she was wrong, when through the trees, she said, she saw what looked like a car. It was Hatch's, crumpled so badly that it looked like "modern art," said Randy Phillips, the family's pastor."
Complete article here: The Seattle Times: Local News: Redmond teenager survives 8 days stuck in car wreck
A Redmond teenager, missing for eight days, was found alive yesterday at the bottom of a woodsy ravine by a member of her church who said a vision led her to the girl ... Nohr, who belongs to an online prayer group for women, said she had several vivid dreams of a wooded area. In the dreams, she said, she heard the message "Keep going. Keep going." Yesterday morning, Nohr said, she woke up and felt an urgency to look for Hatch. She asked her daughter to go along. They drove to the Union Hill area and pulled over. Nohr said she got out, but "it just didn't feel right."
So the two drove farther and stopped again in about the 20200 block of Northeast Union Hill Road. All the while, Nohr said, she prayed. "I just thought, 'Let her speak out to us.' " At one spot, Nohr said she felt something draw her down a steep embankment. Her daughter waited up on the road while Nohr scrambled over a concrete barrier and inched her way more than 100 feet down through thick vegetation. At the bottom, Nohr said, she saw nothing at first. She was about to leave, thinking she was wrong, when through the trees, she said, she saw what looked like a car. It was Hatch's, crumpled so badly that it looked like "modern art," said Randy Phillips, the family's pastor."
Complete article here: The Seattle Times: Local News: Redmond teenager survives 8 days stuck in car wreck
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
RELOCATED POST
However I also I think your basic intuition is good, and I'd like to offer a resolve that may help you see this more clearly. I think that in one sense, your view that temperature is objective is correct, but instead of thinking of it as an objective reality, think of it as objective information. For example, Sally may feel that the room's temperature is too cold for her comfort ( a subjective expression of temperature ), but the objective information displayed by the thermometer the may indicate that Sally should not be feeling too cold for comfort.
The only thing that is objectively real are the physical particles in the here and now. At any given moment they ( along with everything else in the universe ) exist at some particular spacetime coordinate. The past no longer exists in an objectively real sense and neither does the future. So in an objectively real sense, at any given moment, there can be no vibration, and therefore no temperature as defined in those terms.
However I also I think your basic intuition is good, and I'd like to offer a resolve that may help you see this more clearly. I think that in one sense, your view that temperature is objective is correct, but instead of thinking of it as an objective reality, think of it as objective information. For example, Sally may feel that the room's temperature is too cold for her comfort ( a subjective expression of temperature ), but the objective information displayed by the thermometer the may indicate that Sally should not be feeling too cold for comfort.
Correct.
You've got a similar problem when it comes to speed as you do with temperature. In fact it's exactly the nature of this problem that led to special relativity theory. The physical car is an objective reality. However it's speed is entirely dependent on the relationship between it and some arbitrary reference point. Here's an intro video that will help to illustrate:
Again, I think you should consider separating those two ideas. Physical things ( objects ) are objective realities, while scientific explanations of, "how those physical objects behave and interact" is objective information.
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
For pity's sake.....
I did not derail this thread. Those of us posting on the thread were effectively told that the direction of our posting was not wanted, making another thread necessary to continue a fairly free-wheeling conversation.
Ufology maintains a sense of 'ownership' of this thread - since he began the thread - and reserves the right to 'moderate' the thread's many off-topic meanderings.
Nothing was derailed here. Rather, free-wheeling conversation was stopped. End story.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Please forgive me, but meandering versus derailing, and the subtleties between the two, isn't something I want to get into with respect to the history of this thread. I'd just as soon move on with something of relevance to the subject matter that the thread was intended for, and in that spirit I responded here to a couple of points philosopher David Chalmers made.
To further that line of inquiry, suppose that we succeed in creating AI complete with its own consciousness: Would it be able to have an experience akin to the paranormal or the unexplained ( e.g. a UFO experience ). I propose that if the stimulus that gives rise to the experience is objectively real, then a conscious AI should be able to perceive it and study it analogous to the way we can. On the other hand, if the stimulus for the experience is entirely subjective, then the differing brain architecture in the AI may not facilitate anything analogous to what humans perceive as mystical.
The above raises an interesting question: If a super-intelligent AI consciousness of our own making cannot perceive the mystical, is that evidence that the mystical experience in humans is purely subjective; and if so would that not suggest that it has more to do with the workings of our brain than any external reality?
S
smcder
Guest
That's fine, but going forward if you cross-post something I write, I'd prefer you let me know as a courtesy. I'd generally rather have my posts stay on the original thread so that I don't have to follow/respond to two threads.
Again, there is already a discussion of issues around this video of Chalmers on the Philosophy, Science and the Paranormal thread and all are welcome to join that discussion.
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Going forward you can assume that if you get a response from me, it's never going to be on that thread. BTW, try typing "chalmers" (without the quotes) into the search above and check "search this thread only". When I did that I found over 60 posts on this thread that mention Chalmers going back to October of last year, mostly between you and I, because this is where you and I started with Chalmers before this thread was derailed ( IMO ) by the person on my ignore list. So although I check your content ( on all threads ) from time to time because I find your input a notch above most, I won't be responding there, ever.
Tyger
Paranormal Adept
OMG where have you been? You have been missed. NOTE: I would have responded on the thread you had posted the above on, but I refuse to participate there because of its sorted past ( a derail from this thread ), so forgive me if I try to derail it back to where it started.
@Michael Allen Again, a group of us were not allowed to proceed with our conversation on this thread, since ufology views this thread as 'his' and therefore he calls the shots on what can and cannot be discussed - he establishes the parameters. As a result, some of us were forced to de-camp to another thread in order to continue our conversations. The alternative was to muzzle ourselves. That's the sum total of the situation. No one poster did anything - as he is claiming.
I would think carefully about whether you are okay with ufology importing your posting content to a thread that you did not post the content on. I have had this issue with ufology - as have a few other posters, I have noticed. Best to be up front with ufology regarding what you are okay with regarding that, I think.
Anyone, likely including Michael Allen (who I had hoped to hear more from on the subject of consciousness), would probably want to decamp from this thread at this point. As several people pointed out in other recent posts here, there is a perfectly good thread pursuing the subject of consciousness at
Consciousness and the Paranormal | Page 62 | The Paracast Community Forums
and it makes little sense for anyone to have to follow two threads when one will do. To move back and forth between these two threads has only become necessary because of ufology's quoting posts from that other thread and responding to them here. So what do you say, ufology -- why not stop doing that and participate on the continuing thread taken up from this one at the point when it hit a wall?
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
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