Do you believe in reincarnation?

[Bryan]

I'm with Bryan, I want to believe consciousness=brain activity, but I don't think it's that simple.

We can control our brain activity to a certain degree, we decide what to think or how to use our senses, ie we have a consciousness. But there is something more in the brain that fires random signals which we can't control nor predict and they are part of the consciousness.

Science doesn't yet know nor understand what consciousness is.

I agree with what Douglas R. Hofstadter has said: even just a simulation of consciousness is consciousness. I also agree with Arthur C. Clarke, who once said in a Playboy article that any digital computer is alive and "conscious".

 

[Cassin]

:woot:

 

[Bryan]

By the way, I only read Playboy for the insightful articles by Arthur C. Clarke....(cough)

 

[HughJass]

So what exactly would you consider to be a measurment of consciousness, and not just "brain activity"?

That's the problem: It's completely subjective.

To claim that the guy was either dead or unconscious just because he was able to alter some of the electrical signals that simple device was capable of detecting is beyond ridiculous.

I agree it would be ridiculous to claim that, yet if we are to believe this idea the brain activity is consciousness then what other conclusion could a proponent of that idea make? I can't think of any.

If somebody can retain their thoughts and attention while the brain is basically inactive then I don't see how anyone can maintain that our minds are the sole product of electrical energy.

I'm still waiting to hear about some of the "holes" in the materialist theory that you claim to have.

Well, I've already drawn your attention to some evidence which suggests consciousness surviving death (which you refused to look at), I've posted that clip which I hope I've explained and I've provided the John Lorber article which also calls quite a few assumptions into question.

Neither am I, but I have to draw the line somewhere! Rather than spend a lot of time seriously looking at all kinds of odd claims (reincarnation, leprechauns, ghosts, poltergeists, the Loch-Ness Monster, etc.), I'll let some very smart scientist-types examine and question the evidence first. If they find it to be reasonably credible, then I'll be able to take it seriously myself.

Well, it has been peer reviewed and has been mentioned by many scientists, Sam Harris included if you count him as a serious scientist. I originally heard about it from an ex-theoretical physicist.

I also agree with Arthur C. Clarke, who once said in a Playboy article that any digital computer is alive and "conscious".

A computer isn't any more conscious than a rock. It's little more than a bunch of switches which require continuous input.

 

[oni]

I agree with what Douglas R. Hofstadter has said: even just a simulation of consciousness is consciousness. I also agree with Arthur C. Clarke, who once said in a Playboy article that any digital computer is alive and "conscious".

Coming to a military poor, commodity rich, country soon...........................

The new T800 US infantry drone.........................................

No more dead US soldiers, just more foreign "collateral damage"...................... :whistle:

US tax dollars at work............

 

[Cassin]

"US credit debt at work" IMO

 

[oni]

"US credit debt at work" IMO

Well someone is going to have to pay it back...............just don't have children!! :uglylol:

 

[Bryan]

So what exactly would you consider to be a measurment of consciousness, and not just "brain activity"?

That's the problem: It's completely subjective.

It's completely subjective, but you still think it's a LOT more than what a computer does, right?

To claim that the guy was either dead or unconscious just because he was able to alter some of the electrical signals that simple device was capable of detecting is beyond ridiculous.

I agree it would be ridiculous to claim that, yet if we are to believe this idea the brain activity is consciousness then what other conclusion could a proponent of that idea make? I can't think of any.

You can't draw any conclusion about it at all. Again, it's just a simple electrical device thrown together from spare parts, and attached to someone's head with some electrical cables. It doesn't prove anything at all about the low-level electrical function of the brain, much less the philosophical nature of conciousness.

If somebody can retain their thoughts and attention while the brain is basically inactive then I don't see how anyone can maintain that our minds are the sole product of electrical energy.

You think the guy's brain was "basically inactive", just because some device that was rather equivalent to a transistor radio and connected to his head with wires showed some altered pattern of electrical signals? Seriously?

I'm still waiting to hear about some of the "holes" in the materialist theory that you claim to have.

Well, I've already drawn your attention to some evidence which suggests consciousness surviving death (which you refused to look at), I've posted that clip which I hope I've explained and I've provided the John Lorber article which also calls quite a few assumptions into question.

I think in the opinion of any reasonable person, none of those things make it to even the very first level of serious scientific evidence.

Neither am I, but I have to draw the line somewhere! Rather than spend a lot of time seriously looking at all kinds of odd claims (reincarnation, leprechauns, ghosts, poltergeists, the Loch-Ness Monster, etc.), I'll let some very smart scientist-types examine and question the evidence first. If they find it to be reasonably credible, then I'll be able to take it seriously myself.

Well, it has been peer reviewed and has been mentioned by many scientists, Sam Harris included if you count him as a serious scientist. I originally heard about it from an ex-theoretical physicist.

Oh, so Sam Harris actually mentioned it. Do you really think Sam Harris believes in reincarnation, as a result?

I also agree with Arthur C. Clarke, who once said in a Playboy article that any digital computer is alive and "conscious".

A computer isn't any more conscious than a rock. It's little more than a bunch of switches which require continuous input.

You and I have profound disagreements about the nature of consciousness! More profound than you realize!

Have you read The Mind's I by Douglas R. Hofstadter?

 

[HughJass]

You can't draw any conclusion about it at all. Again, it's just a simple electrical device thrown together from spare parts, and attached to someone's head with some electrical cables. It doesn't prove anything at all about the low-level electrical function of the brain, much less the philosophical nature of conciousness.

What does the complexity or lack of complexity in regards to the test equipment really have to do with this in the scheme of things?

The main question here is- what and where is the entity which altered his brain activity?

You think the guy's brain was "basically inactive", just because some device that was rather equivalent to a transistor radio and connected to his head with wires showed some altered pattern of electrical signals? Seriously?

Does brain activity not denote an active brain?

I think in the opinion of any reasonable person, none of those things make it to even the very first level of serious scientific evidence.

Then I doubt anything will convince you. You ask for evidence and I provided you evidence, data which has been published in journals so I completely disagree with you that it doesn't make the very first level of scientific evidence.

You've offered up a critique without even looking at the data- how scientific is that? Fair enough that you want to hear other opinions on the matter before reading a whole book on it but you are overlooking the fact that scientists aren't any less bound by their cultural conditioning than the rest of us and it's the culture that more often than not determines what is possible not the evidence, the evidence is filtered in and out accordingly. You know all to well that what is considered to be 'healthy eating' is a prime example of this.

Oh, so Sam Harris actually mentioned it. Do you really think Sam Harris believes in reincarnation, as a result?

He's open to it:

My position on the paranormal is this: While there have been many frauds in the history of parapsychology, I believe that this field of study has been unfairly stigmatized. If some experimental psychologists want to spend their days studying telepathy, or the effects of prayer, I will be interested to know what they find out. And if it is true that toddlers occasionally start speaking in ancient languages (as Ian Stevenson alleges), I would like to know about it. However, I have not spent any time attempting to authenticate the data put forward in books like Dean Radin’s The Conscious Universe or Ian Stevenson’s 20 Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. The fact that I have not spent any time on this should suggest how worthy of my time I think such a project would be. Still, I found these books interesting, and I cannot categorically dismiss their contents in the way that I can dismiss the claims of religious dogmatists. (Here, I am making a point about gradations of certainty: can I say for certain that a century of experimentation proves that telepathy doesn’t exist? No. It seems to me that reasonable people can disagree about the data. Can I say for certain that the Bible and the Koran show every sign of having been written by ignorant mortals? Yes. And this is the only certainty one needs to dismiss the God of Abraham as a creature of fiction.)
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text ... ntroversy2

Have you read The Mind's I by Douglas R. Hofstadter?

I haven't heard of him before, a quick look at his wiki page suggests he's probably of the same mind as Kurzweil and the transhumanists on the mind-body issue. I don't agree with their views, obviously.

 

[Bryan]

You can't draw any conclusion about it at all. Again, it's just a simple electrical device thrown together from spare parts, and attached to someone's head with some electrical cables. It doesn't prove anything at all about the low-level electrical function of the brain, much less the philosophical nature of conciousness.

What does the complexity or lack of complexity in regards to the test equipment really have to do with this in the scheme of things?

Isn't it obvious what I mean? Do you seriously think you could glean critical information about a Cray supercomputer (its ability to do computations, its programming, its exact method of operation) just by poking-around its innards with a $5.00 analog voltmeter from Radio Shack?

Similarly, I laugh heartily at the idea that you think you could "prove" anything at all about consciousness (or the lack thereof) in the human brain, just by looking at some "brain waves" produced by a transistorized device connected to it over some wires, and was probably ordered from some company over Ebay! :laugh:

The main question here is- what and where is the entity which altered his brain activity?

The entity which altered the brain activity of the guy in that video you posted is the guy's brain itself; it's inside his head. Why do you ask? Do you find it strange that a brain would be able to modify a few electrical signals inside itself that way? :dunno:

You think the guy's brain was "basically inactive", just because some device that was rather equivalent to a transistor radio and connected to his head with wires showed some altered pattern of electrical signals? Seriously?

Does brain activity not denote an active brain?

In very general terms, yes; but by no means are we able (yet) to identify all the various levels of activity in a brain, and their functions. We're still in our infancy, in that regard.

You've offered up a critique without even looking at the data- how scientific is that? Fair enough that you want to hear other opinions on the matter before reading a whole book on it but you are overlooking the fact that scientists aren't any less bound by their cultural conditioning than the rest of us and it's the culture that more often than not determines what is possible not the evidence, the evidence is filtered in and out accordingly. You know all to well that what is considered to be 'healthy eating' is a prime example of this.

Oh, so Sam Harris actually mentioned it. Do you really think Sam Harris believes in reincarnation, as a result?

He's open to it: {snip statement by Sam Harris}

It doesn't sound to me like he's all THAT open to it! Basically he's saying, "Prove it to me, and I'll believe it."

Have you read The Mind's I by Douglas R. Hofstadter?

I haven't heard of him before, a quick look at his wiki page suggests he's probably of the same mind as Kurzweil and the transhumanists on the mind-body issue. I don't agree with their views, obviously.

What you say about him and Kurzweil is probably true, but nevertheless I strongly recommend that you read that book, if you can find a copy of it. It's excellent, and may lead you to change your views on consciousness from something that currently sounds almost religious in its relative dogmatism, to something that's at least a bit more scientific.

 

[virtuality]

You can't draw any conclusion about it at all. Again, it's just a simple electrical device thrown together from spare parts, and attached to someone's head with some electrical cables. It doesn't prove anything at all about the low-level electrical function of the brain, much less the philosophical nature of conciousness.

What does the complexity or lack of complexity in regards to the test equipment really have to do with this in the scheme of things?

Isn't it obvious what I mean? Do you seriously think you could glean critical information about a Cray supercomputer (its ability to do computations, its programming, its exact method of operation) just by poking-around its innards with a $5.00 analog voltmeter from Radio Shack?

That statement is not completely true. Computers are man made and extremely predictable. At any given time, the voltage at every single point of the computer can be calculated, predicted, or modelled.

Basically what you are saying is that computers can not be reverse engineered. I happen to disagree, it will take extremely long time and lots of resources but we can reverse engineer computers and understand exactly what they do just by looking at the voltages at certain points.

Think of the Terminator, there is a microchip from the future and the evil guys manage to reverse engineer it and make robots. Since we are on the subject, I don't think we'll ever make computers that can outsmart us. Computers by design can not be smarter than us because we make them.

Also, we spend much more money on medical research, so I don't see why medical science can not reverse engineer the human brain, assuming it is as mechanical as you think it is.

 

[GeminiX]

Bryan isn't saying computers can't be reverse engineered, he's saying it can't be done with only a simple tool.

He's correct.

 

[virtuality]

Bryan isn't saying computers can't be reverse engineered, he's saying it can't be done with only a simple tool.

He's correct.

Well, if we take it literally, then he'd be right. But I think that voltmeter was more of an example?? However, at least in theory assuming enough money is thrown in, any computer could be reverse engineered.

The point was that we can't do the same with the brain. We can't just measure a few signals and know what's going on in there. At least at the moment it's not possible.

 

[HughJass]

Isn't it obvious what I mean? Do you seriously think you could glean critical information about a Cray supercomputer (its ability to do computations, its programming, its exact method of operation) just by poking-around its innards with a $5.00 analog voltmeter from Radio Shack?

The demonstration in the video was not concerned with investigating the complexity of the brain, the whole point of is to show that the mind can determine neural activity.

Now, if you are going to suggest the mind IS the brain then you're saying that there is no such thing as choice and everything is biologically determined.

The entity which altered the brain activity of the guy in that video you posted is the guy's [u]brain[/u] itself;  it's inside his head.  Why do you ask?  Do you find it strange that a brain would be able to modify a few electrical signals inside itself that way? :dunno:

Then you're saying his brain decided to meditate itself and at the exact same time he attached an EEG to his head to perform the experiment.

In very general terms, yes; but by no means are we able (yet) to identify all the various levels of activity in a brain, and their functions. We're still in our infancy, in that regard.

That sounds a bit like 'we know the problem can be attributed entirely to brainwaves, even though we can't measure them all yet we will some day"

It's basically just a promise that somewhere down the line this theory will be proven but until then I'm expected to just take it onboard as scientifically sound.

What you say about him and Kurzweil is probably true, but nevertheless I strongly recommend that you read that book, if you can find a copy of it. It's excellent, and may lead you to change your views on consciousness from something that currently sounds almost religious in its relative dogmatism, to something that's at least a bit more scientific.

This reductionist idea of the brain being nothing more than a complex computer is facile. If it had any legs to it then computers would be conscious (which they aren't) and it would be impossible to overcome things like depression without drugs.

Does this article I posted about the 'boy with no brain' not seriously make you pause for a moment?

 

[Bryan]

The demonstration in the video was not concerned with investigating the complexity of the brain, the whole point of is to show that the mind can determine neural activity.

Now, if you are going to suggest the mind IS the brain then you're saying that there is no such thing as choice and everything is biologically determined.

That's certainly basically true, unless you're one of those people who believe the current idea that's getting some attention that the brain and consciousness involve quantum processes. Personally, I find that theory to be preposterous.

The entity which altered the brain activity of the guy in that video you posted is the guy's [u]brain[/u] itself;  it's inside his head.  Why do you ask?  Do you find it strange that a brain would be able to modify a few electrical signals inside itself that way? :dunno:

Then you're saying his brain decided to meditate itself and at the exact same time he attached an EEG to his head to perform the experiment.

Yes; of course.

In very general terms, yes; but by no means are we able (yet) to identify all the various levels of activity in a brain, and their functions. We're still in our infancy, in that regard.

That sounds a bit like 'we know the problem can be attributed entirely to brainwaves, even though we can't measure them all yet we will some day"

It's basically just a promise that somewhere down the line this theory will be proven but until then I'm expected to just take it onboard as scientifically sound.

I'm saying that our knowledge of the exact ways that our brains work will continue to increase as the decades and centuries go by; we'll continue to have ever-increasing knowledge of it from a purely medical point of view, as well as from the point of view of how memories are formed and retained, etc. However, I question whether we'll ever have a real "understanding" (I very deliberately put that word in quote marks) of how consciousness emerges from complexity; it may be impossible for the brain to "understand" what's really happening at such a molecular level, except in a far more superficial way.

What you say about him and Kurzweil is probably true, but nevertheless I strongly recommend that you read that book, if you can find a copy of it. It's excellent, and may lead you to change your views on consciousness from something that currently sounds almost religious in its relative dogmatism, to something that's at least a bit more scientific.

This reductionist idea of the brain being nothing more than a complex computer is facile. If it had any legs to it then computers would be conscious (which they aren't) and it would be impossible to overcome things like depression without drugs.

I remind you again that Arthur C. Clarke did believe that computers are conscious, and I certainly agree with him!

I'm not sure what any of that has to do with treating depression with or without drugs...

Does this article I posted about the 'boy with no brain' not seriously make you pause for a moment?

I wasn't sure what to make of that. Surely you don't REALLY believe that the boy had no brain, do you? :laugh:

 

[virtuality]

I remind you again that Arthur C. Clarke did believe that computers are conscious, and I certainly agree with him!

This sounds like something Isaac Asimov would say.

Computers are as conscious as we make them to be. I'm against the whole notion of machines having intelligence, conscientiousness, etc. That aint gonna happen. Computers perform tasks they are programmed to do, there is a huge difference between performing tasks and being intelligent.

 

[Bryan]

Computers are as conscious as we make them to be. I'm against the whole notion of machines having intelligence, conscientiousness, etc. That aint gonna happen. Computers perform tasks they are programmed to do, there is a huge difference between performing tasks and being intelligent.

That sounds really naive, like the things we said back in the 1950's when I was just a kid: "Computers can only do what they're programmed to do." More recently, like maybe 30 or 40 years ago, I remember a Soviet chess expert (might have been Karpov, although I don't remember for sure) making a really funny statement similar to this: "A computer that plays chess will never defeat me, because a human will have had to have programmed it to play chess, and I am (at least currently) the World Chess Champion."

I busted a gut laughing at that remark, because it showed how little Karpov knew about how computers do their work. As we all know by now, a computer has defeated a World Champion, and did it while that person was still World Champion. It did it by searching faster and deeper than the human was able to do. In other words, the effectiveness with which a computer is programmed to do something is obviously an important factor, but it's not the ONLY factor. Raw processing power is important, too, especially in chess.

So while this issue of attaining "consciousness" and being "intelligent" by a computer is obviously something I don't think I'm going to be able to convince you of in an Internet forum discussion, at the very least I hope you've learned to be smarter about certain specific issues (like the capability of attaining certain specific goals on a computer) than Karpov was!

 

[virtuality]

Computers are as conscious as we make them to be. I'm against the whole notion of machines having intelligence, conscientiousness, etc. That aint gonna happen. Computers perform tasks they are programmed to do, there is a huge difference between performing tasks and being intelligent.

That sounds really naive, like the things we said back in the 1950's when I was just a kid: "Computers can only do what they're programmed to do." More recently, like maybe 30 or 40 years ago, I remember a Soviet chess expert (might have been Karpov, although I don't remember for sure) making a really funny statement similar to this: "A computer that plays chess will never defeat me, because a human will have had to have programmed it to play chess, and I am (at least currently) the World Chess Champion."

I busted a gut laughing at that remark, because it showed how little Karpov knew about how computers do their work. As we all know by now, a computer has defeated a World Champion, and did it while that person was still World Champion. It did it by searching faster and deeper than the human was able to do. In other words, the effectiveness with which a computer is programmed to do something is obviously an important factor, but it's not the ONLY factor. Raw processing power is important, too, especially in chess.

So while this issue of attaining "consciousness" and being "intelligent" by a computer is obviously something I don't think I'm going to be able to convince you of in an Internet forum discussion, at the very least I hope you've learned to be smarter about certain specific issues (like the capability of attaining certain specific goals on a computer) than Karpov was!

Ah, the famous Deep Blue vs Kasparov. You are right about the naivety of the chess player, If only he was aware of Moore's law.

The Deep Blue is a typical example of a computer programmed to carry out a specific task. Besides, the computer has an advantage in chess because they are able to calculate gazillions of moves per second and come up with the optimum strategy, ie that's the task this particular computer executes. Nothing less, nothing more.

I've read an article on the subject that said the Deep Blue had a whole team of chess consultants analyzing the games, and changing the strategy of the program as the match progressed. That was back in the 1990s. Today even a simple PC could calculate the optimum gaming strategy and beat any chess grand master.

When it comes to computer intelligence, there is AI, neural networks, etc... In neural networks the program is supposed to learn, just like a human learns. But there is a paradox in there, any computer program is still written by a human, so it's abilities are somewhat predictable and limited by the human thought. That's why I don't think computers will outsmart humans. They can and will perform certain tasks much better than us, but that's not conciseness.

You want an example of how the human brain is 50 years ahead of any computer? Take image processing as an example. We are somewhat programmed to recognize patterns, we learn to do so from a very early age. When we see a shape we know straight away what it is, we don't even think about it, it's a second nature to us. Computers are worse than babies when it comes to image processing. Google's goggles is the only program that comes close, but even that particular program scan a huge database of images to come up with the closest matching shape.

Speech processing is much simpler than image processing, and the computer's can't even do that properly yet. Even when the computers successfully translate speech into text, they use a huge database of possible matches.

PS: Didn't Kasparov run for presidency in Russia or another former Soviet republic? Someone even flew a penis shaped helicopter in one of his press conferences

 

[GeminiX]

Computers are as conscious as we make them to be. I'm against the whole notion of machines having intelligence, conscientiousness, etc. That aint gonna happen. Computers perform tasks they are programmed to do, there is a huge difference between performing tasks and being intelligent.

That sounds really naive, like the things we said back in the 1950's when I was just a kid: "Computers can only do what they're programmed to do." More recently, like maybe 30 or 40 years ago, I remember a Soviet chess expert (might have been Karpov, although I don't remember for sure) making a really funny statement similar to this: "A computer that plays chess will never defeat me, because a human will have had to have programmed it to play chess, and I am (at least currently) the World Chess Champion."

I busted a gut laughing at that remark, because it showed how little Karpov knew about how computers do their work. As we all know by now, a computer has defeated a World Champion, and did it while that person was still World Champion. It did it by searching faster and deeper than the human was able to do. In other words, the effectiveness with which a computer is programmed to do something is obviously an important factor, but it's not the ONLY factor. Raw processing power is important, too, especially in chess.

So while this issue of attaining "consciousness" and being "intelligent" by a computer is obviously something I don't think I'm going to be able to convince you of in an Internet forum discussion, at the very least I hope you've learned to be smarter about certain specific issues (like the capability of attaining certain specific goals on a computer) than Karpov was!

Ah, the famous Deep Blue vs Kasparov. You are right about the naivety of the chess player, If only he was aware of Moore's law.

The Deep Blue is a typical example of a computer programmed to carry out a specific task. Besides, the computer has an advantage in chess because they are able to calculate gazillions of moves per second and come up with the optimum strategy, ie that's the task this particular computer executes. Nothing less, nothing more.

I've read an article on the subject that said the Deep Blue had a whole team of chess consultants analyzing the games, and changing the strategy of the program as the match progressed. That was back in the 1990s. Today even a simple PC could calculate the optimum gaming strategy and beat any chess grand master.

When it comes to computer intelligence, there is AI, neural networks, etc... In neural networks the program is supposed to learn, just like a human learns. But there is a paradox in there, any computer program is still written by a human, so it's abilities are somewhat predictable and limited by the human thought. That's why I don't think computers will outsmart humans. They can and will perform certain tasks much better than us, but that's not conciseness.

You want an example of how the human brain is 50 years ahead of any computer? Take image processing as an example. We are somewhat programmed to recognize patterns, we learn to do so from a very early age. When we see a shape we know straight away what it is, we don't even think about it, it's a second nature to us. Computers are worse than babies when it comes to image processing. Google's goggles is the only program that comes close, but even that particular program scan a huge database of images to come up with the closest matching shape.

Speech processing is much simpler than image processing, and the computer's can't even do that properly yet. Even when the computers successfully translate speech into text, they use a huge database of possible matches.

PS: Didn't Kasparov run for presidency in Russia or another former Soviet republic? Someone even flew a penis shaped helicopter in one of his press conferences

Image and shape processing and recognition are *way* more advanced than you might realise, there is some very clever stuff happening in that area right now.

The belief that computer systems are unable to become more than their programming is an outdated idea; just look at Google for a very simple example. The programmers at Google didn't type in all that stuff it "knows", and yet if I ask Google a question it will probably find the answer. It has become more than it's initial programming.

Does that make Google intelligent? It seems to know more than I do, and I'm a genius. The answer of course is probably not, but It all depends on how we define intelligence.

I develop systems which are designed to become more than the sum of my input, as users use them they adapt to find ways to better serve the user. They are designed to change the decision making processes based on input from the users, they learn what users want and are likely to want next and to start presenting it to the user at "one click".

Does the actual core program evolve? Well no, not really; but as it gathers more data it learns how to best use it and present that data to the users.

Does a human brain change it's "core programming"? Or does it just learn how to make use of the data it gathers?

 

[oni]

Does a human brain change it's "core programming"? Or does it just learn how to make use of the data it gathers?

It depends on what you mean by "core"? The human brain can learn to rewirer it's higher brain functions.....unlike todays hardware, not unless you consider emulation within software. Which still operates on fixed hardware.........

A program and it's related hardware can be made to be very good at performing a singular task and still being able to learn to do that task better by learning!

Will it be the jack of all trades that is the human brain..........................not until we move away from the constraints of todays hardware!

We need a CPU that can rewire itself on the fly....................................