Do you believe in God ?

[Kulindahr]

I understand Benvolio differently. I don't think he's suggesting idealism, that physical states proceed from mental states. Rather, he's saying that our mental states organize our perceptions into qualitative experience--that we assemble a likeness from those perceptions into a subjective impression.

"Assemble" matches my word "construct", and I agree that "assemble" is substantially accurate. But ben said that's not what he means. That's why it seems he's doing a Berkeley, drawing a sharp line between the real universe and our perceptions so that the two have very little relationship to one another.

 

[zoltanspawn]

You'll have to define "heard". The sound that strikes the ear is the same as the sound emitted. What reaches our consciousness is a different matter.

What reaches our consciousness is what I believe Benvolio is referring to when he says "sound as we experience it."

 

[Benvolio]

"Assemble" matches my word "construct", and I agree that "assemble" is substantially accurate. But ben said that's not what he means. That's why it seems he's doing a Berkeley, drawing a sharp line between the real universe and our perceptions so that the two have very little relationship to one another.

Our brains do more than assemble or rearrange or organize what it recieves. Sound as we experience it does not exist in the waves or in the electric impulses. Color does not exist in the electro magnetic waves. Sound and color are exntirely new creations by the mind to give our conscious minds a better way to percieve, understand and differentiate what we are receiving. It is as though the eyes transmit in grey and white paint by number, and the mind applies colors corresponding to the numbers (wave lengths.) But light as we experience it is a creation as well.

 

[zoltanspawn]

"Assemble" matches my word "construct", and I agree that "assemble" is substantially accurate. But ben said that's not what he means. That's why it seems he's doing a Berkeley, drawing a sharp line between the real universe and our perceptions so that the two have very little relationship to one another.

Okay, I see. Benvolio's post 251, here:

Thr words structured or constructed would obscure my meaning. Sound is much diffeent from the original waves of air. Much better for our understanding. Much better than the raw material. The colors, for our understanding, are much superior to the electromagnetic waves. It is as though an artist started with mud and ended with the Sistine chapel ceiling. It is more than structured; the result is too different than the raw material. Creation is not too strong a word, but the result exists only in our minds. I do accept that this is the result of evolution, but as with much of evolution one wonders how it was possible.

I admit, I largely see the difference between the "creation" of experience and the the "construction" of experience as a matter of style rather than substance. They are both suggesting the same thing, differing in emphasis.

I also don't see Benvolio denying a relationship between the real universe and our experience of it. Rather, he seems to be speaking of the nature of the real and the perceived.

But I happily await his clarifications.

EDITED: overlapping conversations!

 

[kallipolis]

I understand Benvolio differently. I don't think he's suggesting idealism, that physical states proceed from mental states. Rather, he's saying that our mental states organize our perceptions into qualitative experience--that we assemble a likeness from those perceptions into a subjective impression.

It can be argued that idealism theorises that ones perceptions, are the means by which the human brain experiences externally, and internally processed stimuli.

 

[kallipolis]

"In traditional programming, an engineer writes explicit, step-by-step instructions for the computer to follow. With machine learning, programmers don’t encode computers with instructions. They train them. If you want to teach a neural network to recognize a cat, for instance, you don’t tell it to look for whiskers, ears, fur, and eyes. You simply show it thousands and thousands of photos of cats, and eventually it works things out." source

You're stuck talking about traditional programming. But that's not what's going on now; the leading edge is machine learning, machines programming themselves with code that not only wasn't written by the programmer but is often beyond his/her comprehension. In short, machines are being made to be like human beings, learning like human bengs and making choices like human beings.

And I didn't have to hunt for that quote; thousands of similar results popped up in a quick google search. Nor is it talking about research, it's talking about machines actually in use.

AI is with us now. If you're defining that term as from movies such as Terminator, yes it's science fiction, but that's a tautology because you're pulling your definition from science fiction, not from what's actually going on in technology. In actual technology, there are robots who can be shown a picture and told "build this", and they assemble a blueprint, locate and organize the parts to fulfill the blueprint, distribute the necessary tasks among themselves, and complete the building all without anyone ever having written a single line of code for them saying how to do any of that. Those are actual machines; in terms of simulations we already have "machines" that choose their own tasks and complete them -- just as we do as living organisms.

We don't have Asimovian robots yet, but we're actually not all that far off in terms of self-motivation for machines; what is really lacking is self-awareness.

Your many words do not change the fact that a computer simulation cannot do more than its designer has programmed it to do.

 

[kallipolis]

The error is contained in your first statement. Simulations are not built to "obey commands", they're built to find out what will happen if the elements in the simulation are allowed to act without commands.

High-level simulations (I repeat) require free will. And in real life there is no scientific proof that there is such a thing as free will.

You can stir in a high dose of metaphysics all you want, but it doesn't make up for the fact that your position on simulations and programming is just plain wrong, being three decades out of date. Even when I was doing programming, a major element was how to avoid determinism, meaning how to have free will within the program. Now, that is so important an element that there just is no difference between a programmer with a high-level simulation and a Creator with a creation -- it's a distinction with no functional meaning.

A computer program performs according to its designer's commands, thereby demonstrating its slave functions. The simulation's objective providing data is the final result. A simulation cannot function without commands programmed by its designer.

 

[kallipolis]

What reaches our consciousness is what I believe Benvolio is referring to when he says "sound as we experience it."

Our conscious understanding becomes the result of our brain processing the stimuli that the brain receives through the senses.

 

[Benvolio]

Our conscious understanding becomes the result of our brain processing the stimuli that the brain receives through the senses.

Yes, but the resulting perception is quite different from the outside world.

 

[kallipolis]

Yes, but the resulting perception is quite different from the outside world.

How would you know, when depending solely upon your perception to interpret the stimuli of the external world?

It is fairly common to hear experts claim that much of our perceptual experience is a form of pervasive illusion rather than a tangible experience of reality....and two people sharing the same experience can interpret that experience....differently. In other words reality as one perceives it is also a matter of ones willingness to view life with preconceptions influenced by ones life's experiences.

As Anais Nin put it,

“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.”

 

[zoltanspawn]

It can be argued that idealism theorises that ones perceptions, are the means by which the human brain experiences externally, and internally processed stimuli.

It nevertheless seems safe to say that within modern philosophy there have been two fundamental conceptions of idealism:

1. something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and

2. although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/#BriAmeIde

 

[kallipolis]

Idealism is familiar to me.

 

[Benvolio]

How would you know, when depending solely upon your perception to interpret the stimuli of the external world?

It is fairly common to hear experts claim that much of our perceptual experience is a form of pervasive illusion rather than a tangible experience of reality....and two people sharing the same experience can interpret that experience....differently. In other words reality as one perceives it is also a matter of ones willingness to view life with preconceptions influenced by ones life's experiences.

As Anais Nin put it,

We know that sound starts as waves in the air. That is not a matter of perception, it is a matter of fact. And the sound waves cannot exist in the absence of air. It takes the mechanism of the ear drum, nerves, electrical impulses, and the brain to convert it to sound as we experience it. If you think it might exist outside our brains, what form would it take? No, it cannot be a matter of subjective perception and we can know that it exists only in our minds. The same is true of color, although, it is possible that what I see as one might be seen by others as another color.

 

[kallipolis]

I am not discussing facts of scientific discovery per electrons, and photons, that are taken for granted...and purely academic from the perspective of most human beings.

...I am discussing perception as it relates to your processing of the internal, and external stimuli that daily influence your conscious decision making.

I repeat: As Anais Nin put it,

“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.”

 

[Benvolio]

I am not discussing facts of scientific discovery per electrons, and photons, that are taken for granted...and purely academic from the perspective of most human beings.

...I am discussing perception as it relates to your processing of the internal, and external stimuli that daily influence your conscious decision making.

I repeat: As Anais Nin put it,

I said that our perceptions are quite different from the outside world and you asked, how would I know? That they are different is a matter of science. Individual perceptions do not enter into the fact that they are different.

 

[Kulindahr]

Your many words do not change the fact that a computer simulation cannot do more than its designer has programmed it to do.

Yes, it can -- machines now learn and self-program.

You are three decades behind the times.

 

[Kulindahr]

A computer program performs according to its designer's commands, thereby demonstrating its slave functions. The simulation's objective providing data is the final result. A simulation cannot function without commands programmed by its designer.

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Computers -- not the pitiful versions we use to communicate on this forum, but serious ones -- are self-teaching and self-programming these days. Have you heard of functions? Reinforcement loops? Self-modifying code? Neural networks? Genetic algorithms? They're all in use, and they allow a machine to figure things out, assemble its own code, correct code that doesn't work well, try different versions of code and let them compete. Researchers build them into simulations so the simulations can find and explore things the researchers never imagined.

Here's a decent article from 2006 that will help: http://www.computerworld.com/articl...lf-taught--software-that-learns-by-doing.html

Keep in mind that what it is talking about as cutting edge back then is almost commonplace now.

 

[kallipolis]

Yes, it can -- machines now learn and self-program.

You are three decades behind the times.

When they are so programmed by the program designer.

In other words there is a master designer of the program that enables a computer to self program.

 

[kallipolis]

[Text: Removed]

Computers -- not the pitiful versions we use to communicate on this forum, but serious ones -- are self-teaching and self-programming these days. Have you heard of functions? Reinforcement loops? Self-modifying code? Neural networks? Genetic algorithms? They're all in use, and they allow a machine to figure things out, assemble its own code, correct code that doesn't work well, try different versions of code and let them compete. Researchers build them into simulations so the simulations can find and explore things the researchers never imagined.

Here's a decent article from 2006 that will help: http://www.computerworld.com/articl...lf-taught--software-that-learns-by-doing.html

Keep in mind that what it is talking about as cutting edge back then is almost commonplace now.

A computer's programming that enables a computer to program is the result of its master designer's programming enabling those functions.

 

[kallipolis]

Yes, it can -- machines now learn and self-program.

You are three decades behind the times.

Note my other posts where I have stated that the master programmer (the original program designer), of a program is the enabler of a computer program, that is programmed, to program.