(2018-12-28, 08:22 PM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Well I had a stab at explaining this a couple of years ago on skeptiko, I'll just paste it below again...
I wrote about this again here on Skeptiko... and I'll quote a bit of it...
"I've rushed off a very simplistic diagram from the perspective of an observer, showing coherent interference (quantum) with themselves. The idea was to try and show using a 2D circular representation of space-time, how just simple stronger summed (coherent) patterns over space-time could allow the organism to move forward in a better direction - rather like the needle of a compass points north.
The organism isn't necessarily testing every future degree of freedom, it's simply summing over time (processing over time) and the most frequent (strongest) pattern is influencing it's future direction. In this case (all being equal) the orange square pattern has the most influence on the organism, and it takes this path.
The observer is simply decoding the system into space-time, it's way of understanding how to manipulate it, and learn, and then encoding it again in the system until it's next observation."
As shown by the bolded, you are presupposing at the start what is being attempted to be explained (some of the properties of mind), and for creativity adding quantum computing to the mix.
(2018-12-28, 07:21 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]And the American Psychology Association published Transcendent Mind in 2016
This book looks as if it may be extremely interesting, but it is rather out of my price bracket! I am wondering if anyone here intends to read it.
There is another book with the same title by Sunita Pattani, so don't confuse the two. Here is an interview with Sunita Pattani, which looks worth listening to.
https://vimeo.com/185173637
(2018-12-28, 10:07 PM)David001 Wrote: [ -> ]This book looks as if it may be extremely interesting, but it is rather out of my price bracket! I am wondering if anyone here intends to read it.
Sciborg posted here an interview with one of the authors. It does indeed look interesting - and so is the interview:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-t...aru%C5%A1s
(2018-12-28, 07:09 PM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, absolutely. All my own research says that is what it is.
Hey - I hadn't realised you were a researcher in this field - do you have a list of papers?
(2018-12-28, 07:08 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]I agree with this, but I'm not sure how it addresses Max's points?
Is the idea that "processing" which Max refers to is computation, and this suggests a top-down influence from a mental entity since computers are, as Calasso put it, prosthetics to the Mind[?]
Yes, I think the origin of the sort of biological systems being discussed necessitates not only intelligence such as in machine intelligence (as apparently being suggested by Max B), but crucially, mind and intentionality and the creativity that can only come from these things, which are properties of a sentient mental entity or entities. I can only repeat my response to Max B:
"It seems to me that the kind of complex evolutionary innovations concerned (intricate irreducibly complex machines) inherently required intentionality combined with mind, and you don't address my arguments that data processing cannot constitute mind. Look at some of the steps in the creative process as we know it:
Identification of the problem
Understand the problem using insight from collecting information
Achieve insight into a possible solution
Explore the prospective solution, implement, test and revise it into something workable
You (Max B) apparently are suggesting that data processing bacteria or other cells and/or their organelles (having no mind or intentionality) can and did achieve creative problem solutions. If not by the above means, please specify by what means."
(2018-12-28, 06:38 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Computation is inherently absolutely never "about" anything other than itself, that is, the computation itself. And that computation is just internal mapping: input to output according to an algorithm — irrespective of the input. A simple example is a word-processing program, blind to the meaning conveyed by the letters typed into it. The word processor doesn’t know or care about the meaning in the text typed into it. The photo image processing program uploads and processes picture data from a digital camera - it certainly doesn't care whether the pictures are of a trip to France or of your grandma or of your kid’s school play.
Computation is never about anything; it is non-intentional. The mind is the mind in part because it’s always about something. It’s intentional. Computation is the opposite of the mind. If it is computation, it is not mental. If it is mental, it is not computation.
Maybe one way to approach this, is to think of the two cases - digital and analogue computation.
Digital computation (the usual case) can and is broken down into very simple steps - load this, add that, compare this with that, (conditionally)transfer control to some other location, etc. Clearly at that level there is not a shred of intention, or interest, or awareness. What we normally call computation is just a heap of a few tens of thousands of steps like that, executed millions of times! Can we just magically ascribe awareness or comprehension to a heap of things like that?
Analogue computation isn't commonly used now, but really it is a collection of circuits (or some other physical system) that follow the same set of equations as the thing you are trying to study. You could use an electronic damped oscillator to mimic (i.e. compute future states of) a pendulum, for example. However, the link between the circuit and the pendulum would only exist in the human mind - not in the equipment.
The joke is that materialists normally scoff at anthropomorphic statements - "my computer doesn't understand me", and yet ultimately they try to derive the human mind from computation!
(2018-12-30, 11:54 AM)Max_B Wrote: [ -> ]Still sore eh. Lol.
Huh - I simply wanted to read one or two of your research papers!
(2018-12-28, 06:10 PM)Kamarling Wrote: [ -> ]See, there you go again - attack with no substance. You accuse me of not reading about the Cambrian Explosion yet you are wrong - I have and I find it interesting. But you don't answer my question: you think you know the truth about it so what is that truth and why is it true? Explain yourself instead of merely attacking. I suspect that you can't but please - go ahead and prove me wrong. Show us that you actually know something about that which you accuse others of being ignorant. I doubt that you know much at all or have read the material you accuse others of avoiding but, yet again, prove me wrong. Start, at long last, to add some substance to your argument instead of empty assertions.
Though we speak and write the same language it seems you don't understand what the word "suggests" mean. It's a qualifier to indicate uncertainty of something, in this case, if you've read about the Cambrian Explosion (henceforth abbreviated C.E.) which you've done just as the word "seems" is also a qualifier. I've noted on several occasions you've misread what fls has written. Specifically fls was not stating anyone is stupid only not as informed as one thinks. Something you've pleaded guilty to in the past and very recent past.
I had a reply written out for the above about the C.E. that is until I read this post of yours quoted below and realized it would be pointless to explain in detail why I value facts over beliefs. Contrast that to your way of thinking which is certainly emotional and intuitive. Your approach I doubt will ever lead to revelations. Perhaps that's what wrong fundamentally with some maybe all of psi research. I've bolded the appropriate text to illustrate that intuitive thinking.
You might argue that all of the bolded text are just qualifiers too, but no, you've created a provenance via many prior posts. I won't comment on whether you make assertions.
P.S. I would edit the last paragraph before posting, but it's not an operation allowed using my mobile. Perhaps I'll do so on my pc.
Quote:Polls apart (ha!), I think you have presented us with a compendium of controversies which would be difficult to do justice in a single post. I'll have a crack at it though.
"- Whether mind=brain is true..."
No surprise that I think that mind and brain are categorically different and generally agree with Bernardo except for that last part: merging with the One is unnecessary because we are already merged - there is no separation other than a narrowing of focus which seems to persist into the afterlife, according to the evidence we discuss here.
"- Free will."
I believe that humanity is free to experience and make mistakes without judgement or interference from some capricious god-figure. I don't hold with determinism and one reason for that is because I don't think that in the big picture, there is any such thing as linear time. So cause and effect are somehow local and bundled with experiences and events. Again, this is a BIG subject.
"- Evolution. Is there an Intelligent Designer (or more than one such entity)? "
Yes to that except that I believe that all of creation exists within the creator and that the created become co-creators. It is a distributed process, I think, but I am probably not intellectually equipped to elucidate.
"- The "ism" of the Real."
I believe that realism is THE major attraction for skeptics, atheists and materialists - what we see, touch, smell, etc. is all there is and the fact that science is limited to investigations of the materially accessible supports the appearance of a purely materialistic reality.
"- What does parapsychology have to say about religion?"
I suspect that parapsychology is a threat to religion rather than a confirmation. That reality may be essentially "spiritual" should provide support for the religious-minded but the fact is that religions are designed to control and to mandate mediation between the mundane and the divine. As soon as individuals start to explore spirituality for themselves, without the need for priests, scholars, myths and doctrines, religion is certain to feel threatened
(2018-12-30, 06:15 PM)Steve001 Wrote: [ -> ]I value facts over beliefs. Contrast that to your way of thinking which is certainly emotional and intuitive. Your
Yes jumping into threads to call someone a "damn fool" and never explaining yourself...telling people they lack the "testosterone" to share your beliefs...not emotional at all.
(2018-12-30, 04:59 PM)nbtruthman Wrote: [ -> ]Yes, I think the origin of the sort of biological systems being discussed necessitates not only intelligence such as in machine intelligence (as apparently being suggested by Max B), but crucially, mind and intentionality and the creativity that can only come from these things, which are properties of a sentient mental entity or entities. I can only repeat my response to Max B:
"It seems to me that the kind of complex evolutionary innovations concerned (intricate irreducibly complex machines) inherently required intentionality combined with mind, and you don't address my arguments that data processing cannot constitute mind. Look at some of the steps in the creative process as we know it:
Identification of the problem
Understand the problem using insight from collecting information
Achieve insight into a possible solution
Explore the prospective solution, implement, test and revise it into something workable
You (Max B) apparently are suggesting that data processing bacteria or other cells and/or their organelles (having no mind or intentionality) can and did achieve creative problem solutions. If not by the above means, please specify by what means."
Hmmm...I think you guys might be thinking of "computation" differently?
But more to the point, I suspect my layperson expertise doesn't run deep enough here... I do have a question though about the "implement" phase - is this where you would cite the appearance of evolutionary novelty at certain time points?
Also, if this is an intelligence, does this creative process suggest something closer to mortals than "God" as in Ground of Being?