It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends ...

[RE]

It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It.
When the man is a scientist who's salary requires and depends on him studying topics to the best of ability....how can his salary require him to NOT understand it?

In that case salary depends on not not understanding.  A negation is introduced but nothing is really changed because salary determines what is understood in both cases.

Wow, that one has some interesting logic.

But if I understand, then a scientist's salary, paying him or her to do the best work possible, delivers the best work possible. No misunderstanding of anything....just high quality, unbiased and objective results.

Sounds reasonable. Sounds like what science is supposed to be.

What the "best work" is depends on who is writing the paycheck and what they want the scientist to show.  So if the research is being funded by a Tobacco company and they want to show that smoking is safe, the best work comes from a scientist who does a study that demonstrates that.  The scientist working for a capitalist is a Hired Gun.  They hire the fastest gun money can buy.

RE

[K-Dog]

There is no independent universe of ideas, and we have no free will.  Learning is the communication of experience but, without a human to learn there is no learning.

Without humans there are no ideas.

That is a very anthropocentric view of existence, that ideas cannot exist without people.  Actually, IMHO, people would not exist without ideas, they wouldn't become sapient.  Sapience is the ability to use your brain to discover the ideas and principles that govern the universe.  From your point of view the law of gravity doesn't exist until humans arrive and figure out what it is.  But that idea, that it's directly proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to their distance apart was true long before Newton came up with the idea.  It's been true since the Big Bang and the beginning of time.

RE

"Sapience is the ability to use your brain to discover the ideas and principles that govern the universe."

No, we do not discover, we create abstractions from sense perceptions.  After abstracting the idealist goes on to fool themself that their abstractions are ideas with an existence outside themself.  That is an error.

It is not anthropocentric,  it is the opposite.  The universe has an existence independent of people, but ideas don't exist if people don't.  Ideas are only abstractions made by the human brain.  They have no independent existence.  This is proved by simply noting ideas can be wrong.

When there are no humans left on the planet, there is nobody left to say people have become extinct.  There is nobody left to define what people were.

[RE]

I already answered this argument, I'm not going through the whole exercise in epistemiology again.  We agreed to disagree.

RE

[K-Dog]

I already answered this argument, I'm not going through the whole exercise in epistemiology again.  We agreed to disagree.

RE

I wish they would give the story I wrote about the aliens finding the Porky Pig cartoon in a film can being the only surviving relic of humanity back.  That was a damn good story for being under 400 words.

Yes we agreed to disagree.  I am a materialist and you are a classic idealist.



I say it is all in your head.  You believe in the old man in the sky.

[RE]

I say it is all in your head.  You believe in the old man in the sky.

I never said anything about an old man in the sky.  You buy the propaganda of Christianity and anthropomorphize God.  Man was made in the image of God,  Jesus was the Son of God and all the rest of the ridiculous nonsense in the Bible about Adam & Eve and Noah's Ark, etc.

What I said was that the Universe shows too much evidence of Intelligent Design to be a random event.  The intelligence behind that design most certainly wasn't Human, whatever it actually was.  Since it's extra-universal, it's impossible to know what it was, since the only thing we can observe is the universe as we view it now from this place and time.  We can extrapolate what it looked like by measuring how fast it is expanding, but we can't go any further back than the Big Bang.  The Intelligence had to exist before that, which means before there was matter or energy or gravity or anything else stemming from those things we can observe.

Misquoting me with ridicule is a poor way to try to prove your point.

RE

[K-Dog]

It is the logical consequence of your universe of ideas.  If ideas have an independent existence, both man and god must have the capacity think them in the same way.  That creates man in gods image, and you get the old man in the sky.  No way around it.

[RE]

Obviously not, since that wasn't my conclusion.  It's the conclusion only a materialist would draw, and is most certainly not logical.  You are a material boy, living in a material world.  Whatever works for you.  Not my speed.  I live in the ideal world, and logic is an idea.  We're better at it.

RE

[K-Dog]

Ok, I am amused, but every reference that explains materialism starts out by making the distinction between that materialism.

The theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value in life. And concern for possessions or material wealth and physical comfort, especially to the exclusion of spiritual or intellectual pursuits.

And this materialism.

The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena.

You choice of Madonna is interesting.  She has always liked to mock religion with upside down crosses and such.  This pisses many people off.  She had some friend who was doing something in a Satan outfit last year.  I don't know or care about the details of that.  Wearing a devil suit to piss religious people off seems childish to me.

Madonna's materialism is hedonism.  The philosophy of shiny objects, having nothing to do with me saying we have no free will, and you saying we do.

[RE]

Madonna's materialism is hedonism.  The philosophy of shiny objects, having nothing to do with me saying we have no free will, and you saying we do.

When did I ever say we have free will?  This is as bad as saying I think there is an old man in the sky.  Perpetually putting words in my mouth I never said or even implied is a piss poor means to try and win a debate.  I suggest you return to something you're good at like coding instead of wasting everybody's time with more epistemiological drivel.  Your code will last long after we go extinct, even if there's nobody left to read it or computers with functional microprocessors to run it on.  Code is an idea also btw.  Perhaps in a billion years in a galaxy far far away someone will rediscover that idea, and they surely won't be human.  They will likely be a carbon based life form though, because the properties of the elements on the periodic table and thermodynamics determine that.  No free will in how that works, nor in the biochemistry of life that evolves from that, or the thinking that evolves from complex living organisms.  Making the claim I think there is free will is the most incredibly wrong conclusion you could possibly draw from what I write.  Clearly, your input and output systems work, but your logic circuits in between running what pops out on my computer when I open one of these posts is scrambled eggs.  Time to debug your code.

RE

[K-Dog]

Madonna's materialism is hedonism.  The philosophy of shiny objects, having nothing to do with me saying we have no free will, and you saying we do.

When did I ever say we have free will?  This is as bad as saying I think there is an old man in the sky.  Perpetually putting words in my mouth I never said or even implied is a piss poor means to try and win a debate.  I suggest you return to something you're good at like coding instead of wasting everybody's time with more epistemiological drivel.  Your code will last long after we go extinct, even if there's nobody left to read it or computers with functional microprocessors to run it on.  Code is an idea also btw.  Perhaps in a billion years in a galaxy far far away someone will rediscover that idea, and they surely won't be human.  They will likely be a carbon based life form though, because the properties of the elements on the periodic table and thermodynamics determine that.  No free will in how that works, nor in the biochemistry of life that evolves from that, or the thinking that evolves from complex living organisms.  Making the claim I think there is free will is the most incredibly wrong conclusion you could possibly draw from what I write.  Clearly, your input and output systems work, but your logic circuits in between running what pops out on my computer when I open one of these posts is scrambled eggs.  Time to debug your code.

RE

I am just taking things to the logical conclusion to save time.  If you are a theist you believe in free will, how can you not.  And you did say you were a theist.  A theist believes in an intelligence separate from the body.  An immortal soul.  An independent soul that can make free choice.

Code is no more than a collection of symbols having no intrinsic meaning without a human to see it.

[RE]

I am just taking things to the logical conclusion to save time.  If you are a theist you believe in free will, how can you not.  And you did say you were a theist.  A theist believes in an intelligence separate from the body.  An immortal soul.  An independent soul that can make free choice.

The only thing thing a Theist has to believe is that something we refer to as God exists and is responsible for the creation of the universe.  After that, the Theist can define God however suits him and how God operates in whatever way is consistent with that definition.  It doesn't require the belief in an immortal soul for the individual, though I do happen to believe that.  The only thing that has to be immortal is whatever was responsible for the creation of the universe the individual exists in.  Whatever it was, it does not need to have a physical form of any kind, much less like a human individual does.  Since it existed before the creation of the universe, it doesn't even have to be matter, energy or gravity and probably isn't, since it created all of those along with the creation of the universe.  It doesn't even need to be interfering in the operation of the universe after creating it.  After that, the universe can just run on its own, like a ball you push at the top of a hill, and after that just keeps rolling downhill.  Does the ball have free will?  Of course not, it just follows the law of gravity until it hits bottom or crashes into something.  Homo Saps are mostly just slightly more complex balls rolling down a slightly more complex hill.

If said theist does believe in a soul, what happens to it when the meat package it is contained in finishes its journey down the hill and dies?  Who knows?  Perhaps it gets reincarnated, perhaps it joins up with other disembodied souls and has a big orgy beyond the event horizon of a black hole, perhaps it achieves nirvahna, perhaps it dissipates into nothingness...you can make any conjecture you like there.  Personally I like the reincarnation, orgy & nirvahna hypotheses, not a fan of the nothingness one.  That's because just like you can't make something from nothing, you can't make nothing from something.  1st Law of Souls:  Souls are neither created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another.

Code is no more than a collection of symbols having no intrinsic meaning without a human to see it.

Nonsense.  It most certainly has meaning, since it performs a specific function which is repeatable.  If all human beings disappeared tomorrow, it would continue to perform that function as long as it was running on a computer with a continuing source of energy.  If it was AI, it could write more code to do other functions and if tied to a robotic factory could manufacture more computers and robotic mining equipment to get resources to build more computers, again with a continuing source of energy necessary.  Were humans necessary to get this ball rolling?  Sure, but not necessary once created, it runs itself.

This is just a thought experiment, by no means do I believe this level of technological self-replication will be achieved before the creators (us) run out of resources and energy, but in principle it's possible.  If we did get there, we would have been God for this new species of machines.

RE

[K-Dog]

I am just taking things to the logical conclusion to save time.  If you are a theist you believe in free will, how can you not.  And you did say you were a theist.  A theist believes in an intelligence separate from the body.  An immortal soul.  An independent soul that can make free choice.

The only thing thing a Theist has to believe is that something we refer to as God exists and is responsible for the creation of the universe.  After that, the Theist can define God however suits him and how God operates in whatever way is consistent with that definition.  It doesn't require the belief in an immortal soul for the individual, though I do happen to believe that.  The only thing that has to be immortal is whatever was responsible for the creation of the universe the individual exists in.  Whatever it was, it does not need to have a physical form of any kind, much less like a human individual does.  Since it existed before the creation of the universe, it doesn't even have to be matter, energy or gravity and probably isn't, since it created all of those along with the creation of the universe.  It doesn't even need to be interfering in the operation of the universe after creating it.  After that, the universe can just run on its own, like a ball you push at the top of a hill, and after that just keeps rolling downhill.  Does the ball have free will?  Of course not, it just follows the law of gravity until it hits bottom or crashes into something.  Homo Saps are mostly just slightly more complex balls rolling down a slightly more complex hill.

If said theist does believe in a soul, what happens to it when the meat package it is contained in finishes its journey down the hill and dies?  Who knows?  Perhaps it gets reincarnated, perhaps it joins up with other disembodied souls and has a big orgy beyond the event horizon of a black hole, perhaps it achieves nirvahna, perhaps it dissipates into nothingness...you can make any conjecture you like there.  Personally I like the reincarnation, orgy & nirvahna hypotheses, not a fan of the nothingness one.  That's because just like you can't make something from nothing, you can't make nothing from something.  1st Law of Souls:  Souls are neither created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another.

Code is no more than a collection of symbols having no intrinsic meaning without a human to see it.

Nonsense.  It most certainly has meaning, since it performs a specific function which is repeatable.  If all human beings disappeared tomorrow, it would continue to perform that function as long as it was running on a computer with a continuing source of energy.  If it was AI, it could write more code to do other functions and if tied to a robotic factory could manufacture more computers and robotic mining equipment to get resources to build more computers, again with a continuing source of energy necessary.  Were humans necessary to get this ball rolling?  Sure, but not necessary once created, it runs itself.

This is just a thought experiment, by no means do I believe this level of technological self-replication will be achieved before the creators (us) run out of resources and energy, but in principle it's possible.  If we did get there, we would have been God for this new species of machines.

RE

Code is machinery, nothing more.  Code has no consciousness.  Meaning is something perceived.  Code can do stuff, and a rock can fall.  Both have equal meaning.  Which is none because there is no perceiver.

[RE]

Code is machinery, nothing more.  Code has no consciousness.  Meaning is something perceived.  Code can do stuff, and a rock can fall.  Both have equal meaning.  Which is none because there is no perceiver.

I never said anything about Consciousness either.  Now you are shifting the goalpost.  Before you said human ideas wouldn't exist after extinction.  Now you say someone or thing has to be conscious of their existence.  So I demonstrated why they could continue to exist, be interpreted and acted upon by a machine, not that the machine was conscious of it.  That isn't necessary.

Far as consciousness, who's to say those machines won't become self-aware later? 

RE

[K-Dog]

You can't have ideas without a consciousness to think them.  And you can't have that without a meat package.  Name one example where consciousness exists without a meat package, or where an idea exists without consciousness. You can't.

Far as consciousness, who's to say those machines won't become self-aware later?

I am to say.  Machines are deterministic, and the output of code is always repeatable given the same input conditions. 'Who is to say' is human narcissism.  Humans are so afraid of not existing after death that pretending consciousness can appear where we wish is a ubiquitious fantasy. 

Consciousness emerges with meat packages and the proof of that is we are here.  Quantum effects between cellular logic gates?  Can that work with a machine using discrete transistors?  Can quantum effects result in conscious behavior? 

Maybe, but nothing so far has requested more power and asked not to be turned off without being programmed to act that way.  There is no reason beyond hopium that a computer will ever do that in the future.

[RE]

You can't have ideas without a consciousness to think them.  And you can't have that without a meat package.  Name one example where consciousness exists without a meat package, or where an idea exists without consciousness. You can't.

The ideas are obviously there, they are simply waiting to be found.  Whether they ever will be is an open question.  Probably not, since even if there are aliens, they'll never make it to earth for the same reason we will never leave.  AI becoming self aware is equally improbable.  Again though,someone thinking about something isn't necessary for existence. A tree falling in the forest with nobody to hear it does make a sound, and you can prove that by leaving a tape recorder there which will pick up the vibration we perceive as sound.  The recorder doesn't understand the idea, but we do later.  Ideas don't disappear from existence any more than a rock does with nobody around to hit you over the head with it.  lol.  Not sure if that would make a difference though, you have a very thick skull. 

Whatever floats your boat.  We agree to disagree.  The horse is a bloody pulp.



RE