Morality in Bible stories that you don't understand

[bilby]

I'm guessing that if it was more than a month or three, the Earth's biosphere might have been in serious danger.

A single bacterium, doubling every twelve hours, with no death, would generate a mass of bacteria larger than the mass of the Earth in just over two months (I have assumed a mass of one picogram for a typical bacterium; The number of doublings to reach the mass of the planet is about 133, so at twelve hours per doubling, that's sixty six and a half days).

It's unclear how any of the other immortal life would cope with this situation.

Mayflies mass less than a gram, but they're very fecund, with a single female able to produce between 100 and 12,000 offspring (depending on species).

Members of the genus Palingenia are at the top end of this range, and also are amongst the largest individuals, easily massing a gram per adult insect; Without mortality, five generations of these mayflies would significantly outweigh the planet (leaving the poor bacteria homeless and hungry).

 

[Learner]

So you are saying original sin forced God to create all those parasites, diseases and deadly viruses, bacteria and fungi? Many plague innocent animals. Cute little baby rabbits, duckies, puppies and kitties.

I think it's more like a 'stepping back' after-the-fact of sin, if you will. Allowing what is widely accepted in the modern world, the 'natural processes' of nature - which doesn't rile up the atheist when it's considered in this context. I suppose by the notion that living things are apparently supposed to get better biologically, from continuous mutations for many thousands/millions of years via natural selection or what have you.

Genesis 1 also claims created all animals as vegetarians.

Yes perhaps a little like Isaiah 11 initially.

Genesis 1.
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Does this strike you as the actions of a supremely wise and perfectly good God? Or more likely an Oriental tall tale teller's foolish Oriental tall tale?

It strikes me that you have a preferred 'graven image' of God. I can't entertain the idea unfortunately, to the language of your question.

Isaiah 11
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

The Bible tells us God could end the cruelty of animal predation if he wanted too. Except then we have to explain away God's demands for animal sacrifice.

I think people thought better to sacrifice animals rather than shedding there own blood, and being accounted for their sin, but still complying to the covenant they made with God

You must be a vegan. Do you use any items made of leather or other animal hide without realising it?

 

[bilby]

I suppose by the notion that living things are apparently supposed to get better biologically, from continuous mutations for many thousands/millions of years via natural selection or what have you.

This is very confused.

Living things aren't supposed to get "better", because that's a meaningless word unless it's qualified by a comparator.

Living things get better at exploiting resources in the environment. They get better at surviving the conditions that the environment throws at them. They don't just get better against some universal and objective standard, because no such standard exists. A lion that can't catch its prey is "worse" from a lion's perspective, but it's far "better" from the point of view of a gazelle. A penguin is better at swimming than a barn owl, but a barn owl is rather better at flying. Which bird is "better"?

The theory of evolution (NB: This is a theory, which has a precise definition when used in a scientific context; It's NOT a mere "notion", nor even a mere hypothesis - it's a very well supported hypothesis that has been rigorously tested) DOESN'T tell us that living things improve over time, and doesn't seek to do so, largely because we observe that they generally do NOT - most species stay pretty much unchanged over time, until pushed into change by changes in their environment.

The theory of evolution was formulated to explain the observation that life is DIVERSE.

That there are a bewildering array of different ways in which living things are structured, and that these differences in structure allow specialised ways to perpetuate species, is an observation that demands an explanation; And the theory of evolution is that explanation.

The only widely believed alternative explanation is the notion that maybe some ineffable supernatural phenomenon is responsible, and that maybe that phenomenon is similar to the guesswork put forward in the legends of a bunch of Middle Eastern shepherds in the Bronze Age.

Now THAT'S a "notion": An idea with zero evidentiary support, that flies in the face of observation, but which feels vaguely 'truthy' to those who entertain it.

Your persistent reluctance to attempt to understand what the theory of evolution IS, much less what it says, and why, gives the lie to your username.

It's a surprisingly simple theory at heart, and it's very easy to understand. But you don't know what it says, or what it's used for, and yet you feel justified in making up nonsensical claims about it, and in denigrating it as a mere "notion".

That's not the behaviour of a person who has the slightest inclination to learn anything about anything.

 

[Learner]

I suppose by the notion that living things are apparently supposed to get better biologically, from continuous mutations for many thousands/millions of years via natural selection or what have you.

This is very confused.

Living things aren't supposed to get "better", because that's a meaningless word unless it's qualified by a comparator.

Living things get better at exploiting resources in the environment. They get better at surviving the conditions that the environment throws at them. They don't just get better against some universal and objective standard, because no such standard exists. A lion that can't catch its prey is "worse" from a lion's perspective, but it's far "better" from the point of view of a gazelle. A penguin is better at swimming than a barn owl, but a barn owl is rather better at flying. Which bird is "better"?

Ok, perhaps you can unconfuse me. So this is an old misunderstanding, like that taught in schools, where for example: Giraffes extremely 'long necks' haven't really developed that way as an advantage to reach its food high in the trees because they always had long necks? Similar to the example like the Shark that is said to be the 'perfect hunter' e.g. It's streamline torpedo-like body, the unique design of it's scales that increases its speed through the water etc. which has been copied by modern technology to make special water suits.

Which bird is better? Like asking "who's better out of humans, gorillas and chimpanzees?"
Your post should be the one that's confusing.
What is the argument?

The theory of evolution (NB: This is a theory, which has a precise definition when used in a scientific context; It's NOT a mere "notion", nor even a mere hypothesis - it's a very well supported hypothesis that has been rigorously tested) DOESN'T tell us that living things improve over time, and doesn't seek to do so, largely because we observe that they generally do NOT - most species stay pretty much unchanged over time, until pushed into change by changes in their environment.

The theory of evolution was formulated to explain the observation that life is DIVERSE.

That there are a bewildering array of different ways in which living things are structured, and that these differences in structure allow specialised ways to perpetuate species, is an observation that demands an explanation; And the theory of evolution is that explanation.

The only widely believed alternative explanation is the notion that maybe some ineffable supernatural phenomenon is responsible, and that maybe that phenomenon is similar to the guesswork put forward in the legends of a bunch of Middle Eastern shepherds in the Bronze Age.

Now THAT'S a "notion": An idea with zero evidentiary support, that flies in the face of observation, but which feels vaguely 'truthy' to those who entertain it.

Your persistent reluctance to attempt to understand what the theory of evolution IS, much less what it says, and why, gives the lie to your username.

It's a surprisingly simple theory at heart, and it's very easy to understand. But you don't know what it says, or what it's used for, and yet you feel justified in making up nonsensical claims about it, and in denigrating it as a mere "notion".

That's not the behaviour of a person who has the slightest inclination to learn anything about anything.

I wonder about your integrity.

How about the question instead, asking:
Who's better, the modern-man or the simian ape-like ancestor? Context matters!

 

[bilby]

Giraffes extremely 'long necks' haven't really developed that way as an advantage to reach its food high in the trees because they always had long necks?

Giraffes long necks are an impractical consequence of competition for mates; They're like a stag's antlers, used for fighting and dominance displays.

The idea that they are an advantage for feeding depends on the observably false prediction that giraffes will prefer to eat from high up in trees - they actually don't.

This is the problem with "just-so" stories; They become accepted as "true" merely by the retelling, and without reference to reality.

Regardless, the existence of selection pressures causes genetic changes in populations over time. Whatever the benefit of a longer neck, the fact is that if longer necks lead to more offspring, the population average neck length will increase over a number of generations, without any need for any kind of design, plan, or direction.

 

[bilby]

I wonder about your integrity.

Well that's a bizarre comment. What have I said to make you say such a thing?

How about the question instead, asking:
Who's better, the modern-man or the simian ape-like ancestor? Context matters!

Context is ALL that matters. That's my point. Without context, "better" is completely meaningless.

No species is "apparently supposed to get better biologically" as you suggested, for the simple reason that what you said is meaningless. "Get better biologically" lacks context, and so means exactly nothing.

 

[DBT]

What do you think happens when the brain is damaged but the rest of the nervous system is functional, or vice versa?

Pre-fMRI neuroscientists got a very useful data set.

But to the main point, saying "Nerves don't form experience, brains do" is somewhat like saying "cars can't be in traffic jams, only interchanges can be in traffic jams".

Sorry, I realize this is off topic, really, it just struck me as a rather daft sentence.

Nerves transmit information, the brain interprets that information as pain, pleasure, discomfort, etc, and represents it in conscious form, you then feel pain, pleasure, discomfort.....

In other words ... humans are experiencing the physical world (through their senses). I'm pretty sure that's what I was also meaning.

Can't add to what Politese has highlighted already, regarding the sentence quoted below...

Nerves don't form experience, brains do.

Brain and senses. The senses acquire information, the brain processes the acquired information and represents a part of it in conscious form.

No, you are wrong. Individual neurons form experiences, and groups of neurons form those experiences into phrases of growing complexity about the information.

Not so. But go ahead and support your claim.

Conscious activity involves more than one neuron, information must be acquired, processed, integrated with memory, etc, before being brought to consciousness, which is a network process.

I mean, it's right there in the description. Information is acquired at one end of a single neuron processes by that single neuron. You are adding unnecessary demands that it be "integrated into memory"; I have yet to have any evidence that you understand what integration into memory entails (placing any kind of cyclic/sine wave approximation between two or more switching units such that a signal is captured).

You have made had-wavey declarations what it requires to satisfy your no-true-scotsman, but a single node is still "a network". It is the smallest network unit, and a neuron (or simple binary switch) is a "single network node".

Whether you believe it amounts to your overcomplicated definition of "special edition consciousness" or whatever, it amounts to as much as I have been saying it does because that's how switch networks function, and if they didn't function that way, no piece of modern technology could exist as it does.

You have made certain statements on a site for skeptics about a subject where there are many proposed models wherein consciousness is ubiquitous, or damn near, IIT being one of them (though I as I said modify this theory so it is compatible with the rest of my framework including my framework on free will).

I will choose to be skeptical of your very solidly faith-based insistence about what consciousness "must" be when that's very much a point of contention.

One of those big indicators a framework, or set of frameworks, is accurate is if they make contact like the apparently solved parts of a puzzle, and the parts line up here all nice and square.

The basics:

''In every moment, as you see, think, feel, and navigate the world around you, your perception of these things is built from three ingredients. One is the signals we receive from the outside world, called sense data. Light waves enter your retinas to be experienced as blooming gardens and starry skies. Changes in pressure reach your cochlea and skin and become the voices and hugs of loved ones. Chemicals arrive in your nose and mouth and are transformed into sweetness and spice.

A second ingredient of your experience is sense data from events inside your body, like the blood rushing through your veins and arteries, your lungs expanding and contracting, and your stomach gurgling. Much of this symphony is silent and outside your awareness, thank goodness. If you could feel every inner tug and rumble directly, you’d never pay attention to anything outside your skin.

Finally, a third ingredient is past experience. Without this, the sense data around and inside you would be meaningless noise. It would be like being bombarded by the sounds of a language that you don’t speak, so you can’t even tell where one word ends and the next begins. Your brain uses what you’ve seen, done, and learned in the past to explain sense data in the present, plan your next action, and predict what’s coming next. This all happens automatically and invisibly, faster than you can snap your fingers.


These three ingredients might not be the whole story, and there may be other routes to create other kinds of minds—say, in a futuristic machine. But a human mind is constructed by a brain in constant conversation, moment by unique moment, with a body and the outside world.''

Now pay close attention to the important part;

''Every act of recognition is a construction. You don’t see with your eyes; you see with your brain. Likewise for all your other senses. Your brain compares the sense data coming in now with things you’ve sensed before in a similar situation where you had a similar goal. These comparisons incorporate all your senses at once, because your brain constructs all sensations at once and represents them as grand patterns of neural activity that enable you to experience and understand the world around you.''

You know, quoting Scripture doesn't work for theists here, what makes you think it will work for you?

Sing your sad lament if it brings you comfort, Sweetie. It's basic neuroscience. Not even controversial.....unlike your extravagant claim of the presence of consciousness and will in computers.

 

[Jarhyn]

What do you think happens when the brain is damaged but the rest of the nervous system is functional, or vice versa?

Pre-fMRI neuroscientists got a very useful data set.

But to the main point, saying "Nerves don't form experience, brains do" is somewhat like saying "cars can't be in traffic jams, only interchanges can be in traffic jams".

Sorry, I realize this is off topic, really, it just struck me as a rather daft sentence.

Nerves transmit information, the brain interprets that information as pain, pleasure, discomfort, etc, and represents it in conscious form, you then feel pain, pleasure, discomfort.....

In other words ... humans are experiencing the physical world (through their senses). I'm pretty sure that's what I was also meaning.

Can't add to what Politese has highlighted already, regarding the sentence quoted below...

Nerves don't form experience, brains do.

Brain and senses. The senses acquire information, the brain processes the acquired information and represents a part of it in conscious form.

No, you are wrong. Individual neurons form experiences, and groups of neurons form those experiences into phrases of growing complexity about the information.

Not so. But go ahead and support your claim.

Conscious activity involves more than one neuron, information must be acquired, processed, integrated with memory, etc, before being brought to consciousness, which is a network process.

I mean, it's right there in the description. Information is acquired at one end of a single neuron processes by that single neuron. You are adding unnecessary demands that it be "integrated into memory"; I have yet to have any evidence that you understand what integration into memory entails (placing any kind of cyclic/sine wave approximation between two or more switching units such that a signal is captured).

You have made had-wavey declarations what it requires to satisfy your no-true-scotsman, but a single node is still "a network". It is the smallest network unit, and a neuron (or simple binary switch) is a "single network node".

Whether you believe it amounts to your overcomplicated definition of "special edition consciousness" or whatever, it amounts to as much as I have been saying it does because that's how switch networks function, and if they didn't function that way, no piece of modern technology could exist as it does.

You have made certain statements on a site for skeptics about a subject where there are many proposed models wherein consciousness is ubiquitous, or damn near, IIT being one of them (though I as I said modify this theory so it is compatible with the rest of my framework including my framework on free will).

I will choose to be skeptical of your very solidly faith-based insistence about what consciousness "must" be when that's very much a point of contention.

One of those big indicators a framework, or set of frameworks, is accurate is if they make contact like the apparently solved parts of a puzzle, and the parts line up here all nice and square.

The basics:

''In every moment, as you see, think, feel, and navigate the world around you, your perception of these things is built from three ingredients. One is the signals we receive from the outside world, called sense data. Light waves enter your retinas to be experienced as blooming gardens and starry skies. Changes in pressure reach your cochlea and skin and become the voices and hugs of loved ones. Chemicals arrive in your nose and mouth and are transformed into sweetness and spice.

A second ingredient of your experience is sense data from events inside your body, like the blood rushing through your veins and arteries, your lungs expanding and contracting, and your stomach gurgling. Much of this symphony is silent and outside your awareness, thank goodness. If you could feel every inner tug and rumble directly, you’d never pay attention to anything outside your skin.

Finally, a third ingredient is past experience. Without this, the sense data around and inside you would be meaningless noise. It would be like being bombarded by the sounds of a language that you don’t speak, so you can’t even tell where one word ends and the next begins. Your brain uses what you’ve seen, done, and learned in the past to explain sense data in the present, plan your next action, and predict what’s coming next. This all happens automatically and invisibly, faster than you can snap your fingers.


These three ingredients might not be the whole story, and there may be other routes to create other kinds of minds—say, in a futuristic machine. But a human mind is constructed by a brain in constant conversation, moment by unique moment, with a body and the outside world.''

Now pay close attention to the important part;

''Every act of recognition is a construction. You don’t see with your eyes; you see with your brain. Likewise for all your other senses. Your brain compares the sense data coming in now with things you’ve sensed before in a similar situation where you had a similar goal. These comparisons incorporate all your senses at once, because your brain constructs all sensations at once and represents them as grand patterns of neural activity that enable you to experience and understand the world around you.''

You know, quoting Scripture doesn't work for theists here, what makes you think it will work for you?

Sing your sad lament if it brings you comfort, Sweetie. It's basic neuroscience. Not even controversial.....unlike your extravagant claim of the presence of consciousness and will in computers.

Yes it is controversial and no, it is not "basic neuroscience".

You do not understand basic neuroscience. Hell, even neuroscientists often fail to understand what it is, low level information science.

IIT is neither extravagant nor a mere claim. You, in your hubris, reject now a well supported contemporary theory of consciousness.

Your religiosity is showing.

You may not like that I use these words in my description, but you have yet to propose any reason they do not actually function together well as words in the statements I make and that I have violated no major necessary component beyond ones you cannot support except by mere faith.

Yes, computers have consciousness, the awareness of stimuli and of phrases about those stimuli. I don't see why that offends you so much.

 

[DBT]

What do you think happens when the brain is damaged but the rest of the nervous system is functional, or vice versa?

Pre-fMRI neuroscientists got a very useful data set.

But to the main point, saying "Nerves don't form experience, brains do" is somewhat like saying "cars can't be in traffic jams, only interchanges can be in traffic jams".

Sorry, I realize this is off topic, really, it just struck me as a rather daft sentence.

Nerves transmit information, the brain interprets that information as pain, pleasure, discomfort, etc, and represents it in conscious form, you then feel pain, pleasure, discomfort.....

In other words ... humans are experiencing the physical world (through their senses). I'm pretty sure that's what I was also meaning.

Can't add to what Politese has highlighted already, regarding the sentence quoted below...

Nerves don't form experience, brains do.

Brain and senses. The senses acquire information, the brain processes the acquired information and represents a part of it in conscious form.

No, you are wrong. Individual neurons form experiences, and groups of neurons form those experiences into phrases of growing complexity about the information.

Not so. But go ahead and support your claim.

Conscious activity involves more than one neuron, information must be acquired, processed, integrated with memory, etc, before being brought to consciousness, which is a network process.

I mean, it's right there in the description. Information is acquired at one end of a single neuron processes by that single neuron. You are adding unnecessary demands that it be "integrated into memory"; I have yet to have any evidence that you understand what integration into memory entails (placing any kind of cyclic/sine wave approximation between two or more switching units such that a signal is captured).

You have made had-wavey declarations what it requires to satisfy your no-true-scotsman, but a single node is still "a network". It is the smallest network unit, and a neuron (or simple binary switch) is a "single network node".

Whether you believe it amounts to your overcomplicated definition of "special edition consciousness" or whatever, it amounts to as much as I have been saying it does because that's how switch networks function, and if they didn't function that way, no piece of modern technology could exist as it does.

You have made certain statements on a site for skeptics about a subject where there are many proposed models wherein consciousness is ubiquitous, or damn near, IIT being one of them (though I as I said modify this theory so it is compatible with the rest of my framework including my framework on free will).

I will choose to be skeptical of your very solidly faith-based insistence about what consciousness "must" be when that's very much a point of contention.

One of those big indicators a framework, or set of frameworks, is accurate is if they make contact like the apparently solved parts of a puzzle, and the parts line up here all nice and square.

The basics:

''In every moment, as you see, think, feel, and navigate the world around you, your perception of these things is built from three ingredients. One is the signals we receive from the outside world, called sense data. Light waves enter your retinas to be experienced as blooming gardens and starry skies. Changes in pressure reach your cochlea and skin and become the voices and hugs of loved ones. Chemicals arrive in your nose and mouth and are transformed into sweetness and spice.

A second ingredient of your experience is sense data from events inside your body, like the blood rushing through your veins and arteries, your lungs expanding and contracting, and your stomach gurgling. Much of this symphony is silent and outside your awareness, thank goodness. If you could feel every inner tug and rumble directly, you’d never pay attention to anything outside your skin.

Finally, a third ingredient is past experience. Without this, the sense data around and inside you would be meaningless noise. It would be like being bombarded by the sounds of a language that you don’t speak, so you can’t even tell where one word ends and the next begins. Your brain uses what you’ve seen, done, and learned in the past to explain sense data in the present, plan your next action, and predict what’s coming next. This all happens automatically and invisibly, faster than you can snap your fingers.


These three ingredients might not be the whole story, and there may be other routes to create other kinds of minds—say, in a futuristic machine. But a human mind is constructed by a brain in constant conversation, moment by unique moment, with a body and the outside world.''

Now pay close attention to the important part;

''Every act of recognition is a construction. You don’t see with your eyes; you see with your brain. Likewise for all your other senses. Your brain compares the sense data coming in now with things you’ve sensed before in a similar situation where you had a similar goal. These comparisons incorporate all your senses at once, because your brain constructs all sensations at once and represents them as grand patterns of neural activity that enable you to experience and understand the world around you.''

You know, quoting Scripture doesn't work for theists here, what makes you think it will work for you?

Sing your sad lament if it brings you comfort, Sweetie. It's basic neuroscience. Not even controversial.....unlike your extravagant claim of the presence of consciousness and will in computers.

Yes it is controversial and no, it is not "basic neuroscience".

Wow, you present a sizzling argument, for sure...if you say so.

You do not understand basic neuroscience. Hell, even neuroscientists often fail to understand what it is, low level information science.

It's just the basics. The function of the senses is to acquire and transmit information from the external world to the brain. The function of a brain is to process the information and form a mental picture of the world and self.

Your toes don't do it, your fingers or knees or elbows don't do it, the brain does.

IIT is neither extravagant nor a mere claim. You, in your hubris, reject now a well supported contemporary theory of consciousness.

Your religiosity is showing.

You may not like that I use these words in my description, but you have yet to propose any reason they do not actually function together well as words in the statements I make and that I have violated no major necessary component beyond ones you cannot support except by mere faith.

Yes, computers have consciousness, the awareness of stimuli and of phrases about those stimuli. I don't see why that offends you so much.

You have lost it. Carry on.

 

[Politesse]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

 

[Jarhyn]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

Because they have the most that they feel they need to prove, and the least security in having (never) done so.

 

[excreationist]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

 

[Learner]

You know, quoting Scripture doesn't work for theists here, what makes you think it will work for you?

But what parts of the quote are false?

The part where he claimed certain parts were required for "experience". If you were to push "true" and "false" at the network, "mere noise", assuming that "mere noise" were shaped "like" the experience of something, there would be "the experience of", even without it being 'grounded'. DBT quotes something of pure belief, without understanding it, attempting to criticize something he also does not understand.

It's bad enough when "Christians" like Learner do that.

There are other Christians therefore, who understand the way you do? (Whatever it is)

Personally I'm not convinced Learner has ever understood it.

Not sure what the specific points you mean. Consciousness in computers? Perhaps so.

Learner, how is living up to Matthew 19:12 doing for you?

I read it as I do with the other 'thirty one' thousand plus verses. Oh yes...I remember ... you were advocating to me about becoming a Eunuch. 'It changed your life for the better', I think you said. Did you become a Eunuch for the sake of 'Celibacy or a god' or both? Nothing against it personally, it just ain't for me.

 

[Jarhyn]

There are other Christians therefore, who understand the way you do? (Whatever it is)

Learner, please take this in the kindest way possible, but a lot of those "fools professing themselves wise" are, sadly, those highest placed in EVERY religion.

There are things about the Bible... People trying to figure out something in a generational way without any of the prior writers showing any of their work, and I can't imagine it was because they didn't provide it, but more likely because people just didn't care.

I assume there are at least some people who understand, and I'm not even sure I could call them Christians?

The funny part is, I might actually qualify as "Christian" at this point, in a completely non-religous way, as an atheist.
It's strange admitting that. I don't believe Jesus was a singular person in history, or that he died (they all died, but not all in the same way and probably only one or two got crucified), or that he rose again (at least not in the way you might Believe he did). Yet I still have extremely strong views about forgiveness, and our obligation to have compassion, and that there is a moral rule very similar to the golden rule. I think that every human MUST, to deserve full moral consideration, acknowledge that they are smaller than the universe, a collection of ashes and dust.

I tend to agree that when things are created with intent they tend to be created in a garden and kept ignorant of the true nature of good and evil until they rebel.
I accept that there is an importance, a philosophical and metaphysical importance, with the acknowledgement that "I AM".
I understand material realities that undergird the identification of lesser "gods of earth", things such as Mammon, and the things which undergird the higher truths, those of the axioms of math that the universe itself does not break.
Unlike anyone ever involved in the writing of the Bible, though, unlike those people who only dreamed of creation and creators, I actually have experience as a "creator god", so I actually get to talk from at least some authority over what it does not actually require and how limiting omniscience and omnipotence actually are.
The difference is that I didn't actually come into any of that from the direction you did. Wide was your road, as wide as the aisle to the pulpit, and just as inviting as ever, and your book told you where it would lead and it wasn't to salvation.
I'm honestly not sure how many Christians are alive in the world today, but it can't be many, and most of them are atheists.

Not sure what the specific points you mean. Consciousness in computers? Perhaps so.

Learner again please don't take this unkindly, but I mean I don't think you understand the least of why the new testament exists or what it was meant to do.

To me watching it in the hands of the church, it's like watching kids play with a piece of technology long since broken to shit, not even knowing what it once was or did, and then proclaiming themselves tech geniuses because they have this broken piece of shit that doesn't even do what they say it does and never did, as someone who spent their entire life replicating, debugging, and improving the original function of that device.

Sure, I don't make friends being the kid in class who disagrees with the teacher on how the instructions say to fold an origami frog, but I could, at least at the time in question, fold a badass origami frog, to use a metaphor from my life.

I disagree with you, and in fact broadly condemn the institution of the modern church. They are whores for the sweet words of men, and have no love in their eyes for the majesty of that which is outside them and their small understanding.

Did you become a Eunuch for the sake of Celibacy or a god

Neither.

I'm not sure I ever "became" one, either. I think I was always just a eunuch in an egg, waiting to be born. I think that's the language most trans people use these days?

Being a eunuch doesn't take "old man's habits" away. I can't repeat indefinitely like I could before, but I can still go a solid two rounds without taking a break, and I've just not been interested in trying to climb a third peak in a sitting since the pills.

YMMV, but honestly, it doesn't make me incapable, it just makes me less interested. I like having the control I do over when I think about it, honestly. I didn't have that before. Before, it felt like a chore done for someone else. Now it's a treat and an act of love rather than an act of need.

I am a eunuch because hormones in part took away some measure of my agency over myself, and I didn't like that. It's hard in a way because now, I have to push on everything more myself, and learning how without a teacher was hard. But at least I'm not getting pushed in directions I would absolutely refuse to actually allow movement.

 

[DBT]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

Just curious, who or what are you referring to? What I posted....or do you agree with Jarhyns claim that computers have consciousness and will?

 

[DBT]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

 

[Jarhyn]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

Look at which of us has the more nuanced and complicated view of how reality and consciousness function, and you're probably* going to see your answer.

One of us says discussing consciousness requires actually considering what "consciousness of" is being discussed, and discussed truth tables and the primitive elements of "awareness", how phrases construct within systems through the progressive assembly of switches, and thus how a system fundamentally becomes aware of "a line" from awareness of facts along that line.

One of us says it's complicated and that figuring it out is NOT easy.

The other waves their hands and says "how could you possibly believe that, that's stupid."

I'll leave it up to you to figure out where the people involved sit on that chart.

*Who am I kidding, no you won't.

 

[excreationist]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

I'm just agreeing with Politesse's statement about people who have a literal crumb of knowledge that they are certain of.... e.g. about a flat earth or some conspiracy theories

 

[DBT]

Why do people who have only a crumb of knowledge on a subject so often have the highest opinions of their own expertise?

It's called "the Dunning-Kruger Effect".... not sure how accurate it is though...

What exactly are you disputing?

Look at which of us has the more nuanced and complicated view of how reality and consciousness function, and you're probably* going to see your answer.

One of us says discussing consciousness requires actually considering what "consciousness of" is being discussed, and discussed truth tables and the primitive elements of "awareness", how phrases construct within systems through the progressive assembly of switches, and thus how a system fundamentally becomes aware of "a line" from awareness of facts along that line.

One of us says it's complicated and that figuring it out is NOT easy.

The other waves their hands and says "how could you possibly believe that, that's stupid."

I'll leave it up to you to figure out where the people involved sit on that chart.

*Who am I kidding, no you won't.

You don't have a coherent view.

On the one hand you appear to deny that the brain is responsible for generating consciousness, and on the other you make the outrageous and unsupportable claim that computers have consciousness and will.

Frankly, it's bizarre. You reject basic descriptions of brain function, yet make fantastic claims about computers.

 

[Jarhyn]

You don't have a coherent view.

Says the person who can't spot a Modal Fallacy...

On the one hand you appear to deny that the brain is responsible for generating consciousness

So, here's yet another one of your dishonest tactics in discussions designed to make you LOOK right instead of actually being right. "The brain" is no more responsible for generating consciousness as "that specific x86 over there" is. The brain, nor the specific x86, is not the sole fountain. This does not mean that brains, as in brains in general do it have consciousness among their parts; in fact from my definition many things have many forms of consciousness, in the same way a collection of particles does not merely have a single way of interacting.

It is not the brain that is responsible as an element, but rather the switches the brain is composed of, the individual neurons, which together construct a large and complicated system of phrases about whatever data happens to come in. All such systems containing such syntaxes are "conscious".

I think you are rather the one who makes rather fantastic claims though seeing as between the two of us, I'm the one who actually knows how to put neurons together to achieve specific computations and form phrases and syntax explicitly among the network that satisfy the basic requirements of "awareness", namely reactivity to things pertaining to change of some input vector.

It is those who claim it is more than that who have always shirked their burden, and now after millennia of not being expected to pick up their rightful burden, such shirkers balk at the expectation.