When I mentioned our ancestors creating us, I didn't mean in terms of conciously building a living system of cells, I was referring to your analogy of teaching computers like we teach children. My point is that if you are going to say a computer can learn in the same way a child does, then how is it unreasonable to say that they might learn something more than we know? If the initial knowledge it has is the same as that of the system's creator(s), then it may be able to reason something out of it that we don't know.
*sigh*

But doesn't "teaching" require that the thing being TAUGHT is actually on the same level?

Imagine me trying to teach a CAT to read and write. I could do it for a thousand years and probably still not get anywhere. That was my whole point.... If we are going to CREATE the thing we are going to teach we need to know now to make it as complex as we are.. because only making it as complex as a cat isn't good enough.

Knowledge doesn't MATTER... because knowledge is simply a storage of facts... its what is behind that knowledge that counts. Its about intuition, instinct, lateral thinking, problem solving and just pure blind luck. It can "KNOW" the same things as we do but if it hasn't been programmed with EXACTLY the same abilities as us it can never learn something we do not know.

And we don't understand how we do things so how can we ever hope of creating something that can!?!?

'Mutation is not responsible for evolution'. Well I'm glad you cleared that one up for us all But seriously, if you think it all makes that much sense, write a paper on it and get it published in a scientific journal. There are many people researching this area I'm sure, and if you have something valuable to contribute, then you should make your findings known.
There are several scientific journals on this, covering everything from what they call the "Gaia principle" to what I call "Natural Progression".

The concepts of self awareness, emotions and irrationality are pretty high-order functions and I'm not even sure if my cat is self aware.
Hence you will never be able to teach your cat to learn things above its in-built capacity.

Can you see the correlation now?

As I said previously, if we can understand neural nets then complex systems can be built up from them. I'm not saying it will be easy though. And your point about needing to understand the way the brain works in some of these areas is a valid one, although I don't imagine anything like this happening in the near future.
But are we sure neural nets is HOW the brain works? or is that just the closest thing we can "associate" it with because of our limited ability to discover things about ourselves?

You make a lot of references to the impossibilities due to our lack of understanding, but that understanding may come with time and research. This is a complex issue and I don't think anyone can state any certainties.
Roll a Dice. Get a 6. Roll it 100 times and get a 6 every SINGLE time. We know that "with enough time we can do it" but we also know that the probability is extremely small and therefor can appropriately apply the term "impossible" to it because its completely beyond our scope of recognition.

The odds of getting a 6 100 times in a row is 1 in 6.5e+77

Assuming that we could roll a dice 10 times every second, and assuming the law of probability saying we should be able to achieve it within 50% of the possibilities that means it would take :

1e+69 YEARS to reach half way.

Wouldn't you say something that would take longer than the earth as we know it has been around to come true is in the realms of "impossible"?

Well anyway, about the bat analogy: I agree that these traits are not particularly useful individually. However, I would ask you to consider the converse argument - Of what detriment is it to the bat to have any of these traits?
Exactly. They are of NO detriment, and yet the whole postulation of evolution is that the mutation of beneficial traits gets continued in the species. If those traits had no benefit (and no detriment) then it would require 1 million spontaneous mutations of members of that species to have the species as a whole now exhibit that trait.

Don't tell me that is possible as well

Just because a bat does not prosper above its peers does not mean that it is worse off. Apart from that, these changes did not happen overnight. I shouldn't think one day a baby bat with jumbo sized ears, a fully functioning sonar processing system and an ultrasonic squeak was born. The changes were, according to evolution, many and various and very, very slow.
Mutation is instantaneous. When you talk about somethinig changing very, very slowly over a long period of time you are NOT talking about suvival of the fittest... you are not talking about evolution... you are talking about NATURAL PROGRESSION... which is EXACTLY what I believe is the cause of species advancing.

The bat was ALWAYS designed to develop big ears, screams and sonar processing brains.... it was coded into its DNA from the outset providing a certain combination of environmental factors occured and certain external stimulations took place.

That certainly has nothing to do with the theory that a white moth born to a race of black moths would proliferate because its in the snow and thus breed more white moths.
(Classical postulate of the evolutionists)

As for your definition of a god, erm, excuse me but who ever defined what a god was and what a god should and shouldn't be like?
The people who follow this God... they are the ones who defined what it would be like. "He is good, he is kind, died for out sins, etc,etc". I just refute THEIR definition

As always I am ducking the issue of whether god exists or not, but I object to people making logical inferences which are a product of their own made-up rules.
The only made up rules are the ones others define and use as "proof" of its existance and I use their OWN made up rules to show their proof is flawed.

But here is an intersting point. You and I can both agree that there is a possibility "god" exists... and that there is a possibility that god doesn't exist. We can accept both sides and refute both sides although we have our opinions as to which side we lean.

Religious people CANNOT. They say absolutely and categorically that God exists and that is that. Ask them to accept the "possibility" that he does not and they cannot. That shows blindness, a purposeful shutting down of an avenue of thought and thus shows that they are not looking at all eventualities.

We all do it... just not as much as these people do throughout their entire lives.

By the way, that word..*Searches for word*...'perspicacity' - I haven't come across that before, what does it mean please?
"Acuteness of perception, discernment, or understanding"

See : http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/di...m=perspicacity