Evolution [ for those who care ;-) ]

[Gen-X]

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

By the way, that word..*Searches for word*...'perspicacity' - I haven't come across that before, what does it mean please?


Is a noun modifier of "perspicacious", meaning clear-minded

[HarryW]

Yes a lot of what you say is very reasonable. I don't mean to say that you're wrong necessarily, I'm just a terrible sceptic and I don't accept anything anyone says easily. In fact I still haven't accepted what you say, but I'm open to the ideas.

I don't believe that any being/system/whatever would require identical abilities to us to be able to reason beyond us for instance. I think maybe I had slightly the wrong idea of what the theory of evolution is, though, since I have never studied it formally, I'm just speaking from general knowledge.

There are many different ideas of what God is, there is not one definition. Many religions see their God(s) in very different ways. One obvious example is satanism, clearly a very different idea of what God is like to that of most mainstream religions.

As far as I can see, neural nets seem like a good starting point if nothing else. The brain is built up from complex bundles of neurons is it not? So, at a microscopic level, I think neural nets should at some point relatively soon be able to perform better reasoning processes than current technologies allow, if those people who are researching the brain's structure can figure some of it out a bit better. How do you think the brain works then, if it's not based on simple electrical impulses through millions of little microprocessors?

I just hate the words 'never' and 'always' because I feel that you just cannot say what will or won't be for sure, because forever is just such a long time. It's like the reasoning that say that you can never truly know, say, the length of a nail. You can measure it yes, maybe to a million d.p. but how can you prove that the next decimal point will be a zero? So you end up saying that the probability that the length of that nail is exactly what you say it is is zero since you can simply measure it to a smaller scale, not to the smallest scale since there is no smallest scale.

The last thing I would say is: Don't be against religion. Whether or not God exists, religion can give people a sense of purpose and well-being, and most religions have a moral code which, if more people followed it, would probably make the world a nicer place to live. I'm not telling you to take it up, obviously, just don't complain about people having religious beliefs. If their being stubborn and sticking to a theory that suits them is the result, I don't mind.

[Gen-X]

Hello Harry,

Yes a lot of what you say is very reasonable. I don't mean to say that you're wrong necessarily, I'm just a terrible sceptic and I don't accept anything anyone says easily. In fact I still haven't accepted what you say, but I'm open to the ideas.

I understand that, in fact I am the same. The only theory of Science that works is "Proof by Disproof". Something remains TRUE until we can prove that it is NOT true and find something that stands up to scrutiny.

- "The world is flat"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)
- "The earth is the centre of the universe"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)

As for you being open to ideas... now its my turn to be the sceptic ;-) I find most often that people are unwilling to let go of their own beliefs and will come up with the most unreasonable facts to support their own beliefs. I guess only reading more of your replies will tell me if you are one of those people.

As for me, I too hold onto my beliefs.. BUT.. if someone can give show me something that disproves what I say (and does so convincingly instead of just hazy) then I will happily adjust my thinking.

I don't believe that any being/system/whatever would require identical abilities to us to be able to reason beyond us for instance.

Ok, would you agree that they would need "at least" our ablities in the area of communication, reasoning, logic, intuition, instinct, identification, lateral thinking, problem solving etc, etc ?

I hope you say yes to the above because that then begs the question... "Do we KNOW what goes into human beings in how they DO all of the above things?"

If you said No then I would ask you how something with less abilities in the above areas could "reason beyond" us when surely "reasoning" requires those things mentioned. That is why dogs cannot talk, nor chimpanzes or any other creature besides man... because their neo-cortex is not constructed with the above mentioned abilities.

So I have to restait what I said earlier... "If we are to recreate something to resemble human intelligence we have to KNOW what goes into making that intelligence AT LEAST to our level... and the Creator can NEVER make something better than itself".

As far as I can see, neural nets seem like a good starting point if nothing else

Actually the use of Neural Nets really isn't a good beginning point. The only thing the human brain has in common with a neural net is the fact that both of them are networks.

Did you realise that the human brain stores information based on "patterns"? Thats right, the knowledge we store in our heads is NOT stored in a sequence of references like a computer but based on certain patterns, likenesses and other such things.

So while we look at something and our brain processes that based on a likeness and comes up with the answer "A CUP", a computer must traverse an index and go to the direct memory reference 043E3:12EB4... which just happens to be a Cup. We are not even close to understanding the human brain in this sense.

Another thing is that the brain triggers neurons based on chemical levels with certain threshholds required to cause a trigger. It also triggers "related" neurons that don't necessarily give us an answer or are associated with the answer but effect the overall traversal of the pathways slightly. We haven't even began to understand how a single thought can trigger several million neurons simultaneously... replicating this in a computer at this stage is beyond our comprehension.

I just hate the words 'never' and 'always' because I feel that you just cannot say what will or won't be for sure

Are we not human? Is not everything beyond the length of our lifespan considered "never"? I only use those terms when in reference to lengths and measurements that are beyond human understanding or comprehension. Oh we can say that a thousand years is a long time but nobody has seen more than 150 years so how can they truely say... therefor the things that occur within a thousand years are impossible for us to actually know as none of us has ever lived that long.

If you want to start talking about scientific experiments and carbon-dating and all that stuff to determine things that happened in the passed I would suggest you read up on the quantum theory ;-)

The last thing I would say is: Don't be against religion
just don't complain about people having religious beliefs

*sigh*... Who ever said I complain about them HAVING religious beliefs?

I complained about them having the sheer audacity and blindness to say their THEIR belief is the ONLY belief and that everyone else is wrong... that they are completely INCAPABLE of even accepting the POSSIBILITY that they themselves are wrong.

I admit that I can be wrong and probably am from time to time... Its when people start running around thinking it is not POSSIBLE for them to be wrong problems start.

As for your theory that if more people were religious the world would be a nicer place to live... perhaps you should find out how most wars and conflicts have started on our planet... the number 1 culprit was RELIGION... funny that

[HarryW]

Oh great this has been dragged up again.

Look, 'different' does NOT mean 'less than' or 'greater than' okay? That's not what I mean. I said different. I mean different. And I have not once said I think this is likely to happen even in the near furure, let alone now! Yes it's not known at the moment, that doesn't make it impossible to do ever.

What do you mean

Oh we can say that a thousand years is a long time but nobody has seen more than 150 years so how can they truely say...therefor the things that occur within a thousand years are impossible for us to actually know as none of us has ever lived that long.

?

How can you say that? How does that fact something occurred in a length of time outside our lifespan prevent us from knowing that it happened? And I'm quite well enough read on quantum theory thanks.

I have no doubt most wars have been based on religion, but to be honest I think it's just human nature to have wars. Religious or not. People (evidently) have a lot of trouble getting along, and in a lot of cases in the past religion has been an excuse.

[kedaman]

What I meant with emulating brain: Not a electronic simplification but a identical copy, atom by atom, molecule by molecule. Nanotechnique! I would class us as machines, if we wouldn't have "souls", noone answered me this.

quote:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh we can say that a thousand years is a long time but nobody has seen more than 150 years so how can they truely say...therefor the things that occur within a thousand years are impossible for us to actually know as none of us has ever lived that long.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

?

How can you say that? How does that fact something occurred in a length of time outside our lifespan prevent us from knowing that it happened? And I'm quite well enough read on quantum theory thanks.

Well, I suppose we can't know if it's true or not what happened, ie 200 years ago, what people tell us to believe. If we didn't see it, how can we ever be 100% sure. In fact, we cannot be sure on what happened yeasterday in London or better: behind my back just one second ago. There are just about 100-1E-9999999999999999999999 % we don't know. In other words we know almost nothing. However we can be "pretty sure" about of almost everything essential, and that is sufficient.

I have no doubt most wars have been based on religion, but to be honest I think it's just human nature to have wars. Religious or not. People (evidently) have a lot of trouble getting along, and in a lot of cases in the past religion has been an excuse.

Human nature means religion, different religions means war, Humans are different. Human nature means war. However we wouldn't be better without religion. Religion the great force that keeps people together without chaos and anarchy. The great rules that keeps a society, a nation and the whole humanity on track, could never be built without beliefs. Therefore changing human nature would be like withdraw ourselves.

I understand that, in fact I am the same. The only theory of Science that works is "Proof by Disproof". Something remains TRUE until we can prove that it is NOT true and find something that stands up to scrutiny.

- "The world is flat"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)
- "The earth is the centre of the universe"
(Lasted until it was proved wrong)

There are still people that thinks "the world is flat", and you can never disproove them, not only because their belief is strong, but they always have an argument in reserve to dismiss yours. They think that science has never prooved correctly that world is round, and instead started to build new beliefs upon this, which degrades many well known phenomenons to simple not prooved theories. I'm sceptic about the existence of universe


About analog values: There is a way to display and store imaginaire values (my TI83 does this), why can't we then create analog data types, next to the list of digital datatypes we have. They could be stored like this: 3/7*pi-4*sqr(5), no data loss during operations and in result you could display it in this form or convert it into a floating point or whatever.

[Gen-X]

Oh great this has been dragged up again.

Look, 'different' does NOT mean 'less than' or 'greater than' okay? That's not what I mean. I said different. I mean different.

I think you might be confusing yourself. You were talking about a creation of MAN that would surpass him. Your exact words were "then it may be able to reason something out of it that we don't know."

In order to do this we need to at least be "similar" when it comes to understanding of concepts otherwise the thing he might reason out "that we don't know" could be:

&^*&^#$&^!&%$#*&%^$%^$#

Now NEITHER of us can understand that... So we are talking something that is NOT different, we are talking about something that is close enough to us for us to be able to at least ACKNOWLEDGE that they have reasoned something out that we didn't know..... and to be able to do that comes back to exactly what I have been saying all along.

Isn't that clear enough?

If you have studied Quantum Theory you would know VERY WELL that observation CHANGES what it is you observe. If we try to determine anything that happened in the passed (ie carbon dating to tell how old something is) then we have effected our results by actually observing them. So as Kedaman said... how can we REALLY be sure that anything our eyes did not witness actually happened? How do we know the earth has been around 65 million years and NOT 65 billion?

Oh and I loved the way you suddenly dived AWAY from religion when pointing out that it started most wars and tried to point the finger at humanity... nicely done, but it does show what I said before about you being objective.

Kedaman:

If we copy it atom by atom then we have done sub-atomic cloning... we haven't made artificial life we have simply used the Star Trek transporter technology

If you copied it atom by atom but replaced the organic tissue with innorganic tissue then it wouldn't work.. the whole point of having intelligence is that we are DNA and to date it has not been possible to replicate protein chains in inorganic material. You would find making a copy like this would cause certain "properties" of our human brain to simply not function, the levels of chemical balance and electrical conductivity would change and the whole thing would be thrown out of balance and it would fail

BTW, You can "DISPROVE" the earth is flat. Simply take that person, head in one single direction and show that you reach the place where you started from... OR drill directly through the centre of the earth until you come up the other side.

What you CANNOT do, (and I said this before) is PROVE anything!!!! Science can NEVER prove something true... it can only DISPROVE something false.

[Sam Finch]

All this talk of new forums I think we need a philosopy forum. I don't think an atom by atom representation of the human brain is possible as it would require a complete knowlege of physics, including the wave/particle Ideas of quantum mechanics which is currently belived to be random but I would dispute this, considering instead the posibility that the QM laws are governed by a chaotic equation that is as yet undiscovered, assuming this and going back to the randomness Idea, can anyone give me an example of something truly random, beacause I can't think of anything that is truly random if we are saying that VB random numbers are not random on the grounds that they are derived from a chaotic system on the CPU timer.

Oh yes and as for the idea that you can't prove anything you yourself have just given a proof that the earth is not flat. Just in case you go off on the whole Idea that anything containing a -ve is not a proof I remind you that every equation in the entire of mathematics has been proved from 10 basic axioms which define basicly how to count, and these can be proved by looking at different amounts of blocks.

ie imagine (n=a.b) blocks arranged in a rows of b blocks, then rotate this group of blocks 90 degrees so you are looking at b rows of a colums, I can't remember the exact definition of multiplication but from this it is easy to show that a.b = b.a.

On this grounds I dispute your argument that AI cannot be created due to a lack of computer generated randomness.

N.B. Here is a proof that things can be proved.

Imagine I create an AI machine, I have thus proved that AI can be created, However I cannot prove that AI can be created as this constitutes a proof.

That was a proof that AI cannot be created.

So I have prooved that things can be proved.

luvly luvly.

[HarryW]

What the hell? Dived away from religion? I said in general religion helps people to act morally, and then I said that I think it's human nature to have wars! What's the big contradiction there? Jeez. It's not that complex.

So we are talking something that is NOT different

I beg your pardon, I'm confusing myself? No no, YOU are talking about something that is not different. What makes you think you're so special (by you I mean the human race) that you are already the most complex system possible? You keep making these big statements about the impossibility of some things, but you make these statements having first assumed something else, in this case that any more advanced system would need to be similar to the human brain. That's an assumption. Where did it come from? You've just made a sweeping statement to back up your side of an argument you're determined to win. I'm not trying to say that any of this is going to happen, or is even likely to happen. I'm just saying that I think it's possible.

Your comment on the possibility of it reaoning that string of characters - you already said yourself that the human brain deals with patterns, something you say a computer could never comprehend. Well who's to say that some kind of data like that might have some meaning to the system? You were looking for some kind of abstract data storage.

Isn't that clear enough?

You seem to be hung up on this idea that the reason people disagree with you is because they haven't understood what you've said. I quite understand what you've said, I just don't necessarily agree.

[Mongo]

Cognito ergo code?

[Sam Finch]

As A point to note It isn't human nature to wage war, war was invented by the mongols at about the same time as horseback riding( The mongols discovered that sitting on a horse swinging a sword gave you a considerable combat advantage over a farmer brandishing a sack of corn. They used this knowlege to kill the farmer, steal the corn and run away. War is a product of our intellegence, it is in fact what separaes us from animals.

I don't actually think we're that far off decent AI, give it 20 years or so. we should have something we can hold a decent conversation with, look at furbies, OK they aren't exactly rocket scientists but they display some form of intelegence.

[Gen-X]

Sam :

What a double negative

"Prove it WASN'T flat"

That is "disprove it WAS flat"

Hence what I said was right... you can never prove something is TRUE... you can only ever disprove something.

Look at all of our great paradigm changes... ALL came as as a result of DISPROVING something we thought was absolute at the time.

As for your mathamatical axioms you have simply stated a set of RULES that we decided to adopt that can be found as some of the basic rules of nature... it doesn't PROVE that it is correct... its the INNABILITY to DISPROVE those facts that make them true.

1 + 1 = 2

I cannot PROVE that is so... but because I cannot DISPROVE it we keep it as fact.

As for AI I believe we may have the equivilent of a "Talking Parrot" with some niceties that "resemble" human idioms and behavioral traits... but it will only be that, it is still a LONG, LONG way off from something that thinks for itself.

Harry:

You started to say how religion would make us live in harmony. I then showed you how most wars were started by religion thus being the antithesis of harmony. You realised this and then pointed the finger at humanity and attempted to reduce the visibility of religion in this. A smoke screen. I am sure others would agree with me, Kedaman already did, Sam pointed out human nature is not war.

So I repeat... nice divergance. I would assertain from this that you are a person who believes in God... Am I right?

I beg your pardon, I'm confusing myself? No no, YOU are talking about something that is not different. What makes you think you're so special (by you I mean the human race) that you are already the most complex system possible?

This statement confirms your confusing yourself.

Who EVER said anything about US being the most complex system?!?!??!

I simply said that "WE CANNOT CREATE A MORE COMPLEX SYSTEM THAN OURSELVES"

That you misunderstood this shows that the original points are something you are no longer discussing.

Our original discussion was like this :

- Humans creating AI
- That AI knowing something we dont

How on earth did you ever get out of all that an assumption that we are the most complex of all systems!?!? I do believe you are placing your own views on this which was exactly my scepticism in the beginning.

Did I not say "The CREATED can never outdo the CREATOR"?

Try to explain how what you are now saying fits in with these simple statements which were the whole basis of our original conversation and I will accept you are not confused

[Sam Finch]

The whole point of "proove the earth isn't flat" is to show that your statement contradicts itself and therefore disproves itself, about the mathematical proofs, we do not assume anything, we merely define an operation, which is a perfectly valid method of proof. you Idea that the created can never outdo the creator, this goes against the whole Idea of evolution, which is pretty widly accepted as ideas go.

what you failed to address is the Ideas of randomness which was central to your argument and the proof that proof was possible.

oh and 1 + 1 = 2 is a definition of the number 2 where 1 is defined as the identity under multiplication.

[HarryW]

Well I don't really think my religious standing is really relevant, but since you ask, I don't hold strong views either way.

As to your neat little explanation of my supposed 'dive', (by the way thank you for 'showing me' the error in my ways *Laughs*) I think you'll find that I said religion can be a good thing because it encourages a good system of morals. You've plucked 'harmony' out of nowhere. In fact Kedaman then reiterated this in his own way. I still stand by what I said - religion generally encourages a good system of morals. The problem is that people have differing opinions and argue, as you should be able to tell by now.

Okay so I got slightly the wrong end of the stick, you think we cannot create something that knows more than us (the human race obviously). Now before you start telling everyone how we don't know this and we don't know that, what if we find out? And then again you are assuming that the best system we could create would be based on our own brains.

Just out of interest, if you think that it is impossible for a creator to create something 'greater' than themselves, who or what is it that you think created the human race?

[Gen-X]

Sam:

The whole point of "proove the earth isn't flat" is to show that your statement contradicts itself and therefore disproves itself

I disagree.

POSTULATION : The earth is flat
PROOF       : Cannot provide
DISPROOF    : Curcumnavigation

Where is the contradiction in that?

Show me ANY example where science has PROVED something to be true?

you Idea that the created can never outdo the creator, this goes against the whole Idea of evolution, which is pretty widly accepted as ideas go

Sam, Sam, Sam.... Since when is Evolution considered the same as Creation!?!?!?

Evolution is a force of nature, it doesn't NEED to know how things work because they simply react to the environments around them... thats why water boils, ice melts, rain condenses, clouds form...

Not because someone has PROGRAMMED them to do so... simply because that is the net effect caused by the application of external forces to the atomic structure of the item in question itself.

That humanity gives BIRTH to new children doesn't mean we CREATED those children... we simply procreated!!!

Surely you see the difference???

what you failed to address is the Ideas of randomness which was central to your argument and the proof that proof was possible

How would you like me to address randomness?

To say that the terminology of "random" is only given to something which we cannot currently understand a pattern for? That we dig a deeper level and again it is random until we develop tools and methods to explain its actions.

Here is where my personal opinion comes in. I personally think that we can continue to delve deeper and deeper into randomness, peeling away layers and exposing them to have very DISTINCT patterns and order... BUT, at some point we cannot go further and STILL there will be randomness... and it is THAT randomness which houses the ultimate consciousness of sentience. That is why I personally believe we can never create an Artificial Intelligence that is nothing more than a big computer following OUR rules.

Harry:

I think you'll find that I said religion can be a good thing because it encourages a good system of morals

Does it?

- Mass Murder (French Inquisition)
- Elitism (OUR religion is the TRUE religion)
- Xenophobia (You are Heathens)
- Control (We must avangelise to the natives of islands)

I could go on ALL day about the attrocities done under the banner of religion and NONE of them have to do with a good system of morals.

religion generally encourages a good system of morals.

Hehehehe.... Funny how you have now added that word "generally"... so are you sticking by what you said or now tempering it with the understanding that it wasn't as absolute as you had first said it?

And then again you are assuming that the best system we could create would be based on our own brains.

Am I? I was the one that kept telling people AI using our brains as examples wont work... I am concerned that you keep finding things that I dont say and "assume" that is what I am saying when my words themselves show otherwise.

I want to ask you a question... one that is more important you answer than any other...

"Do you accept that I have always said using the human brain as the base is NOT feasible and that your assumption that I have is incorrect?"

Your answer to this question will tell me if conversation is even worth persuing if you even get the most basic facts of what I say wrong. (I know you will see this as me trying to "show you"... but it is your prejudice against my often hostile approach of scientific analysis and not the fact that I think I am any better than anyone else... I said in the beginning that if you can't show me something that stands out as being obvious then I wont believe you. I know my methods come across as aggressive, that is a flaw of mine but please don't misinterpret them)

Just out of interest, if you think that it is impossible for a creator to create something 'greater' than themselves, who or what is it that you think created the human race?

Why does it need a "creator"???

If you read above we exist because of the universe. Factors came into play, a perfect set of environmental factors etc, etc such that the existing matter moulded to compensate for those factors and humanity was produced.

Its the complex strands of proteins and DNA that contain all the information required to react to any event that effect it... Some would cause it to die, some cause it to evolve... but ALL of its requirements are already self-contained... its NOT mutation and its NOT survival of the fittest... evolution as people know it is wrong as far as I am concerned.

[kedaman]

Hence what I said was right... you can never prove something is TRUE... you can only ever disprove something.

You can proove and disproove nothing here people! The only thing you can do is suppose and guess. Maybe Science has built an enormous illusion on a another even if there is a 100-1E-9999999999999999999999 % chance that it's not.

AI is going to be the next step, even if it is completely simulated. You won't notice the difference, because randomness is not how this world works. As we might not create AI that is better than us in intelligence, why bother? We can always create AI that is million times more effective in doing the brainwork, we're doing, the "true intelligence" part is not what they need, because it will only slip out of our control, endangering humanity. True AI is as impossible to CREATE as it is dangerous. To evolve true AI is possible, but that's my beliefs in that were not random.

I believe in god, but I disagree with stating religions to split us apart, causing wars. Sam - taking a farmers corn is not war, it's robbery. War is when two components fight each other. Human nature is, yes what causes war: We aren't only fighting each other to get food, like animals do, we fight because we wan't power (and religion means power)

POSTULATION : Earth is flat
PROOF       : None
DISPROOF    : None

POSTULATION : Earth is round
PROOF       : None
DISPROOF    : None

Why         : There is not proof that Earth exists.

Ok, don't start yelling at me now, The only thing we know is that we are. Everything else have at least a chance of being a illusion. No-one did again respond to my question of "souls". I guess nobody have any good arguments to this. I don't care. Just wan't to know your opinions about this.

Evolution is creation, as an illusion, i don't know Sam, what you believe in, but i agree... BTW Gen-x, What is force of nature?

Anyone? Gen-x you have loads of arguments to stay in your beliefs, then why can't you disproove even something in my theory? By the randomness, we're the opposite.

Lain17: Were not creator of each others, we can modify each very other but not create.
Cbomb: how do you know that is a true story? Anyway, I agree, Human nature tells us to explore, find explanaitions. Our needs is to know. What we can't explain, we take for supernatural, according to our needs. God is bound to appear everywhere. But then religion gives us the false picture of him.

[Cbomb]

I have no proof what-so-ever that the story is true. Just the word of my teacher/friend. In all likely-hood the story could be/was fabricated by an ex-pope during one of the enlightenment periods, to spark intrest.

[Sam Finch]

I doubt it's actually true but it's a good story.

I used the existance of god as a way of disproving Gen-X's idea that the created cannot outdo the creator, I didn't say got didn't exist I just said that we couldn't prove that he Exists (I think Beatrand Russel proved that we can't prove the existance of God)

[Gen-X]

All:

Ok. I think the first thing I have to do is define what I mean when I say "CREATE". The thread has shown me that what I am talking about and what you have been talking about are 2 different things....

When I say the word CREATE... I mean it like when we build a computer. We work out its schematics, where everything goes, what everything does and we put it together.

We ARE after all talking about the CREATION of an Artificial Intelligence... which means to CREATE it we need to work out exactly what it does like a computer....

So when I say the Created can never outdo the Creator I am talking in this context.

Questions of giving birth to a child, or educating someone or in any other way effecting an ALREADY SENTIENT being is NOT what I mean when I say creation.

Now perhaps I should use the word "CONSTRUCT" instead... Would that make it easier for us to both be talking about the same thing?!?!

Sam:

YOU were the one that asked me to explain randomness... Why then do you jump to the conclusion that my whole argument from the beginning was about randomness when it was YOU who prompted me for this!?!?

Think about it for a moment. Human beings are either 1 of 2 things :

1. A creation of God

This means we will NEVER be able to create TRUE AI because God won't let his little creations start tinkering with his job.

2. A Random occurance... One in a Zillion!!!

This means that if it took a Zillion tries for the Universe to create Sentient Life, WE would take a Zillion tries to get Artificial Life.

Once again... BOTH of them suggest that there will never be a TRUE creation of "Human-Engineered-Artificial-Intelligence" that replicates our own sentience.

Can I spell it out any clearer than that!?!? Or do you have something new to add to the mix?

But as this is out creator it is obviously more intellegent than us.

Oh now THIS I love!!!

WHY does it have to be more intelligent? Why does it have to have intelligence at all? You whole contradictory argument here falls completely on its face at this flaw.

Humanity was created by the universe... NOT as a carefully constructed entity but simply as a reaction to its own environment... a one in a Zillion occurance. There is no intelligence involved. The universe is NOT a CREATOR because a CREATOR is something sentient that DECIDED to make the creation....

That would be like saying that the wind CREATES the waves, that it thinks to itself "Mmmm... I think I would like to SHAPE this water to be what I shall call a WAVE". Now I am sure you will say that it DOES "create" the wave... but I remind you to look at the definition of creation again.

Sam, I would suggest you speak with a few scientists... their methodology has always been about disproof. Theories ONLY gain credibility when they have stood up to scrutiny NOT because someone has come up with a self-satisfying proof

Lets take your 1 + 1 = 2 for example :

Is that PROOF? Is it even REAL!?!?

I say NO.

1 lump of Clay + 1 lump of Clay = 1 BIGGER Lump of Clay.

What's this!?!?

Have I found that your 1 + 1 <> 2!!!!!

But then again... 1 + 1 = 2 is only a mathematical "DEFINITION"... a "RULE" that we have come up with. Rules are NEVER proved or disproved because there is nothing to prove them against.

Cbomb:
Belief in a higher power is a mental deficiency. At some point *SOME* Human beings are incable to intellectually functioning unless they can place the responsibility and PURPOSE of their existance to a higher power. Of course it must be DISPROVABLE!!! If it wasn't then they couldn't use it as a crutch now could they.

Kedaman:

we fight because we wan't power (and religion means power)

Religious people ALSO say "Power Corrupts". Does this mean that people who are religious actively "FIGHT" because they WANT to be corrupted!?!?!

Be careful in your words, you say you believe in God and yet what you are saying here is that Religion is something to be "WIELDED" and not something to BELIEVE in.

BTW Gen-x, What is force of nature?

There are 4 Forces in the Universe... and ONLY 4. These are what controls and governs EVERYTHING within our universe.

1. Magnetism
2. Gravity
3. Weak Chemical Bond
4. Strong Atomic Bond

It is the interaction of these forces that cause atoms, molecules and particles to behave in relation to each other... These are the "forces of Nature".

then why can't you disproove even something in my theory?

Which theory is that? Give me one clear and consise theory with your postulations and I will point out a flaw in one of those postulations if it exists... if it doesn't that means your theory will hold (until some point in the future when MORE is known about it... after all, the earth was the centre of the universe for over 300 years)

[JazzBass]

Hi guys,
Yikes!

I would like to add my two cents in this.

About the earth being round. We do have proof. Man has been to space and has seen the earth. Before that, the Bible spoke of the "Circle of the Earth." Science has proven that the earth is round.

Gen X,
I personally take offensive in your statement to Cbomb that:
"Belief in a higher power is a mental deficiency."

I don't think it is a mental deficiency. Humans were not the product of the universe. They were created. Much like a chair is not the product of a house. A house was built, created. A house will not come up in the middle of a forest after a zillion tries or years or whatever. That's silly.

A house was constructed by someone and all of the furnishings were constructed by someone too.

The universe was created by a supreme, intelligent being. That being is God. You can see the wisdom and power in creation. Take the forces of the wind, storms. Also, take the water cycle. The earth replenishes itself with this cycle. Take the sun. It puts out a nuclear explosion like around 100,000 million megatons (I don't recall how often), whereas with atomic bomb only but around like 57 megatons.

Even some scientists have pointed out that by the way the universe functions, with it's laws and how everything is just so, means that a supreme, intelligent being created it. (Newton, and others) It was wonderfully designed and created, not thrown together by chance.

I can go on and on, but as to your argument that there's a mental deficiency in believing in a higher power; There is no mental deficiency

Jazzbass

[Edited by JazzBass on 04-28-2000 at 05:50 AM]

[kedaman]

Universe is

1. Creation of God, not Random, has beginning and end.
2. Created by don't know <-- Why?
	a) Big bang
		Random
			has end
			has no end
		Not Random
			has end
			has no end
	b) PreIllusion
		Not Random
			has end
			has no end
3. Have always existed	
		Random
			has no end
4. An illusion
		Not random
			has no end
			has end

There are 4 Forces in the Universe... and ONLY 4. These are what controls and governs EVERYTHING within our universe.

I don't believe in that. But as I have learned them on physical lessons, i take them almost as granted.

Which theory is that? Give me one clear and consise theory with your postulations and I will point out a flaw in one of those postulations if it exists... if it doesn't that means your theory will hold (until some point in the future when MORE is known about it... after all, the earth was the centre of the universe for over 300 years)

Universe is not RANDOM. Clear enough? One in a zillion makes no sense, it's enough for me to take universe not for random.

Not so religious people want to have power, by using religion. This way it also advance by changing the religion and diversify, splitting religions apart.

JazzBAss- theres no proof that you saw Earth.
Mental deficiency? Yeah, that can't be, we're human beings, and it's human nature that we believe in god. Then is it mental defiency to be human beign? Mental defiency must define something abnormal.

[JazzBass]

Kedaman,
I don't understand your statement to me. There's no proof that I've seen Earth? Not trying to be smart, but I've seen pictures. I've heard of Astronaut's eye witness accounts and science has documented it. Including with what the Bible says, that's enough proof for me.

Is that what you mean? That I have not gone out in space and seen the Earth with my two eyes? Just trying to make sure I know what you're saying.

JazzBass

[John]

I would like to thank you all for keeping this thread so good mannered, especially since there are obviously a lot of different views. I would like to stress though, that people are only expressing their opinion. If that is what they beleive then so be it.

I am going to move this thread to the chit chat forum as I feel that it would be more appropriate there.

John

[Fox]

Mmh, this is a really long threed... well, I didn't read the whole thing (some parts are a bit difficult for my spare english ) so I just (try to) tell you what I think:

[My opinion]
First let me tell ya, I don't believe in god.

-Now about the universe-
I think it's random coz random can be everything (because it's random ). Well, my mind is't big enough to understand where the universe comes from, when the time did start or such things. But I don't care... I know that I'm here and I live my life. I only do what I want or need to do and that's what I call Life.

-AI-
Well, to create an AI we must first define what's intelligence and that's probably impossible. I'd define intelligence as a reaction to the actual situation based upon collected informations like experience and knowledge, limited by the self-preservation (or maybe instincts?).
Well, to make such a thing we need to define what's knowledge and how would you store experience... *shrugs* I have really no idea about these things...
[/My opinion]

[kedaman]

John! make a philosophy forum!

[Sam Finch]

Gen-X

WHY does it have to be more intelligent? Why does it have to have intelligence at all? You whole contradictory argument here falls completely on its face at this flaw.

Sorry, I thought You's be Familiar with the Idea of proof by contradiction. what I did was this.

I took your statement
A the Created cannot outdo the creator
and the statement
B God does not exist.

I then used these 2 assumptions to show that the source of heat that created us is more intellecent that we are, which is obviously false.

as there was no flaw in my logic, one of the 2 starements A or B must be False.

Bertrand Russel Showed that it was impossible to show statement B to be false so statement A must be false because if it is true then we have a proof that statement A is false.

1. A creation of God

This means we will NEVER be able to create TRUE AI because God won't let his little creations start tinkering with his job.

2. A Random occurance... One in a Zillion!!!

I dispute the Idea that it is a zillion to one chance that sentient life came about on earth and anyway, that's pretty irrelevant because we're here.

The Idea that God wouldn't let us create something more intellegent that us is completly unfounded.

you I don't know If you have seen examples of AI through Artificial selection but some of them are showing sign's of intellegence although I doubt they're self aware. and by your definition of creation(which you change every post) we arn't creating them so that's alright.

I don't quite get where you're getting this Idea that nothing can be proved. going back to the example of the earth being round it was proved to be round by Plato, who pointed out first that

A The moon must be round as if it were a disk we would see it change shape as it went round the earth and we saw it from it's side.

as the moon is round we can see that the earth is round as again if it were a disk we would see it's shadow differently on the moon.

He backed this up with lot's of drawings about how the shadow would look for diffent shapes of the earth and moon but it was a proof, by logic that the earth was round.

I get what you're saying about nothing being proved only disproved but it is completly irrelevent. Ok Plato didn't proove the earth was roung, he disproved that it was flat, but in systematicly disproving every possible shape of the earth he proved it to be flat. This is called proof by elimination.

Things are not proved by a self satisfying argument, they are proved from an indiputable argument.

oh and your lovely idea that 1+1=1, go and look up the + operator.

[kedaman]

Plato didn't proove that earth is round, there's no proof that Plato ever existed, there's no proof that moon is round alos theres no proof that moon exists at all, and for that 1+1=1 there is no proof like for 1+1=2. There is no proof that God exist or not, there is no proof that evolution exists, there is no proof that Gen-x exists neither HarryW, Sam Finch, Fox, or all others that have posted to this thread or the Grey vbworld thread. There is no proof that vb-world exists, there is no proof that Earth exists. Theres only a proof that i am. As there is always that possibility that parts of or more likely everything of this universe is simulated. My consciousness is the only thing I can thurst.

Hope you people got it. Science is built up on air.

[b]Back in the old days, people couldn't explain things well so all they said is that God did created the universe. Think about it, that's the simplest solution there is to everything. People are just too lazy to find the truth and they say that God did it.

Keep in mind that I DO believe in God, the above is just a thought.

[Cbomb]

You expressed on of my views perfectly! Cool!

In addition, people maybe afraid of what the truth might actually be. What if the truth is so bizarre and unheard of that people's minds just regect the answer in fear of the dramatic change. Imagine that we discover our world is actually a virtual plane with limitations just like that of a computer. Gravity, Light, Love is all just a bunch of switches that are on or off.

(Obviously a plot taken from The Matrix....but still a very thought provoking idea!)

Oh PS: I used the word 'people' as the general inhabitants of our little planet

[kedaman]

Planet and planet, we just are a childs imagination, a computer program, dots in the matrix, lemmings in that old game lemmings or just passengers in a plane that run out of fuel, An atom in a complex molecule. I think were god's creations, individually, and if AI is going to be the next step, God is creator of that too.

God is simply the most simple answer to the question. It's because it's meant to be. Believing in 1 in a zillion theory, or a "we are not what we think what we are" is just not likely. God solves every question

  Sub God_Load
     Dim x as new universe
     x.add time
     x.add space
     x.add matter
     x.add energy
     x.run   
  End Sub

You displayed the creation well frm a VB Programmers point of view.

CBomb, I wouldn't be suprised if something like that is true, we only know about 0.0000000000000000000000001 about
our universe itself. There are many other wondering out there. For example, time travel, do you think it's possible? The laws of Special Relativity say so. What about the size of the universe? How big doyou think it is? If it is a finite size, then what is beyond it?

[kedaman]

Megatron, I really love you're coming up with those classical Q's

First, we know "nothing" about about universe, according to THGTTG, because we know a part of it and universe is unlimited so we know relatively nothing. That's true if we just round it to any value, an integer or a floating point or whatever, we will get to the value 0%. But we will get a value if we have an analogue. So you kindo have a bit harder to express this value.

Timetravel: I have not so far any point, but I have made a big mysterious about this in my book, there's a timetraveller that confuses the world, but actually the theories all are about illusions, and then again it's possible, and keeps oscillating between possible and not.

Size of universe: I think it's unlimited, no walls no nothing, just unlimited space without matter (vacuum) to all directions. We're (refering to all galaxes) just a spot of matter in the middle of it. IF we're expanding forever, we will be slowly dematerialize until everything's so outspread that there's 10000 parceks between every elemental particle. (This isn't my theory, just don't remember who i'm refering to) otherwise were going into GIB GNAB (refering to THHGTTG)

[Fox]

Erm, what is THGTTG?

I believe that the universe is like a fractical. For those of you that don't know what a fractical is, it's sort of this. Picture a round ball with smaller round balls orbiting it. Now picture the samller rounds balls with balls orbitng them etc. etc.

Anyhow, I am getting waaaay off topic here but here's a little thought. When someone dies, thier soul drifts up into space and gets sucked in a backhole and ends up in "the other side" which is right here! This goes back to the fractical i explained earlier. No matter how big, or how small you are, no matter what dimension you are travlling in, you always end up in the same spot. If you've seen the movie "The Sixth Sense," that's somewhat what I'm talking about. There could be dead people right beside you right now but you don't even know, because they are living in the other dimension, not ours - yet we are still in the same place. Get my drift?

What does this have to do with the universe? Well I believe that the Universe is a fractical. It could be a little atom in another universe (obviously much bigger) and that universe is an atom of another universe and so on and so on.

[kedaman]

Megatron, u have some huge explanations of how universe works. Actually ure just messing up the word "universe" with something else. I have say that i had some similar thoughts when i was younger going from atom to galaxy, and from that into more and more and more bigger things. I just made my own names for the really big ones. And for smaller things than atoms i had about 15 more smaller in order, that was one big thought but it stayed in this universe. I was already into this kind of math when i was 10 year old boy, so i created my own prefixed down from attometer (10^-18) to 10^30 to explain my how my fantasy-world worked.

Now back to the topic. u told me about dying, and then we go a level up in the universe scale? Did i get u right? How do we see that level down universe from here? In atoms?

Look down at your keyboard. It's composed of many small atoms. Each atom could be a whole different universe.
As you gradually exit your universe into another parallel universe, I don't really know what you'd see. I like the idea of atoms because as the black hole sucks you in, you are also being blown out into the parallel universe. If you are the same size as you were in your old universe, you would incease at a dramatic level in order to retain your original size. So I guess for a split second, you might see the world as a bunch of atoms.

[Sam Finch]

Hmm, I'm objecting to the new Ideas even more than I objected to the old ones, let's see.

How Big In is the Univese?

The universe is a big shere with radius cT, where c is the speed of light and T is the age of the universe. what's beyond it doesn't have a meaning because there's no way of getting there and you can't see it because light must have got there and bounced back for you to see it.

The Universe as an atom in another universe
thios is a lovely idea, I thought about it a coulple of years back and it's implied in the end sequence of Men in Black, It's perfectly possible and there's no way of proving for or against it(see above, what's outside the universe)

TimeTravel

In my view, (and this is very much just my view) time travel is not only possible but happens all the time(don't get petty about the definition of time here). it's quite hard to explain it exactly, first some rules about Relitivity. if we imagine a sort of 4 dimentional view of the universe with one of them being "time", now just imagine something moving through space, what would it look like in our SpaceTime? It would be a line, with "Now" as a point on that line, the future as everything to one side of that point and the past as everything to the other side, relitivity says thet "Now" is in fact everything perpendicular to the line at that point(this is a lot easier to imagine if you think of space as 2 dimensions of space time and "Time" as the other one) what is "Now" acording to this definition is everything that the point can see, I can't see into the future because my future self is in the way.

Ok I hope that's in your head, now imagine 2 particles, a matter particle and an antimatter particle which wander around as 2 seperate lines and then hit each other and destroy each other, imagine this on the spacetime diagram, it's just one line that changes direction and goes back in time.

Hope that's cleared everything up.

[Cbomb]

Once again you express my opinions perfectly!

I'm going to round up some general beliefs of mine, so all can comment:

• 1. I belive time travel is possible, I belive someone (most likely Alien) is already messing with it.
• 2. Your fractal universe is exactly what i think.
• 3. Upon exiting OUR universe (3rd Dimension) you enter the fractal just 'above' ours, which leads me to belive that would be the 4th Dimension.
• 4. Ancient Intelligence - I belive in some aspects the ancients, such as the Greeks, and the Egyptians knew more about some things that we aren't bothering to explore. Such as telekinesis. (just an example)
• 5. The Great Pyramids are to massive and complex to be tombs. Thats just following my logic. I really dont know what they are, but I've read theories about them being a water pump or a battery, both make more sence than a tomb to me.

Ok thats all of the ones I can think of at the moment. Megatron do you share any of these beliefs?
Everyone, attack or agree with some of my thoughts here..I'm interested in what you all think!

-----Later-----

Oh, as for death I dont think that a person is even aware of their own death. Imagine an infine number of parallel lines. Each being the timeline in a diffent universe as they relate to you. (this is very hard for me to explain so hold on) I'm driving in a car in one of theses universes and suddenly I'm hit head on and killed instantly. My theory: somehow your 'consciousness' knows this is about to happen and you are ejected into another timeline where this event is a "near miss" and you live on...you are never aware of the transiton though... Interesting no?

[Edited by Cbomb on 04-29-2000 at 05:00 PM]

[Sam Finch]

CBomb, this is really wierd, but the Idea that every possibility could coexist as a parralell universe as you're suggesting is in fact impossible, it's a relly hardcore mathsy argumentwhich I'm not even going to tyr to explain but basicly even if you had an infinite number of infinitley large dimensions to hold all these parralel universes there would not be enough room to hold them all even if they were infinitley close together.

as for what happens when you die, did you know that when you're asleep and you have a dream that seems to last for an hour it only lasts four seconds in real time (those numbers are probably wrong)

If we extrapolate this I reckon as you get closer and closer to death and become less and less concious we can fit more thought into less time, so It seems that your second to last second seems like it lasts an hour, your second to last half second seems to last 2 hours and so on so it seems like your dying moment goes on forever, this gives you a lot of time to think, if you were a bad person then you feel guilty about it and just spend an etertity being guilty, if you were a good person you spend an eternity feeling pleased with yourself, which is a fairly rational explanation of heaven and hell.

This is sort of what I mean when I say that god exists and doesn't exist it's the same way hell doesn't exist but you still go there when you die.

[kedaman]

FOX:
Sorry, forgot your qwestion,
Well THGTTG is The bookseries of Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, one o my favorites (by Douglas Adams)
GIB GNAB is the reversed thing to BIG BANG


SAM:

How Big In is the Univese?

U don't know if we can exceed c yet! Think about Warp engine, The definition is not trekky fantasy, pushing space forward while moving in it you will relatively exceed c, however I don't know how the heck we would accelerate to that speed in a reasonable time.

The atom is another universe

Wait an c. Science may have some more to tell us in those x years we have left.

TimeTravel
This is also something Science yet haven't prooved/disprooved.


CHOMB:
It's a bit hard for me to Disagree or Agree with you, but i have some comments and questions
1. What makes you believe in aliens? If they were messing it, are they ignoring us? Have u seen an alien?
2. It seems that this is one hard to proove/disproove and have comments on, For me, it's based up on so much air, I'm leaving this behind
3. Same thing. This theory really doesn't explain much, but it surely impress all
4. Telekinesis - Bullshit. I don't want to go into this either, it's a big area to explore for such a, for this universe, incompatible idea
5. Gives me thoughts about 5'th element. Also in the game Civilisation, a granary in every city.

The parallell universes thing is a interesting area. But it requires another definition for universe than i have given in my theory *ambiguous name detected* HEhe. Well I had this theory that everything is possible, as soon as you go to the correct universe. Like a prism divide up light in colours, universe splits up in infinite amount of parallell universes which by the dx of time again splits up in infinite amount of parallell universes raising in amount after bigbang, we could just have a remote control to jump between these and have a universe where everything is exactly as you want. This theory is huge.