Metaphysics, intelligence, God

[mhss1992]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

Sorry, people are asking me to do things all the time and it's taking a while to write the text.

Wait for it before you get to conclusions.

Edit: Darkness is not only the darkness of death. It's also the darkness of closing your eyes. You feel it, therefore, it exists. That's what I'm talking about.

[MrRubix]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

Sorry, people are asking me to do things all the time and it's taking a while to write the text.

Wait for it before you get to conclusions.

Edit: Darkness is not only the darkness of death. It's also the darkness of closing your eyes. You feel it, therefore, it exists. That's what I'm talking about.

The darkness of closing your eyes is merely you looking at the backs of your eyelids. You can "feel" this because your brain is still active -- your sentience is still processing. You are still a material observer with a material perception.

[mhss1992]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

The darkness of closing your eyes is merely you looking at the backs of your eyelids. You can "feel" this because your brain is still active -- your sentience is still processing. You are still a material observer with a material perception.

All I said is that we can be sure that the darkness exists because we feel it. I am not even discussing these things in your reply, lol

[MrRubix]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

What are you talking about? I addressed your "darkness" argument directly given your past reply. If this is not what you mean by "darkness," then please give another example. Give an example of "feeling darkness" that can't be explained in terms of human perception or sentience.

[Izzy]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

Dark is just the lack of light. You don't feel dark. The only thing you feel when you close your eyes is the extreme contrast between the light coming in when you have your eyes open and the lack of light when you instantly close your eyes.

Perhaps you are feeling your pupils dilating, I don't know.

Edit: I haven't read the thread so I have no idea what we are arguing here.

Edit2: We can be sure darkness exists because we can't see it... lol.

[mhss1992]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

What are you talking about? I addressed your "darkness" argument directly given your past reply. If this is not what you mean by "darkness," then please give another example. Give an example of "feeling darkness" that can't be explained in terms of human perception or sentience.

Well, you're the one who started saying that "i can't be sure of the dark screen".
Of course I can be sure of the dark screen. The dark screen is the space where images occur. It's dark when there's no image, but we know that there is a space. And I am not talking about death, right now.
And there is nothing wrong with human perception or sentience, they explain this.

[mhss1992]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

Okay, I finished the first of a series of thought experiments

Well, I suppose I'll no longer need to insist for you to temporarily ignore the anti-afterlife postulations while we think about the following things. But I don’t think it’s safe to suppose that, so I’ll say this before I post: Please, do not reply to them like you have replied to the other thought experiments, saying “you are ignoring physical facts”. These thought experiments are arguments against these postulations. So, it makes no sense for you to assume that the postulations are right and use this as an argument against my arguments. Do you understand? It’s like saying “your argument against postulation A is wrong, because postulation A is right” which is the same as “you are wrong, because you’re wrong”. It’s redundant. Also, don’t bring the evidence issue, now, because I already said: we can question postulations. I thought, and found an obstacle that didn’t fit well with the postulations, so I considered that the postulations can be wrong and thought about the obstacle.

1. This first line of thoughts is about the first person experience as a whole. It’s an “improvement” of the exchange thought experiment. As a materialist, I guess you have only two options for the location of the first person perspective:
A) It depends entirely on the configuration of the brain.
B) It depends on the matter which composes the brain.

Well, if we consider that 98% of our atoms are exchanged every year, it doesn’t make sense to assume that B is the right option. In this case, the observer depends on the configuration of the brain, and atoms themselves can’t be observers.
Think about the following: Pick up atoms. Atoms themselves are not observers, so, atoms don’t feel “I am an atom and I am feeling nothing”, because there’s no first person perspective for an atom. Our sensory inputs, however, are made of atoms. They react to stimuli and send it to the brain, which is also made of atoms.
If I change the configuration of your brain, you will still feel that you are in this brain. You will still feel the “perspective” from this brain. Because your brain is clearly changing all the time, and you still have the perspective from it. You will not be in “nothingness” for all eternity if I change the configuration of your brain, if the brain is still functional. If I turn another person’s brain into MrRubix’s brain, you will obviously not magically leave your brain and enter the other’s person brain and start feeling the world from it, either. The other person will be just a copy. No matter how much I change the configuration of your brain, as long as it is functional, the thoughts will change but the perspective will not change. The observer did not change. Your "I" still exists in the brain.

So, atoms change, configuration change, thoughts change but the perspective doesn’t change. So, we can try to say that “there is a configuration that never changes in your brain, and it determines your first person perspective”. Well, that was invalidated with the MrRubix copy. Creating several identical configurations will not create identical, “connected” perspectives. Each brain will always be individual, even if they are identical.
Everything about your brain changes. Where is this thing that determines the perspective, then?




I'll post the others soon. Please, try to seriously think about it. Don't just deny it or say that I am making false assumptions. If you are confident of what you believe, consider the argument for what it truly means.

[Izzy]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

Perhaps the perspective is the physical body as a whole. You can see yourself therefore you declare yourself as being that person because you cannot escape from that body. You are forced to accept the fact that you are from a certain perspective because you can't leave it.

If we had two people who copied brains you would have two different perspectives because both of those people can see one another in different locations. Even if two things are identical it doesn't mean that they are referring to the same object.

So If you had no body and your sensory inputs and thought were somehow able to sustain form and life without every having physical confirmation of its own existence then I don't believe you would be able to have any kind of perspective. But since things don't work that way everyone has their own perspective on things.

All hypothetical ideas of course, always a high chance of begin incorrect.

Really though, What is more important? Truth or being right?

Stop trying to defend something that has evidence against it and don't be upset when your hypothesis's are incorrect. Just take the opportunity to correct yourself and help get to the goal of truth. Be speculative and not opinionated.

[MrRubix]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

mhss1992, that's the entire problem though. A thought experiment fails when there is evidence that directly contradicts it. It's nice to throw away other assumptions and say "Well, what if this is true?" The problem is that we can't prove certain things one way or the other, and a thought experiment weakens the moment something clashes against it or explains things with higher accuracy or consistency with other phenomena.

Saying "Your argument against this postulation is wrong because my postulation is right" is not what I'm saying. I am saying "I have evidence for my postulation, and you do not. Therefore my postulation is more rigorous and worthy of acceptance." You are right that you can always question postulations, but you need evidence for it -- "Don't bring the evidence issue," you realize, is operating on faith -- on "maybes." Exploring a "maybe" is what the scientific process is meant to do -- we can always question things, but we need a way to test things and observe to verify answers to our questions. I am saying evidence gives us more information than a lack of evidence does -- the latter brings no information at all. ANY explanation in the realm of the unknown -- in absence of any evidence whatsoever -- is just as logically valid as any other arbitrary explanation.

Addressing your brain configuration question:

Yes, our atoms are in a constant state of swapping. This does lead us to believe that is the underlying structure that matters. It's like if we consider a wristwatch. Even if we remove a component, say a specific wheel or gear, and replace it with an identical wheel or gear, it will still be a fully functional wristwatch. This process of replacement for humans just happens to operate on a smaller level over time through biological and physical processes.

So, focusing on configuration, I agree with your points, but I think you are still misunderstanding what a perspective exactly is. We can have many copies of MrRubix as we want. They will all have their own specific perspectives. Each different perspective depends entirely on the sheer moment we create that physical vessel. Each body will have their own "I," since it is the physical components that create the "I." That's simply the answer -- it is the physical components that create the perspective. It's like asking why Dell Laptop A isn't Dell Laptop B or something. A is A because it's made up of A parts. B is B because it's made up of B parts. A and B parts may be the same in every form, but if you have two separate objects, those are two separate objects. Atom A is different from Atom B, even if they're both the same type of atom. They are in different places.

[Izzy]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

I find that it helps to have at least a little bit of knowledge of computers and programming to help understand a lot of similar real life equivalences. Programming really breaks things down into it's most basic form and helps explain how things are built up into a much more complex idea.

Edit: Just being a devil's advocate here, but with that idea of computers and our understanding of the world around us it almost seems like a supporting idea for a higher intelligence.

Humans with their limited intelligence were able to create computers and it's "virtual space" which is similar to the supposed space that we think and store memories in. Maybe something with an extremely higher intelligence created the realm that we are currently trapped in with no way out. With no way for a computer program to ever be aware of its creator it is similar for humans to never possibly be able to conceive of what created the universe.

However since I don't believe there was intelligent life from the start of the universe that idea kind of falls apart.

Although maybe if the universe really was created by a higher intelligent they just created it at a point with physical properties that give evidence to it being older then when it was actually created. Like they create a planet that's properties gives evidence to it being 3 billion years old already.

Edit2: That idea runs into infinite recursion though. If there was an intelligent design then what created that intelligence? Interesting to think about none the less.

[MrRubix]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

I find that it helps to have at least a little bit of knowledge of computers and programming to help understand a lot of similar real life equivalences. Programming really breaks things down into it's most basic form and helps explain how things are built up into a much more complex idea.

Edit: Just being a devil's advocate here, but with that idea of computers and our understanding of the world around us it almost seems like a supporting idea for a higher intelligence.

Humans with their limited intelligence were able to create computers and it's "virtual space" which is similar to the supposed space that we think and store memories in. Maybe something with an extremely higher intelligence created the realm that we are currently trapped in with no way out. With no way for a computer program to ever be aware of its creator it is similar for humans to never possibly be able to conceive of what created the universe.

However since I don't believe there was intelligent life from the start of the universe that idea kind of falls apart.

Although maybe if the universe really was created by a higher intelligent they just created it at a point with physical properties that give evidence to it being older then when it was actually created. Like they create a planet that's properties gives evidence to it being 3 billion years old already.

The only way a computer program could ever see "us" would be if we made the hardware in our world (e.g. webcam) to allow the computer program to see what's outside the bounds of his world. Similarly, some outside force would need to allow us access to external "hardware" for us to see what's outside our universe if such a thing existed.

But yes, if we were created, "maybe" there was artificial aging, but regardless -- we can think of infinitely many "maybes." We can't do a thing about them unless we have evidence to elucidate things for us. Either way, what created the creators?

[Izzy]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

Well of course, I'm just having fun speculating. Even if it were true it wouldn't matter because there is nothing we can do about it.

Also for a computer to ever have the ability to understand there is a creator we would need to program it with the ability to understand there is a creator.

[mhss1992]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

mhss1992, that's the entire problem though. A thought experiment fails when there is evidence that directly contradicts it. It's nice to throw away other assumptions and say "Well, what if this is true?" The problem is that we can't prove certain things one way or the other, and a thought experiment weakens the moment something clashes against it or explains things with higher accuracy or consistency with other phenomena.

Saying "Your argument against this postulation is wrong because my postulation is right" is not what I'm saying. I am saying "I have evidence for my postulation, and you do not. Therefore my postulation is more rigorous and worthy of acceptance." You are right that you can always question postulations, but you need evidence for it -- "Don't bring the evidence issue," you realize, is operating on faith -- on "maybes." Exploring a "maybe" is what the scientific process is meant to do -- we can always question things, but we need a way to test things and observe to verify answers to our questions. I am saying evidence gives us more information than a lack of evidence does -- the latter brings no information at all. ANY explanation in the realm of the unknown -- in absence of any evidence whatsoever -- is just as logically valid as any other arbitrary explanation.

But I am not making another postulation yet, I am finding situations that cannot be satisfactorily explained by the original postulation. That's why I'm questioning it in the first place.

There cannot and will not ever be any physical proof of afterlife or stuff, because they obviously aren't physical. But we can't limit ourselves forever because of that. I am seeking an alternative way of evidence, a logical, not physical, one: reduction to the absurd.

That was the first thought experiment, and it's not the strongest one. I'll discuss this one, and post the others later.

Addressing your brain configuration question:

Yes, our atoms are in a constant state of swapping. This does lead us to believe that is the underlying structure that matters. It's like if we consider a wristwatch. Even if we remove a component, say a specific wheel or gear, and replace it with an identical wheel or gear, it will still be a fully functional wristwatch. This process of replacement for humans just happens to operate on a smaller level over time through biological and physical processes.

So, focusing on configuration, I agree with your points, but I think you are still misunderstanding what a perspective exactly is. We can have many copies of MrRubix as we want. They will all have their own specific perspectives. Each different perspective depends entirely on the sheer moment we create that physical vessel. Each body will have their own "I," since it is the physical components that create the "I." That's simply the answer -- it is the physical components that create the perspective. It's like asking why Dell Laptop A isn't Dell Laptop B or something. A is A because it's made up of A parts. B is B because it's made up of B parts. A and B parts may be the same in every form, but if you have two separate objects, those are two separate objects. Atom A is different from Atom B, even if they're both the same type of atom. They are in different places.

But, you see, this experiment is really about the perspective I'm talking about. Look at my definition of observer: the place where qualia occur. This is what I mean by first person "perspective".

Again, I'm not saying it is not material, yet. I'll try to be very careful with this.

Let's take this to another level. If someone desintegrated your brain, separating every single atom and putting them in a pot, your observer would disappear, according to you.

Now, let's suppose that this person, for some reason, picked every single atom and put it in place, making your brain again. Then, he puts this brain in a body identical to yours, in a room identical to the room you were at when he desintegrated your brain. Did the nonexistent observer get back to place? I mean, did *you* come back from nothingness, as if you were just asleep?

It seems easy to answer "yes".

But, now, let's suppose he picked other atoms, and not the ones that composed your brain at the moment. We both agreed that it doesn't depend on the atoms themselves, as they are always changing. With these new atoms, he created a copy of your brain, and put it in the identical body.

Now: did your observer, which no longer felt anything, come back to existence when he created this copy brain? Will you just open your eyes with the new brain, and it will still be *you*?

Or does the brain have an observer of it's own, and the original MrRubix is still dead, nonexistent?

If you chose the first answer: That generates a problem. He could create inumerous other copies and make the same procedure. But your observer can only exist at one brain. So, will it "choose" a specific brain? Doesn't that seem absurd? All of these brains will open your eyes, and one of them will be you, the one that felt your original body before your brain was desintegrated. But what bizarre magicks could possibly be responsible for this?

If you chose the second answer: well, there is a brain with exactly the same configuration, and yet it has another observer which is not the original MrRubix. The new brain will live MrRubix life, while the original has ceased to exist, that is, assuming that observers do cease to exist when people die. No one will ever notice the difference, not even the "new" MrRubix. That just proves that observer and brain are independent things.


Of course, I doubt that this will convince you. But I still want to know what option do you think is more likely, and if this generated the slightest doubt, for you.

[Izzy]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

It doesn't seem like that difficult of a question and you seem to be ignoring me.

If you removed the brain of someone and replaced it with a brain of the exact same composition with memories and all then it is still the same perspective as before.

Yes even though it is a different brain it will now go on to live that persons life even if the brain is made up different atoms with the same memories.

Yes, if you made a copy and put them in two separate locations they would both believe they are living the same person until they met, and then they would see they are different people. They still have different perspectives though because they are from that point different objects not referring to the same location.

At least they are still the same person as much as they are from one day to the next. Technically we aren't the same people after each moment as occurred because our brain changes constantly. One you obtain a new memory you aren't exactly the same person anymore. So as long we agree that we are the same people day to day then you are the same person if you remove your brain and replace it with a replica made of different atoms.

This is why some people think you can make a teleporter by creating something that makes an exact copy of you and then killing the original. The copy will think he is the original until he realizes he is just a copy, but it will still go on living the same life as the original would, if the original actually teleported to that location instantly without picking up any memory's along the way.

If you didn't kill the original then you have two copies who both think they are the same person but they have two different perspectives because they aren't at the same place receiving the same memories which generate different thoughts and emotions.

Blah blah blah, common sense imo. Seems pretty straight forward.

[MrRubix]

Re: Metaphysics, intelligence, God

Mhs, since when are you assuming the current situation isn't explainable with the current postulation? I've explained every phenomena you've brought up so far with current postulations ALSO substantiated by evidence. If you're saying you don't need "evidence" to come to an explanation, then we may as well end the debate here. I think that we need evidence to make a claim about something -- otherwise, again, we could assume ANYTHING about the unknown. Do you understand what I mean by this? I honestly feel like I am repeating myself.

Yes, I understand what you mean about "the place where qualia occurs." You say it's not material (which is technically false, hence a major issue with your experiment already), but we'll roll with it.

Now, let's suppose that this person, for some reason, picked every single atom and put it in place, making your brain again. Then, he puts this brain in a body identical to yours, in a room identical to the room you were at when he desintegrated your brain. Did the nonexistent observer get back to place? I mean, did *you* come back from nothingness, as if you were just asleep?

It seems easy to answer "yes".

If it's the same brain, yes -- it would be like a brain transplant, if such a thing were possible. It's like taking the guts out of a computer and putting it in another case. I'd still maintain my perception.

Now: did your observer, which no longer felt anything, come back to existence when he created this copy brain? Will you just open your eyes with the new brain, and it will still be *you*?

Or does the brain have an observer of it's own, and the original MrRubix is still dead, nonexistent?

Yes, if someone melted my brain, I would be forever gone as my own observer. My "I" would be nothingness forever.

If you inserted another identical brain into my empty skull with all the same memories and functionalities, then THAT new brain would be a new observer with a new "I." But "I," the melted brain, would still be gone for good.

It's no different from if I removed my Intel i7 chip from my computer and replaced it with an identical processor. It'll have the same functionalities as before, even if it isn't the same processor. We're disagreeing on the concept of what makes a perception. You assume a perception is still something external when a perception is PURELY a function of the physical components at hand. It doesn't matter if they have the same memories, personality -- whatever. A new item is a new item. A perspective is causally linked to this physical item. Therefore, a new brain = new perspective, even if everything else is identical. This is PURELY based on physical evidence and is what we know given the nature of matter and how the human mind operates. To invoke anything else is to assume arbitrary thoughts without evidence.

If you chose the first answer: That generates a problem. He could create inumerous other copies and make the same procedure. But your observer can only exist at one brain. So, will it "choose" a specific brain? Doesn't that seem absurd? All of these brains will open your eyes, and one of them will be you, the one that felt your original body before your brain was desintegrated. But what bizarre magicks could possibly be responsible for this?

If you chose the second answer: well, there is a brain with exactly the same configuration, and yet it has another observer which is not the original MrRubix. The new brain will live MrRubix life, while the original has ceased to exist, that is, assuming that observers do cease to exist when people die. No one will ever notice the difference, not even the "new" MrRubix. That just proves that observer and brain are independent things.

First answer is totally bogus BS. There's no reason to believe that my destroyed brain will come back as the second brain. It's a totally different brain.
Second answer is correct. It indeed has anothe observer who isn't the original MrRubix. It will indeed live for the remainder of my life, and the original is God. Observers do exist when people die. No one will notice the difference. I'm with you until... "This just proves the observer and the brain are independent things" -- WHAT? That is the exact OPPOSITE of what that experiment implies. It means a specific observer is tied to a specific brain because the brain IS the observer.

This entire discussion you keep assuming that "I" is somehow detached from a physical component. You need to understand that the physical components are what define that specific perspective. We have evidence for it. If I destroy your brain, you're gone. You, as you know it, are gone forever. You will never experience ANYTHING again. If we make another brain identical to yours, that new brain gets to experience the rest of your life for you.