I suppose a genuine pursuit of truth could be considered a royal waste of time, particularly when that displayed truth contradicts that which one believes.

Useful is not defined as that which supports a preciously held belief.

As always JB, you are in fine form.



We are all students, and we are all teachers.

I don't consider the pursuit of truth a waste of time at all. But the game you play is not what I consider the pursuit of truth, as you bring nothing new to the table.

Me thinks you are a just skeptic pretending to be a guru.

I used to have beliefs that were preciously held. They were discarded and abandoned when new information was considered.

I know how to be a skeptic and I know how to reject old information and receive and consider new information. But sometimes skeptics close their minds to ideas.

I trust that science will change and/or consciousness will evolve and all things unexplained will be explained, eventually for everyone. I'm in no hurry.

But for me and you to ever "clarify" anything we have to be on the same page, but so far we don't seem to be close to that.

What I don't understand about you is how can you engage in an argument and still have no point to make unless you just don't know what you believe or are afraid to state what you believe.

You aren't trying to build any ideas or find any solutions, you only seem to try to dismantle what I believe. You have denied that, but that is what you attempt to do.

I would gladly let you do that if you could, but you can't because you bring no new information or ideas to the table.

I am willing to consider other solutions and possibilities but you have to offer new and better information which overwhelms that which I already have and makes more sense. You can't.

You only attempt to dismantle tiny pieces of a huge complicated puzzle and you can't even replace them with anything valid.

Extracting valid or useful information from you is almost impossible, and very time consuming. That is why I find it a waste of time.


JB

Here is the bottom line.

1.Either life arises from consciousness or

2.consciousness arises from life.

If consciousness arises from life, then perhaps life (and consciousness) is just a freak accident. This creates more questions than answers.

Of course the third option (answered by religion) is that a separate creator, the "All Mighty God" created everything.

But if this is the case, then where did this creator come from?
Therefore this solution also creates more questions than answers and just goes in a circle.

These are the three basic choices on the table you can explore for answers.

My evidence and personal experience, so far, point to number one.

The other two lead no where.

#2 leads to a finite (hence 'dead') accidental universe.

and #3 leads you in circles.. who created God?

I have yet to see a glimmer of any proof or evidence or reason that would shake me from path #1.

Life arises from consciousness.

Started new thread on this topic:

http://www.justsayhi.com/topic/show/133511

JB

Neural Nets are not digital computers. Not even close. They have no CPU (Central Processing Unit) and they don’t process bits of information in byte-wide or word-wide chunks like digital computers do.

Neural Nets are the modern version of Analog computers. However, they can be augmented using digital processors as well. Such an artificial brain would be a hybrid of a Neural Net and Digital Computing techniques.

In fact, that is what I have been proposing all along I call it an Anadigidriod = Analog - Digital - Android.

It's the best of both worlds. Pure Neural Nets are just modern day analog computers. If they also contain digital techniques then it would be false to claim that they are 'pure' Neural Nets as they would then clearly be a hybrid of both analog and digital computing techniques.

Many modern day attempts at building artificial brains most likely do use a combination of a digital and analog techniques.

I'm sure that I'm not the only person who would recognize the value of this.

Absolutely. That's how we got to be where we are right now in this conversation.

You begin with a premise. That there is an innate difference between 'awareness' and 'perception'

I said, that I disagree, but I'm willing to accept you unproven premise as a "What if" scenario and see where it leads.

But then you refused to accept that it is unproven. You demanded that you had established this as a solid fact to build upon.

I disagreed that you had established any such thing, but I was still willing to accept your premise anyway as a "What if" scenario to see where you were going with it.

Again, you refused, in insisted that you had established a basic truth already. And this is where we are. You're still trying to establish your initial premise as an absolute truth.

And I still disagree with your assertions.

At the very best, you seem to be demanding and intellectual awareness rather than a primordial awareness.

But you are still demanding that perception requires a primordial awareness.

That's fine, but once again I claim that you can't prove the primordial awareness that you demand for your idea of perception. In fact you seem to be denying a primitive awareness in the case of lower life forms. Yet you refuse to allow computer to be said to perceive because you demand that they can't possibly be 'experiencing' what they sense via some form of primitive awareness.

In short, it just appears to me that you want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to claim that you have established a premise to be true, when in fact you are just running around in semantic circles like a dog chasing it's own tail.

I don't see where you have established your premise to be true.

However, I'm even willing to give you your premise as being true for the sake of a "What If" scenario and then I ask, OK what follows from this? What's your POINT?

You come back with,..



No. But if you don't have a point to make then what were you trying to demonstrate in the first place?

If I accept your premises that perception does not require awareness where does that lead?

Clearly you must have been going somewhere with this or you wouldn't have brought it up in the first place.

I'm just trying to understand what your conclusions are, given these premises (whether they are true or not).

You said that a thesis will follow. I guess that's what I'm looking forward to hearing. I'll accept your the premises just for the sake of hearing your thesis.