Philosophy Now Forum

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.



So says your reaction to your sense-data.




Now be off with you.


.

Not really Bill. Basically he is saying that the task of perception is very complex when it comes to the human mind. This type of complexity is not found in any computer or computer programme. We can attempt to transfer our mental skills into a machiine, but this will not make the machine conscious.

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.



So says your reaction to your sense-data.




Now be off with you.


.

Sorry I don't do requests, especially not from machines or rude children.

Ginkgo wrote:

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.



So says your reaction to your sense-data.




Now be off with you.


.

Not really Bill. Basically he is saying that the task of perception is very complex when it comes to the human mind. This type of complexity is not found in any computer or computer programme. We can attempt to transfer our mental skills into a machiine, but this will not make the machine conscious.

Quite so. A requirement for self awareness is what I call ' a pyramid of patterns' which only can come about from an autonomous creature making sense of sense-data.

.


Man is a machine.


Man is completely mechanical.


I never stated that all of our instinctive, emotional, sexual, moving, intellectual, and higher functions could be put into a computer program at this point. Still, man is completely a machine; completely mechanical.


So, I think both of you are reaching just a bit but that is accepted.


Carry-on.





.

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.


Man is a machine.

Depends what you mean by "machine"?

Man is completely mechanical. ...

Depends what you mean by "mechanical"? As Man is mainly electrochemical.

A_Seagull wrote:Man is not a machine. While man's decisions are ultimately based upon processing of data from the senses, the amount of feedback loops between the data and the perceived goals of the mind that the relationship between sense-data and action is entirely unpredictable and quite different from any machine that one might otherwise encounter.

Not so,
http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/rnn.html

Arising_uk wrote:

A_Seagull wrote:Man is not a machine. While man's decisions are ultimately based upon processing of data from the senses, the amount of feedback loops between the data and the perceived goals of the mind that the relationship between sense-data and action is entirely unpredictable and quite different from any machine that one might otherwise encounter.

Not so,
http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/rnn.html

I do no think your link really refutes the above paragraph in any way.
Taken alone, seagull's statement is basically true, except the word "entirely".

Lev Muishkin wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:

A_Seagull wrote:Man is not a machine. While man's decisions are ultimately based upon processing of data from the senses, the amount of feedback loops between the data and the perceived goals of the mind that the relationship between sense-data and action is entirely unpredictable and quite different from any machine that one might otherwise encounter.

Not so,
http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/rnn.html

I do no think your link really refutes the above paragraph in any way.
Taken alone, seagull's statement is basically true, except the word "entirely".

I am quite happy to remove the 'entirely'.

Yes man is a moving machine. But related to c mans consciousness is a nonmoving bit of god.

If one accepts that "man is a machine" it would follow that all of what we refer to as "life" is nothing less - nothing more than machinery operating within a closed environment which we call a "universe".

This still does not answer the greatest mystery and that is the "Why is there Life?" (or why and how is all this 'machinery' operating?)

.



Yes. Right on both assumptions.



.

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.



Yes. Right on both assumptions..

Too bad "assumptions" don't always equate with "fact", eh?

Lev Muishkin wrote:I do no think your link really refutes the above paragraph in any way.
Taken alone, seagull's statement is basically true, except the word "entirely".

Depends upon what we think he said. I think he said that no machine has such things as internal feedback-loops used to process incoming data and amend its actions in the light of set goals and that the process is unpredictable. As such I think this wrong as even mildly complex computational neural nets are non-deterministic in the sense that one cannot tell how the net will arrive at a result and the example link I gave are of very complex nets that utilise the feature of feedback to adjust its actions and I'm pretty sure that they will be non-deterministic as well. None of which is surprising as the functional model of a computational neuron is based upon our own neuronal processing which is why they are making strides in the areas of human perceptual cognition that they are, as compared to the fairly abject previous failures of the algorithmic approaches.

Bill Wiltrack wrote:.


Challenge Accepted!


.

How's that going Bill?

.






......................................................




I haven't made one single effort to read that book...more importantly ANY book.


There is just no time for that type of activity.


I am glued to this computer - where the world is at my beck & call.



I think when I said Challenge accepted! - it was just a tiny part of me...a part, or an I, that hasn't re-appeared.



Life is too short.


All the best to you.





.