tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post1394791034419942188..comments2024-03-25T14:27:40.121-05:00Comments on Heart, Mind, Soul, and Strength: The purpose and goal of the mindWeekend Fisherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10425001168670801073noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-56431156589694498822016-06-27T22:59:05.612-05:002016-06-27T22:59:05.612-05:00Hey Aron
There's a place in the NT Book of Ja...Hey Aron<br /><br />There's a place in the NT Book of James that says, "You say you believe in God. Even the demons believe in God, and tremble" (paraphrased). Have you ever heard anyone expound on that section without going into the difference between "knowing" God (head-knowledge) and "knowing" God (by experience / in relationship)? I've heard that association so many times it's an automatic reference for me by this point. And that strain of thought seems to underlie some of the Eastern Orthodox thinking about depth of knowledge/true knowledge, where as we progress, "knowledge becomes love" (esp when it comes to the Holy One). <br /><br />I'd like to consider your arguments about consciousness. I know you went into a longish series, not too long ago ... if you had to recommend one (1) as a gateway post for me to get familiar with your take on things, which would it be? (Seems like you've recommended some before, but I'd like to focus on identifying a good entry point for an outsider to your thoughts.)<br /><br />Take care & God bless<br />Anne / WF<br /><br />Weekend Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10425001168670801073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-38299434731624149462016-06-27T13:06:52.358-05:002016-06-27T13:06:52.358-05:00When you talk about the difference between "k...When you talk about the difference between "knowing about" and "knowing by experience" as an old Christian idea, are you thinking about the need for the Incarnation or something else?<br /><br />Anyway, I actually agree with you that the "Argument from Reason" of the sort defended by Alvin Plantinga or C.S. Lewis isn't a good reason by itself to accept Theism. I think a naturally evolved brain could easily express logically valid reasoning and creativity without violating any of the usual laws for physical organisms. <br /><br />So the arguments about consciousness which I endorse are definitely different from your main target here, but I just wanted to register a small protest on the issue of consciousness, since there are definitely some pretty deep issues there in Philosophy of Mind which aren't likely to be resolved any time soon, and it's not all that obvious that the "naturalist" solution to try to reduce everything to externally observable quantities is even coherent.Aron Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10552077344304954390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-28160037305875469672016-06-19T16:27:30.029-05:002016-06-19T16:27:30.029-05:00Hi Aron
Good to see you again.
My original goal...Hi Aron<br /><br />Good to see you again. <br /><br />My original goal in starting this thread was for a discussion with those Christians who believe that our own minds cannot be trusted if the mind works using natural processes. Some people have put so much weight on that one argument for God that I'm concerned for them, if their view should ever be conclusively disproven (which I consider to be likely). <br /><br />Of the thought experiments you mentioned, the most valid seems to be "Mary's room". And the point that I took away from "Mary's room" is something that Christians have discussed for a long time: that there is a fundamental difference between "knowing about" something and knowing by experience. The "knowing about" has already been encoded in symbols for us. The direct experience hasn't been encoded yet (by definition). So even if everything knowable were encoded correctly and we'd had all of that information, there's still the fact that the original is in this case more than "just information"; the thing being perceived cannot be accurately reduced to that limited kind of data. Does that mean that, by definition, something is lost in the encoding? At any rate, with direct experience, we have to come to grips with understanding it ourselves. <br /><br />I'm working on typing up my response to Stan as a new post. Hope to see you around / would be glad to hear your thoughts always. <br /><br />Take care & God bless<br />Anne / WFWeekend Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10425001168670801073noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-29037561967006906272016-06-19T11:36:44.032-05:002016-06-19T11:36:44.032-05:00Hi Anne,
I used to think like you that consciousn...Hi Anne,<br /><br />I used to think like you that consciousness could be explained in purely material terms, but I no longer think so. I changed my mind for philosophical reasons rather than because I think Christianity requires it (in that respect I agree with your post). Are you familiar with thought experiments such as "p-zombies", "Mary's room", the "inverted spectrum" and so on, which were designed by modern analytic philosophers (who are mostly not theists) to argue against the idea that consciousness can be explained purely in terms of the laws of physics, with no additional premises?<br /><br />I wrote a bit about this issue here (part of a longer series, but this and the immediately following post hopefully mostly stand on their own):<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/fundamental-reality-viii-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness/" rel="nofollow">Fundamental Reality VIII: The Hard Problem of Consciousness</a><br /><br />I agree with your comment on Stan's blog that it's important to define the terms properly in order to avoid arguing past each other. As an example, when you say:<br /><br />"There are perfectly natural ways to code awareness [into an AI system]"<br /><br />you must be using the term "awareness" differently than I would. By awareness or consciousness I would mean the internal experience of a person, "what it is like to be you". Defined this way, your awareness is not directly accessible to any one outside of yourself. Other people may try to empathize by observing you externally but they can never literally share your experiences. So even if your computer AI passed the Turing test, I don't see how you could ever know for sure that it has internal conscious experiences. It may act <i><b>as if</b></i> it is aware but that wouldn't necessarily mean it is. (I'm not saying it <i>wouldn't</i> be conscious either, just that there's no way to objectively prove or disprove it from the outside. Only the AI, and God, would directly experience the AI's consciousness.) Does that make sense?Aron Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10552077344304954390noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-53350590304019389822016-06-18T19:42:48.600-05:002016-06-18T19:42:48.600-05:00Good thinking. Thanks.Good thinking. Thanks.Martin LaBarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14629053725732957599noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15860677.post-61917583943321160652016-06-18T19:02:12.322-05:002016-06-18T19:02:12.322-05:00Hello Weekend Fisher,
I have responded to the abov...Hello Weekend Fisher,<br />I have responded to the above at <a href="http://atheism-analyzed.blogspot.com/2016/06/weekend-fisher-replies.html" rel="nofollow">my site</a>. These issues are much too long for com boxes. It's good to have the opportunity to dive into issues like this.Stanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15754447145433452423noreply@blogger.com