Topic: Computer Scientists Prove God Exists - page 13. (Read 25293 times)

REM sleep is the only part of sleep that heals and rebuilds your mental capacity.  It is required to survive.

What does it matter that there are other irrelevant parts to the sleep process?  You know nothing other than how to take your drugs.

And is that the only stage of sleep?  No?  Oh, maybe dank does know something.

I'm not even arguing against the concept of people dreaming all the time.  I'm just pointing out that Rassah debases first hand experience as evidence when he makes a statement that could only be proven by empirical data.

What do you want?  Research papers?  I doubt you could understand them.  It's been proven people dream in REM sleep.  Without REM sleep you could not survive.

And how can you make a statement such as that people always dream?  Doesn't sound very scientific.

Comas do not prove we are unconscious robot beings.

When computers learn to have a sense of humor amongst other feelings, that's when I'll believe consciousness is a phenomenon caused by neural networks, not the other way around.

People always dream. They just sometimes don'tremember their dreams. People typically have 3 to 6 different dreams a night, but you might only remember the last one. Also, it's even more than that. Even if you were right, and people could not dream when they sleep, it's still not the same, because even if you don't dream, your brain still processes, organizes, and files memories into long--term memory while you sleep. When you are in a coma, your brain just does nothing at all.

But it's not a theory. It's their hypothesis. Or postulation. Or opinion. They have to prove that they actually aquire some knowledge from reading tea leaves, and are not just making stuff up, for it to be a theory. Unless you mean colloquial "theory," which if that is the case, then we should switch to saying "the substantiated fact of collecting knowledge through science" vs "the theory of reading tea leaves." Personally I'd rather use scientific "theory" to be coonsistent.


It's weird, because learning through science is an action, not a phenomenon. One that has immediate results. Results that have been done and confirmed over and over millions of times. And most importantly, because "the scientific method is the theory of knowledge" to me sounds like saying "a painting a sheet of paper red is the theory of applying red paint to paper." It's not so much a theory as it's just what it actually is.

People dream when they sleep.  People don't dream in a coma.

Can't make it easier than that for you.   

Yeah, like when people sleep and don't dream.

Not at all, actually. You don't dream when you are in a coma. You black out, then you come to, and a lot of time passed without you realizing it. It's like a blink, except when you open your eyes, you may be all groggy and disoriented. It's rather scary, actually.

Theories can be right, wrong, large or small in scope, consistent or inconsistent, incomplete, etc.  Someone could indeed state that they believe reading tea leaves is a method by which knowledge is acquired.  Whether you think it's bs or not doesn't mean it's not a theory.  A theory is simply a explanatory description of something.

I'm not sure why you think it's weird to that's the scientific method as a theory of knowledge because that's essentially what it is.  It's the idea that one can learn about reality through empirical study.

haha great

This reminds me of that article about the Nigerian student who proved that Gay's marriage is scientifically wrong or something

Edit: found the article lulz
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/13/nigerian-student-science-prove-gay-marriage-wrong_n_3920879.html

Sorta like when you sleep, right?  You retain consciousness when you sleep but you may not be conscious.

If they are aware, then they aren't in a coma, and were misdiagnosed, which obviously can happen somewhat frequently if we don't bother spending money to test people properly (ir if we didn't have all the knowledge about it until recently). Similarly to how we used to misdiagnose death, when it was just coma, and accidentally bury people alive (then added bells they can ring from their underground casket, which is where "saved by the bell" comes from). A coma is by definition lack of consciousness and brain awareness. So, a small minority of people who were assumed (without proper testing) to be in a coma, showing that they are in fact aware, doesn't discount the majority of people who go into a coma (including many induuced comas surgeons perform), who wake up with no concept, memory, or experience of the time that passed.

So, what is the definition of consciousness, compared to being conscious?



Source? I've never heard of this before. Assuming true, where are the 400 billion bits coming from? And how do we know that we don't use them, instead of use them automatically without thinking about them, same as we breathe and make out heart beat?

That is probably the weirdest statement I have read in a while. I didn't think aquiring knowledge could be subjected to the distinction of "theory" "hypothesis" or "fact." It also risks running into the issue of how you define "knowledge" and acquizition thereof. E.g. someone coul be claiming to be acquiring knowledge from reading tea leaves, while someone else might point out that they are only acquiring bs.

http://youtu.be/ImpAU8ctkeg?t=21s

Being conscious mean of being aware of the surrounding. It is not the same as the consciousness.
Even with your definition of being conscious, I have to tell you that people in coma are aware of their surrounding, they can hear for example.

Look at it an other way :

The brain receive about 400 billion bits of information per second but you only use 2000 Bits. Based on that, aren't you unconscious right now, every day, since always ?

If you take your definition, you should state that you are unconscious but you know it is not true. Consciousness does not depend of the quantity of information you process. Consciousness is not just the brain.

Theses ridiculous 2000 Bits per second is what you call the real world. It is nothing, it is an illusion compared to the universe.

We are all in coma until realising it.

Yes, if I wake up or just open an eye from my coma, I become a new observer of the world. I am altering my consciousness therefore I am changing the world.

All I have down there is a haze of probabilities, so who knows?

I agree software is all really hardware.   

If there is a magnitude (or magnitudes) lower that would still be hardware at the very bottom.  Right?

One might, but it doesn't work the same way.  Note that you say 'observing' physical reality, and unless you have a theory of observation then simply observing physical reality to describe it isn't much good.  The key distinction is that "observing" is largely a mental process that cannot be studied empirically.  So, when you then try to form a theory about reality without being able to take into account a real but non-empirical aspect of reality, then that theory will lack external consistency.


You'd be surprised what can be logically inferred from simple statements.   1=1 for example has vast implications.  

Fundamental inseparability touches upon the issue of the nature of identity.  Wouldn't you consider this an important matter given that you're...well...you?

 

It's not?  There are entire logical fallacies based upon that (fallacies of hasty generalization and slothful induction).  Also, set theory...


See what I said above about the distinction between observation (non-empirical) and physical reality (empirical). All you need to do is realize that the scientific method is essentially one of many theories of knowledge that utilizes a certain set of tools and wields certain assumptions.  Then, see that there are other (valid) theories of knowledge that utilize other tools that empirical ones do not, and may even hold fewer initial assumptions (thereby adhering more closely to Occam's Razor).


Carrying off of your last quote snippet, I think that part of what you're alluding to is certain limitations of mathematics.  For example, the 'undecidable' nature of math makes it difficult to discern whether one model is more or less valid than another in describing something (e.g. which is better in describing human interaction:  a behavioral model or a cognitive one?).  Because mathematics also has limitations, forming a purely mathematical model of reality doesn't do any good either.  A good theory of reality not only needs to account for all of reality, both mental and physical, but it also needs to take into account theory making.  In fact, a theory of theories is a requirement given that any description or definition of anything ever is a miniature theory of that thing.  Theories aren't just hypotheses that have been rigorously tested and supported; theories can be logical, illogical, right, wrong, small or large in scope, etc.

Interestingly enough, you touched upon what I believe is the essence of the solution.  A certain type of language is needed in order to talk about reality, theories, and even language itself...a 'metalanguage' (not my term).