Topic: Computer Scientists Prove God Exists - page 14. (Read 25293 times)

Wetware.

At a low enough level, all software is really hardware. 

And a many orders of magnitude lower than that, it might be all software.

I like the way you have defined free will here and shown how it interferes with the causal chain of events.  succinct, and to the point.


It's simple really.  Your choice was just the choice you were always going to make.  The software* in your brain was a certain way at birth and then has been modified by experience, but it's still just software.  You get a certain amount of input from the environment which the software of your brain processes and comes out with output.  Just like a computer that has a certain configuration and receives the same input over and over and produces the same output so too do we.  We become "aware" of the decision after it has already been made and that's where the "illusion" part comes in.  It seems illusory but it isn't an illusion any more than the sun going around the Earth is an illusion.  Physical reality just appears different than it actually is in both cases.  That's just to do with our perceptions.

Now, if say someone was to gather all that information and predict what we were going to do and tell us of the prediction, that is then new input that wasn't taken into consideration when the person was making the prediction, therefore our brain may choose to go against the prediction again depending on how our brain reacts to these things.  I think my brain would almost certainly then choose something else once it learned of the prediction.

*When I say software I don't mean it in the computer sense obviously as the brain is all just hardware but it is "malleable" in a way that computer hardware isn't.  It's just shorthand.

If you have a choice, then it's possible that you not part of those surroundings, and that you might have a mind that is spiritually/metaphysically/mumbo-jumboishly separate from the physical reality that your brain is made from. That's what makes the question of free will so significant.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that there exists an objective reality -- a real outside world that keeps existing even when you've got your eyes shut. In that case:

1) If there is "real" free will:
Sometimes (maybe not very often, and maybe only for small things...) you can change reality by committing a choice and "magically" interfering in the ongoing chain-reaction of events since the Big Bang. Let's say that for scientific purposes there was a copy of the universe, which was identical in every respect except that you weren't able to make that particular choice in the copy, which meant that something different could have happened, causing the paths of the two universes to diverge. Therefore, whoever or whatever is making the choice, they are not part of that causal reality. They are operating outside of it. They were able to alter the universe!

2) If there is "illusory" free will:
You think you have a choice, or it sometimes seems like there is a choice, therefore take your pick:
a) Your perception of reality is correct, so you really do have a choice, therefore go to 1).
b) Your perception has been fooled into a false belief that there's a choice. Therefore your perception of reality must also be an illusion (at least the free will part). Therefore, inside your illusion of reality, free will is real so go to 1).
c) You've 'gamed' option b) because you realise that what seemed like a choice was just an illusion, chance, decaying potassium isotopes or something similar forcing your hand. Therefore you can either play the game and make an illusory choice, or you can accept that you don't really have a choice. Which will it be? The illusion seems inescapable -- each new, bigger reality seems to give you the illusory freedom to choose (i) whether you want to play the game or (ii) accept that the smaller reality was fake and so is this one, ad infinitum. Therefore, inescapable illusion is equivalent to real, so go to 1).

3) Real lack of free will:
You can't do #1, and you can't get to it from #2. Therefore you don't even have the illusion of free will. You're never presented with any choices, real or imagined. I'm rejecting this option out of hand because it goes completely against my illusion of reality.

Therefore free will must exist, and (barring any major logical boo-boos) we must have some sort of existence outside of the reality that we think we exist in.

I'll toss "eXistenZ" for the (1999) entry on that pile.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/

Then why did you get $10,000 in debt?  Did you do that on purpose?

The world we are in may appear finite, but there's infinite dimensions or channels we can tune to right where you are.

Isn't this what you are doing, though? Things happen, and you react to them, based on your best assessment of the situation. And if you don't have any assessment of a situation, you just pick a random choice, hope it's good, and go with it. At least that's how I do it. How do you do it?


Free will just means we have a choice on how we react to our surroundings. That's all. It doesn't matter if you're practicing free will within your body, or outside of your body. You're still experiencing something, and racting to things. Unless you don't react to things? Or maybe you react to things not based on your best assessment of the situation (aka based on what you have learned in the past), but instead react based on some outside source of information that comes from outside of this world? (that would explain why you have made so many awful choices...)


Energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Let's consider your side of this. If you have a thought, you have taken one state of how things are, and changed it into another state, whether that's changes in electrochemistry, changes in cosmic consciousness, changes in some ether, or whatever. Doesn't matter. Change, of any kind, requires some amount of energy. Again, doesn't it doesn't matter what the energy is, or where it comes from, just that it requires energy. Pretty much by definition, since nothing can move or readjust without using up some energy. You claim that consciousness can not be destroyed, but that would suggest that it would have to go on thinking about things and changing from one state to another indefinitely, using up energy in the process. That means it would have to use up an infinite amount of energy. But the two things we absolutely know for a fact are 1) energy in our universe is not infinite (entropy will eventually cause all energy in the universe to collapse to zero), and 2) you can't make a perpetual motion device that creates energy out of nothing. Having a consciousness that can never be destroyed, and is thus always using up energy to think, is basically the same thing as having a perpetual motion device that is creating energy, which, as you have also said, can not be created or destroyed.

So, the answer is, consciousness is created by taking some energy source (food, water, electricity, cosmic carma, whatever), and converting it into changes of the state of mind. Biologists, psychologists, and scientists in general would say that the body converts food and water into electrochemical components, sends them to your brain via your veins and arteries, and your brain then uses that energy to run and process things, changing your perception, states of mind, and thoughts, which gives you consciousness. And if your brain ever runs out of energy (you die, or are brain starved from choking), your brain can't convert energy into consciousness any more, and your brain simply shuts off, like your computer would if you were to pull the plug.

People who are not biologists, psychologists, or scientists, say other things.

So, are you saying that you can have consciousness, without actually being conscious? (defined as awake and aware of your surroundings or your existence) I doon't follow, as I understand consciousness as being conscious. So when you are in a comma, you are unconscious, and your consciousness is off. Or do you simply mean that the thing that contains your consciousness still exists, thus your coonsciousness still exists, but it's just not doing any consciousing?



Most observers used to believe the world being flat and being on top of elephants and turtles was possible. Now, many believe that the idea of god is impossible. If you claim that what observers believe makes the world what it is, that suggests to me that if most observers believe the world is flat, then the world is flat, and if they believe that god can't exist, then god can't exist. What am I missing?

If we were simply the brain we would have no need for consciousness as we would simply be robots programmed to react to things.  This is not the case, we are live beings, we are consciousness, we have free will, we're not the brain.  If you have ever had an outer body experience, you would realize this.

Tell me, how does the brain create a consciousness?  Because from my understanding it can neither be created or destroyed.

Read again, you cannot create or do what you believe is impossible.

You are confusing consciousness and perception. You are still conscious while other people state that you are unconscious.

Your consciousness can exist without interacting with others in the material world.

Altering consciousness is altering the world.

that argument is only applicable for human(or otherwise biological living thing) consciousness, not for consciousness in general.

What about the very simple test of: brain on = you're conscious, brain off = you're uncoonscious, brain on = you're conscious again. Such as what we do when we unduce coma or people go into coma due to brain trauma, or when people go braindead for a while and then come back from it? If I was to see a light being on, flipped a switch and saw it go off, then flipped the switch and see it come on again, the conclusion I would make is that the switch controls the light, not that the light exists outside of the realm of the switch, and simply goes away somewhere else when I flip the switch. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Do you have any of that?

Time is an illusion, there is no such thing as linear time. Time a fractioned into quantum of time.

Nothing prove that quantum of time are put in order. It is our consciousness that create the order and the illusion of linear time.

Your consciousness exist in any quantum of time.

Nothing prove that consciousness is dependant on the material existence of the brain.

Therefore your consciousness exist before and after your material existence.

I thought about this, and, you may be right in some sense, but I prefer to think of it as "I don't want to jump to any conclusions until I'm sure."

Thanks for the discussion though. Made me really thing about my stance and place in the universe (plus forced me to do some research)

By reading your responses, I just realized that there is another answer to the question "Who am I?".
And that answer is "I just don't wanna know".

I do appreciate the persistence with which you defend your position and acknowledge it just as valid as any other. Arguing any further might not be of much value, as the meaning we put behind words starts to diverge rapidly at this stage. I wonder how people can agree on anything at all, if everyone understands something different for the words they use. Was there meaning or the word first? Or are they just two inseparable parts of the same one thing, a living paradox, where none can get the ultimate edge of another?

I agree that you are inseparable from your experience, including the experience of living in a Universe, be it a simulation, a "real" thing or just a dream. In that sense, "It is You and You are It" and "We are all One and the Same".

As a compensation for the time and effort spent on this discussion by many, I would like to suggest watching two wonderful movies, that the electrons in our brains have spontaneously created "by chance"

"The Game" (1997) with Michael Douglas
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119174/

"The Truman Show" (1998) with Jim Carrey
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/

Have fun!

Ineffable

Like in Zelazny's Amber Chronicles?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Amber
Perhaps this one has walked the Logrus

Ultimately this proof rests on whether human beings can truly understand what God is and that its concept cannot be derived simply as an extension or ultimate regression of something which exists in fact. In which case, God doesn't really exist in your mind, only some superficial idea you are generically referring to as God. But obviously, humans can't completely conceive of God, or maybe they can...