Essay talk:Disprove My Spiritualism Please

Okies, I'll bite

If we're just complex machines, from where does this experience of life come from? You just answered your own question: Complexity is the key. Sentience is an emergent (and not necessarily very startling) property of our neurological system.

Where in my gears is my sentience? Like so much about our world (inner and outer), this is not yet fully understood. I suspect it will be one day.

Humans could more than likely construct a machine that operates in a manner very similar to our nervous system, yet it is considered a mechanical impossibility to construct an artificial consciousness... Considered by whom? More importantly, why do they consider it impossible? Maybe you're right, but a compelling argument should be offered.

Is the universe sentient? In one (limited) sense, yes. The Universe threw up at least one set of creatures capable of scratching their heads, saying "WFT?" On the other hand, this sounds like little more than New Age nonsense. The Universe is an entire brain? What evidence suggests this? (If Tipler is to be believed, it one day will be a giant brain, but I'm not holding my breath on that one).

What other way to describe that would there be [a sentient universe] than "god"? The term "God" has as many definitions as there are beings capable of contemplating the matter. For instance, my definition of God might not require It to even be sentient, in which case I would nominate a Platonic mathematical realm as a possible candidate. If you insist that a god must be sentient then, as per above, evidence should be offered that the Universe is a big brain.

...unnatural phenomena... Sentience is unnatural? This merely begs the question.

--Brendiggg (talk) 08:13, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Our brains are made of stuff. The only thing in our brains is stuff. Consciousness exists - at least I think mine does. Consciousness must be being produced by the stuff in my brain. I fail to see the problem.

Also you state:

• .... "yet it is considered a mechanical impossibility to construct an artificial consciousness"

Is it? It may be very difficult, and we may not be able to do it at the moment. But that is not the same as "impossible". In fact this is a variant of the God of the gaps. Science does not fully understand or cannot replicate this at the moment therefore the answer must be magic. --Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 10:20, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Alright,

(responding to Brendiggg, each paragraph correlates to one of his bold quotes)

If consciousness is derivative of complexity, than wouldn't everything, by extension, be conscious to varying degrees in direct proportion to its complexity? Super computers, ecosystems, and the universe are all fairly complex (in my opinion, and who in this whole thing defines complexity?), are they conscious? Rocks and windows and such are only a little complex, so they're only a little conscious. Sounds like animism. NOTE: I DON'T believe the universe, ecosystems, and super computers are conscious, that's my point. The implementations of saying that consciousness comes from complexity are enormous, and the burden of proof is on the maker of the claim.

That we don't understand it is my point. I get it's kinda god of the gapsy, but that aside, I find it weird that we practically understand how every inch of our bodies work, yet we know extremely little about this phenomena. And saying that we'll prolly figure out someday isn't really fair, kinda... unfalsifiable.

I don't think the universe is sentient, how can that be right and New Age nonsense at the same time? I hold the latter.

I'm just saying, a sentient universe, a universal consciousness, would definitely fit the bill for a "god" IMHO.

You're right it does. Sorry. But I just fill inclined to believe it's not natural. Like, if we did, persay, completely mechanically replicate our selves, make a robot that functions exactly like we do, if consciousness is part of our machinery, that machine should be conscious too, having the exact same cogs we do.

I'm not saying for a fact that I think we have spirits and such. I'm just saying, we still don't know much about this, and it frustrates me that everyone brushes it off like, science will understand it someday. That's not how science understands things! It understands things by thinking, experimenting, trying to understand them. And also, the leading explanation, the complexity thing, doesn't add up to me.

MykalOfDefiance (talk) 17:26, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

You state:

• That we don't understand it is my point. I get it's kinda god of the gapsy, but that aside, I find it weird that we practically understand how every inch of our bodies work, yet we know extremely little about this phenomena. And saying that we'll prolly figure out someday isn't really fair, kinda... unfalsifiable.

What do you mean "it's kinda god of the gapsy"? It's totally "god of the gapsy". In what way is it not "god of the gapsy"? That is what god of the gaps is.

It's utterly - "we don't understand so it must be spiritual".

It's not about something being unfalsifiable - it's about assuming a religious/spiritual explanation must be correct because it is asserted that there is no physical explanation and assumed there never will be.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 18:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

"If consciousness is derivative of complexity, than wouldn't everything, by extension, be conscious to varying degrees in direct proportion to its complexity?" Er, no. You're assuming the consequent. Consciousness implies complexity; complexity does not necessarily imply consciousness. You aren't showing very many rational credentials here. Time educated Hoover! 18:14, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Emergence and stuff

Look it up. It's fascinating how complexity can emerge out of simplicity - thus experience and consciousness is just an effect of interactions, rather than being part of something separate or spiritual. Okay, so it could be considered something else on a purely metaphysical level (imagine a gold ring, now just think of the ring minus the gold). You might also want to see the Chinese room for that section about machines gaining consciousness - basically, you can't really prove to anyone else that you have consciousness, can you? From a sufficiently advanced AI, therefore, you could extract exactly the same level of evidence to demonstrate that it is conscious as you can from a human to say its conscious. So long as the emergent phenomena is correctly there, it doesn't matter if you use "organic" or "inorganic" material (which, by the way, are chemical distinctions based on carbon and entirely irrelevant). ^gnostic 17:53, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

"you can't really prove to anyone else that you have consciousness, can you?" I think this is an important point. In order to talk about "where consciousness comes from", you need to have a specific idea of what consciousness is. If your definition is limited to "this thing I feel internally", you can't even tell for sure whether other people are truly "conscious", much less whether an AI is (or the universe is). I prefer a functional definition, where I think "What can a conscious being do?", and if something fits the bill, it's worth calling conscious. (Actually, I prefer not to use the word "consciousness" too much in general, because I think it's kind of vague and I'm not 100% sure what it really means.) From that perspective, there's no consciousness associated with the universe unless the universe as a whole has certain capabilities (say, perception and the ability to respond to a perception). --Quantheory (talk) 20:45, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay,

Bob: I'm not saying it's something spiritual or magical. I'm saying it's something we don't yet understand, and people need to stop acting like we do understand it.

Phantom Hoover: Really, cause it sure seems to me like EXACTLY what was said was sentience is an emergent property of our neurological system. I asked where consciousness comes from, someone said complexity, and then you come in here not knowing what's what. Before you go trying to bap me why don't you look at who said what, douche.

ADK: Yeah, something could very closely mimic consciousness and not have it, but I think, on the flip-side, if something was conscious, it'd be at least a little observable. You see a dog and immediately realize it has -something- that a rock lacks.

MykalOfDefiance (talk) 18:24, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

EC. I read you to be saying/ suggesting: "We don't understand it therefore the answer is something non-physical." If you are saying something else - what are you suggesting? Nobody is suggesting we have complete understanding of consciousness, but science is awash with such things. That is what science is about. Saying "We don't understand X" is trivial. Saying "We don't understand x therefore the answer is spiritual" is total god of the gaps.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 18:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Sentience is an emergent property of our complex neurological system, but that doesn't mean that this emergent property will be present in all complex systems. In any case, our neurological systems are probably the most complex things on the planet; even supercomputers can't compete. Time educated Hoover! 18:26, 30 September 2010 (UTC)