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We Can Only See the Shadow of Our Souls

Discussion in 'Religion, Beliefs and Spirituality' started by GanjalfThePurple, Oct 13, 2014.

  1. "Humans are not machines. We are not computers. We have a mathematical processor at our core, and the whole cosmos is mathematical, yet mathematics does not define us. We have a feeling processor too, and an intuition processor - these are what raise us above automata. To put it another way, we have God inside us. We have the Will to Actualisation burning within our hearts. How could a computer distinguish between Beethoven and muzak? It couldn't. It would analyse the respective music into waves, amplitudes, frequencies etc but it would never experience the music, feel it from the inside.
     
    Scientific materialism is a Cartesian project that treats human beings as automata. But that's not what we are. We are alive. We feel. We dream. We hope. We aspire. We lust. We love. We long for things. Automata do none of these things. 
     
    One of the reasons why we can dismiss Abrahamism is that it treats us as creations. We are not. We are eternal. We are the same stuff as the universe in its primordial form. Robots are our creations. They are dead. The reason for that is that they are artificial, containing our limited understanding of the arche rather than naturally reflecting it.
     
    Could the world's greatest expert in artificial intelligence programme a robot to spontaneously weep when someone plays the piano sufficiently poignantly? In the world of scientific materialism, how is it possible for certain combinations of chords, but not others, to reduce men and women to tears? What sequence of cause and effect in the atomic world leads to warm tears rolling down human cheeks because of the emotional power of suitably arranged collections of musical notes? Is it possible to make any sense of such questions in terms of atoms moving and colliding? Yet if music's power over us has nothing to do with atoms then what underlies it?
     
    It is impossible for us to program a human-like robot. If we wanted to create realistic androids, we would have to subject them to the only process that can capture the arche - evolution. Schopenhauer said that music is a direct copy of the primordial Will, hence why it affects us so profoundly. But there is something else that is a direct copy of the Will - evolution. What does evolution seek to accomplish? - creatures that will, that desire, that want to convert potential into actualisation. We are the arche. We are its expression. We are taking it higher and higher, to ever-greater levels of actualisation. The process can end at only one point - divinity. We are all becoming God. We carry God within us. If you could glimpse your innermost core you would be gazing at God himself. "

     
  2. There is another thread on here about creating consciousness in machines. Seen here:http://forum.grasscity.com/science-nature/1334916-does-artificial-intelligence-create-consciousness.htm

    If we can create a machine that could mimic emotional responses and learn it could in theory cry at music. We would need to program in what makes a person cry and feel at something and why a person would not cry ir feel. We would somehow needd to write into a machine everything that makes a human a human and as the machine experiences life it would react based on experience. A machine could never be alive but it can come close.

    Humans are not machines because we have life. No matter how realistic a macgjne could never feel pain or suffer any real psychological harm. A realistic machine in "pain" may appeal to our emotions but at the end if the day a machine is a machine and everythung it feels us ultimately artificial.
     
  3. #3 2000PoundsofReggie, Oct 13, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 14, 2014
    I liked the post. Although, Ganjeff, there are some things that you say in the post which I disagree with.
     
    Firstly, I don't believe the consideration which claims that man, and, indeed, all other forms of life, are mechanical, and fatally determined/designed, is wholly and exclusively a Cartesian notion; as of right now, I can't remember the exact name of the guy in the dialogue, but there was one person in the dialogue which unfolds right before Socrates was to drink the hemlock endowed to him by the state, who tentatively asserted that man's constitution, and operation, may be similar to a lyre, i.e., a musical instrument, in so far as man's sentient life is a "melody" produced, in an emergent manner, by the arbitrary cadence of the reverberating strings of the lyre; in other words, man's sentient life is not eternal, but rather dependent on necessarydetermined, and fixed arrangements of parts and patterns (all of which are unaffected by the direct influence of a thinking self) for actual viability (exactly like how a modern, arbitrarily produced, machine is); and this was maintained over 2500 years ago, i.e., way before the emergence of Cartesianism.
     
    Secondly, and more importantly, I think your objection to "Abrahamism" is manifestly unfounded; for, 'man' is, in his or her animal form, a created thing or creation. I mean, if you are definitely asserting that each and every human being is more than physicality, that is, more than rigid automata, and that each and every human's being actuality can only be sufficiently explained if we are to grant the reality of an eternal soul, then how are you to vindicate, in the very same breath, that 'man' is not, indeed, a created thing or creation? Meaning, if I am, as you say, an independent and eternal soul who does not reside within a created thing, then why can't I, as an independent and eternal soul, modify my constitution at will? Why can't I, as an uncreated thing, fly in the sky when I desire to? Moreover, why can't I, as an uncreated thing, cease the influence of the cold on my being? Also, why does the blood flow of my body, and the plenty of other processes occurring in my body, keep a steady continuity (or "melody") without my direct intercession?
     
    Obviously then, if one is to believe in spiritual principles, we should like to say, the "formatting" of the visible world, and all of that which is within it, must be contingently created (for it is itself neither fatally determined nor eternally immutable).
     
  4. #4 Akademicks, Oct 14, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 14, 2014
  5. What if intelligent machines could create art, make love, laugh, appreciate beauty, dance to music, have dreams, enjoy life,.
     
    Wouldn't they have souls too?
     
    Maybe the same way biology is a tool to create bodies for souls, technology will serve as a tool to create bodies for more sophisticated souls than biology could allow.
     
  6. I think metallic lifeforms exists (not like transformers), but who's to say it's impossible?

    I think eventually AI could feel music, once the AI creator understands what emotions are.
     
  7. The soul is not a real thing.
     
  8. Soul's are electrical energy, when we die, it's light's out!
     
  9. Interesting post. I do have one question for you...If I understand what you are saying, if we are god, then who created the universe and everything in it? Certainly we cannot be the creator existing in something we did not create.

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  10. We created the universe.. its like which can first, the chicken or the egg? we created the universe, and when we cease to exist, when we die, everything else ceases to exist also...Now of course this is not true because we are still alive and we know people have died yet life goes on... but really, when we die I think everything will disapear. you cant have your cake and eat it too
     
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    We can't be 100% certain of that.
     
  12. YEAH! THAT'S A GOOOOD THING!
     
  13. #13 freethinker, Oct 17, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 17, 2014
    lol GUOD... knowing what you are or what happens after the body dies is just as ridiculous as a Christian saying Jesus is awaiting you with open arms or that 72 virgins will greet you at the gates...  You simply can't know anything outside of your own conscious awareness.  How could a drop of water explain the ocean of elements for which it were created from?  It's quite impossible.. 
     
    We're all a combination of elements which came together (abiogenesis) to form the first bacteria (what we humans have labeled as 'life' because it's similar to our own existence) on earth for no apparent reason... I say no apparent reason because how could anyone know why 'this' is?  The best we can apply with our limited understanding is to say that it was formed at 'random'... because we can't understand the why, no matter how many people have tried to explain it from their 'X' point of observation. 
     
    Thinking deeply about this, couldn't all of 'this' easily be labeled as a 'desire' of nature/god/energy (human labels)?  Couldn't nature be continuously progressing, advancing, and combining to form more complex bacteria (life forms) in it's own desire to do so?  Couldn't it be a play of energy acting itself out in infinite forms around us and through us...as us?  Something is pushing nature to advance, explore, and 'play'... 
     
    Remember, we human beings use agreed upon sounds, labels, and definitions coming out of our mouths to better understand what we're referring to...as an agreed upon meaning of something external of us.  Abiogenisis, god, energy, nature, source, ect ect... are all our 'human' attempts to explain the behaviors of things that surrounds us so that we know what we're all talking about in our OWN particular context....our own human limited context for which our brains permit. 
     
     

     
  14. If I understand you, life happened by chance?..all the genetic coding..all the way down to the tiniest cell in a bacteria just happened from nothing?

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  15.  
    No, I was using that as a hypothetical for the atheists as the most extreme example using the basis of 'complete randomness', but I certainly don't believe that. 

     
  16. The Cambrian explosion is quite interesting to look at with regard to creation.

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