Posted on 05/01/2020 7:44:52 AM PDT by fishtank
If consciousness had a simple biological explanation, then I wonder what that bowl of oatmeal I had for breakfast was thinking of just before I ate it. After all, it was chocked with phospholipids and water.
“Add to it the odds AGINST you being you. “
Against all odds, considering the zillions of letters on the internet I have seen your unique ‘AGINST’!
You point to a TYPO to make your implausible point??
Then came temptation, manipulation, deciet, control, and man was doomed.
“You point to a TYPO to make your implausible point??”
Yes! Considering the odds against you making that exact typo with all caps and considering the zillions of words on the internet, against all odds, I saw it!
Must be at least 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1 against that happening!
“If consciousness had a simple biological explanation, then I wonder what that bowl of oatmeal I had for breakfast was thinking of just before I ate it. After all, it was chocked with phospholipids and water.”
You. post confirms that some brains have a lot in common with a bowl of oatmeal.
Maybe I am the one who missed YOUR point. If so, sorry!
Correct. Science is about how. Religion is about why. Science has no explanation for how, and religion needs no explanation for how. As a Christian I confidently say that I have no clue how God did it. The bible only says that he “spoke” it into existence. And that is from writers who thought the earth was flat with a big dome over it where the gods lived.
But I do understand that the more we know, the more we know we don’t know. And, not to put too fine a point on it, the more we know that what we thought we knew turned out to be wrong.
We live in “modern times” now. We really know so much more than we used to. But then, all times were “modern times” at the time. :)
The article states excavations reveal layer after layer of hand axes then suddenly far more sophisticated tools, as if this defies explanation. There is a simple and obvious explanation to the sudden drastic advance in technology which also applies to the entire problem but people in general refuse or cannot accept the truth. The missing piece is the realization and acceptance that one man, one single unique individual can indeed change the entire world and the course of human history. There are many many examples but people reflexively resist the idea that just one life can have such impact on all others.
The researchers who remain baffled about the years of hand axes then suddenly a great advance are overlooking the fact that just one human may have had creative thought and actions that changed the thinking of all others after.
As I sit here typing this post on my iphone, a device with more computing power than the spacecraft that landed on the moon I do so because of the existence of just one man, Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs changed the entire world almost overnight. Apparently, after years and years of primitive hand axes an early Steve Jobs came along and changed the world. Every single life has this potential and it only takes one to change everything. That in my opinion is the missing piece of the puzzle that most refuse to accept. Every single life is that important.
I guess it went over your head.
“Maybe I am the one who missed YOUR point. If so, sorry!”
Why did God make you write ‘AGINST’?
I saw Jobs in action in the 80’s. We’re lucky someone didn’t take a hand axe to him then. You are correct. History is full of people like that - some known, most not. Da Vince, Bacon etc.
“I guess it went over your head.”
What are the odds?
I make enough of my own typos. Not mine! Lol
Just b/c improbable things happen all the time, it does not follow that trillions of improbabilities could come together to create life or consciousness.
“Just b/c improbable things happen all the time, it does not follow that trillions of improbabilities could come together to create life or consciousness.”
What is the probability of the letters ‘alstewartfan’ coming together in that order?
It took an intelligent agent, and in the case of most of Al Stewart’s music admirers, a BRILLIANT agent. Lol
Excellent post. A nice change from your usual young-earthism. Blessings in Christ to you.
Julian Jaynes is an atheist liar. Besides, the book is rhetorial nonsense.
“[W]e are not interested in the fact that the brain has the consistency of cold porridge. We don’t want to say ‘This machine’s quite hard, so it isn’t a brain, so it can’t think.” - Alan Turing (1952). “Can automatic calculating machines be said to think?” BBC Third Program, 14 and 23 Jan. 1952, discussion between M.H.A. Newman, Alan M. Turing, Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, and R.B. Braithwait.
The puzzle is why is Turing wrong? Computers can now easily fool a distant observer into believing that they are engaging with another mind. But anyone who has spent time with Verizon's automated customer service (for example) knows that that the computer is not intelligent and does not have consciousness. Nor does lukewarm oatmeal think, although it is the same consistency and largely of the same chemical composition as a living brain. Consciousness is infinitely more than the sum of its parts, and our thoughts are not merely electro-chemical reactions, no matter how complex or elegant the physical structure may be which produces them.
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