How many users on these boards actually support "The Theory of Evolution"?

[Final-Fan]

Wind Shlavitor said:

Final-Fan said:

I've addressed specific points, but the final two paragraphs may contain a shortcut for you depending on how you want to go from here. 

1.  Even the strongest critics of AI agree that the human brain can theoretically be simulated on a computer.  Wouldn't the downloaded brain, if operative, still be conscious?  If so, why can't a similar computer have an original program that is also conscious? 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_artificial_intelligence#The_brain_can_be_simulated

2.  No, I think that's a misconception you have.  Or, in other words, "That's faulty logic unless you intend to show that computer programming and THE THEORY OF evolution are SO similar that they must logically share that trait (whether consciousness is possible or not)."

3.  It appears that you have now answered my earlier question, and said that your evidence that you have free will (and consciousness) is the fact that you have feelings.  I cannot say how strongly I disagree with this analysis.  How does having feelings guarantee free will at all? 

4.  "There are theories outside of causal from time to time by some scientists, but they usually get rejected pretty quickly, (It's pretty taboo to reject Darwin's Theory of evolution in academic science)"  People don't simply get shouted down in published scientific papers; unpopular or radical theories may see stronger (even extreme) criticism, but if the theory was correct it should have held up, right? 

Basically, though, your main point seems to be "I thought about the theory of evolution, and my gut feeling was that it's wrong about causality creating my mind, so that's why I think it's wrong.  I don't accept that the evidence I'm mistaken constitutes proof." 

That's pretty much just a statement of opinion, so there's not much to discuss IMO without a huge discussion of the "evidence you're mistaken", which would take forever and still never convince a sufficiently determined doubter. 

 

"if the nervous system obeys the laws of physics and chemistry, ... we ... ought to be able to reproduce the behavior of the nervous system with some physical device "

taken from the wikipedia articcle you linked. the key is the 'if'.  But I'd add, if it obeys "only known" laws of physics and chemistry. and the other key word is 'ought'. They don't know, and we don't know. Yes I'll admit that I can't prove that is isn't only that, but nobody can as of now prove that it is.. they just say 'ought' and it's basically an opinion, much like you pointed that mine is. But isn't the Theory of Evolution considered factual and complete by a lot of people? And that's a point I'm trying to make, is that the Theory of Evolution doesn't have all the answers; you have to make a lot of assumptions for it to stay standing.

1. They talk about simulating the humain brain and intelligence, but don't really talk that much about conciousness and experience.

 this statement " in principle, anything can be simulated by a computer "  Is very extreme to say the least. I talked a bit about randomness earlier... It's impossible to simulate randomness on a computer, which is at the base of physics in matter and energy (quantum physics). Do you know how randomness is simulated on computers? - You retrieve the numbers from the current time ( usually miliseconds ) at the moment the process is put in effect, with additions such as a few calculable formulas just to add some flavor. The logic is that the process gets put in effect at times where you don't know what the miliseconds are, because it changes so fast, that you'll fall on decently varied numbers... but it's not true randomness.

 There are plenty of critics, but it's not spoken highly in the scientific community, because, again, it's a touchy subject and there are lots of politics involved.which leads to..

4. "but if the theory was correct it should have held up, right?" Yes it should, but unfortunetly that's not always the case. I really hated that Ben Stein movie, and it's unfortunate that he screwed up so much the message of an actual problem in the scientific community, because there are a lot of politics and odd things going on ( If you think that's not the case, there's lot's of evidence for what I'm saying.. just not in main stream news.)

3. It doesn't guarantee free will at all. Feelings are part of the experience. Free will is the capability of making un-predetermined decisions.

2. Intelligence is intelligence, so I think you can indeed simulate it with computers. Conciousness, free will, and experience aren't part of intelligence. I have in mind a program that I could program intelligently, but how can I show you that it doesn't experience? How can I show you that it'll never feel? I can't... and in that sense it's an opinion, just like anyone who says that AI at some point can experience, and can feel. So I'm sorry, but this is indeed a dead end if you want more proof. I'd just like people to understand that there is also no proof for computer AI being able to experience and feel.  Why? Because we can only experience and feel through our own conciousness. In this sense it's not faulty logic... but I think I did make it sound like it was certain that AI can't produce those, which is why I can only stick with my strong inclination based on subjective evidence (yes, feelings and experience, and the deeper unexplainable understanding of these).

"Basically, though, your main point seems to be "I thought about the theory of evolution, and my gut feeling was that it's wrong about causality creating my mind, so that's why I think it's wrong.  I don't accept that the evidence I'm mistaken constitutes proof." 

That's pretty much just a statement of opinion, so there's not much to discuss IMO without a huge discussion of the "evidence you're mistaken", which would take forever and still never convince a sufficiently determined doubter."

-It's more than a gut feeling, but I wouldn't call it subjective 'truth', more like subjective 'theory' since there is subjective evidence that does allow me to say that it's more than just a gut feeling or an opinion. Usually though, you can treat subjective truths like an opinion, so same goes for subjective theories, though I always find it interesting to discuss about, just like it's interesting to exchange opinions. In this case though, I'd like to think that all humans have this subjective evidence, but I think realizing/understanding may be complicated.. eeh
But, what evidence that I'm mistaken? I haven't seen any, I'd like to ask what you mean.

if you don't feel like talking about it or you think there's evidence but aren't expert about it then yeah, we don't have to talk about it.

But for your comparison to hold up (theory of evolution is like programming, consciousness can't be programmed so neither can evolutionary theory account for consciousness) it is assumed that the programmer has perfect knowledge of physical and chemical laws, etc., so the objection of unknown or incomplete laws doesn't hold up.  This is because the point of talking about AI in this discussion is the comparison to evolution according to current theory.  Evolution is happening by itself, without an actual programmer (let's not get onto the God/ID side of things right now...), so the objection of lack of knowledge or skill on the part of the programmer is completely irrelevant, I think. 

For talking about randomness, firstly, are you now saying that you suspect that free will is dependent on randomness?  Secondly, again, that is a limitation of programming (at least as far as we know) that you just said does not apply to biological evolution. 

... oh wait, never mind, now you're saying that consciousness might be programmable but we'll never know.  But doesn't this mean you're abandoning the analogical disproof of the adequacy of evolutionary theory? 

3.  So now you're back to asserting that you have free will without evidence other than, possibly, your feeling that you have it. 

-If everybody has access to this evidence, then you ought to be able to explain it. 

FInally, on evidence you're mistaken, I was referring to where you said things like "Of course some have some ideas, but it always fails to be detailed and convincing at the same time, and usually doesn't try to go out from causal explanations."  To me, this meant that people had submitted explanations and evidence that you found insufficiently compelling, without outright believing they were wrong in the evidence.  So if there's a bunch of evidence that would tend to point in the opposite direction from your position, but you don't feel that there's enough to justify saying you're definitely wrong, then that would be 'evidence you're mistaken that doesn't constitute proof' in your estimation.