Do we become gods?
- Thread starter yinyinwang
- Start date
I find that a little hopeful, if you don't mind my saying so...
People used to think that computers would eventually become self-aware and take over the world if we built them big and complex enough... turns out we're not that lucky. It may take more than time to achieve that steady increase in smarts.
People used to think that computers would eventually become self-aware and take over the world if we built them big and complex enough... turns out we're not that lucky. It may take more than time to achieve that steady increase in smarts.
voice of reason
Registered Senior Member
Ok, so this response is a bit late but I hadn't read it until today.
Ok, I'm not trying to pick on you MW, but I'm tired of hearing the absolutely moronic quotation that "humans only use 10% of our brains". Please go read this and stop spreading myths.
By the way the second part of your quote almost made me bust out laughing. We'll only come to this revelation when we use 15-100% of our brain. I guess you've already made the transition to super-brain because of your ability to point out this "fact".
Ok, I'm not trying to pick on you MW, but I'm tired of hearing the absolutely moronic quotation that "humans only use 10% of our brains". Please go read this and stop spreading myths.
By the way the second part of your quote almost made me bust out laughing. We'll only come to this revelation when we use 15-100% of our brain. I guess you've already made the transition to super-brain because of your ability to point out this "fact".
voice of reason
Registered Senior Member
Sure we could get really good at wide variety of things, but we're not going to understand everything (in a Godlike way) in our current form. I'd be willing to wager that you could read quantum physics books to a gorilla from now to eternity and he'd still wouldn't get it. There are certainly applications that require thought so beyond our current capabilities that we, like the gorilla, have no hope of ever really understanding them. We're certainly not limited to our current capabilities for all eternity, though.
voice of reason
Registered Senior Member
MW: Did you read the article I linked for you earlier?
We have a couple of different spots that are causing our (perhaps not apparent) differences of opinion.
Clarification 1
The first is relatively simple and is partialy explained in the snopes article I linked to (which itself provides some links to additional sources). You seem to believe that humans have extraneous brain power that we can some day harness to better understand ourselves and the universe. This is completely wrong. Some reasons:
1. Evolution would favor individuals that retained the same brain capacity without the additional costs associated with maintaing unused brain functions. The brain uses about a third of the bodies blood supply, if we only used 10% of our brain this massive diversion of resources would be 90% wasted. Any person that was able to maintain only what they used would have approximately 27% more resources to devote to hunting, gathering, procreating, or any other activity that would lead to its relative predominance versus the wasteful humans that only use 10% of our brains. It's an absolutely ludicrous argument from an evolutionary perspective.
2. PET scans (positron emission tomography) an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) clearly show that the vast (way, way, way more than 10%) of our brain is actively used. There is no fallow portion of the brain that we may train to get in touch with our "spiritual self".
There are many other arguments that can be made, but these should suffice (I'll get more in depth if you want) to explain that the notion that we only use 10% of our brain is ludicrous. The notion that we only use 70% of our brain is equally ludicrous. We use a vast majority of our brain, there is no hidden resource of brain processing capability waiting to be tapped by sufficiently intelligent humans.
Look here, here, etc.
Clarification 2
You believe a soul is separate from our physical body. I respect your religious belief but understand that it is exactly that; a belief based on faith and not backed up by any scientific proof. I believe that consciousness is a property of emergence: the ability for simple rules to create complex systems. Through the interaction of millions of small simple agents extremely complex systems can emerge. A quick and technically butchered example: ant colonies find the quickest routes to food sources. Ants have an extremely small set of behaviours that they are capable of. (largely because of their extremely small brains). Ants can't go back to the colony and say "Look, there is some sugar water about 10 meters from here, go straight to the big mound, take a sharp left and it'll be on your left after you go about 6 meters". Instead they drop pheromones as they walk. Each ant is more likely to follow a path on which there are pheremones deposited than on a path in which they are not deposisted. As each ant goes down the path towards the food that path is reinforced with more pheremones causing more ants to folow that particular path. After a while all ants are following that path. Additionally the ants can not only communicate a where a food source is, but the shortest path to the food source.
Look here, here, etc. I could list a ton more examples but here's the point: an extremely simple behavior (laying a pheremone trail) can lead to extremely complex behavior (giving exact, perfectly short directions to a food source). Your brain works exactly the same way. Billions of neurons behaving in simple ways lead to very complex behaviors (memories, emotions, physical control, senses, etc.).
In my view, there is no such thing as a "soul". As a result I see the statement:
as complete lunacy. There is no divergence between body-mind-spirit, mind and spirt are emergent properties of body.
Our difference of opinion
You believe (I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, so if I've got you wrong my apologies) that we'll become better humans and learn to use all of our powers to connect with the greater mysteries of the universe. I believe that we will understand the greater mysteries of the universe but it will be through the merging of technology and our bodies.
We're not going to get more brainpower through evolution. Brain power and reproductive success are not covarient (they don't increase together). In fact education tends to be highly negatively correlated with reproductive success. If anything, from an evolutionary perspective, human mental accuity (on average) should be decreasing.
What I think will happen, that I think is inevitable, is that we will become cyborgs. It sounds scary and sci-fi but it's already happening. People have artificial hearts, knees, etc. Artificially enchanced brain function will be yet another threshold that we eventually cross. It will probably start with something innocuous and not very controversial, repairing brains damaged by alzheimer's, for example. People will quickly realize, however, that no matter what your religion taught you the human body is far from perfect and has much room for improvement, including in mental areas. A quick example: why does it take you so long to drop a hot pan? Even with the body cheating and only sending the signal back to your spinal cord (instead of all the way to your brain for processing), it still takes a finite amount of time for the electrical signal to be passed along the nervous system. The speed at which this signal is passed is so vastly inferior to computer systems it's not even comparable (meters a minute versus hundreds of thousands of kilometers a second). So we'll definately speed up the connections between neurons.
Secondly your brain can only contain so many memories. We only have so large of a working memory. Eventually we'll have links between our brain and vastly more powerful computers that allow us to extend these capabilites.
So what I'm saying is that no spirtual-mental-body link is going to make us smarter. In fact, I don't think that there is such a thing. Still, it is absolutely unavoidable that humans will merge with our own technological creation to vastly increase our mental acuity.
Sorry for the long response.
Cheers,
Michael
We have a couple of different spots that are causing our (perhaps not apparent) differences of opinion.
Clarification 1
The first is relatively simple and is partialy explained in the snopes article I linked to (which itself provides some links to additional sources). You seem to believe that humans have extraneous brain power that we can some day harness to better understand ourselves and the universe. This is completely wrong. Some reasons:
1. Evolution would favor individuals that retained the same brain capacity without the additional costs associated with maintaing unused brain functions. The brain uses about a third of the bodies blood supply, if we only used 10% of our brain this massive diversion of resources would be 90% wasted. Any person that was able to maintain only what they used would have approximately 27% more resources to devote to hunting, gathering, procreating, or any other activity that would lead to its relative predominance versus the wasteful humans that only use 10% of our brains. It's an absolutely ludicrous argument from an evolutionary perspective.
2. PET scans (positron emission tomography) an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) clearly show that the vast (way, way, way more than 10%) of our brain is actively used. There is no fallow portion of the brain that we may train to get in touch with our "spiritual self".
There are many other arguments that can be made, but these should suffice (I'll get more in depth if you want) to explain that the notion that we only use 10% of our brain is ludicrous. The notion that we only use 70% of our brain is equally ludicrous. We use a vast majority of our brain, there is no hidden resource of brain processing capability waiting to be tapped by sufficiently intelligent humans.
Look here, here, etc.
Clarification 2
You believe a soul is separate from our physical body. I respect your religious belief but understand that it is exactly that; a belief based on faith and not backed up by any scientific proof. I believe that consciousness is a property of emergence: the ability for simple rules to create complex systems. Through the interaction of millions of small simple agents extremely complex systems can emerge. A quick and technically butchered example: ant colonies find the quickest routes to food sources. Ants have an extremely small set of behaviours that they are capable of. (largely because of their extremely small brains). Ants can't go back to the colony and say "Look, there is some sugar water about 10 meters from here, go straight to the big mound, take a sharp left and it'll be on your left after you go about 6 meters". Instead they drop pheromones as they walk. Each ant is more likely to follow a path on which there are pheremones deposited than on a path in which they are not deposisted. As each ant goes down the path towards the food that path is reinforced with more pheremones causing more ants to folow that particular path. After a while all ants are following that path. Additionally the ants can not only communicate a where a food source is, but the shortest path to the food source.
Look here, here, etc. I could list a ton more examples but here's the point: an extremely simple behavior (laying a pheremone trail) can lead to extremely complex behavior (giving exact, perfectly short directions to a food source). Your brain works exactly the same way. Billions of neurons behaving in simple ways lead to very complex behaviors (memories, emotions, physical control, senses, etc.).
In my view, there is no such thing as a "soul". As a result I see the statement:
as complete lunacy. There is no divergence between body-mind-spirit, mind and spirt are emergent properties of body.
Our difference of opinion
You believe (I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, so if I've got you wrong my apologies) that we'll become better humans and learn to use all of our powers to connect with the greater mysteries of the universe. I believe that we will understand the greater mysteries of the universe but it will be through the merging of technology and our bodies.
We're not going to get more brainpower through evolution. Brain power and reproductive success are not covarient (they don't increase together). In fact education tends to be highly negatively correlated with reproductive success. If anything, from an evolutionary perspective, human mental accuity (on average) should be decreasing.
What I think will happen, that I think is inevitable, is that we will become cyborgs. It sounds scary and sci-fi but it's already happening. People have artificial hearts, knees, etc. Artificially enchanced brain function will be yet another threshold that we eventually cross. It will probably start with something innocuous and not very controversial, repairing brains damaged by alzheimer's, for example. People will quickly realize, however, that no matter what your religion taught you the human body is far from perfect and has much room for improvement, including in mental areas. A quick example: why does it take you so long to drop a hot pan? Even with the body cheating and only sending the signal back to your spinal cord (instead of all the way to your brain for processing), it still takes a finite amount of time for the electrical signal to be passed along the nervous system. The speed at which this signal is passed is so vastly inferior to computer systems it's not even comparable (meters a minute versus hundreds of thousands of kilometers a second). So we'll definately speed up the connections between neurons.
Secondly your brain can only contain so many memories. We only have so large of a working memory. Eventually we'll have links between our brain and vastly more powerful computers that allow us to extend these capabilites.
So what I'm saying is that no spirtual-mental-body link is going to make us smarter. In fact, I don't think that there is such a thing. Still, it is absolutely unavoidable that humans will merge with our own technological creation to vastly increase our mental acuity.
Sorry for the long response.
Cheers,
Michael
A little more!!
M*W, yes correct, by the time biological immortality come about, the desease of mysticism should have been eradicated.
However I'm speaking to happen within our lives time.
That is why I stated that in order to have biological immortality, the decease of mysticism should be eradicated.
Not only that! we have to deal with a government control ethics commitee. Imagine that?. They don't let scientist do stem research, they don't let scientist create a human clone, there is many variants of mysticism and one of them is government!!.
anyhow interesting for the discussion check this out!:
http://www.supercivilization.com/forum/message/7631/
The above is from a Neo-Tech forum, however it gives you a little of the concept "biological immortality" which is the first place I've ever seen such a concept was in Neo-Tech literature.
Neo-Tech has removed its thousands of pages of text from the net, do to theft of its concepts, however you may still contact the company for its books.
http://www.neo-tech.com/index.php
A scientist view of human cloning:
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cach...ing.pdf+biological+immortality&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
This all the time I've got for now.
Cya
Godless.
M*W, yes correct, by the time biological immortality come about, the desease of mysticism should have been eradicated.
However I'm speaking to happen within our lives time.
That is why I stated that in order to have biological immortality, the decease of mysticism should be eradicated.
Not only that! we have to deal with a government control ethics commitee. Imagine that?. They don't let scientist do stem research, they don't let scientist create a human clone, there is many variants of mysticism and one of them is government!!.
anyhow interesting for the discussion check this out!:
http://www.supercivilization.com/forum/message/7631/
The above is from a Neo-Tech forum, however it gives you a little of the concept "biological immortality" which is the first place I've ever seen such a concept was in Neo-Tech literature.
Neo-Tech has removed its thousands of pages of text from the net, do to theft of its concepts, however you may still contact the company for its books.
http://www.neo-tech.com/index.php
A scientist view of human cloning:
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cach...ing.pdf+biological+immortality&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
This all the time I've got for now.
Cya
Godless.
Originally posted by BigBlueHead
Yes we do, but we are not doing a very good job, we haven't really evolved much for thousands of years, because we had created a belief system that had trapped us. That is we belief we are separated from god, therefore we think we as humans are separated from eachother. We believe we have not enough, money, food, love, ect, therefore we constantly need more. We believe a life with fear, therefore even when we have all the food, money etc we need, we wanted more, because we fears one day we might loose them, also we wouldn't share them with others, because we believe in doing so we will have less.
Originally posted by Medicine Woman
I are not as spiritually evolved as we need to be, just look around you. If we are already spiritually evolved as much as we can be, how come we are still killing eachother? But I do agree with you that our spirit has been the same for all eternity, but when spirit enters a body, it's level of awareness is not the same. The purpose of life is for the spirit ie god to actually experience itself.
Yes we do, but we are not doing a very good job, we haven't really evolved much for thousands of years, because we had created a belief system that had trapped us. That is we belief we are separated from god, therefore we think we as humans are separated from eachother. We believe we have not enough, money, food, love, ect, therefore we constantly need more. We believe a life with fear, therefore even when we have all the food, money etc we need, we wanted more, because we fears one day we might loose them, also we wouldn't share them with others, because we believe in doing so we will have less.
Originally posted by Medicine Woman
I are not as spiritually evolved as we need to be, just look around you. If we are already spiritually evolved as much as we can be, how come we are still killing eachother? But I do agree with you that our spirit has been the same for all eternity, but when spirit enters a body, it's level of awareness is not the same. The purpose of life is for the spirit ie god to actually experience itself.
Some people who are evovling faster because they give an open mind for new things, others when new things, ideas pop up, they dismiss them completely as they don't want their old way of life to change. But people do not receive the "knowing" at different times, but these knowings are send to every one of us all the time, it just whether we listen or not.
Life is eternal. Life goes on after we die, our body is a tool for us to experience different things, and hence creating us anew through our experience. There is no point to live forever, when what we are here to seek to experience is done, we choose to leave our body, but not to end life, but experience life in a different way. Many people fear death, but death actually gives us enormous freedom, our body is restricing, but spirits, ie life after death knows no limits. Death is not ending, but a beginning.
I think it is a less successful line of reason to think that God or Spirit does not evolve. The universe is constantly evolving therefore so is God. The notion that God is fully evolved is in my view a very weakly based belief, with out any evidence to support it.
If the universe evolves for eternity then so to does God.
If the universe fails to be eternal then so to does God fail to be eternal.
Another point that may be of some amusement an interest.
If a man lives for 1000 years and then dies is he immortal or mortal?
If a man lives for a million years and then dies is he immortal or mortal.
The view point is based on the premise that death can never be defeated and only postponed possibly indefinitely but that is only proved by eating the pudding so to speak and the pudding may never end.
If the universe evolves for eternity then so to does God.
If the universe fails to be eternal then so to does God fail to be eternal.
Another point that may be of some amusement an interest.
If a man lives for 1000 years and then dies is he immortal or mortal?
If a man lives for a million years and then dies is he immortal or mortal.
The view point is based on the premise that death can never be defeated and only postponed possibly indefinitely but that is only proved by eating the pudding so to speak and the pudding may never end.
according to the bible, god lived before the universe, and could easily live after it (wouldn't he actually get really, really bored)
There is only so much that science can do to lengthen lifestyle. Eventually, the part of the brain that holds your personality will wear out, it could be replaced, but it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else. You cant teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe eventually we would just give up ANY desire to learn anything. If a person got thrown into a star, science couldn't really do much.
There is only so much that science can do to lengthen lifestyle. Eventually, the part of the brain that holds your personality will wear out, it could be replaced, but it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else. You cant teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe eventually we would just give up ANY desire to learn anything. If a person got thrown into a star, science couldn't really do much.
yinyinwang
Registered Senior Member
alain said:
your big assumption is that enlonging life without the brain being able to funtion, is it true?
Hevene
"Life is eternal. Life goes on after we die, our body is a tool for us to experience different things, and hence creating us anew through our experience. There is no point to live forever, when what we are here to seek to experience is done, we choose to leave our body, but not to end life, but experience life in a different way. Many people fear death, but death actually gives us enormous freedom, our body is restricing, but spirits, ie life after death knows no limits. Death is not ending, but a beginning." nice, reasuring idea, hope it's right
yinyin, i assue that even if science can help our body, eventually the mind would go
"Life is eternal. Life goes on after we die, our body is a tool for us to experience different things, and hence creating us anew through our experience. There is no point to live forever, when what we are here to seek to experience is done, we choose to leave our body, but not to end life, but experience life in a different way. Many people fear death, but death actually gives us enormous freedom, our body is restricing, but spirits, ie life after death knows no limits. Death is not ending, but a beginning." nice, reasuring idea, hope it's right
yinyin, i assue that even if science can help our body, eventually the mind would go
yinyinwang
Registered Senior Member
any fact? or just a guess?alain said:
----------alain said:
M*W: You might be surprised what science has done AND can do to lengthen our lives. People are living longer. Scientists have found ways and means to prolong life. There are so many new treatments that can totally wipe out disease. Science is learning that diseases don't just start in old people. The progenitors are there at birth! Take heart disease, for example, it doesn't just start with the first heart attack. Studies were done on young soldiers who died as a result of car wrecks or other accidental deaths. Even in their 20s, autopsies proved that these young men who had never had a complaint or diagnosis of heart disease, had active atherosclerosis which probably would have resulted in a heart attack say in their 50s. Scientists are discovering that heart disease may be caused by inflammatory (autoimmune) causes that start in childhood or pregentially. Are our bodies programmed to self-destruct? I think so. As we see diseases understood and cured, we will definitely see longevity in the human race.
right on.
those who the Gods see as wise and intelligent (not to mention spiritual) will move up in the cycle of life. these few will begin working for the Gods, in helping send messages and signs to all of the people who are still living on earth.
those who arent fit are simply returned to the earth in some form or another (aka reincarnation) and given a second chance.
this new life for the enlightened souls might be immortal, but i believe it isnt.
these raised spirits begin a new life in the another world, the world that the Gods walk about and converse and create galaxies(atoms,molecules,elements) in.
They too grow old and in the end can raise to the levels of Gods. But i think its not that simple. I see there is many stages to move up before actually reaching immortal God Status. You have messengers, watchers, creators, angels, and who knows what else- all living in the complex world of the afterlife- it is quite similar to our own world except it is free of the blind unintelligence found rampid here on earth. But this is not to say raised spirits are all 100% pure good - some do in fact turn Bad even in the higher realms (lucifer for example) and even though the Gods try to select only pure souls they cannot account for one's free will.
so, as for the topic, i dont think we will acheive immortality here on earth, this physical world simply could not support it. although we will become increasingly effecient in stopping death, immortality lies within our minds(souls) only.
----------zonabi said:
M*W: So, where will humanity achieve wholeness if not on Earth?
The question is; is the 10 year old dog smarter than he was 5 years ago? and if senility hasn't hit he most definately will be.BigBlueHead said:
on the other hand, the more time it spends with humans the more it gets dumb. within 5 years it would considerably loose its smartness. on second thought, it depends on how dumb the human masters of the dog are. but some exceptionally smart dogs would become smarter with time learning how to fool around with dumb humans. but some loyal dogs would go down with their human counterparts. the biggest disaster in dog-history is the time when they made friendship with humans. i seriously doubt humans swapped intelligence with dogs. what you think ?