Half a soul?
- Thread starter atheroy
- Start date
It is quite clear you do have an opinion otherwise you would not claim that the soul is a phantom being, or can be cut in half, so stop trying to be clever.
If you are sincere you will first enquire as to what the soul actually is.
Love
Jan Ardena.
There are subtle changes in synaptic connectivities (SC) during, for example, learning process. This reorganization of SCs happens through out the life time of the brain. Further neurons are not inexpensive. You should remember the scale of memory in bits over a life time is unimaginably large. It might not be as simple as RAID.
Further brain is not slow as we tend to think. Some of the functions the brain do in split-second if duplicated in a RISC based SMP system it would take minutes / hours. But a simple multiplication of two 7 digit numbers would task the brain for seconds where as the processor can finish it in split-nanosecond. Clearly the brain is not designed for what we intend to do with computers. The computer has the only basic advantage - the ever-increasing speed with the bits that can be stored. Everything else, like compliers, AI, expert systems etc, is built on exploiting this advantage of computers.
The function and architecture of brain is not as relatively simple as our computers though some of the 'brain activities' can be simulated in computers. But not certainly the 'Consiousness'.
What did you exactly tell me earlier before I gave you an excellent technical critique for your article, let me remember the exact words:
Aha, something that goes like:
"You must have exhuasted all your attempts to reason and decided to reside to insults instead."
Flores,
I have made no insult and have merely pointed out that your statement implies the quran is crap.
Unlike your insults which were personal direct ad hominem attacks on me because you couldn't fault my arguments, so like any sub-standard politician, you insult your oponent instead.
But it was you who suggested that the quran and the bible are crap. Do you now want to retract your statement about the quran being crap?
I have made no insult and have merely pointed out that your statement implies the quran is crap.
Unlike your insults which were personal direct ad hominem attacks on me because you couldn't fault my arguments, so like any sub-standard politician, you insult your oponent instead.
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I never called the Quran crap, I said this crap that seem to be extracted from the Quran. The Khomeiny is crap and he supposidely relies on the Quran for decision, but that still doesn't make the Quran crap. Anyways, if somehow in the future I say that the Quran is crap, I would have no problem retracting my statement.
I know Cris, but you didn't address my comment, you merely displayed your boredom of dealing with me, which is your right of course.
I'll give you that, you have more experience than me in the arena of discussion + you are a moderator, so I'm still learning how to separate the issues from the person.
Good thing about human brain is that it specializes in abstract recording such as words and patterns. So even in a life time, the bits might not be as large as unimaginable.
Pattern recognition enhances with size of neural network. In case of the brain it relates to neurons. As a child you recognize an apple as a spherical, red, shining edible fruit. Now probably when you see the apple it would have associations like your doctor, newton, juice that created stomach trouble once, and the list goes on and would increase with time. By abstraction you eliminate extra load in the process of thinking. Still the necessary data should be available though not used in abstract thinking. The data is quite large and that will be realised when you try to mine. Btw, You are right in saying brain specializes in abstract recording of words and patterns, but ironically, that is a big challenge, for AI, for its proper catagorization. I would like to probe further but need to go now.
to jan ardena
i agree it's not the best way to descirbe the "soul", i was just trying to say it was a intangible being, something we can't see or touch or define physically.
atheroy.
well, its been debated what a soul is before but to no great avail. i myself don't quite get what a soul is (i always thought it was how much "character" someone had) but i would be happy to learn your belief on what a soul is.
it was a figure of speech. i was trying to be fancy
i agree it's not the best way to descirbe the "soul", i was just trying to say it was a intangible being, something we can't see or touch or define physically.i am a twin myself. while i am not an identical twin the funny thing is twins tend to gravitate together. i know many pairs of identical twins and one thing i've noticed is that they aren't different people- in some cases the exact similarities between them is unerring. i would have to be pushed a long way before i considered calling identical twins different people.
yes i can. i'm not sure how much you know about twins but once again being one myself i have a vested interest in things "twiny". at the first instance when the zygotic cell (the cell formed when the sperm and egg fuse in the womb) begins to multiply, instead of the first division of cells staying together- like in all single born babies- they break apart and start forming two identical people. it's a biological cock up- one that's not supposed to happen.
i wasn't actually being clever- i was asking those who believe in the soul, what they believe happens to the identical twins soul(s). see, i don't have a clear knowledge of what a soul actually is described as, i was asking those who do have this knowledge to clarify what they think happens.
atheroy.
I'm an identical twin. And well my brother is an atheist with skeptical views very much like yours.
The commonality might be because of similar brain makeup and envirionment, but this does not have anything to do with the choice made by the information recieved from the brain and environment.DarkMadMax
Registered Senior Member
I just want to thank Cris for link he provied in this thread. Despite Flores being stubborn redneck (and he dind't even bother to read em) -they didn't go at waste
And I can't agree more that computers ALREADY modyfing and improving themseleves - present high level languages , optimizing compilers , "visual" programming tools, optimization in hardware itself -average application programmer doesnt do most of the job by hismelf anymore .- he even often NOT ABLE to do that by himself . Heck most programmers won't understand a single line when they will see their own creation in actual machine code
More and more things become common for computers ( 3d graphics , different recognition systems from various sensors , wider and more universal input/output systems) -things that took billiong years to naturally evolve arre developing in the frame of 50 years. Of course thats not AI yet - but everything else for AI is ready -sensors, motivators , power ,reproduction .And I beleive by the time superhuman AI will become reality everything would be pretty much more or less controlled by automated fault tolerant systems - automated environment control is already a reality - high-tech industry, power plants, power grids, communications equipment , planes ,car engines . And of course those very complex and very elaborate self sustaing artifical environments such as operating systems and application software
Future is already here ! Wake up flores!
And I can't agree more that computers ALREADY modyfing and improving themseleves - present high level languages , optimizing compilers , "visual" programming tools, optimization in hardware itself -average application programmer doesnt do most of the job by hismelf anymore .- he even often NOT ABLE to do that by himself . Heck most programmers won't understand a single line when they will see their own creation in actual machine code
More and more things become common for computers ( 3d graphics , different recognition systems from various sensors , wider and more universal input/output systems) -things that took billiong years to naturally evolve arre developing in the frame of 50 years. Of course thats not AI yet - but everything else for AI is ready -sensors, motivators , power ,reproduction .And I beleive by the time superhuman AI will become reality everything would be pretty much more or less controlled by automated fault tolerant systems - automated environment control is already a reality - high-tech industry, power plants, power grids, communications equipment , planes ,car engines . And of course those very complex and very elaborate self sustaing artifical environments such as operating systems and application software
Future is already here ! Wake up flores!
finger prints aren't determined biologically. if we went to a cellular level the dna and cell organelles of identical twins is identical. you can't get biologically different when you share the exact same dna as someone else.
hello fellow twin (strictly speaking was just born at the same time as my brother though)I'm an identical twin. And well my brother is an atheist with skeptical views very much like yours.
true. still, i find that most of the twins, when asked questions separately, answer in almost exactly the same fashion with a very similar answer. you yourself must have experienced this. decision wise as well, most make the same decisions. of course there are discrepancies- like who's the dominant one, subtle differences from outside influences on the individual person, etc. when it comes down to choices (in your passage are you saying the soul makes the choices?) i think it's very much apart of the brains functions. look at chimpanze's or any other animal for that matter. they aren't supposed to have souls yet make decisions all the time, as well, chimpanze's pass down "cultural" habits that differ between their groups. i reckon the brain can be attributed for everything.