What caused you to turn away from your faith?

[Sarkus]

huh?
You're not just talking about the 5 senses?
What non-empirical gibberish are you spouting?

There are more than 5 senses.
Apologies if this comes as a shock for you.

Now - to repeat the questions I asked:
Feel free to indicate anything you have located without one of the senses... and I'm not just talking your five classical senses. And then show how you are locating it without... um... sensing it? :shrug:

 

[Syzygys]

What caused you to turn away from your faith?

The priest with the giant dick. He never used vaseline and didn't want to cuddle afterwards....

Oh I am sorry, this is a serious thread....

 

[lightgigantic]

There are more than 5 senses.
Apologies if this comes as a shock for you.

I guess you can unpack the sense of touch to give the impression of a few others

Now - to repeat the questions I asked:
Feel free to indicate anything you have located without one of the senses... and I'm not just talking your five classical senses. And then show how you are locating it without... um... sensing it? :shrug:

ok

feel free to tell me which senses from the wiki list you are using to ascertain that you are conversing with a person over the internet

 

[Sarkus]

I guess you can unpack the sense of touch to give the impression of a few others

If you mean "unpack" as in use entirely different receptors in the body... sure.
Much like you can unpack the term "car" to include "aircraft", I suppose? :shrug:

P: How many modes of transport are there?
LG: One - the car.
P: But there are more... here's a list....
LG: Well, I guess you could unpack the term "car" to give the impression of a few others.

feel free to tell me which senses from the wiki list you are using to ascertain that you are conversing with a person over the internet

So again you can't be assed to answer a question with anything but a question. :shrug:

But I will answer YOUR question, in the hope that you will now have the decency to answer mine... or will I have to start hounding you down again to try and get one from you??...

Firstly your question is fallacious - as you clearly miss the point that senses do not ascertain anything... they are merely the input.
Or do you expect a computer mouse to run software?

But the input that I use for ascertaining that I am conversing with a person over the internet is sight.

Now, please, answer the question that I asked of you.

 

[lightgigantic]

If you mean "unpack" as in use entirely different receptors in the body... sure.
Much like you can unpack the term "car" to include "aircraft", I suppose? :shrug:

P: How many modes of transport are there?
LG: One - the car.
P: But there are more... here's a list....
LG: Well, I guess you could unpack the term "car" to give the impression of a few others.

um ... whatever

So again you can't be assed to answer a question with anything but a question. :shrug:

But I will answer YOUR question, in the hope that you will now have the decency to answer mine... or will I have to start hounding you down again to try and get one from you??...

Firstly your question is fallacious - as you clearly miss the point that senses do not ascertain anything... they are merely the input.
Or do you expect a computer mouse to run software?

But the input that I use for ascertaining that I am conversing with a person over the internet is sight.

oh, you see me?

Now, please, answer the question that I asked of you.

what q was that?

 

[wynn]

Originally Posted by CptBork
To what extent would your life change if it turned out President Obama was really just a figurehead or a fictional being? ”

Then we would have a radically different picture on the role of the individual in regards to the nation (at least as far as an american citizen is concerned) ... which would also trickle down into international affairs given the key figure of the USA

“ To what extent would your life change if the same turned out for "God"? ”

The same as above, except the ante is upped since the playing field is the universe.

Of course. But you seem to be allright with that. As if no matter what God would turn out to actually be, you are convinced that you would be fine and unharmed.

I do not think many people share such a confident perspective.

After all, perhaps the Calvinists are the ones who have the right understanding of God - and all that philosophy, common sense and personal realizations that you are relying on are merely acts of the devil whom you have succombed to.

 

[wynn]

But the input that I use for ascertaining that I am conversing with a person over the internet is sight.

Oh dear.

Each of us online is operating on a version of the Turing test.

 

[Sarkus]

um ... whatever

Pathetic. You can't even admit to your errors with decency. :shrug:

oh, you see me?

To me "you" are nothing but the text that forms on my monitor that is assigned to the name "lightgigantic" through your username on this site.
So yes, I see "you".
That I consider "you" to be a person is merely an assumption based on previous experience, and lack thereof with regard AI.

what q was that?

The questions were: "Feel free to indicate anything you have located without one of the senses... and I'm not just talking your five classical senses. And then show how you are locating it without... um... sensing it?"

 

[Sarkus]

Oh dear.

Each of us online is operating on a version of the Turing test.

I fail to see the point, if indeed you have one other than to highlight the fragile bases on which we make assumptions of being human?

Have you ever seen me, or indeed any number of other people you converse with online?

Do you even know how old I am, whether I am male / female, my ethnicity, my country of origin, other than through what I have told you on this forum, and not just in the facts of myself I may have told, but through the way they have been told?

All we have to make such an assumption is sight (or however else we receive the input) of the words that other people choose to use.

Feel free to show me how I am wrong in this regard?

 

[lightgigantic]

Pathetic. You can't even admit to your errors with decency. :shrug:

Its more an apathy in chasing tired ends of a your dead argument
I mean regardless whether you do or don't accept the 5 senses as sufficient to contextualize all knowable issues of sensing, you're still flogging the same dead horse.

To me "you" are nothing but the text that forms on my monitor that is assigned to the name "lightgigantic" through your username on this site.
So yes, I see "you".

then when you bridgethe gap between text language and computer screens to a sentient person, you are relying on some other than the 5,8 or 103 that you care to call upon.

The questions were: "Feel free to indicate anything you have located without one of the senses... and I'm not just talking your five classical senses. And then show how you are locating it without... um... sensing it?"

unless you treat all pixel combinations on your screen as persons, I already have.

 

[wynn]

All we have to make such an assumption is sight (or however else we receive the input) of the words that other people choose to use.

Feel free to show me how I am wrong in this regard?

A monkey, a bat, a snail or a mackerel have sight too, for example; the same could even be said of robots.

The difference is in the consciousness, and the particular kind or quality of it.

Things like these:

Do you even know how old I am, whether I am male / female, my ethnicity, my country of origin, other than through what I have told you on this forum, and not just in the facts of myself I may have told, but through the way they have been told?

are assessed by consciousness, not by sight. If sight (or hearing, tasting, touching, smelling) would be enough to discern whether one is dealing with a person or not, then snails and robots could do it too. But we presume they generally do not, and we generally do not find interactions with them to be satisfying for us.

 

[lightgigantic]

Of course. But you seem to be allright with that. As if no matter what God would turn out to actually be, you are convinced that you would be fine and unharmed.

I do not think many people share such a confident perspective.

After all, perhaps the Calvinists are the ones who have the right understanding of God - and all that philosophy, common sense and personal realizations that you are relying on are merely acts of the devil whom you have succombed to.

Or alternatively, perhaps the Calvinists have been duped by satan
or perhaps they are only slightly duped, like maybe because they have been duped by their material desire
... or any one of a million perhaps ... how do you propose to hone down the host of tentative arguments that "perhaps" can generate?

 

[Sarkus]

Its more an apathy in chasing tired ends of a your dead argument
I mean regardless whether you do or don't accept the 5 senses as sufficient to contextualize all knowable issues of sensing, you're still flogging the same dead horse.

:shrug:
Feel free to actually demonstrate why you consider the argument dead rather than just saying "it's dead" and leaving it at that.

then when you bridgethe gap between text language and computer screens to a sentient person, you are relying on some other than the 5,8 or 103 that you care to call upon.

The bridge is built upon a foundation of sensory input.
I am merely asking you to name something that you have located without sensing, as you claim can be done?
So far you have singularly failed to do so... but instead you have avoided... again.

unless you treat all pixel combinations on your screen as persons, I already have.

No - you haven't. You have avoided. The assumptions one make, such as the person they converse with on t'internet actually being human, are built up on experience of inputs. Without such inputs there is no experience. With no experience there is no locating.
However, you seem to think that if you remove all possibility of input by the senses, such that a person has no experience, that they could still locate something. Good luck with that.
I'm assuming you have some means of supporting your claim?

 

[lightgigantic]

:shrug:
Feel free to actually demonstrate why you consider the argument dead rather than just saying "it's dead" and leaving it at that.

I just did
adding things like a sense of pain doesn't strengthen your position

The bridge is built upon a foundation of sensory input.

hardly
can a blind person not conceive of the sense of building a likeness of person hood from an array of computer pixels?

 

[Sarkus]

A monkey, a bat, a snail or a mackerel have sight too, for example; the same could even be said of robots.

The difference is in the consciousness, and the particular kind or quality of it.

Consciousness? Or in the relative ability to recognise patterns?
And again, sight (or any sense) is merely the input, but without the input we have and are nothing.

The input is then analysed by our sub-conscious brain - predominantly pattern recognition.
If the patterns we see match those we have experience of, we make assumptions that the pattern we see is the same.
Computers can do this, and in many cases are employed to do so as being quicker and more accurate than humans (predictive models, for example).

 

[Sarkus]

I just did
adding things like a sense of pain doesn't strengthen your position

:shrug:
You have nothing more to offer than "La la la la you're wrong la la la la!"?

hardly
can a blind person not conceive of the sense of building a likeness of person hood from an array of computer pixels?

Of course - and what would they be building that conception upon if not from other sensory inputs as a frame of reference?

But remove ALL frames of reference and what do you have?

 

[lightgigantic]

:shrug:
You have nothing more to offer than "La la la la you're wrong la la la la!"?

Actually its more a case of "you're wrong because sensory input without the means to comprehend it is futile"

Of course - and what would they be building that conception upon if not from other sensory inputs as a frame of reference?

at a guess, their consciousness

But remove ALL frames of reference and what do you have?

probably something like a computer

 

[Sarkus]

Actually its more a case of "you're wrong because sensory input without the means to comprehend it is futile"

Yet you use a catch-all word such as "consciousness" to describe the means to comprehend, yet can come up with nothing that actually defines what consciousness is, other than perhaps "life" - and when pushed on what "life" is you merely offer a comparison between a living body and a dead one.
In otherwords... you don't know but can't bring yourself to admit it.
Hey ho.

at a guess, their consciousness

You can guess all you like, but given your lack of support for even the outright claims you make, I hold little hope for anything here.

probably something like a computer

If you think a human without frames of reference is like a computer, then you're saying that a computer with frames of reference is like a human??
Wow - this is... very unreligious of you... and goes against almost everything you have been saying so far.
:shrug:

 

[wynn]

Or alternatively, perhaps the Calvinists have been duped by satan
or perhaps they are only slightly duped, like maybe because they have been duped by their material desire
... or any one of a million perhaps ... how do you propose to hone down the host of tentative arguments that "perhaps" can generate?

This is what I have been wondering myself all along!

Sometimes, I reason "Probably, there is always going to be someone who will claim that what I am doing is wrong, so I might as well do as I see fit - sooner will the Sun burn out than universal acceptance be achieved."
Or I reason that I should hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

But somehow, these meta-narratives don't work for me, nor do any others that I can think of.

 

[wynn]

Yet you use a catch-all word such as "consciousness" to describe the means to comprehend, yet can come up with nothing that actually defines what consciousness is, other than perhaps "life" - and when pushed on what "life" is you merely offer a comparison between a living body and a dead one.
In otherwords... you don't know but can't bring yourself to admit it.
Hey ho.

It remains that sensory input without the means to comprehend it is futile.
This much we can all agree on.