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Re: Scary AI

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Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> wrote:
> On 4/9/2025 3:53 PM, Chris wrote:
> 
>>> 
>>> I'm not a scientific materialist. I regard it as a thoroughly
>>> untenable way to look at the nature of experience. Science
>>> can't accept mind or even life as such, because those things
>>> can't be measured empirically.
>> 
>> I mean there is a whole field of science looking at life and has done for
>> hundreds of years - biology - so that's an odd take.
>> 
> 
>    Yes. Most people would think so. Yet the idea of mind
> arising from matter is fairly new. We say that we recognize
> mind and life, but what's studied empirically is just matter.
> That's why the DSM is a book of symptoms. 

DSM?

> What's
> schizophrenia? What's awareness? What's OCD? e describe
> it as symptoms. If you display enough symptoms then
> your insurance will pay for a happy pill prescription. 

Not here. We don't do insurance ;)

> More
> recently we talk in terms of fMRIs and neurotransmitters.
> But what science CAN theorize or know is limited to what it
> can arrange a repeatable experiment for. 

False. 

Einstein develop a whole range of theories based on his analyses of
fundamental physics. None of which were testable at the time and he had no
idea how they could be. In the decades since, new technology has enabled
experiments that have tested his theories. 

Darwin's theory was completely untestable at the time. He also had no idea
about genetics, DNA or molecular biology. All discoveries since have
confirmed and strengthened the scientific basis for evolution. 

> Science can never
> accept mind as such, or even life as such, because it can't
> confirm them empirically. 

As I've demonstrated above, this is a false representation of science. 

>A biologist can describe a mouse
> and tell us about its respiration and so on. They can also
> describe the evidence for a dead mouse. But what is it that
> maintains that unimaginably complex symphony of processes
> that characterizes a live mouse? What is missing when the
> mouse dies? We can't say. 

Yet. 

>Why? Could there be some kind
> of non-material essence that is life? 

There is no "non-material essence". 

> Science must say no,
> simply because such possibilities are outside of science's
> purview.

That's not why. All possibilities are considered. Only those that don't
require "magic" are realistic. 

>>> But if you accept mind as
>>> a something not arising from matter,
>> 
>> Where else would it arise from?
>> 
>   Some posit a soul. Christianity, for example. Hinduism
> says there's something like a soul-self. The atman. Buddihsm
> says there's awareness and mind, but the material world is
> a projection of confusion. In other words, we're all God
> dreaming, so to speak.

Those are all human constructs. Developed *by the* mind not *of the* mind. 

> 
>>> That may seem odd at first, but look at what science posits:
>>> Lots of atoms, over billions of years, accidentally ended up
>>> as amino acids, then DNA, then complex, communal systems
>>> of cells, which spend all of their energy on maintaining their
>>> own integrity as distinct entities, which implies will. Yet it all
>>> happened willy nilly. And the incredibly complicated balance that
>>> maintains these living systems is also happening by accident.
>> 
>> None of what you describe is an "accident". We simply cannot fathom the
>> power that billions of years has.
>> 
> 
>   If there's no mind as such then the universe would have to
> be an accidental soup of matter and energy. 

Nope. An accident implies a correct path and incorrect path. The universe
is fundamental and there is no path. 

> There are clearly
> patterns that apply, but science must reject anything like
> intelligent design or some kind of will. 

ID is anything but "intelligent". It is naive and intellectually
uninformative. ID has no capacity to make predictions, makes no attempt to
explain disparities, only looks at holes in current understanding and
doesn't help in advancing human knowledge. 

Science is far from perfect, but it can achieve amazing things. It basks in
the awe of the universe we live in. 

ID perpetuates the 17th century world view of a human-centric universe.
Which is hopelessly backward. 

Individual "Will" is not rejected by science. 

> That would mean that DNA
> can only be a preposterously unlikely accident.

Why is it unlikely? It follows the most basic rules of chemistry and
physics. 

You think it is irreducibly complex. It isn't. 

>>> Further, if that's the case then we're
>>> simply accidental bio-robots and thus have no capacity to
>>> reflect on these things in the first place.
>> 
>> And yet we do and have done for millennia.
>> 
>    So says you. But if you believe you're a bio-robot, and that
> mind arises from chemical reactions and electricity in the brain,
> then how could you posit that you reflect? 

"I think therefore I am". 

Obviously we can only personally experience the universe from the
perspective of what is experiencable. Yet much of science explains aspects
that are unexperienceable: light, time, matter, etc, etc. 

All of which enters "our" world through technology. 

> All apparent
> thoughts would be merely Scrooge's "bit of mustard".
> Interestingly, that's actually the current position of neuroscience.:
> "Mind is what brain does." The comedy here is that these PhDs
> haven't considered the implication that they're in no position
> to think about it if that's true.

There are a great many people involved in metaphysics and metascience.
There's no inconsistency. 

If science gets something wrong, and it happens a lot, it self corrects.
Other methods do not and suffer schisms. 

>   That's not to say that science is a problem. It's very useful for
> specific, relative situations. It tells us the boiling point of
> water or the distance to NYC. But there's no objective
> meta-context from which to observe the fundamental nature
> of experience empirically. Science simply can't go there.

It can get closer then other method. It is the most objective process we
have. 

> It's fatal flaw is that it can't know what it can't know, so it
> tries to explain all.

Patently false. There are many known unknowns plus and unknown unknowns are
an accepted possibility. 

>   We feel certain of our take on reality. Yet we were also certain
> during the dream before waking up this morning. That's the point
> of the famous Taoist riddle: Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a
> butterfly. Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or was it the
> butterfly dreaming it was Chuang Tzu?
> 
>    On the surface that seems like a silly question, but if we
> think about it, it's unknowable. 

You don't know that. 

> We can't observe absolute reality
> from an external vantage point. We only imagine that we do.

Does it matter? The possibility of some entity exisitng beyond our universe
doesn't obviate nor discredit the question of trying to understand what is
within in it. 

We may even discover what there is beyond our universe. If anything. 

I don't see why "mind" should be seen as distinct from science. They are
complementary and interdependent. 

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Scary AI Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> - 2025-04-08 16:26 +0100
  Re: Scary AI "Alan K." <alan@invalid.com> - 2025-04-08 11:45 -0400
  Re: Scary AI Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 12:39 -0400
    Re: Scary AI Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> - 2025-04-08 19:07 +0100
      Re: Scary AI Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 14:45 -0400
        Re: Scary AI Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> - 2025-04-08 20:35 +0100
          Re: Scary AI jetjock <jetjock@unkown.com> - 2025-04-09 14:01 -0500
        Re: Scary AI Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-08 20:57 +0000
          Re: Scary AI Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-08 17:16 -0400
            Re: Scary AI Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-09 19:53 +0000
              Re: Scary AI Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-09 16:47 -0400
                Re: Scary AI Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-11 12:23 +0000
                Re: Scary AI Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-11 13:31 -0400
                Re: Scary AI Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-13 02:30 +0000
                Re: Scary AI Newyana2 <newyana@invalid.nospam> - 2025-04-13 07:49 -0400
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                Re: Scary AI Anton Shepelev <anton.txt@g{oogle}mail.com> - 2025-04-18 14:34 +0300
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        Re: Scary AI Ed Cryer <ed@somewhere.in.the.uk> - 2025-04-08 22:48 +0100
          Re: Scary AI Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2025-04-09 09:50 +0000
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