• Choices
    I'll take what you said about me as a compliment! — Agent Smith
    What has covid done to you these days?
  • Choices
    Well, I just recovered from Covid (my 3 jabs helped) and now I have a mild bakcache. I hope the question wasn't rhetorical. — Agent Smith
    Covid?

    Of course that was not a rhetorical question. If I'd do that, I'd insult your intelligence first, followed by a jab.

    How the fuck did you get covid by posting everyday on the philosophy forum? We can't breathe or sneeze at each other here, dude.
  • I'd like some help with approaching the statement "It is better to live than to never exist."
    would it not be circular reasoning to suggest "existence is preferable over nonexistence because x", with x being a reason that pertains to existence e.g., "you can only experience happiness when you exist"? — ratgambling
    Yes, this is actually a fallacy. I don't know the name -- maybe false equivalence. But yes, close to circular reasoning.

    The correct way to put that argument is to put the subject, the person, in two different situations and argue that one situation fosters happiness, while the other does not. The incorrect way is the one you pointed out -- cancelling the subject altogether in one situation.
  • Choices
    ↪Agent Smith
    How are you doing?
  • Choices
    False dichotomy — 180 Proof
    Yup.
  • Choices
    If you're right that everyone is wrong, then not everyone is wrong because you were just right. — Hanover
    Genius!
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    There is no program to be found in the brain. Neither in nature. — Haglund
    And not for the lack of trying. Some things aren't programmable. Dualism got it right The brain you can copy as it is physical. But the mind cannot be captured in a module or whatever medium it is you're thinking of.
  • Brain Replacement
    I'd have said that it was a replacement of everything below the neck, not above it. You didn't get a new head. The head got your body. You're gone. — noAxioms
    Funny you say this. Our identity is tied to a mirror, if I may say so. I almost agreed with you -- but then, first thing you look at if you want to know if you're still you, is your reflection on the mirror. You don't question why your mind has changed.

    Just look at our societies -- a valid identification of your personhood is one that has your picture on it.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    This is just a small side question, for my own internal databases. Do you think dualism is on the rise, stagnant or on the wane or does the number of others who hold a similar viewpoint to you, not matter to you, when it comes to dualism? — universeness
    It doesn't matter to me the number of others who hold similar view. I don't check statistics like that. But maybe it's fair to say that science or scientism has always been the anathema as to why dualism might be treated with a lot more skepticism. Extra-physical claims such as those having to do with the mind are almost to be avoided if we are to remain the technology that we are already, right?. I mean trillionaires building their own spacecraft to go to space. Body or head transplant that totally ignores the mind -- this is the ultra-physical. Like, who cares about the mystery of the mind if we could transport ourselves across the universe.

    Do we not 'extract' roughness from our mind by 'pattern matching,' it with smoothness.
    I would describe roughness as bumpy bits and indented bits and smooth bits that you can feel when you touch the area with your skin organ. Would you describe 'roughness' (as applied to physical surfaces,) differently?     — universeness
    If we really could extract textures from our mind, then couldn't we just pass on this trait to our offspring and let them experience roughness without setting foot outside? Why, until now, the children could not have all the sensations that the parents had experienced and stored in their brains? Why do babies need to be trained in all aspects of their existence in order to become a normal human being, let alone survive?

    I always ask a dualist if they are willing to give me their personal view of a physical location(s) for where they think the part of their (or all of their) mind exists outside of their brain.
    In the past, I have had answers such as, In the heart, in the body, in superpositions, in gods database, with god, in an omniconsiousness. Do you hold with any of these?     — universeness
    There is no location of the mind, there is, however, a location of the brain. Now, obviously we can't crack open every human's skull to see if the brain is there. But for the many autopsies and studies done on humans, we know that the experts had identified the brain as that mass inside the skull of humans.

    That's why it's always an error to compare thinking with computing. In computers, everything has a location. There is no "mind" in computers. Only humans, and some animals possess the mind.
  • Brain Replacement
    A corollary to this is, "Would you mind if we use mice head on you since that's all we've practiced up to this point of your accident? Or a monkey, maybe you'd look better with a monkey head."
  • Brain Replacement
    If someone told me they were going to duplicate and replace my brain with a mechanical one (and dispose of the organic one), I would consider that death. However, if they could replace it incrementally and guarantee I was conscious the whole time, I don't consider that death, Does anyone else share this intuition? — RogueAI
    Are you asking this for purely philosophical inquiry, or for medical science and the public?
    It always puzzles me whenever an attempt is made to transplant a head. Recently, they had transplanted mice heads. It lived for a day. But there's also a procedure done on monkey decades ago. The monkey survived for hours.

    My question is, what is it that transplanting a new head to a person warrants the resources and difficulty and succeeding medical care for this person to make it worth it to transplant a head? It's not like humans are rare. Or one person is so unique that there's never gonna be another one like him to walk this earth.

    I'd like to know the practical use of this. We know that face transplant had been done -- but note that these people who had undergone face transplant had a compelling reason: their faces were destroyed by their pets or some other entity, but they're pretty much alive and well. They could go on with their life after the face transplant.

    But head transplant is another matter. If your injury is so horrific that your head was decapitated during the incident, the head transplant procedure would take too long to benefit you and success rate is worst than getting hit by a lightning 3 times.

    First, where are they going to get the new head? Decapitate another healthy human being? It's not like we have a storage of fresh heads in the refrigerator ready to be transplanted in case one of us got hit by a scythe in one swoop making a clean, surgical cut -- and mind you, you can't use a scythe against your head, another person must perform the decapitation because it has a long handle and a long blade.

    So then, say you are now decapitated and needed to be transported to a hospital -- you'd think the nearest hospital would do? No! It has to be a facility that performs regular head transplant. Ask where in the entire world this hospital is located? Nowhere. We do not have a facility that performs head transplant on a regular basis. It's not a cancer hospital.
  • How would you endure most insane prolonged boredom ever possible?
    I Am so boooooooooreeeeeeed out of my mind that mere thought of going to sleep hurts like needles and something like burning - specific feeling from boredom! I Am literally so bored, I Am trying to survive next smallest unit of time. — empleat
    This is depression -- clinical. You should try to see a therapist.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    That's another exchange! I don't hold with any posit that the human 'mind,' exists beyond the human brain. Are you a dualist? — universeness
    Yes, I am. First things first -- materialism holds water, a lot of water. Perception won't be complete without body and mind. But the causality that happens with body organs perceiving, say, a color, or hearing a loud bang, come to us in a completely stripped down data. It's the mind that interprets what we perceive. Earlier I said, roughness can only be experience using our organs for sensing textures. Though it reaches our mind, we can't extract "roughness" from our mind.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    I think that ends this thread for me. Thanks for the exchange. — universeness
    Don't leave just yet. You'd lower the overall IQ of this thread if you did. :joke:
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    How is that viewpoint any different from those who claim that we can never know the full workings of the human brain or how consciousness is created and therefore be able to replicate it. — universeness
    Correction. It's not the human brain that's being uploaded, per OP. It's the mind. Not the same.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    My point is that what was once considered absolutely impossible, is emerging in today's world. Across the board, this is true. So while we may not be able to conceptualize (or even agree on) the potential ability for computers to capture, hold, move and evolve human minds right now, the future looks bright for these kinds of technologies. — Bret Bernhoft
    It has nothing to do possible or impossible. You're still not getting the point. To this day, what have been made possible by science have always been grounded in material reality. The DNA structure was once unimaginable. But now we do have the structure. But only because it is grounded in physicality.
  • An Objection to Ehrman’s Argument Against Miracles
    Let's discuss premise 2. Ehrman says that miracles "violate the way nature naturally works" and that "by definition, a miracle is the least probable occurrence." — lish
    This is simply confused. "Probable" is not the same as possible. If something is probable, there is high likelihood it will happen. Possible is simply "could" happen, like miracles. Please get that straight.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    ↪universeness
    :up:


    Science needs to be put in it's rightful place. As one culture amongst many. It should absolutely not be given political power as it has nowadays. It's fun to do science but it has it's limits and certainly not the answer to all questions. — Haglund
    Tell them, Haglund.
  • The Penrose Bounce.
    ↪Tom Storm
    There. See above.
  • The Penrose Bounce.
    Just out of interest, what do you think Joshs has missed? — Tom Storm
    I wasn't responding to Joshs. I was reacting to I like sushi.
  • The Penrose Bounce.
    ↪Joshs
    What are you talking about? He is not a philosopher nor a psychologist.     — I like sushi
    I see you have a good grasp of Penrose, but nothing at all of reading between the lines.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    .godwantsitthisway

    could be shortened to just

    .god

    which might stand for genetically organised download.
    Okay, I might have taken my attempt at humour too far! :blush:
    I got carried away because my career was teaching computing science and you laughed a wee bit at my .hahastillhere joke. :smile:     — universeness
    Nice to meet you. Yeah, cause you got the joke, too.

    Those are great extensions, btw!

    Cause I was thinking of some good ones:
    .foolish
    .fake
  • If there were a god, are they fair?
    ↪TiredThinker

    No. They're not fair. There I said it. They're not. The ones at a disadvantage pray to them for help, the ones doing well pray for more.
  • The separation of mind and reality
    A read of this forum shows that plenty of minds are separated from reality. — Banno
    :sweat:
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    It happens that I am an IT person and I also know a lot about the mind and how it works. So, most probably, because of this and also the huge amount of nonsense I have heard on the subject, I use to overreact to considerations, propositions and sometimes allegations, such as the one of this topic ... — Alkis Piskas
    Awesome! :up:
  • Dealing With Rejection
    Well even if you aren't losing anything the fact remains that rejection can be very painful, painful to the point in which it might lead to suicide, an example would be in Japan when people don't get into college. — HardWorker
    I get what you're saying. In that regard, let's change your question to What's the harm to you if you venture out or take a risk?
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    .hahastillhere — universeness
    hahaha! :lol:
  • On The Origins of Prayer
    Considering the climax of this process: Is the cry of the beast a prayer? — ZzzoneiroCosm
    No. The instinct is kicking in -- it's an automatic response to a threat or injury.

    If the cry of the beast is no prayer what can we do to it to make it a prayer? — ZzzoneiroCosm
    When the beast no longer thinks it's in control of the situation and wishes for a chance.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    If anything, you could try to save the mind to a disk or thumbdrive. Then when you try to watch or listen to it, it would be blank or "this file could not be opened". Because unlike the DNA, there's no mapping with mind to structure.

    In what format are they thinking of uploading the mind? .docx? or .exe? .jpg? :wink:
  • Dealing With Rejection
    So you're saying that when you get rejected you aren't losing anything because whatever you got rejected from was stuff you didn't have in the first place. — HardWorker
    Yes. The law of 100%.
  • Can minds be uploaded in computers?
    "Mind uploading, also known as whole brain emulation (WBE), is the theoretical futuristic process of scanning a physical structure of the brain accurately enough to create an emulation of the mental state (including long-term memory and "self") and transferring or copying it to a computer in a digital form." — Haglund
    This is error in thinking. No, it could not be done because perception doesn't happen only in the brain -- but through other organs as well. The brain is not a depository of a complete picture or story that one could extract and upload somewhere. Your amputated arm would itch still. The roughness of a surface doesn't reside in the brain, but in the touch -- the fingers bring alive the sensation of roughness, and once you're not touching that surface anymore, the brain won't retain the roughness. We have memory of how a sandpaper feels, true, but that memory would not translate, if you tried to extract roughness through the brain, it would not translate into "roughness".
  • Can morality be absolute?
    And what is goodness?

    What is a favourable outcome?     — PhilosophyRunner
    That's your job to figure out.
  • Dealing With Rejection
    You had all these hopes to do all the stuff that I mentioned above and now those hopes are dashed. So is that a loss? I will say this much, it can be very painful when you don't get the promotion you were hoping to get and you don't get to do all the stuff you were hoping to do when you got the promotion, which you don't end up getting. — HardWorker
    *Sigh* you just repeated yourself while ignoring what I just said. You are speaking in terms of emotional perception. You didn't have the job of a manager, but you're hoping to get promoted and get that job. But now, you didn't get promoted, so you lost that job? Wrong.

    And no, you didn't lose the increase in salary. Or you didn't lose that corner office with large windows overlooking the bluff.
  • Can morality be absolute?
    Is there a "fact of the matter" that we can strive to discover about this? Or is each correct for themselves? — PhilosophyRunner
    It isn't facts that you should be enforcing -- although it is part of everyone's argument: Fact: you killed my dog. But now comes the measure of the immorality of that act. And so on. We can now get to the issue of morality. Discuss it.

    What you're supposed to be thinking of is to optimize the goodness (note I didn't say maximize). Optimize the goodness or the favorable outcome of moral acts.
  • The ends of the spectrum
    The point of the post is whether it’s reasonable to believe that there is a worst person alive and a best person alive or would it be impossible to say because of everyone in between being various mixes of the two groups of traits and therefore having different criteria for the best and worst — Benj96
    The latter. I used to think boring people are at a disadvantage. Until I find that they're seldom bothered by what's happening around them, and seldom compare themselves to others. I'm sure you know the advantage of having this personality, no? The shitty things life throw at us won't damage them much, if at all.
  • Dealing With Rejection
    What you could lose by not getting the promotion is that your ego could be hurt and your hopes could be dashed, so there's that to lose. — HardWorker
    But you don't have to. I don't think you're understanding what I say when I say, you didn't lose something you didn't own in the first place. I'm talking about concrete. But you're talking in the sense of emotional perception. If you don't risk going after something, then you don't risk losing your ego-- this is what you're saying. Some people actually do not lose their ego.
  • Can morality be absolute?
    Maybe there are better arguments for objective morality that avoid the above pitfall, but I am fairly new to the topic so have only just started reading about it. — PhilosophyRunner

    I'm telling you that you are mis-attributing "objectivity" here.
  • Dealing With Rejection
    but there is another side to it that might not be as often discussed and thats, "nothing ventured nothing lost." — HardWorker
    I beg to differ. Think of the law of 100%. You could only lose something that you already own. If you didn't get that promotion, you didn't lose anything since you never had in the first place. I think we often make a mistake in thinking that the opposite of gain is loss. It's not. The opposite of gain is not-gain.
  • Can morality be absolute?
    it is an analogy, and I think an apt one as I am asking whether there are objective facts about morality. — PhilosophyRunner
    Apples and oranges. The method of observation and examination of human interaction is different than the one required of physics.
  • Can morality be absolute?
    Take the analogy of physics laws (my area). I observe that force applied on an object is proportional to it's mass multiplied by it's acceleration. People have observed that since newton, and it is one of the laws of motion he suggested. This has very accurately and reliably been shown to be true. I'm pretty confident in it. I can use it to make predictions.

    However I cannot use it to say how nature should or ought to behave.     — PhilosophyRunner
    I could only say that you are a victim of incorrectly attributing similarities where there shouldn't be. We are talking humans here. Let's get physics out of here.

    I preface my post with, this thread is intentionally contentious, without wanting to come to a common understanding.
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