quote: Do you believe the universe is inside a goat's stomach? Does it make you narrowminded if you don't? No, it doesn't, that is just silly. Just because I don't agree with something does not make me narrowminded.

Not believing something is not narrow-minded, especially if based on facts. Is it likely that a goat's stomach has a universe inside it? No. Not examining the idea is. Is it possible (especially since no one has figured out the physics and equations involved in other dimensions) that a goat has a universe in it's stomach? Minimal, but there is no way to prove otherwise. A square has four sides and 4 90 degree angles, right? A few years ago, Scientific American featured an aritcle simulating mathmatical conditions in alternate dimensions - including one that had 'squares' with 5 sides and 90 degree angles. But ridiculing others beliefs is counterproductive - Not only do you prove that you are not open to new information, you encourage others to imitate you.

quote:
As far as I know, a soul is something that you have that makes you human in a feelings way. Animals do not have soul. Animals can learn, we can learn, therefore even if a soul does exist (which I think is silly), it does not effect thinking.

So let me get this straight -
Soul = Something you have that makes you human in a feelings way.
You don't believe in a soul= You don't believe in human feelings?

To bring this discussion back on track, for all the research scientists have done, they still don't know what makes the brain tick. They don't know how we think. If they did, it should get a lot simpler to make a machine think. Is it unreasonable to consider whether there might be a variable that we don't know about when it is so obvious we can't solve the equation yet? Can we model AI after Human Intelligence if there is a soul? Or would we need to also simulate (if that was possible) a soul? Would a NN be capable of doing that, or would we need to create something that better approximated the way we work?

I have great respect for science. But science doesn't always mean open-mindedness. And especially since science has a long, long way to go to unravel all the mysteries of the universe, perhaps we shouldn't ridicule ideas we personally don't agree with?

Edit: Fixed Bold

[edited by - iQ on April 22, 2002 3:36:45 PM]

quote: Original post by iQ
Not believing something is not narrow-minded, especially if based on facts. Is it likely that a goat''s stomach has a universe inside it? No. Not examining the idea is.

Just because I don''t believe in the idea of a soul does not mean I haven''t examined the idea. Why do you assume that I have not examined it?

I have considered the idea and do not believe it, like you have done with my goat theory. I do not see what makes you so special in your analysis of ideas that I am not doing.

The idea of a soul stems from religon. *I* do not believe in religon. In general, I do not believe in things that have no solid proof. *I* do not believe religon has any solid proof (actually, I have read a lot of proof that, for example, things in the bible are not true). I do not was to start a religon war so I beg anyone not to try to prove/disprove religon for me.

quote:
Is it possible (especially since no one has figured out the physics and equations involved in other dimensions) that a goat has a universe in it''s stomach? Minimal, but there is no way to prove otherwise. A square has four sides and 4 90 degree angles, right? A few years ago, Scientific American featured an aritcle simulating mathmatical conditions in alternate dimensions - including one that had ''squares'' with 5 sides and 90 degree angles.

I do not see the relevance in this example. When you asked the original question about the square, it is assumed you are talking about the world we live in.

quote:
But ridiculing others beliefs is counterproductive - Not only do you prove that you are not open to new information, you encourage others to imitate you.

I am happy to look at new ideas, but I do not see how you can label me a bad person for not agreeing with it. If you have the freedom to think an idea being true, why can I not have the freedom to believe an idea is false?

Disagreeing is not counterproductive. If everyone just agreed the world was flat there would be no motivation to proof otherwise.

quote:
So let me get this straight -
Soul = Something you have that makes you human in a feelings way.
You don''t believe in a soul= You don''t believe in human feelings?

I did say that the question I posed were not rhetorical (i.e. you are meant to answer them so I can agree/disagree on the existance of a soul). I started my paragraph with "as far as I know" to mean that I am not completely sure. Just because I don''t believe in a soul (which is someone elses idea that may be tied with feelings) does not mean that I don''t believe in feelings.

That aside, you can''t argue feelings and emotions exist thus I believe they exist. However, I do not believe human feelings are anything more significant or magical than anything else we can do.

quote:
To bring this discussion back on track, for all the research scientists have done, they still don''t know what makes the brain tick. They don''t know how we think. If they did, it should get a lot simpler to make a machine think. Is it unreasonable to consider whether there might be a variable that we don''t know about when it is so obvious we can''t solve the equation yet?

There must be something we haven''t seen yet, otherwise someone would be claiming how to make a intelligent machine. Why people bring the idea of soul into this is what I don''t understand.

I believe that if we built a simluation of a brain (i.e. the neurons and connections and whatever else the brain contains), then is should act intelligently in some way. I do not believe there is some kind of magic floating around in the air that makes this impossible.

quote:
Can we model AI after Human Intelligence if there is a soul? Or would we need to also simulate (if that was possible) a soul? Would a NN be capable of doing that, or would we need to create something that better approximated the way we work?

(Please answer these questions)
What is a soul?
Do things like insects and animals have souls?

I think NN are on the right track because they emulate something similar to how the brain works (or so I''ve read). I have seen small NN been taught to do something simple, therefore I believe that a very large neural net can be taught to do something that is very clever. I think it is a case where something becomes more than the sum of its parts (i.e. simple pieces places together to exhibit complex behaviour).

quote:
I have great respect for science. But science doesn''t always mean open-mindedness. And especially since science has a long, long way to go to unravel all the mysteries of the universe, perhaps we shouldn''t ridicule ideas we personally don''t agree with?

I wasn''t ridiculing, I just do not agree with idea of a soul. I think you are ridiculing me for disagreeing with ideas. It is just as possible an idea could be wrong.

You say that science has a long was to go but where have people that believe in the existance of a soul and an afterlife (which I put in the same class of ideas) got trying to discover new technology?

The problem with trying to make a machine that behaves in the same way as the human (or any biological) brain, is that the brain uses chemical reactions, where everything is constantly changing. Machines that we currently use, can''t do things constantly (bad use of that word). Computers can only do one thing at a time, so where a computer could calculate the change in a single neuron, in the same time space, the ''values'' of all the neurons in the brain could have changed! This is what makes the brain so difficult to model, and therefore test in an environment where we can see whats going on better (eg. in a computer simulation). I''m sure there are probably chemically based computers in existence, but i am also sure that there probably aren''t any yet big/complex enough to simulate the brain.

You miss the point AP. I never said your non-belief of the soul was wrong. I try (to the best of my ability) never to judge others beliefs, except to evaluate whether they make more sense than mine (thus necessitating a change in my beliegs). I do not believe that I made said you beliefs were wrong(or did not intend to, if I gave that impression). In fact, I didn''t even mention what my personal beliefs on the soul were (nor will I, since they are irrelevant to this thread). What is relevant to this thread is the functioning of the human mind, so that AI could be modeled after it. Thus the importance of at least considering whether a soul may affect the thinking process. Again, I am not saying whether it does or does not exist - merely saying it would need to be considered.

I do disagree with your telling everyone else it''s ridiculous to believe in a soul, or even consider it. If you don''t believe in a soul, based on your research, that''s fine. But if you ridicule others for holding that belief, or for examining the possibility, you deny others the chance to look at the topic without bias.

P.S. The square example was given in reference to your goat example. I agree that it had nothing to do with AI. Neither did your goat.

quote: Original post by iQ
You miss the point AP. I never said your non-belief of the soul was wrong. I try (to the best of my ability) never to judge others beliefs, except to evaluate whether they make more sense than mine (thus necessitating a change in my beliegs). I do not believe that I made said you beliefs were wrong(or did not intend to, if I gave that impression). In fact, I didn''t even mention what my personal beliefs on the soul were (nor will I, since they are irrelevant to this thread). What is relevant to this thread is the functioning of the human mind, so that AI could be modeled after it. Thus the importance of at least considering whether a soul may affect the thinking process. Again, I am not saying whether it does or does not exist - merely saying it would need to be considered.

I do disagree with your telling everyone else it''s ridiculous to believe in a soul, or even consider it. If you don''t believe in a soul, based on your research, that''s fine. But if you ridicule others for holding that belief, or for examining the possibility, you deny others the chance to look at the topic without bias.

If I consider the idea of a soul ridiculous, why should I deny it? I didn''t tell people not to look into it further, I just said that I don''t believe in it and find it silly. I did not tell anyone to do anything.

Am I not allowed to think things are silly? If I am, am I allowed to say so?

If you read my original post, I went through a series of questions that people that beleive in a soul could have answered. From what I pick up, humans have souls, animals don''t. Animals can learn therefore I think souls have nothing to do with learning (or anything else).

You point out that there is something we must not have seen to do with how the brain works. Why people are bringing up a soul having to do with this I have no idea. Trying to be logical does not make me wrong (in a moral sense).

It''s all very nice just trying to take the moral high-ground and take on board every idea ever, but it doesn''t really advance anything.

I just feel your trying to make me appear as a bad person because I have the nerve to say that an idea is silly. Some ideas are just silly, aren''t they? Are you saying you would never say an idea is silly? Would you really humor my goat idea anymore than "it could be possible"?

quote:
P.S. The square example was given in reference to your goat example. I agree that it had nothing to do with AI. Neither did your goat.

My goat example had nothing to do with AI directly; it was suppose to be an analogy to the soul idea. It is an idea that you cannot prove or disprove. It is an idea that does not stem from fact.

The way that people do not go on to look deeper into my goat idea is why I do not look deeper in to the soul idea. The fact the idea of a soul does not stem from fact leads me to the believe that it is no more substantial than the tooth fairy. An idea should at least have some sort of evidential basis to be considered.

I just didn''t see what you were trying to prove with your cube example except for the lesson that people shouldn''t ask vague questions (i.e. how I am suppose to know you didn''t mean our dimension?).

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster

Original post by iQ
You say that science has a long was to go but where have people that believe in the existance of a soul and an afterlife (which I put in the same class of ideas) got trying to discover new technology?

AP - I won''t comment on anything else you said, but I would like to answer this particular question. If you look at the history of science you''ll find that many, if not most, of the great scientists were Christians. They became scientists because they wanted to learn more about the world that they believed that God had created. In fact I believe that science flourished faster and earlier in Christian countries than in non-Christian ones (please correct me if I''m wrong on that). So "people that believe in the existance of a soul and an afterlife" have got a very long way indeed in discovering new technology - why should the same approach not be one of those applied to AI?

Enigma
——
…point in preaching Christianity if it''s…

This thread is getting way off topic. I would like it brought back on topic please, or the tail of it will be moved to The Lounge.

I will though, correct some errors from Enigma, so that this discussion doesn''t needlessly examine the issue of Christianity and science.

quote: Original post by Enigma
If you look at the history of science you''ll find that many, if not most, of the great scientists were Christians.

Simply not true. There are certianly many scientists who openly express faith in God while performing their scientific endeavour and I have even met a great theoretical physicist who believed in Creationist theory! But there have been many great scientists, particularly prior to the renaissance period, who were not Christians.

quote: Original post by Enigma
In fact I believe that science flourished faster and earlier in Christian countries than in non-Christian ones (please correct me if I''m wrong on that).

Definitely not true. The term "The Dark Ages", which we associate with the period from 300 BC to 1200 AD, is a recognition of the period in which the Catholic Church stifled almost all scientific endeavour, branding it as heresy. Science definitely flourished in non-Christian countries at a greater rate than in Christian countries up until the renaissance period, which of course is a time we assoiciate with the rapid development or art and science, particularly in central Europe. Of course good science has been going on in China for more than 5000 years... and they certainly haven''t been Christians for that period!

Cheers,

Timkin

Don''t forget:

1. Egypt (brain surgery 5000 BC)

2. Greece

3. The Roman Empire



Stimulate

Ok, sorry for the inaccurate information (I''m going to have to look into this some time). I was thinking of people like: Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Kelvin, Faraday, Mendel, Boole and Darwin when I posted the above (all of whom it is claimed were Christians).

However, I still believe that to ignore a possible approach to AI due to belief/disbelief in the existance of a "soul" is probably a mistake.

Enigma
------
...only ourselves we''re really interested in...

quote: Original post by Enigma
Ok, sorry for the inaccurate information (I''m going to have to look into this some time). I was thinking of people like: Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Boyle, Kelvin, Faraday, Mendel, Boole and Darwin when I posted the above (all of whom it is claimed were Christians).

However, I still believe that to ignore a possible approach to AI due to belief/disbelief in the existance of a "soul" is probably a mistake.

Enigma
------
...only ourselves we''re really interested in...

Even if a scientist was a Christrian, he would be a fool to begin a theory with something completely off the wall.

"Maybe the soul is what makes the brain learn". Ok, how are we going to start investigating this? It is just illogical.

Also, could someone *please*, *please*, *please* answer this question?

Do animals have a soul?

If the answer is no then the idea must be false.