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Original post by mongrelprogrammer Therefore some of the fundamental ideas of astronomy were more apparent to Christians than to the Chinese.
Although they didn''t discover these themselves, but merely inherited the knolwedge. The origins of modern astronomy can be traced back to the Megalithic peoples of the British Isles, who had a remarkably advances system of measurement and a fantastic calendar system (more accurate than our own (among other things). This calendar system was inherited by the Minoans (of Crete) and only recently deciphered (within the last 5 years). Indeed, the origins of western science/philosophy/religion can be attributed to the Megalithic peoples... one of the most interesting of these the death and rebirth tradition, celebrated as the rising of christ after his death on the cross. In actuality, this tradition is at least 3000 years older than Christ!
Fascinating stuff anyway. If anyone wants to continue this line of discussion, I''ll move these last two posts to the Lounge and we can all dig in!!! If not, then I''ll let myself slide!
We will never be able to model the human brain until we understand why the brain is capable of self-awareness. The ability for an object to look in and understand itself is intriguing, amazing, and powerful. I believe we do have a soul, however, I do not know if it is impossible to create a machine that is self-aware to our level. Perhaps it would require a soul, or obtain one? Perhaps it can be self-aware without one. I don''t like the thought of that.
Also, the brain is not a complicated I/O machine. I/O is only apart of it, it also processes information, compares information, and creates a new part of itself to understand a new piece of information based on other information.
Think of when you look at... anything. If you just suddenly started to exist, would anything make sense to you? How would you know what all the shapes and colors mean.
You might move your eyes and feel them move within your head, then move your head and change your point of view. Then you notice your hand and how you feel it. You would move it, then discover the distortion it creates in your visions. You would move your fingers, and even touch your body to discover yourself in the enviornment.
The brain compares all senses to memory, and memories are different sense information. You could remember what something looked like, felt like, or sounded like, or a combination of the 5 senses. It''s all sense information, yet it creates "us" because we are our memories. There are also the ways we react to sense information. Whether we get a bad grade in school, bite into a hamburger that wasn''t cooked right, we were rejected for a date, or we get burned.
The complexity of the human brain is unimaginable, and we have yet to understand how self-awareness can occur within nuerons, and the thought that the network of approximately 100 billion nuerons is what I am, and what you are, is amazing as well.
Also, if we somehow discover a way to scientificly prove the more transcendent level of ourselves, a soul, and we create a self-aware AI without a soul, it will realize it''s final fate, and that Might be a Very dangerous thing.
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Original post by Timkin Although they didn''t discover these themselves, but merely inherited the knolwedge. The origins of modern astronomy can be traced back to the Megalithic peoples of the British Isles...
True, though that does speak to the power of prejudiced notions based on culture (which of course, includes religion : ).
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Original post by Timkin Indeed, the origins of western science/philosophy/religion can be attributed to the Megalithic peoples... one of the most interesting of these the death and rebirth tradition, celebrated as the rising of christ after his death on the cross. In actuality, this tradition is at least 3000 years older than Christ!
A large portion of Biblical scripture is very heavily based on the cultures of the surrounding communities. Even the writing of the Torah (often called the Pentateuch by Christians) is full of ties to the cultures (including myths and legends) around where Moses is said to have lived and traveled. Even the facts about Moses are a tad hazy -> the account of creation in Genisis could easily be divided into 3 seperate narrations according to tone, structure, and content.
Most educated Christians (that I know anyway : ) understand that a lot of the Bible can not, in fact, always be read literally. The real question for most educated Christians is not was the world created in 6 days by the direct intervention of a supernatural being but is instead is there a God and did Christ die for us.
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Original post by Timkin Fascinating stuff anyway. If anyone wants to continue this line of discussion, I''ll move these last two posts to the Lounge and we can all dig in!!! If not, then I''ll let myself slide!
I personally would be interested in continuing this -> It is always interesting to have an educated discussion about such things with people who have educated opinions.
- mongrelProgrammer
- I hate these user ratings. Please rate me down. (Seriously) -
"The complexity of the human brain is unimaginable, and we have yet to understand how self-awareness can occur within nuerons, and the thought that the network of approximately 100 billion nuerons is what I am, and what you are, is amazing as well."
Scientists are beginning to understand how high-order consciousness and self-awareness can be derived from neuronal activities. Basically one prominant theory suggests that consciousness comes from reentrant activities across different areas of the brain. These activities allow different areas to integrate themsleves and produce consciousness. In a nutshell nonrepresentative memory derived from the value systems I was talking about earlier combine with sensory parts of the brain. This creates a memory of the present that we experience as consciousness. I''ll post a book title when I get home if anyone wants to know more detail.
Disclaimer: The above is just a theory that has not really been proven in any way.
What is the big deal about self awareness? If you can create a mechanical brain that can look at things and try to understand them, it can also try to understand itself.
My cat doesn''t look twice at a mirror because it is aware that''s what it looks like.
I just find self awareness to be a boring phyilisophical topic that people love discussing to great extremes in AI when they should be getting on with something else.
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Original post by Anonymous Poster My cat doesn''t look twice at a mirror because it is aware that''s what it looks like.
That''s not necessarily true. For many animals, seeing themselves in a mirror does not generate recognition of self. I recall a CogSci conference seminar I attended in ''98 that discussed this issue of self awareness and mirrors... I have the proceedings here on my bookshelf if anyone is particularly interested to know more... I''m sure I could peruse the paper over lunch and recount the salient points.
Either way, animals are intelligent and seem relatively simple when compared to us. I still don''t think self awareness is this huge hurdle AI people love talking about. I can''t imagine we evolved a big chunk of our brain in order to know we exist. Its just something you can learn and deduce yourself.
By the way, why are we trying to model the human brain? Learn to stand before you can sprint.
