I meant that there is no scientific evidence for the agency of the self, because any scientific analysis of the causal process of our existence, always comes up with a cause that is an effect of another cause. Science can't access the 'mind' or our free responsible self.

I think we believe in such a self because we experience ourselves. We think, decide, plan and act therefore it seems reasonable from our internal perspective to ascribe agency to ourselves despite the scientific evidence that we do is a result of prior material causes. But with God, religious people claim to have internal experiences of God, something other than themselves (by which I mean they are drawing a distinction between a mental event of themselves and another mental event which is of a non-material separate being), but to my knowledge, they never experience the thinking, planning, deciding and acting of the deity. Hence there is no internal evidence to ascribe a mysterious personal agency behind the universe as a whole comparable to our own experience of personal agency.

I remember a show describing the evolution of our knowledge of prions. There was a remote cannibalistic tribe that had a high incidence of CJD in the male population but not the female. Turns out that when they killed their enemies, the males got to eat the best part--the brains, whereas the females got stuck with the muscle tissue.
Never heard of Devo before.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I think that prion disease was kuru.

thanks for the clarification. It makes a lot of sense. It also opens the door to Aquinas' first proof, a handy 'backdoor' into the I.D.

Do you think that a way out of a Zeno-like Paradox of the mind is the hominid fossil record? The fossil record implies that humans and apes became less distinguishable as we go back in time. Projecting backward to the proto-primate and it's ancestor I think we can safely assume that whatever attributes of mind we define as human became simpler as the encasing structures become more primitive. Therefore, mind attenuates with phylogeny? I guess that only makes sense if we assume that mind and brain have some dependent correspondence.

If I understand you correctly, I think I agree. The existence of mind in humans is an argument that even the simplest molecule has some primitive form of experience. (I first read that argument in Whitehead). Otherwise, mind becomes a miracle in humans.
I don't think it provides support for Aquinas. He thinks that in order to explain this existence of mind, some supermind had to exist prior to matter. I think it only implies that matter and mind are always intertwined in some form, and that the highest form of mind we can know, is our own mind.

Since our intelligence and God's intelligence are intertwined issues, how does the Turing test apply to God?

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I suspect that if there is a god examiner we are no further along than the current crop of A.I.

__________________
-Marty

1986 300E 220,000 miles+ transmission impossible
(Now waiting under a bridge in order to become one)

Reading your M103 duty cycle:
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/831799-post13.html
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/831807-post14.html

Everybody who prays to God, just like everybody who speaks on the telephone, is giving and taking a Turing test.

I reread my post concerning Turing, Aquinas, and the mind and I completely understand why you had trouble understanding it. When I reread it I couldn't figure-out what I was saying either. I'll try again because somewhere in that mess I think there's a useful idea trying to escape. I'm trying an assault on Aquinas' first proof of God's existence. Basically the watchmaker's argument, I guess.

It works on a ratio in which mind is to brain as moved is to Mover. So, as we regress through phylogeny both brain and mind become less complex. If we move far enough back we arrive at some point at which the concept of brain and of mind cease to be meaningful. Neither is recognizably different from their environment. In the same sense, as we regress from the moved back through time, do the moved and Mover cease to be distinguishable, too? If so then the argument for a Mover collapses, I think.

B

I think KerryEdwards is a diephobe







-Hal-

The sad news is that I am a diephile, not a diephobe.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Would you like to play a game, diephile?

Now I get it. Yes, I can see your point, if we think of God as 'outside' the universe as Aquinas apparently did. But I can see two issues. Since the explanations of our own mind and consciousness seem to be independent of empirical causal explanations, might not explanations of the Prime Mover be completely independent of empirical causal explanations of the universe? Prime Mover explanations are parallel explanations to empirical causal explanations, just like mental causes and personal agency parallel empirical causal explanations.

On the other hand, if the universe is a part of God, then God's consciousness must also be increasing as the consciousness level of the universe increases thru evolution. There was primitive divine agency early on in the universe, now, thru our own consciousness and the consciousness of other animals, divine agency has become more complex.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Describing mind as infinitely retrogressively divisible leads inexorably to pantheism. Not a bad place to be, I guess. I just don't know anything about pantheists except for a few things I've read in anthropology. Are there any modern, critical apologies for pantheism? It might be interesting to learn more about it (them...they, we,...hm, English is not designed to talk about pantheism).

B

There are, but I'm way more familliar with the panentheist apologist. I think David Ray Griffin is one of the best (Re-enchantment without Supernaturalism) but you may not read him because he falls into the category of 'conspiracy theorist'.

Would it be better to apply the Turing test to various ages of children? Would it be any easier to fool the adult? What if children used the test against computers and other children? Would it be possible to assess the age level of our computer's intelligence?

I'm happy with the idea that a thermostat thinks. It thinks too hot, too cold, just right. This seems roughly comparable to the thoughts of a newborn. Hungry, full.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13