Hi John Clark 1) It is the subject line, after all... I change the subject line to keep track (I store my replies) of what my replies say. And this is still about 0s and 1s.
2) I've lost the exact train of throught, but from what I say, I believe I was trying to point out that 0s and 1s or ASCII code are DESCRIPTIONS of things, not the things themselves. Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/18/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: John Clark Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-18, 11:57:07 Subject: Re: 0s and 1s On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Roger <rclo...@verizon.net> wrote: >You're wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. By the way, it would be helpful it you didn't change the subject line every time you post, particularly if you post several dozen times a day. > Very few if any?igh school students would even believe -- less claim -- > that?ll that we know must come through the senses. Forget the senses, everything you know comes from the physical operations of your brain, the firings of your neurons.? > Your comment about 0s and 1s and ascii characters has nothing to do with > living experience or thought. OK let's assume you're right, but *something* has to do with thought and the experience of living, let's call it Process X. I'm not talking about anything supernatural that we can never understand,? I'm talking about a perfectly rational principle that we just haven't discovered yet. There is a lot we don't know and the human brain is the most complex object in the observable universe, we've only been studying it for a short time so we may be in for some major surprises. If Process X is rational, that means we can use our minds to examine what sort of thing it might turn out to be. It seems pretty clear that with solving equations beating Chess grandmasters and winning on Jeopardy information processing can produce something that's starting to look like intelligence, but we'll assume that Process X can do this too, and in addition Process X can generate consciousness and a feeling of self, something you were concerned about that mere information processing can not do. What Process X? does is certainly not simple, so it's very hard to avoid concluding that Process X itself is not simple. If it's complex it can't be made of only one thing, it must be made of parts. If Process X is not to act in a random, incoherent way some order must exist between the parts. A part must have some knowledge of what the other parts are doing and the only way to do that is with information. But maybe communication among the parts is of only secondary importance and the major work is done by the parts themselves. It could be, but then the parts must be very complex and be made of sub parts. In general an explanation means showing how something simple can do something complex and the simplest possible sub part is one that can change in only one way, say, on to off or zero to one. It's getting extremely difficult to tell the difference between Process X and information processing. ??? The only way to avoid this conclusion is if there is some ethereal substance that is all of one thing and has no parts thus is very simple, yet acts in a complex, intelligent way; and produces feeling and consciousness while it's at it. If you accept that, then I think the most honest thing to do would be to throw in the towel, call it a soul, and join the religious camp. I'm not ready to surrender to the forces of irrationality. ? John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
