On Friday, October 5, 2012 12:58:14 PM UTC-4, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 Craig Weinberg <[email protected] <javascript:>>wrote: > > > To paraphrase Carl, 'First, you have to invent the universe.' >> > > You want to know why there is something rather than nothing and Science > can't provide a good answer to that, but depending on exactly what you mean > by "nothing" it can give some pretty good half answers, and at least it can > explain why there is a lot rather than very little. Religion can't even > give half answers, not to anything. >
Who is advocating religion? > > >> > If you smuggle in teleology into your metaphysics a priori, then you >> have already given evolution the power to behave sensibly. >> > > I'm not doing any smuggling, I'm openly saying that a high school kid can > make a robot that behaves sensibly with just a few transistors. > Only because he lives in a universe in which the possibility of teleology is fully supported from the start. > > > This is begging the question since what you are supposed to be proving >> is how teleological systems can come out of mathematical probability alone. >> > > I can't do that and never claimed I could, and you can't do it either. > I don't need to do that because my position is that teleology and evolution are two aspects of the same thing: Sense. > I'm saying that conscious systems must be a byproduct of intelligent > systems because otherwise Evolution would have no reason to produce them > and they would not exist on this planet, > But you'd be wrong because if those systems weren't conscious to begin with, then there wouldn't be anything there to discern intelligence from nothingness. > and yet we know with certainty that they do; or rather I know with > certainty that one does. In mathematics there is something called a > "existence proof" or "non-constructive proof", in it you don't provide an > example but you do prove that a object with certain properties must exist; > I can't say how intelligence makes consciousness but I have a existence > proof that it does. > No, because you have erroneously assumed that intelligence is possible without sense experience. You're wrong about that, which is why you are left with promissory functionalism to bridge the gap made by that error. > > > Without smuggling teleology in the first place, there is nothing to >> mutate. > > > Huh? Of course there is something to mutate, genes, and genes are not in > the teleology business, they are not interested in "purpose" because genes > are not intelligent and only intelligence can get into the teleology > business, but genes are still interested in causes. > Adenine and Thymine don't have purpose in seeking to bind with each other? How do you know? How is it different from our purpose in staying in close proximity to places to eat and sleep? > > Nothing can make sense or define itself, >> > > Two hydrogen atoms don't need to define themselves nor do they need to > make sense out of things to get together and form a molecule. > Yes, they do. Everything needs to sense or make sense of something in order to be part of the universe in any way. > > > Does your universe come with toy robots built in? Do toy robots appear >> by themselves from quantum foam? >> > > No. > > >> > Everything is not only aware, > > > Why is everything aware, why isn't everything not aware. > Because then we wouldn't be aware of having this conversation. > > >> > everything is awareness. >> > > Robots are something so robots are aware too, > No, they aren't something. They are an assembly of somethings riding on borrowed teleology. > but that's not very interesting because if "everything is awareness" then > awareness is not very interesting. You might as well say everything is > klogknee. > Everything is awareness, but it is interesting because each awareness is unique, non-unique, and many meta-levels of juxtposition of unique and non-unique qualities. Interesting is pretty much the definition of awareness. Cosmos is the capacity to be interested. Robots don't have that, even though the materials they are made out of are interested in electric current, thermodynamic experiences, etc and will pursue them reliably. > > > We are talking about how inert matter or abstract probability becomes >> it's exact opposite - living, sentient agents. >> > > Yes, in other words we are talking about Evolution. > No, evolution requires that something be alive to begin with. There is no natural selection if things don't die or reproduce. > > > You seem to have no way to grasp the difference between the menu and the >> meal. There is no such thing as a robot snail. >> > > I've heard it all before, in that analogy and a million like it you keep > insisting that a intelligent human can only play the role of the meal and a > intelligent computer can only play the role of the menu, but your Fart > Philosophy has not provided a single reason to convince me that is in fact > true. > I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm explaining why my way of looking at it sees something important and true that yours doesn't. I'm not saying anything at all about human exceptionalism, I am saying that a doorknob is just a piece of metal that we use to open a door with - there is no actual doorknob point of view. > > before anything can have an evolutionary consequence, there already has >> to be something making sense of something by itself >> > > Why? RNA can't make sense out of anything but some RNA chains can > reproduce faster than others, and that gives them a Evolutionary advantage. > RNA makes sense of lots of things. Chemistry and biology. A whole universe of micro-physiology. Craig > > John K Clark > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/osMjgjgKoKsJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
