Can Atheism Account For Rationality

[JonathanL]

Computers/AI will inevitably attain that sort of rationality and powers of reasoning.

Your unfounded optimism in this regard is almost admirable.

In principle they are no different from Homo sapiens in this regard. Every animal, including us is an assemblage of organic algorithms shaped by natural selection over millions of years of evolution.

And yet there's currently no good explanation to explain how any part of this assemblage of organic algorithms is sufficient to give rise to sentience. Lot's of speculation however, but not anything that sounds even remotely reasonable. Unless you're a materialist of course, in which case you have to believe physical materia is sufficient to give rise to sentience as long as it's just configured in a complex enough manner.

Hence, there is no reason to think that non-organic organisms such as AI will never be able to replicate and surpass human intelligence.

A human mind is fundamentally different from a computer/AI. There's absolutely no reason to think an AI will ever attain the kind of first person subjective experience that characterizes human minds just because it's circuitry and/or programming becomes complex enough. However complex and intricate it's behavior and "learning" becomes it will still just be a dead lifeless box that simply reacts in a mechanical fashion to input it's given.

[JonathanL]

Take the sentence,"Cats are mammals". It's a human construct as the universe doesn't designate things as mammal or non-mammal but humans do. That we assign a true value to that sentence is also a human construct. To then consider that the rules of logic is how the universe operates would be soundly stupid.

I guess if you've already decided that logic is human construct then you don't need to bother about actually constructing valid arguments in favor of your position, and can just spew forth non sequiturs like the above. I mean, since logic is simply a human construct you needn't bother about avoiding fallacious arguments in the first place.

[Zara]

I don't believe supernatural beings exist outside of movies, a good horror story, or other vehicles for the human imagination.

I think that one of the faculties - however we acquired it - that is very much overlooked, is the imagination. One of my gripes with a materialist ontology is a form of imaginative destruction that in a sense closes off different worlds.

When I said I am talking to you, and not your brain - I meant it in two distinct ways. The first one is obvious - I am not talking to your brain because, that would be weird, it would be like talking to a table. Just as I am not talking to your ears.

The second is that my intentional object is a being that is quite a lot more than their brain, consisting of an embeddedness in a world that extends into your commitments, your relationships, your understanding, one that comes out of your past and extends into your future. That intentionality is also extended well beyond viewing you as a merely a material entity, I treat you as a being that is rational, can make commitments, with a sense of being that extends from that thrown past into a future that is meaningful to both of us. To be clear, this is not that you're super-natural, but that you are a being first, with its particular temporal structure, and a material thing second. A material thing which doesn't really interest either of our attention in everyday conversation.

Why does this matter? Well, because that being which you have chosen to be can transcend material determinations through the imagination. We can, for instance, have God as an intentional object - we hold this being to exist through directing our intentionality towards it through our imagination. The effect of such a transcendence is more than merely imagining it to be so-and-so, it changes how the phenomena in the world show up to us, they are disclosed in their aspect as a creation. We treat them differently, we may have a profound wonder at them, we might treat them with respect and love, rather than as things to be used or etc. The relationship we have with ourselves and other people also changes.

Do we know if God is real? In a sense it doesn't matter, as the world still takes on its meaning specific to that transcendence. The ontological naturalist will have a different transcendence based on their imagination of how things are, which will unconceal the world in light of that - the world takes on a material essence, with phenomena including humans showing up as things. They claim that their form of transcendece has priority, because it is based on 'the truth'. It isn't, it is merely one of the ways of unconcealing the world, there are many others - and it is by no means clear that their form is even remotely good for us. Since in the end, deeper and deeper reductions take place down to the essence, whereby everything is the same dead matter, which is progressively stripped from meaningfulness.

I am not saying that a transcence towards God is good, and that science and materialism is bad. The issue is more complex than that. This is certainty not aimed at converting a follower to God. It is merely to show that you shouldn't close yourself off from possible ways of being with yourself, others and entities in the world by picking an ontology, a way of disclosing things, that is effectively nihilistic if driven to its, logical conclusion. A conclusion that beings that make the world, shouldn't be driven to at all.

[seer]

I mean, since logic is simply a human construct you needn't bother about avoiding fallacious arguments in the first place.

And there it is...

[shunyadragon]

Your unfounded optimism in this regard is almost admirable.

Your unfound skepticism in this regard is clouded with a religious agenda. The fact is there has been considerable advances in Computers/A1 intelligence that it is reasonable to consider the possibility of not only attaining sort of rationality and powers of reasoning, but they actually likely will. The following is only one example of recent scientific advances, though my bet is that the next generation of future computers will simulate the brain.

And yet there's currently no good explanation to explain how any part of this assemblage of organic algorithms is sufficient to give rise to sentience. Lot's of speculation however, but not anything that sounds even remotely reasonable. Unless you're a materialist of course, in which case you have to believe physical material is sufficient to give rise to sentience as long as it's just configured in a complex enough manner.

Again, arguing from ignorance of what science is capable of in the future.

A human mind is fundamentally different from a computer/AI. There's absolutely no reason to think an AI will ever attain the kind of first person subjective experience that characterizes human minds just because it's circuitry and/or programming becomes complex enough. However complex and intricate it's behavior and "learning" becomes it will still just be a dead lifeless box that simply reacts in a mechanical fashion to input it's given.

You are not even up to date on the scientific advances in the development of 'organic computers,' and computers that simulate the neurological nature of the brain, which represent the future generation beyond our mechanical digital computers.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2050500/Biological-computers-soon-reality-scientists-build-basic-components-bacteria-DNA.html

'Living computers' could become reality as scientists build tiny components out of bacteria cells

Scientists are one step closer to making a biological computer after building basic components for digital devices out of bacteria and DNA.

Some scientists believe that, in the future, small biological computers could roam our bodies monitoring our health and correcting any problems they find.

Researchers from Imperial College London have demonstrated they can build the 'logic gates' which are the building blocks of today's microprocessors out of harmless bugs and chemicals.

Brains in jars: Scientists are one step closer to making a biological computer after building basic components for digital devices out of bacteria and DNA (file picture)
Scientists are one step closer to making a biological computer after building basic components for digital devices out of bacteria and DNA (file picture)

The biological logic gates described in Nature Communications are the most advanced 'biological circuitry' ever created by scientists.

Professor Richard Kitney said: 'Logic gates are the fundamental building blocks in silicon circuitry that our entire digital age is based on. Without them, we could not process digital information.

'Now that we have demonstrated we can replicate these parts using bacteria and DNA, we hope that our work could lead to a new generation of biological processors, whose applications in information processing could be as important as their electronic equivalents.'

Although still a long way off, the team suggests these biological logic gates could one day form the building blocks in microscopic biological computers.

© Copyright Original Source

Again . . . your skepticism is not motivated by science.

[seer]

You are not even up to date on the scientific advances in the development of 'organic computers,' and computers that simulate the neurological nature of the brain, which represent the future generation beyond our mechanical digital computers.

Nonsense, how could you ever know if these computers have the first person subjective experiences (Qualia) that Chrawnus mentioned? You can't even know if I have them. And we don't even know how they are produced from our brains, so how do we reproduce that which we don't understand?

[shunyadragon]

Nonsense, how could you ever know if these computers have the first person subjective experiences (Qualia) that Chrawnus mentioned? You can't even know if I have them. And we don't even know how they are produced from our brains, so how do we reproduce that which we don't understand?

First, reread my post, and respond coherently, because I did not say I 'know' that 'these computers have the first person subjective experiences (Qualia).'It is more apparent than ever that the skepticism of 'arguing from ignorance' of the view of the potential of science expressed by both Chawnus and you is based on a religious agenda and not science.

[seer]

First, reread my post, and respond coherently, because I did not say I 'know' that 'these computers have the first person subjective experiences (Qualia).'It is more apparent than ever that the skepticism of 'arguing from ignorance' of the view of the potential of science expressed by both Chawnus and you is based on a religious agenda and not science.

But Shuny, you are always arguing from ignorance... And how exactly is questioning the limits of science a religious agenda?

[Zara]

First, reread my post, and respond coherently, because I did not say I 'know' that 'these computers have the first person subjective experiences (Qualia).'It is more apparent than ever that the skepticism of 'arguing from ignorance' of the view of the potential of science expressed by both Chawnus and you is based on a religious agenda and not science.

You're making an appeal to possibility, which is also a fallacy - quite clearly based on your science agenda.

[seer]

You're making an appeal to possibility, which is also a fallacy - quite clearly based on your science agenda.

Zara, I asked you this a while back. What do you think of Kant's moral argument for the existence of God, and that without God (ultimate justice) all our ethics are irrational?

[Zara]

Zara, I asked you this a while back. What do you think of Kant's moral argument for the existence of God, and that without God (ultimate justice) all our ethics are irrational?

I thought it was still negative - we have a rational hope for God, it isn't so much an argument for the existence of god. We cannot know if God exists in Kant. Or that is how I read him at least. Sorry, no help here.

[shunyadragon]

But Shuny, you are always arguing from ignorance...

I DO NOT use 'arguing from ignorance,' Chanus and you are resorting to this fallacy. I DO NOT claim "lack of evidence to the contrary." I address the possibilities and potential of science to achieve new knowledge and goals in the future, and Chawnus, and you are taking the negative skeptical approach as to what science cannot achieve actually without knowledge of the current advancements in science.

Misuse of arguing from ignorance by definition:

Source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

An argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), or appeal to ignorance ('ignorance' stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic. It says something is true because it has not yet been proved false. Or, that something is false if it has not yet been proved true.

true
false
unknown
unknowable.[1]

Appeals to ignorance are often used to suggest the other side needs to do the proving. Rules of logic place the burden (responsibility) of proving something on the person making the claim.[2][3]

A logical fallacy is simply a bad argument.[4] Using bad logic does not necessarily mean the argument is false (or true). It is basically a hasty conclusion, one that is arrived at incorrectly.[5] But it still may be convincing to some audiences.[5] This is why it is used in politics and advertising.

© Copyright Original Source

And how exactly is questioning the limits of science a religious agenda?

. . . because the skepticism is not grounded in science. Published peer reviewed science does not make the claims Chawnus, also commonly lee_merrill, and you make.

[carpedm9587]

Rational: free thought where you get to weigh propositions, ideas and evidence and come to your own conclusions. Not where the underlying forces of nature dictate what you believe or think. Where you have no choice in believing and thinking as you do.

Let me quote:

So I do not believe that A is true because of good reasons, I believe A is true, at bottom, because the laws of nature determined that I do.

So this confirms that your are adding "free thought" to the concept of "rational," which is why we do not agree that a computer is rational device. I am using the dictionary definition, which would include computers as rational devices because they operate in accordance with the principles of logic. I have been fairly clear that I do not believe they have achieved sentience (yet) nor have I suggested they are anything but the deterministic devices they are (so far). So Sparko was right, we appear to be talking past each other.

[carpedm9587]

Well, you clearly are something other than your brain. Any theory of mind that reduces the mind to simply the internal processes of the brain is clearly intellectually bankrupt and flies in the face of every single experience that we have about what the mind is. Emergentism is one of the few viable theories of mind that a materialist could hold to, and that's ignoring the fact that there is yet not convincing explanation as to how exactly a brain can give rise to a mind/consciousness simply by being complex enough. But under emergentism you (i.e your mind) is clearly not the same thing as your brain, even if your existence is dependent on your brain, because they're still two distinct things.

Actually, I disagree. Declaring such theories "intellectually bankrupt" does not make them so. Indeed, the evidence seems fairly clear to me that mind and brain are inextricably linked, and the latter gives rise to the former. We have no verified evidence of mind without brain, and significant evidence of brain without mind. We have seen that mind can be significantly altered by altering brain. While there is some evidence of the reverse, it largely takes the form of experience in a feedback loop (i.e., creating new neural pathways). I won't unilaterally declare theories of mind as separate from brain to be "intellectually bankrupt," but it is hard to see how someone could sustain such a belief without applying a liberal dose of faith.

[carpedm9587]

I'm not sure that even some of the people I meet could pass the Turing test: or rather --- some few definitely couldn't.

It was never a particularly rigorous test, and I don't think Turing foresaw the advances in computing that are happening today. Some wonder if we are actually approaching "the singularity." Personally, I don't think it will happen in my lifetime, but that's no longer a lot of years.