Why Metaphysics fails to be adequate?

[Skarekrow]

The concern is that if humanity is transcribed into technology will our innate humanity be lost?

When you look at the people who are funding the artificial intelligence research and the robotics research for example DAARPA they are the usual suspects implicated in all the usual global crimes. If any set of people could be said to be preserving the psychopathic gene as custodians of the grail it is these people

So if a psychopath feels no guilt or remorse isn;t he/she a little like a machine?

Drones are one of the other things these guys are pushing out there as well as wireless connectivity.

So if these guiltless people are already lacking in the essence of humanity then what have they to lose by transcribing themselves into computers and taking on the bodies of machines? Indeed this would overcome the limitations of the huma body regarding space travel allowing them to forge out across the galaxy

A horde of psychopathic machines galavanting across the universe claiming they are 'humanity' when in fact they have already iradicated humanity and left them behind on a scorched planet

I don't think they would even miss the warm contact of human skin against human skin

If humans are to be merged with machines...the question is how to preserve our essential humanity

The real question would have to be...are our emotions a transferable thing.....or is computer mapped to the last detail simulation the same thing, or is something missing?
Part of the show I was watching actually delved into some possible negatives such as what you have mentioned. They did mention the possibility of someone with the funds making multiple copies (hundreds or thousands) of themselves and using them (themselves?) to gain their ultimate goal. They actually did talk about how there could be the possibility of “editing” one’s own mind in a copy, erasing emotions, questioning of authority, and thereby making your copies into what is essentially a sociopath who will do your bidding without any thought to those being hurt or the reasons why.
If you really think about it, machines are the ultimate sociopath.....will the AI machines we are working on, or those in the future have emotions by the time they gain self-consciousness....or will rampant misunderstood emotion be a more destructive force in a machine with whom no one can relate and help understand ones self?

 

[muir]

The real question would have to be...are our emotions a transferable thing.....or is computer mapped to the last detail simulation the same thing, or is something missing?
Part of the show I was watching actually delved into some possible negatives such as what you have mentioned. They did mention the possibility of someone with the funds making multiple copies (hundreds or thousands) of themselves and using them (themselves?) to gain their ultimate goal. They actually did talk about how there could be the possibility of “editing” one’s own mind in a copy, erasing emotions, questioning of authority, and thereby making your copies into what is essentially a sociopath who will do your bidding without any thought to those being hurt or the reasons why.
If you really think about it, machines are the ultimate sociopath.....will the AI machines we are working on, or those in the future have emotions by the time they gain self-consciousness....or will rampant misunderstood emotion be a more destructive force in a machine with whom no one can relate and help understand ones self?

Its something worth thinking about for humanity!

Of course the idea of creating a golem is an old one

In fact the Weizman institute in Israel has already built two computers called 'golem 1' and 'golem II'

Who is to say that artificial intelligence isn't already in existence? Its common knowledge about the super computer the NSA have built in Utah to spy on the american people but if that's what we know about then what about the stuff we don't know about? The stuff underground?

I watched a clip on youtube that was about the matrix film. It made the point that in nowhere in the films does it say that the machines enslaved humans. The point it made was that humans had given up responsibility freely to the machines

Humans no longer wanted to take any responsibilty so they plugged themselves into the machine and handed over through their free will control to the machines

The architect in the film is obviously the gnostic demiurge and the agents smith are the archons which keep us in the matrix. The brothers who made the film were into all that stuff and obviously there are references to occult/religious stuff throughout the film: merovingean (one of the illuminati bloodlines), nebuchadnezzer (babylonian ruler), zion (created by the cabal), trinity (the supernal triad) etc etc

 

[Skarekrow]

Its something worth thinking about for humanity!

Of course the idea of creating a golem is an old one

In fact the Weizman institute in Israel has already built two computers called 'golem 1' and 'golem II'

Who is to say that artificial intelligence isn't already in existence? Its common knowledge about the super computer the NSA have built in Utah to spy on the american people but if that's what we know about then what about the stuff we don't know about? The stuff underground?

I watched a clip on youtube that was about the matrix film. It made the point that in nowhere in the films does it say that the machines enslaved humans. The point it made was that humans had given up responsibility freely to the machines

Humans no longer wanted to take any responsibilty so they plugged themselves into the machine and handed over through their free will control to the machines

The architect in the film is obviously the gnostic demiurge and the agents smith are the archons which keep us in the matrix. The brothers who made the film were into all that stuff and obviously there are references to occult/religious stuff throughout the film: merovingean (one of the illuminati bloodlines), nebuchadnezzer (babylonian ruler), zion (created by the cabal), trinity (the supernal triad) etc etc

Well, one way or the other we will reach a point (publicly) when computers reach a level of intelligence and thought process of humans...some say it could even be within the next ten years. Given the equation that computers double their processing power each year...which they have for some time now....the following year they will theoretically be twice as smart as we are. This could either be a wonderful thing or the end of us all...I think for a while it will be somewhere in-between.
They could solve world hunger, help us cure diseases once thought impossible to cure, any number of wonderful prospects. I suppose it will become a two-fold question:
Who is controlling the computers, and do the computers have a sense of emotion and free will? It could become a new renaissance for the human race....they could even answer once thought to be unanswerable (the questions contained in this thread) of metaphysics and quantum mechanics. We could realize fusion energy, and learn more about the secrets of the universe. Or perhaps they will reach self-awareness and blast themselves off into space as we are not worth the effort.....lol.
But the scary part could be just the opposite....just like a Terminator movie....and given a few years they could be hundreds of times more intelligent than we are.
I never did understand why in those movies the computers didn’t just create a virus to wipe the humans out....so much easier than warfare (but a less interesting movie).
I think we will see what happens in our lifetime....it’s both an exciting and frightening thought.

 

[muir]

Well, one way or the other we will reach a point (publicly) when computers reach a level of intelligence and thought process of humans...some say it could even be within the next ten years.

The 'singularity'

Given the equation that computers double their processing power each year...which they have for some time now....the following year they will theoretically be twice as smart as we are. This could either be a wonderful thing or the end of us all...I think for a while it will be somewhere in-between.
They could solve world hunger, help us cure diseases once thought impossible to cure, any number of wonderful prospects. I suppose it will become a two-fold question:
Who is controlling the computers, and do the computers have a sense of emotion and free will?

Unless we the people change things, the people who will control the technology will be the same people who control all the money

It could become a new renaissance for the human race....they could even answer once thought to be unanswerable (the questions contained in this thread) of metaphysics and quantum mechanics. We could realize fusion energy, and learn more about the secrets of the universe. Or perhaps they will reach self-awareness and blast themselves off into space as we are not worth the effort.....lol.
But the scary part could be just the opposite....just like a Terminator movie....and given a few years they could be hundreds of times more intelligent than we are.
I never did understand why in those movies the computers didn’t just create a virus to wipe the humans out....so much easier than warfare (but a less interesting movie).
I think we will see what happens in our lifetime....it’s both an exciting and frightening thought.

They didn't create a virus because the archontic forces cannot create anything. They can only distort existing things. They need humans to create things; its humans that create things

The other thing they do is invert everything including the truth

 

[Eventhorizon]

The question I am thinking of is....let’s say that you are on your death bed...as you die, you are uploaded and downloaded into a robot body....as the robot comes “online” would you realize your transference? If there is a soul, then would the soul jump from the body to the robot? Or are we just a biological program ourselves and nothing more? It would be a curious thing to see.

Scary. I woke up one morning about 6 months ago to the sound in my head as if something had just been turned on..

Imagine that this has already happened but we added part of a program that keeps us from being able to realize it. Such as when we bleed...we are not really bleeding, we just think we are.

 

[Skarekrow]

Scary. I woke up one morning about 6 months ago to the sound in my head as if something had just been turned on..

Imagine that this has already happened but we added part of a program that keeps us from being able to realize it. Such as when we bleed...we are not really bleeding, we just think we are.

Actually, some might say that you are not actually bleeding until the moment you are aware of it....kind of like the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear.
An interesting thought as I was pondering this subject...
If you wanted to have your “consciousness” mapped and then uploaded into a robot upon your death....let’s say you had it mapped several months or years before you died....then the exact moment you had your consciousness mapped would also be the exact moment you “awoke” in your robot body as everything that happened after the saved map would not exist yet and therefore could not be included in the mapping process....so you would go into the machine to be mapped and essentially “wake up” in your new body at the same moment. Crazy thought.

 

[sprinkles]

Actually, some might say that you are not actually bleeding until the moment you are aware of it....kind of like the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear.
An interesting thought as I was pondering this subject...
If you wanted to have your “consciousness” mapped and then uploaded into a robot upon your death....let’s say you had it mapped several months or years before you died....then the exact moment you had your consciousness mapped would also be the exact moment you “awoke” in your robot body as everything that happened after the saved map would not exist yet and therefore could not be included in the mapping process....so you would go into the machine to be mapped and essentially “wake up” in your new body at the same moment. Crazy thought.

Or we're always bleeding and at some point become aware of it.

Bleeding is when blood is going outside of the blood vessels, right? What's outside?

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence.

• The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution."
  
• The physicist is next. He creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd."
  
• The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside."

 

[sprinkles]

Or imagine you're standing at the north pole and make a small circular fence around yourself, so you're standing inside it. You can stand there indefinitely, and the fence is able to increase in radius, following the surface of the earth, able to float on water, etc.

The fence gets bigger and bigger, and you haven't moved. At first it's only miles in diameter, then hundreds, then thousands. It eventually reaches the equator, and passes it, ultimately heading for the south pole, and it starts shrinking more and more until it's the size of an average soup can - but, you're still inside it.

Edit: and on that note, when it's the size of a soup can, you can capture the vast majority of the entire universe above the surface of the earth in a soup can by putting a cap on it.

 

[Eventhorizon]

Or we're always bleeding and at some point become aware of it.

Bleeding is when blood is going outside of the blood vessels, right? What's outside?

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence.

• The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution."
  
• The physicist is next. He creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd."
  
• The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside."

Nice. I would first evaporate all the water out of the sheep. I would then put the remaining dust into a glass jar and declare the jar my fence.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=5045]Skarekrow[/MENTION]

Right now I'm reminded of a manga called BLAME!.

A heroine in it, an enhanced human woman called Cibo, ends up getting killed quite a bit at various parts of the plot, but her consciousness is able to exist in a virtual backup space and she is able to reinhabit compatible bodies upon death, in some cases effecting her consciousness to an extent.

At some point for various reasons, she and her companion Killy (the main hero) ends up being transported inside the massive gravity well of a graviton generator, and separated from each other - the side effect of the graviton generator is so powerful that it warps spacetime in a huge area around it, and reality itself is ephemeral and constantly changing in the area. She ends up finding Killy after what was apparently 10 years, and Killy had alread found another Cibo from a different reality, but the two Cibos don't know each other.

Killy, Cibo 1 and Cibo 2 eventually escape the gravity well, but Cibo 2 was separated from them. They find that they arrived back in their own reality mere seconds after they entered the gravity well, even though Cibo 1 had been in there for 10 years, and Cibo 2 for presumably longer. Cibo 1 eventually locates Cibo 2, just in time because for certain reasons Cibo 1 is about to die, but she finds Cibo 2 has already died from injuries incurred escaping the graviton generator. Cibo 1 is able to take over Cibo 2's body and repair it, reviving herself.

Edit:
And also interestingly, being effectively immortal isn't portrayed as being all that great. Because the heroes can't really die very easily, they end up going through a lot of pain and grief because their great powers lead them to call upon themselves to make huge sacrifices, well beyond that of normal humans.

 

[Trifoilum]

I was just thinking about this.

Why is it that people seem to have a propensity for searching out some unknown and yet to be discovered force as some sort of explanation for phenomena? Such that it even leads researchers to chase red herrings basically to disprove something that is already most likely dubious?

It's like leading everybody astray. It's like saying "LOOK! Look at this pink dragon that isn't there!" and everybody looks, looks away from what is readily apparent, looks for the pink dragon and says "Well I don't see it."

What is this preference for chasing nothings rather than taking the phenomena that we already know quite well and possibly understanding it in a different way?

I believe this is why psychic experiments and ESP experiments fail, because people take their eyes off what they can actually discern to start looking for that pink dragon. It's being misled from what is already sufficient and comprehensible to look for something that probably isn't there. That's called being gullible. And the opponents gleefully take it up to prove that the thing that isn't there still isn't there.

This is a lot of discussion...and my computer is a bit lagging so ...here's my initial reply.

I think OP is a bit looking at it in a retrospective way; you know (or instinctively, intuitively 'know'). Whether certain angles or reasonings or rationale is right, or wrong, or proper, or improper.
It is an unsuccessful notion of science, however, to limit the angles and perspective to-- only, what? empirically testable ones? 'rational and logical' ones?
In other words, what you call nothing, others think it's a potential answer.

I think just because we don't have the ability to explain certain things does not mean they don't exist-- but that doesn't mean they existed either. It just means we cannot know for sure.
It's a bit of Schrodinger's Element that way.

At the same time instantly jumping into metaphysical and/or spiritual conjectures and theories WITHOUT considering the physical and scientific rationale is in itself problematic.

 

[sprinkles]

This is a lot of discussion...and my computer is a bit lagging so ...here's my initial reply.

I think OP is a bit looking at it in a retrospective way; you know (or instinctively, intuitively 'know'). Whether certain angles or reasonings or rationale is right, or wrong, or proper, or improper.
It is an unsuccessful notion of science, however, to limit the angles and perspective to-- only, what? empirically testable ones? 'rational and logical' ones?
In other words, what you call nothing, others think it's a potential answer.

I think just because we don't have the ability to explain certain things does not mean they don't exist-- but that doesn't mean they existed either. It just means we cannot know for sure.
It's a bit of Schrodinger's Element that way.

At the same time instantly jumping into metaphysical and/or spiritual conjectures and theories WITHOUT considering the physical and scientific rationale is in itself problematic.

There's no need to ever jump to metaphysics at all if you already don't know how something works. If you don't know how it works then you also don't know that it isn't a physical process. I'd also hazard that there isn't anything which is not a physical process - there's nothing that is MORE than natural.

If something happens it is because it can happen. There can't be a violation. If there is a violation, then it's in your understanding of how things work.

You also don't study sand impact dynamics by flying over a desert in a plane and throwing sand out of it. Why don't you do that?
Why can't you land on the sun at night?
Why shouldn't everyone mark their cup with an X so that they know which one is theirs?

 

[Trifoilum]

There's no need to ever jump to metaphysics at all if you already don't know how something works. If you don't know how it works then you also don't know that it isn't a physical process. I'd also hazard that there isn't anything which is not a physical process - there's nothing that is MORE than natural.

If something happens it is because it can happen. There can't be a violation. If there is a violation, then it's in your understanding of how things work.

As much as I understand your perspective, I'd also wager that for some people it's not the only rule that's working for them.
It is pretty much like the mind and its working. You can approach it under neuroscience, thinking it's all biological, hormonal, nervous reactions to stimuli; you can approach it under behaviorism, taking them as mere reactions; you can also approach it under other things; Jungian, Freudian, etc, etc.

I think my point is that it depends under which perspective people are looking at this. And a lot of people are looking at things from a physical standpoint, as much if not more than the people who are looking at things from a metaphysical standpoint. A lot of people are looking at things from a known angle as much as there are people looking at things from an unknown or less known angle.

And I agreed that there isn't anything which is not a physical process-- and I'm not arguing otherwise. But there are names for the initially unknown. Gods and goddesses applied to phenomenons that in the future were known as something natural. There are theories. The difference lies in proofs-- but while we are in an empirical standstilll, no one WILL know.

You also don't study sand impact dynamics by flying over a desert in a plane and throwing sand out of it. Why don't you do that?
Why can't you land on the sun at night?
Why shouldn't everyone mark their cup with an X so that they know which one is theirs?

I don't get this part though. Why not?

 

[sprinkles]

I don't get this part though. Why not?

1. If you throw sand on sand, what sand is your sand? Can you tell?
2. It's never night on the sun (ignoring that you can't land on it anyway as it's made of gas/plasma, even if you could take the heat)
3. If you have cups that all look the same, and you put an X on all of them, they all still look the same
"My cup has an X on it!"
"Well so does mine!"

 

[Trifoilum]

1. If you throw sand on sand, what sand is your sand? Can you tell?
2. It's never night on the sun (ignoring that you can't land on it anyway as it's made of gas/plasma, even if you could take the heat)
3. If you have cups that all look the same, and you put an X on all of them, they all still look the same
"My cup has an X on it!"
"Well so does mine!"

Yes but what function does it serve to your overall post?

 

[sprinkles]

Yes but what function does it serve to your overall post?

There's an effective way to discover things. If you don't know what to look for, you won't even be able to tell if it's working or not.

This is a problem with experiments. A good example of this was Prosper-René Blondlot, a physicist who believed he discovered something which he called N-rays.

Blondlot was not a dummy by any means, he was actually quite a good physicist - but he made a mistake in this one instance. Blondlot performed an experiment to prove N-rays (which should have been impossible) in front of another physicist, Robert Wood. Wood, knowing the problem already but unable to convince Blondlot of his error, covertly removed a prism from the apparatus, sabotaging the experiment and proving the result to be insufficient. N-rays were proved to be an illusion.

Or to put it more clearly - if you don't know how to look for something, you can't tell if the problem comes from your method or if it comes from elsewhere. As in the case of N-rays above, Blondlot thought he had found them, but his experiment was wrong and led to false confirmation due to interpreting it incorrectly.

 

[Trifoilum]

There's an effective way to discover things. If you don't know what to look for, you won't even be able to tell if it's working or not.

This is a problem with experiments. A good example of this was Prosper-René Blondlot, a physicist who believed he discovered something which he called N-rays.

Blondlot was not a dummy by any means, he was actually quite a good physicist - but he made a mistake in this one instance. Blondlot performed an experiment to prove N-rays (which should have been impossible) in front of another physicist, Robert Wood. Wood, knowing the problem already but unable to convince Blondlot of his error, covertly removed a prism from the apparatus, sabotaging the experiment and proving the result to be insufficient. N-rays were proved to be an illusion.

Or to put it more clearly - if you don't know how to look for something, you can't tell if the problem comes from your method or if it comes from elsewhere. As in the case of N-rays above, Blondlot thought he had found them, but his experiment was wrong and led to false confirmation due to interpreting it incorrectly.

That is a very well example, and I sort of get what you mean;
but hasn't science picked its progress from failures and false interpretations?

Again, we can make bold claims about what worked and what didn't because we have -present proof- that to certain degree, a certain technique, angle, perspective, tool, equation, theorem, anything; to a certain degree they are capable to predict, explain, and replicate natural phenomenons. But applying (some amounts of) past patterns to present and future patterns can be a prudent move...or a restricting one. And again, it depends on each people.

I guess I'll end my argument here..

 

[sprinkles]

That is a very well example, and I sort of get what you mean;
but hasn't science picked its progress from failures and false interpretations?

Again, we can make bold claims about what worked and what didn't because we have -present proof- that to certain degree, a certain technique, angle, perspective, tool, equation, theorem, anything; to a certain degree they are capable to predict, explain, and replicate natural phenomenons. But applying (some amounts of) past patterns to present and future patterns can be a prudent move...or a restricting one. And again, it depends on each people.

I guess I'll end my argument here..

To know you failed you have to be able to perceive the failure.

To apply a pattern you must be able to observe the pattern.

Real life example right now: I just drew a pattern on my hand with a pen. Can you apply this pattern to anything, without me showing it to you? My guess is no.
To apply the pattern to anything, you must be able to observe it, and then define it.

Blondlot could not observe his pattern, and he had it incorrectly defined, which is why he made the mistake he did. It took somebody else to put it into perspective, but what if nobody else can do that? How would you ever know?

Or maybe I try to throw a penny into a jar. Did it go in, or did I miss?

The point being that if we define ESP as an electromagnetic wave form for example, how do we know that it is one? We really have no reason to assume that it is an electromagnetic wave form, so if we fail to find that wave form, maybe it's our definition that is wrong.

Or if you define a human as a green mammal that has gills, and proceed to find no green mammals with gills, does that mean humans don't exist, or does it mean that you've got your definition wrong and have been looking for the wrong thing? How would you even know if you'd never actually seen a human in the first place?

 

[Skarekrow]

 

[Skarekrow]

The universe is made out of quantum energy.
Our minds are quantum energy, which are trying to figure out what the universe is.
We are quantum energy trying to figure itself out.