PhilosophyWIMB: How omnipotent is your deity?

[Ash]

Never mind counting the grains of sand in a desert, or trivial stuff like that. Can He empirically verify that every snow crystal is different, as per the theory? Much harder job that one.

I have a feeling this will get as many comments as my post about snooker. :tumbleweed:

[Sir C]

Never mind counting the grains of sand in a desert, or trivial stuff like that. Can He empirically verify that every snow crystal is different, as per the theory? Much harder job that one.

I have a feeling this will get as many comments as my post about snooker. :tumbleweed:

Yes, yes He can. However, and here's the important point, He chooses not to. Why? Because He moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.

I flirted with atheism for a bit a couple of years ago, but I kept getting troubled with plagues of frogs, boils and general pestilence, so I took that to be a message and went back to believing.

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

Yes, yes He can. However, and here's the important point, He chooses not to. Why? Because He moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.

I flirted with atheism for a bit a couple of years ago, but I kept getting troubled with plagues of frogs, boils and general pestilence, so I took that to be a message and went back to believing.

bantering God off.

[Sir C]

bantering God off.

You should get some today and there's every possibility that tomorrow and Friday will give us apocalyptic snow. Oh yes.

[PSRB]

You should get some today and there's every possibility that tomorrow and Friday will give us apocalyptic snow. Oh yes.

As usual we'll get a few flakes :-)

[Pokster]

As usual we'll get a few flakes :-)

Other side of the hills and we have got a few inches here (pfnar pfnarr), and bucketing down. Delayed me getting inmto work by a whole 20 mins

[Ash]

Yes, yes He can. However, and here's the important point, He chooses not to. Why? Because He moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.


But it means comparing every single snow crystal in the history of time and space with every other crystal. That's a lot of computational power, man. Something with that much zing should have worked out a way for his favoured beings to export their depleted energy-and-nutrition source matter without leaving dingleberries around their bumhole.

[PSRB]

Other side of the hills and we have got a few inches here (pfnar pfnarr), and bucketing down. Delayed me getting inmto work by a whole 20 mins

No snow and my train was still stuck outside the city for 50 minutes this morning :furious:

[Sir C]

But it means comparing every single snow crystal in the history of time and space with every other crystal. That's a lot of computational power, man. Something with that much zing should have worked out a way for his favoured beings to export their depleted energy-and-nutrition source matter without leaving dingleberries around their bumhole.

He gave us free will, a. It is our choice whether to suffer with tuggets.

A diet rich in fibre could be your friend here.

[World's End Stella]

Never mind counting the grains of sand in a desert, or trivial stuff like that. Can He empirically verify that every snow crystal is different, as per the theory? Much harder job that one.

I have a feeling this will get as many comments as my post about snooker. :tumbleweed:

I think the point is that any sensible deity doesn't bother with things like snow and sand. My deity operates in a different paradigm altogether, that's how you reconcile it, you see.

[IUFG]

As usual we'll get a few flakes :-)

:nono: it went bonkers overnight down here. 6-8 inches [insert your mum gag here]

Why the Highways department decided not to grit or plough the main arterial roads remains a mystery. ****s.

Still, I made it into the office, unlike 25% of the staff :lightweights:

Deity news: there isn't any gods, you folklore loving retards.

[Luis Anaconda]

No snow and my train was still stuck outside the city for 50 minutes this morning :furious:

My train was delayed for five minutes this morning - but at -17 outside I wasn't really in the mood to leave it anyway

[IUFG]

My train was delayed for five minutes this morning

5 minutes delay? Not very German, is it?

I am sure the person responsible was shot.

[Sir C]

:nono: it went bonkers overnight down here. 6-8 inches [insert your mum gag here]

Why the Highways department decided not to grit or plough the main arterial roads remains a mystery. ****s.

Still, I made it into the office, unlike 25% of the staff :lightweights:

Deity news: there isn't any gods, you folklore loving retards.

Whereabouts are you, i? Much of London is about to get dumped on.

[IUFG]

Suffolk, sc...

[Luis Anaconda]

5 minutes delay? Not very German, is it?

I am sure the person responsible was shot.

Actually my line is a bit **** normally - except when Bayern are playing then it there 150 trains an hour

[Sir C]

Suffolk, sc...

You should be getting some too.

[redgunamo]

Never mind counting the grains of sand in a desert, or trivial stuff like that. Can He empirically verify that every snow crystal is different, as per the theory? Much harder job that one.

I have a feeling this will get as many comments as my post about snooker. :tumbleweed:

I seem to be mostly worshipping the almighty hot toddy at the moment. Just need to catch some sort of cold now, I suppose :-\

[The Insider]

Never mind counting the grains of sand in a desert, or trivial stuff like that. Can He empirically verify that every snow crystal is different, as per the theory? Much harder job that one.

I have a feeling this will get as many comments as my post about snooker. :tumbleweed:

I am a Monodeist, so I win every time....!

[IUFG]

I am a Monodeist, so I win every time....!

You drive a Mondeo? :driving:

[Herbert Augustus Chapman]

You should get some today and there's every possibility that tomorrow and Friday will give us apocalyptic snow. Oh yes.

the merest dusting for me. Why am I being punished for your blasphemies :-(

[Ash]

Whereabouts are you, i? Much of London is about to get dumped on.

It's happening. :snow:

[Monty92]

data processing tasks of similar profundity :shrug:





Never mind counting the grains of sand in a desert, or trivial stuff like that. Can He empirically verify that every snow crystal is different, as per the theory? Much harder job that one.

I have a feeling this will get as many comments as my post about snooker. :tumbleweed:

[Ash]

AI will soon enough be capable of performing
data processing tasks of similar profundity

An AI can't even process a kangaroo jumping around when it's trying to drive a car, let alone calculate, design, store and compare infinity to the power of infinity. You need a new hobby imo. Watching 22 blokes chase a pig bladder round a field, perhaps?

[Ash]

I think the point is that any sensible deity doesn't bother with things like snow and sand. My deity operates in a different paradigm altogether, that's how you reconcile it, you see.

Yes, I imagine that your deity is known in some quarters as Blowhard, the god of Smug. :-)

[Burney]

But it means comparing every single snow crystal in the history of time and space with every other crystal. That's a lot of computational power, man. Something with that much zing should have worked out a way for his favoured beings to export their depleted energy-and-nutrition source matter without leaving dingleberries around their bumhole.

Seems to me you’ve failed to take ineffability into account, a. For a puny animal like you to attempt to comprehend God’s actions or reasoning is like a woodlouse trying to make sense of a particle physicist. It’s impossible because the mind of God is ineffable.

[Burney]

data processing tasks of similar profundity :shrug:

When? Thus far, AI has managed to achieve approximately the intellect of a cockroach.

[Alberto Balsam Rodriguez]

Never mind counting the grains of sand in a desert, or trivial stuff like that. Can He empirically verify that every snow crystal is different, as per the theory? Much harder job that one.

I have a feeling this will get as many comments as my post about snooker. :tumbleweed:


Deity's are a figment of one's imagination, aren't they? I guess that would mean that they are as omnipotent as one's imagination might want them to be?

[Ash]

Seems to me you’ve failed to take ineffability into account, a. For a puny animal like you to attempt to comprehend God’s actions or reasoning is like a woodlouse trying to make sense of a particle physicist. It’s impossible because the mind of God is ineffable.

Ineffability is just one of the magic words in the theist's Toolbox of Cheating:

"Don't give me logic, it doesn't count because your reason is invalid because God."
So how do you 'know' he's ineffable, eh? Oh yeah, because you said so and your mind is just as feeble as mine.
"Because he is God, who is by definition all the things I want him to be".
Circular logic, another favourite.

You'll be coming at me with transubstantiation next.

[Ash]

When? Thus far, AI has managed to achieve approximately the intellect of a cockroach.

It's at moments like this that he really embarrasses himself.

[Ash]

Deity's are a figment of one's imagination, aren't they? I guess that would mean that they are as omnipotent as one's imagination might want them to be?

Must you always take everything so literally, Alberto? We can pretend.

[Monty92]

What, you chaps think we're just gonna stand still?

You think AI isn't going to change the world in ways we litewwwwally can't comprehend, Jeff?



When? Thus far, AI has managed to achieve approximately the intellect of a cockroach.

[Burney]

Ineffability is just one of the magic words in the theist's Toolbox of Cheating:

"Don't give me logic, it doesn't count because your reason is invalid because God."
So how do you 'know' he's ineffable, eh? Oh yeah, because you said so and your mind is just as feeble as mine.
"Because he is God, who is by definition all the things I want him to be".
Circular logic, another favourite.

You'll be coming at me with transubstantiation next.

I can’t help it that you’re so monstrously arrogant/lacking in imagination as to be unable to allow/comprehend the possibility of an intelligence so vastly greater than yours that you cannot possibly comprehend it, a. :shrug:
It seems to me, however, that that is your failing, not that of believers.

[Burney]

What, you chaps think we're just gonna stand still?

You think AI isn't going to change the world in ways we litewwwwally can't comprehend, Jeff?

Oh, no. I was simply taking issue with your use of the word ‘soon’

[Monty92]

Oh, no. I was simply taking issue with your use of the word ‘soon’

:rolleyes: I can’t help it that you’re so monstrously arrogant/lacking in imagination as to be unable to allow/comprehend the possibility of "soon" being beyond your own irrelevant mortality.

[Luis Anaconda]

What, you chaps think we're just gonna stand still?

You think AI isn't going to change the world in ways we litewwwwally can't comprehend, Jeff?

Only if we believe and have faith in it, m

[Burney]

:rolleyes: I can’t help it that you’re so monstrously arrogant/lacking in imagination as to be unable to allow/comprehend the possibility of "soon" being beyond your own irrelevant mortality.

I do apologise. Just for the sake of clarity, the next time you use the word ‘soon’, would you be so kind as to clarify whether you’re using it in a human, historical or geological sense? Thanks awfully. :thumbup:

[Ash]

What, you chaps think we're just gonna stand still?

You think AI isn't going to change the world in ways we litewwwwally can't comprehend, Jeff?

You might as well posit that 'soon' an AI could do a better job at managing this group of players than Arsene Wenger?

The steam engine changed the world dramatically, as has 'regular' computing. It's what technology does. Don't underestimate the human mind though just because computers can count faster than we can and execute pattern-recognition algorithms.

[Ash]

I can’t help it that you’re so monstrously arrogant/lacking in imagination as to be unable to allow/comprehend the possibility of an intelligence so vastly greater than yours that you cannot possibly comprehend it, a. :shrug:
It seems to me, however, that that is your failing, not that of believers.

I'm grateful to Monty now for bringing AI into this thread because we are now comparing three types of intelligence. One of which is real, empirically experienced by all, measurable in some ways, and with the whole of history to analyse it's outputs for good and ill.

The other two are both hypothetical, and at opposite extremes in different directions from the one real intelligence we know. One might one day come into being as something other than a conjuring trick (which contemporary AI is), the other has apparently always been there and is what we project a fantasy extrapolation of ourselves onto, bestowing it with any and all super-human powers we can imagine.

It is not lack of imagination or an excess of arrogance that drives my position, but a lack of evidence. (We could speculate about alien or animal intelligence too but ultimately to no end)

[Monty92]

You might as well posit that 'soon' an AI could do a better job at managing this group of players than Arsene Wenger?

The steam engine changed the world dramatically, as has 'regular' computing. It's what technology does. Don't underestimate the human mind though just because computers can count faster than we can and execute pattern-recognition algorithms.

It is by not underestimating the human mind that AI should worry us all. It is, after all, the ingenuity of the human mind that, for good or for ill, will allow the potential of AI to expand beyond our imagination.

I heard a nice analogy recently. Imagine if dogs had invented humans. In the eyes of dogs, on balance this would seem to have worked out very well, given how most dog owners worship their dogs. But what would happen if we found out that all dogs carried a virus that could kill off humans?

We'd kill all the dogs, without batting an eyelid. Our hitherto emotional attachment to them would be rendered utterly irrelevant.

So what happens when humans create AI that sees us in a similar way? And then they realise we represent an existential threat to them (say, by virtue of our ability to flick them on and off)> There wouldn't even an emotional hurdle for them to jump in deciding whether or not to destroy us.

[Monty92]

I'm grateful to Monty now for bringing AI into this thread because we are now comparing three types of intelligence. One of which is real, empirically experienced by all, measurable in some ways, and with the whole of history to analyse it's outputs for good and ill.

The other two are both hypothetical, and at opposite extremes in different directions from the one real intelligence we know. One might one day come into being as something other than a conjuring trick (which contemporary AI is), the other has apparently always been there and is what we project a fantasy extrapolation of ourselves onto, bestowing it with any and all super-human powers we can imagine.

It is not lack of imagination or an excess of arrogance that drives my position, but a lack of evidence. (We could speculate about alien or animal intelligence too but ultimately to no end)

I don't really understand why you consider human intelligence real and AI hypothetical. They are both merely data processing systems at different stages of their evolution :shrug:

Do you think AI has the potential to develop consciousness?

[Burney]

I'm grateful to Monty now for bringing AI into this thread because we are now comparing three types of intelligence. One of which is real, empirically experienced by all, measurable in some ways, and with the whole of history to analyse it's outputs for good and ill.

The other two are both hypothetical, and at opposite extremes in different directions from the one real intelligence we know. One might one day come into being as something other than a conjuring trick (which contemporary AI is), the other has apparently always been there and is what we project a fantasy extrapolation of ourselves onto, bestowing it with any and all super-human powers we can imagine.

It is not lack of imagination or an excess of arrogance that drives my position, but a lack of evidence. (We could speculate about alien or animal intelligence too but ultimately to no end)

To which - like any good Jesuit - I would respond thus: what ‘evidence’ does the woodlouse have for the existence of a vastly superior human intelligence? The answer: none that it is capable of acknowledging, appreciating or comprehending. Would you bother trying to explain yourself to a woodlouse, a? Of course not. No more than God would bother trying to explain himself to you.

[Ash]

To which - like any good Jesuit - I would respond thus: what ‘evidence’ does the woodlouse have for the existence of a vastly superior human intelligence? The answer: none that it is capable of acknowledging, appreciating or comprehending. Would you bother trying to explain yourself to a woodlouse, a? Of course not. No more than God would bother trying to explain himself to you.

Yeah, apart from the fact that god is continuously trying to get in our faces and demand that we worship him, only each time he has a different name, different number of arms, or gods even, and a different set of rules to follow. Many of us have found that this detracts from the credibility of his message.

And the woodlouse almost certainly doesn't conceptualise 'evidence' of any kind, let alone of a vastly superior intelligence. So it's just whataboutery really. The Jesuits should stick to creating sinister secret societies to enslave us all. They do that better than logic imo.

[Sir C]

Yeah, apart from the fact that god is continuously trying to get in our faces and demand that we worship him, only each time he has a different name, different number of arms, or gods even, and a different set of rules to follow. Many of us have found that this detracts from the credibility of his message.

And the woodlouse almost certainly doesn't conceptualise 'evidence' of any kind, let alone of a vastly superior intelligence. So it's just whataboutery really. The Jesuits should stick to creating sinister secret societies to enslave us all. They do that better than logic imo.

There is only one God, a. All the others are imposters.

Yes. His name is Allah and Mohamed is his prophet...

[Monty92]

Yeah, apart from the fact that god is continuously trying to get in our faces and demand that we worship him, only each time he has a different name, different number of arms, or gods even, and a different set of rules to follow. Many of us have found that this detracts from the credibility of his message.

And the woodlouse almost certainly doesn't conceptualise 'evidence' of any kind, let alone of a vastly superior intelligence. So it's just whataboutery really. The Jesuits should stick to creating sinister secret societies to enslave us all. They do that better than logic imo.

The AI of the future may very well see our own "conceptualisation" skills in not much of a different way to how we view those of woodlouse.

The crucial point is that to be a woodlouse is like *something*. Its capacity to conceptualise or reason is neither here nor there.

[Ash]

I don't really understand why you consider human intelligence real and AI hypothetical. They are both merely data processing systems at different stages of their evolution :shrug:

Do you think AI has the potential to develop consciousness?

Is an artificial leg a real leg? Only by a generous and very open definition of the word 'leg'. Maybe one day we'll build a leg that is identical to a real one.

We'd have to understand how our own consciousness works first before having a serious crack at that question. It's perhaps the best argument for some kind of metaphysics, or not if the conscious is just a combination of biochemistry and information processing. The human mind is amazing. The other night I dreamed I bought a battleship to live in. WTF?

I used to wonder at all these AI questions 30 years ago when I was dabbling with 'Expert Systems' and trying to write software that connected entities and attributes and sorted and processed them in exciting ways. Then I lost interest, which explains my cold scepticism perhaps. I regret that sometimes. At other times I don't, as I might have now been working for Google, Amazon, Facebook or some such bunch of evil shítcùnts.

[Ash]

The AI of the future may very well see our own "conceptualisation" skills in not much of a different way to how we view those of woodlouse.

The crucial point is that to be a woodlouse is like *something*. Its capacity to conceptualise or reason is neither here nor there.

Jesus wept. It isn't much of an AI if it can't distinguish between a (relatively) advanced civilisation with knowledge and culture and space travel and video games, and a fùcking woodlouse, which goes around eating wood. You are just being obtuse now to pretend we are having an actual conversation rather than you just winding me up.

If we created an AI, wouldn't that make us some kind of GOD for the AI?

[Burney]

Yeah, apart from the fact that god is continuously trying to get in our faces and demand that we worship him, only each time he has a different name, different number of arms, or gods even, and a different set of rules to follow. Many of us have found that this detracts from the credibility of his message.

And the woodlouse almost certainly doesn't conceptualise 'evidence' of any kind, let alone of a vastly superior intelligence. So it's just whataboutery really. The Jesuits should stick to creating sinister secret societies to enslave us all. They do that better than logic imo.

The woodlouse is as capable of conceptualising ‘evidence’ relating to us as we are of conceptualising evidence relating to a God, a. That’s the point: God laughs at our pathetic attempts to understand Him.

[Monty92]

Is an artificial leg a real leg? Only by a generous and very open definition of the word 'leg'. Maybe one day we'll build a leg that is identical to a real one.

We'd have to understand how our own consciousness works first before having a serious crack at that question. It's perhaps the best argument for some kind of metaphysics, or not if the conscious is just a combination of biochemistry and information processing. The human mind is amazing. The other night I dreamed I bought a battleship to live in. WTF?

I used to wonder at all these AI questions 30 years ago when I was dabbling with 'Expert Systems' and trying to write software that connected entities and attributes and sorted and processed them in exciting ways. Then I lost interest, which explains my cold scepticism perhaps. I regret that sometimes. At other times I don't, as I might have now been working for Google, Amazon, Facebook or some such bunch of evil shítcùnts.

Would a leg created out of human cells be a real leg?

You're talking like a dualist, which is basically a position of religiosity, yet you've spent much of this thread deriding religion.

Materialism dictates that consciousness originates in the mind. The mind is merely a data processing system. Ergo, AI is of course capable of developing consciousness.

[Sir C]

Jesus wept. It isn't much of an AI if it can't distinguish between a (relatively) advanced civilisation with knowledge and culture and space travel and video games, and a fùcking woodlouse, which goes around eating wood. You are just being obtuse now to pretend we are having an actual conversation rather than you just winding me up.

If we created an AI, wouldn't that make us some kind of GOD for the AI?

Do woodlice actually eat wood, a? One knows so little of the degustatory preferences of the lower insecta. It's rather appalling, actually.

[Monty92]

Jesus wept. It isn't much of an AI if it can't distinguish between a (relatively) advanced civilisation with knowledge and culture and space travel and video games, and a fùcking woodlouse, which goes around eating wood. You are just being obtuse now to pretend we are having an actual conversation rather than you just winding me up.

If we created an AI, wouldn't that make us some kind of GOD for the AI?

I dealt with this last point earlier. If dogs had created humans, we'd have even more reason to slavishly devote ourselves to their well-being. But if there was a point at which they became an existential threat to us, we'd cease giving one single fúck about them and kill them all instantly.

[Burney]

Do woodlice actually eat wood, a? One knows so little of the degustatory preferences of the lower insecta. It's rather appalling, actually.

Not insects. Crustaceans

[Sir C]

Not insects. Crustaceans

Even worse. One can't imagine a prawn or a lobster tucking into a lump of 4 by 2, but on the other hand, what can one imagine a prawn snacking on?

[Ash]

Would a leg created out of human cells be a real leg?

You're talking like a dualist, which is basically a position of religiosity, yet you've spent much of this thread deriding religion.

Materialism dictates that consciousness originates in the mind. The mind is merely a data processing system. Ergo, AI is of course capable of developing consciousness.

No, I'm just demonstrating that I have a slightly open mind for a materialist. Just leaving the door open a tiny fraction for the mysteries of consciousness. I'm not letting just anything in.

[Monty92]

No, I'm just demonstrating that I have a slightly open mind for a materialist. Just leaving the door open a tiny fraction for the mysteries of consciousness. I'm not letting just anything in.

And what would stop AI from one day accessing, or exposing, these same mysteries of consciousness?

Nothing, if you believe that humans are merely lumps of meat equipped with hugely limited data processing systems. But you don't think that. You think humans are something more than this. You're just not prepared to say what that is, presumably because it would make you sound like a god-botherer.

[Ash]

And what would stop AI from one day accessing, or exposing, these same mysteries of consciousness?

Nothing, if you believe that humans are merely lumps of meat equipped with hugely limited data processing systems. But you don't think that. You think humans are something more than this. You're just not prepared to say what that is, presumably because it would make you sound like a god-botherer.

No. Metaphysics <> GodBothery.

I have been arguing against the concept of omnipotent monotheism, which is not the same as speculating that the universe may contain rules we haven't worked out yet, that go beyond the materialist model of understanding. There's a long distance between that and the spaghetti monster.

If consciousness is material, then a machine may attain it one day, but as I said, we don't know what it is or how it works. A 'thinking' machine is one thing, self-awareness and the consciousness is something else.

I find the dog analogy poor tbh. It is absurd, as dogs did not create men. Also is not our instinct to wipe out those we perceive to be a threat linked to our evolution over millions of years of desperate, grubby survival? An AI we construct with no history of competition would not necessarily think like us.

There is, of course a whole sub-genre of Sci-Fi dealing with exactly these questions, from A.C Clark to Terminator and Blade Runner.

[Ash]

The woodlouse is as capable of conceptualising ‘evidence’ relating to us as we are of conceptualising evidence relating to a God, a. That’s the point: God laughs at our pathetic attempts to understand Him.

I've addressed both of these points already. And others - yet my carefully crafted comments are callously and continually ignored until the thing goes full circle and we're back to where we started.

[World's End Stella]

I'm grateful to Monty now for bringing AI into this thread because we are now comparing three types of intelligence. One of which is real, empirically experienced by all, measurable in some ways, and with the whole of history to analyse it's outputs for good and ill.

The other two are both hypothetical, and at opposite extremes in different directions from the one real intelligence we know. One might one day come into being as something other than a conjuring trick (which contemporary AI is), the other has apparently always been there and is what we project a fantasy extrapolation of ourselves onto, bestowing it with any and all super-human powers we can imagine.

It is not lack of imagination or an excess of arrogance that drives my position, but a lack of evidence. (We could speculate about alien or animal intelligence too but ultimately to no end)

But the fact that you are looking for evidence suggests you lack the imagination needed to realize that in theological matters, evidence is not required.

[Monty92]

No. Metaphysics <> GodBothery.

I have been arguing against the concept of omnipotent monotheism, which is not the same as speculating that the universe may contain rules we haven't worked out yet, that go beyond the materialist model of understanding. There's a long distance between that and the spaghetti monster.

If consciousness is material, then a machine may attain it one day, but as I said, we don't know what it is or how it works. A 'thinking' machine is one thing, self-awareness and the consciousness is something else.

I find the dog analogy poor tbh. It is absurd, as dogs did not create men. Also is not our instinct to wipe out those we perceive to be a threat linked to our evolution over millions of years of desperate, grubby survival? An AI we construct with no history of competition would not necessarily think like us.

There is, of course a whole sub-genre of Sci-Fi dealing with exactly these questions, from A.C Clark to Terminator and Blade Runner.

But the dog analogy is just one example of why AI may decide to wipe us out. Another could be that they're basically like autistic humans who don't understand nuance and may *accidently* respond recklessly to benign instructions. So, for example, say we told an AI to cure cancer. Their solution to this may be to kill every human that carries a cancer-mutating gene.

So yes, of course the relationship between dogs and humans and humans and AI is radically different. But the lack of evolutionary history does not obviate the risk that AI will consider humans to be an existential threat.

I've no idea what self-awareness has to do with anything. You really think humans have self-awareness and, say, a woodlouse doesn't?

[Ash]

But the fact that you are looking for evidence suggests you lack the imagination needed to realize that in theological matters, evidence is not required.

I'm not imaginative enough to be so gullible as to believe that, for example, The Prophet ascended to heaven on a flying horse or some such and that's why Islam should own Jerusalem?

Shame on me for being so unimaginative as to swallow any old utter crap.

[Ash]

I've no idea what self-awareness has to do with anything. You really think humans have self-awareness and, say, a woodlouse doesn't?

Neither of us know what it is like to be a woodlouse. Although you will in your next life, obv. :guffaw:

I don't believe they experience consciousness as we do. Ours is tied up with our symbolic and abstract thought, I expect.

Presumably you believe that your phone has consciousness. Why not, by your reckoning?

[Monty92]

Neither of us know what it is like to be a woodlouse. Although you will in your next life, obv. :guffaw:

I don't believe they experience consciousness as we do. Ours is tied up with our symbolic and abstract thought, I expect.

Presumably you believe that your phone has consciousness. Why not, by your reckoning?

I don't believe that AI (or my phone) has consciousness. I believe it has the capacity to develop consciousness. All that the phenomenon of consciousness requires is a self-organising system like the brain’s physical structure. Current machines come up short, but there's no reason at all to think they always will.

[World's End Stella]

I'm not imaginative enough to be so gullible as to believe that, for example, The Prophet ascended to heaven on a flying horse or some such and that's why Islam should own Jerusalem?

Shame on me for being so unimaginative as to swallow any old utter crap.

Ah but you've moved the goalposts there, Ash. Belief in a deity is one thing, adherence to particular form of organized religion and its set of beliefs is quite another.

[Monty92]

Ah but you've moved the goalposts there, Ash. Belief in a deity is one thing, adherence to particular form of organized religion and its set of beliefs is quite another.

I don't think that's really true at all.

The distinction is between belief that there's stuff we don't know or understand and belief in a deity.

[World's End Stella]

I don't think that's really true at all.

The distinction is between belief that there's stuff we don't know or understand and belief in a deity.

That is another distinction - it does not preclude the distinction between those who believe in a deity but who refuse to acknowledge a particular organized religion and those who see the two as going hand in hand.