First movie: Good, except the phone dynamic didn't make any fucking sense (among a few other things, like humans being used as sources of energy).
I had wondered that myself. Read an article where someone asked "Why not use cows? The matrix could be a field of green grass." :P
Thing is, machines are limited by their creators. I wonder if the real reason they use humans is to have some sort of "source" for creativity and creation, even if just for our dreams. Their evolution, their continued growth may depend on it.
Yea something like that, I think I remember somebody saying that people were originally intended to be used as side processors of some sort. There was some nice looking explanation for it but it was changed because they didn't believe the regular movie viewer would understand it was much as simply having Morpheus hold up a battery.
I don't have much to drop in the thread but I really just wanted to stop in and say this is one of the most interesting reads I've had in a while.
Dream batteries.
Nice.
Androids dream of electronic people?
They dream of electric sheep... idiot!
There are a few problems with the logic of the movie.
1. The robots couldn't have relied on nuclear power? At all?
2. They could grow humans, but could perform surgeries to those humans early on which would keep them completely functioning, but keep them completely docile. They wouldn't even need to have a matrix if they just kept a bunch of brain dumb things hooked up to a giant incubator.
I'm glad they forwent logic, however. The movie and its ideas were still pretty damn cool.
Leave Ridley Scott out of this.
1. Maybe the electronic circuitry of the robots neural systems can't deal with any ionizing radiation at all.
2. What kind of power are they harvesting? If its a purely heat based energy source then it's a pretty weak energy source. If they're harvesting brains for processing power then they wouldn't want dumb sheep.
R-R-Ridley Scott?! Philip K. Dick, good sir! :x
1. But they could have plants which would convert the energy. The machines themselves don't have to run off of nuclear energy. They just farm nuclear energy to create electricity. That's what nuclear plants do now.
2. I don't know about this. In a fictional world, anything is possible. However, realistically speaking, I couldn't imagine that thousands of brains could be used to create a giant processor. And actually, Morpheus does tell us what the machines use it for. They are collecting the heat energy from humans.
Like I said, lets leave Ridley Scott out of this.
1. But they'd still have to build the plants. Maybe the robots had some sort of civil rights that prevented them from subjecting their own kind to conditions that would result in early breakdown and deactivation.
2. What kind of heat? Currently thought that the brain operates via phonons, a form of discrete packets of heat energy or organized entropy. It's not like anyone plugged into the Matrix ever uses their muscles to generate heat, so the work must be done solely with the brain. By that logic, it would be pretty pointless to have braindead sheep plugged in. Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't make it real. The people plugged into the matrix were already experiencing a form of reality processing as each other them responded to the simulation on a daily basis.
1. Machines, Civil Rights? Really? Even if radioactive materials were detrimental to them, I doubt they'd have sweat a positron worrying about a single, expendable machine.
2. How could they have fed off of the signals of the brain without severely affecting its function, which is clearly didn't? The body produces heat regardless of muscles, and that body heat could have heated the liquid around it, and perhaps that is how they farmed the heat. Or perhaps the plugs were the method in which body heat was converted into energy. In this way, only autonomic brain functions which kept the body running and generating heat would be necessary. Just a little damage to the cerebral cortex and they'd have quite a safe crop.
First movie: Good, except the phone dynamic didn't make any fucking sense (among a few other things, like humans being used as sources of energy).
I had wondered that myself. Read an article where someone asked "Why not use cows? The matrix could be a field of green grass." :P
Thing is, machines are limited by their creators. I wonder if the real reason they use humans is to have some sort of "source" for creativity and creation, even if just for our dreams. Their evolution, their continued growth may depend on it.
Yea something like that, I think I remember somebody saying that people were originally intended to be used as side processors of some sort. There was some nice looking explanation for it but it was changed because they didn't believe the regular movie viewer would understand it was much as simply having Morpheus hold up a battery.
I don't have much to drop in the thread but I really just wanted to stop in and say this is one of the most interesting reads I've had in a while.
Dream batteries.
Nice.
Androids dream of electronic people?
They dream of electric sheep... idiot!
There are a few problems with the logic of the movie.
1. The robots couldn't have relied on nuclear power? At all?
2. They could grow humans, but could perform surgeries to those humans early on which would keep them completely functioning, but keep them completely docile. They wouldn't even need to have a matrix if they just kept a bunch of brain dumb things hooked up to a giant incubator.
I'm glad they forwent logic, however. The movie and its ideas were still pretty damn cool.
Leave Ridley Scott out of this.
1. Maybe the electronic circuitry of the robots neural systems can't deal with any ionizing radiation at all.
2. What kind of power are they harvesting? If its a purely heat based energy source then it's a pretty weak energy source. If they're harvesting brains for processing power then they wouldn't want dumb sheep.
R-R-Ridley Scott?! Philip K. Dick, good sir! :x
1. But they could have plants which would convert the energy. The machines themselves don't have to run off of nuclear energy. They just farm nuclear energy to create electricity. That's what nuclear plants do now.
2. I don't know about this. In a fictional world, anything is possible. However, realistically speaking, I couldn't imagine that thousands of brains could be used to create a giant processor. And actually, Morpheus does tell us what the machines use it for. They are collecting the heat energy from humans.
Like I said, lets leave Ridley Scott out of this.
1. But they'd still have to build the plants. Maybe the robots had some sort of civil rights that prevented them from subjecting their own kind to conditions that would result in early breakdown and deactivation.
2. What kind of heat? Currently thought that the brain operates via phonons, a form of discrete packets of heat energy or organized entropy. It's not like anyone plugged into the Matrix ever uses their muscles to generate heat, so the work must be done solely with the brain. By that logic, it would be pretty pointless to have braindead sheep plugged in. Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't make it real. The people plugged into the matrix were already experiencing a form of reality processing as each other them responded to the simulation on a daily basis.
1. Machines, Civil Rights? Really? Even if radioactive materials were detrimental to them, I doubt they'd have sweat a positron worrying about a single, expendable machine.
2. How could they have fed off of the signals of the brain without severely affecting its function, which is clearly didn't? The body produces heat regardless of muscles, and that body heat could have heated the liquid around it, and perhaps that is how they farmed the heat. Or perhaps the plugs were the method in which body heat was converted into energy. In this way, only autonomic brain functions which kept the body running and generating heat would be necessary. Just a little damage to the cerebral cortex and they'd have quite a safe crop.
1. At some point, I think they'd almost have to develop their own version of civil rights. This is the Matrix we're taking about. A sense of individual personality between different programs is pretty obvious in the movies, so it's not like the robots are a single borg-like hive mind. And the Civil Rights issues were definitely raised during the Second Renaissance portions of the Animatrix. Intelligent Machines are living creatures too, therefore not expendable.
2. Maybe a digital consciousness requires less processing power than an analog one? They don't go into a serious amount of detail in the movies in regards to what that ginormous needle is doing in the back of someone's brain, as well as their spine, arms and legs. Perhaps they absorb the energy directly as it passes down neural pathways down towards the muscles. It's mostly speculation, and pseudoscience either way.
Unforgiven on
"I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."
First movie: Good, except the phone dynamic didn't make any fucking sense (among a few other things, like humans being used as sources of energy).
I had wondered that myself. Read an article where someone asked "Why not use cows? The matrix could be a field of green grass." :P
Thing is, machines are limited by their creators. I wonder if the real reason they use humans is to have some sort of "source" for creativity and creation, even if just for our dreams. Their evolution, their continued growth may depend on it.
Yea something like that, I think I remember somebody saying that people were originally intended to be used as side processors of some sort. There was some nice looking explanation for it but it was changed because they didn't believe the regular movie viewer would understand it was much as simply having Morpheus hold up a battery.
I don't have much to drop in the thread but I really just wanted to stop in and say this is one of the most interesting reads I've had in a while.
Dream batteries.
Nice.
Androids dream of electronic people?
They dream of electric sheep... idiot!
There are a few problems with the logic of the movie.
1. The robots couldn't have relied on nuclear power? At all?
2. They could grow humans, but could perform surgeries to those humans early on which would keep them completely functioning, but keep them completely docile. They wouldn't even need to have a matrix if they just kept a bunch of brain dumb things hooked up to a giant incubator.
I'm glad they forwent logic, however. The movie and its ideas were still pretty damn cool.
Leave Ridley Scott out of this.
1. Maybe the electronic circuitry of the robots neural systems can't deal with any ionizing radiation at all.
2. What kind of power are they harvesting? If its a purely heat based energy source then it's a pretty weak energy source. If they're harvesting brains for processing power then they wouldn't want dumb sheep.
R-R-Ridley Scott?! Philip K. Dick, good sir! :x
1. But they could have plants which would convert the energy. The machines themselves don't have to run off of nuclear energy. They just farm nuclear energy to create electricity. That's what nuclear plants do now.
2. I don't know about this. In a fictional world, anything is possible. However, realistically speaking, I couldn't imagine that thousands of brains could be used to create a giant processor. And actually, Morpheus does tell us what the machines use it for. They are collecting the heat energy from humans.
Like I said, lets leave Ridley Scott out of this.
1. But they'd still have to build the plants. Maybe the robots had some sort of civil rights that prevented them from subjecting their own kind to conditions that would result in early breakdown and deactivation.
2. What kind of heat? Currently thought that the brain operates via phonons, a form of discrete packets of heat energy or organized entropy. It's not like anyone plugged into the Matrix ever uses their muscles to generate heat, so the work must be done solely with the brain. By that logic, it would be pretty pointless to have braindead sheep plugged in. Just because you can't imagine it, doesn't make it real. The people plugged into the matrix were already experiencing a form of reality processing as each other them responded to the simulation on a daily basis.
1. Machines, Civil Rights? Really? Even if radioactive materials were detrimental to them, I doubt they'd have sweat a positron worrying about a single, expendable machine.
2. How could they have fed off of the signals of the brain without severely affecting its function, which is clearly didn't? The body produces heat regardless of muscles, and that body heat could have heated the liquid around it, and perhaps that is how they farmed the heat. Or perhaps the plugs were the method in which body heat was converted into energy. In this way, only autonomic brain functions which kept the body running and generating heat would be necessary. Just a little damage to the cerebral cortex and they'd have quite a safe crop.
1. At some point, I think they'd almost have to develop their own version of civil rights. This is the Matrix we're taking about. A sense of individual personality between different programs is pretty obvious in the movies, so it's not like the robots are a single borg-like hive mind. And the Civil Rights issues were definitely raised during the Second Renaissance portions of the Animatrix. Intelligent Machines are living creatures too, therefore not expendable.
2. Maybe a digital consciousness requires less processing power than an analog one? They don't go into a serious amount of detail in the movies in regards to what that ginormous needle is doing in the back of someone's brain, as well as their spine, arms and legs. Perhaps they absorb the energy directly as it passes down neural pathways down towards the muscles. It's mostly speculation, and pseudoscience either way.
1. Perhaps. But I still say they could have. Humans can develop radiation suits. Machines couldn't put on a white parka?
2. If we're going to use in movie points or the Animatrix to argue, then this is all moot, as Morpheus directly states what the humans are used for. Heat. The needle in the back of the head is used to deliver the Matrix into their minds. The other needles, perhaps they were the tools to withdraw the energy. I don't know.
Mostly speculation? What part of this isn't speculation? What are you planning?
I don't think you speak for "most people".
In my experience, I've met a lot of people who claim they are the same person they were when they were born.
They'd be wrong though. I can't expect you to believe me just because of my charming personality, but I promise you that I read somewhere, and it was convincingly scientific and thorough, that the rate the body processes everything, and cell death and such... At those rates, your body is atomically different approximately every seven years. So seven years from now, not a single atom that composes your body now will compose your body then. You will physically be a completely different person.
Interesting? Shit yeah it is.
I think the important matter of the material changeover that gets left out is continuity. Even if at time A and at time B you have no atoms in common, there isn't a point between those times where you magically switch between the two, but rather periodically remove and add small parts.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Calling a philosophy that is undoubtedly at least as valid as your own "stupid" is pretty stupid. :roll:
No it really is pretty stupid as evidenced by the effects of various types of brain damage on people, the laboratory behavior of people who have that left/right splitting operation for epilepsy, etc.
You can change people by fucking with their brains. You're not the phantom, you don't have an objective view of how your brain is functioning.
So there's no chance that the mere knowledge that one's brain has been fucked with could produce a significant personality change?
I knew a man who'd gone through several brain cancer operations. In the end, he had quite the whole in his head as they didn't bother to install a metal plate in case they had to open him back up again to operate quickly. He got progressively slower, but his personality didn't seem to change at all.
There are plenty of ways to instill a personality change with resorting to operations or injury. Religious revelation is one example.
Hmm, if my memory isn't failing me, I am 99% sure in one of my psychology books that there is a document report of a rail road worker who, during the course of work got a metal pole shoved through his head and part of his brain. Miraculously, he survived. However, his personality had completely flipped. I can't remember if he went from being a very clam person to a very angry person, or vice versa.
There is indeed such a case.
It happened in the 1800s, he stopped feeling emotions, and thus his personality changed accordingly. He proceeded to make a variety of very bad decisions. I wish I could remember his name...James something IIRC.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
No it really is pretty stupid as evidenced by the effects of various types of brain damage on people, the laboratory behavior of people who have that left/right splitting operation for epilepsy, etc.
You can change people by fucking with their brains. You're not the phantom, you don't have an objective view of how your brain is functioning.
No, actually the stupid is back on you for not understanding something but still trying to look like you're somehow superior. There is no way to know whether or not you change people by "fucking with their brains" - we just know we can change how they appear to be to us.
*snip*
Despite your "argument's" (if petulant attacking of other poster's philosophies/contributions can be called an argument) need for it to be otherwise, the nature of the "observer" is still very much unknown.
Glod I hate this argument. It's so fucking untenable. I submit the following counter argument.
We know that people who have damage to their brains change in personality, whether or not we assume their ultimate essense fundamentally changes or simply changes "how it appears to us"/"loses its conduit into the physical"/some old bullshit.
There are defects, such as brain tumours and chemical imbalances, which are reversible and can cause dramatic personality changes.
Most notably, brain tumours in certain areas of the brain can cause things such as uncontrollable pedophilic urges, disgust towards one's loved ones, extreme rage and a huge variety of insane beliefs. These go away once the problems are fixed.
Most important : The people whom these changes afflict often can and do observe these changes within themselves - they do not think "huh, I'm thinking normal things but I keep accidently thinking oter weird things and yelling as if I am enraged" they think "Where the fuck does this urge for child abuse come from, what has happened to me, OH SHIT".
So, the challenge is how exactly are you going to reconcile this with the contention that the people themselves do not change, merely the way they appear to us, given that they also appear to change to themselves - are you going to postulate that there's the us that observes ourselves and this is somehow separate to the true essence of us? Draw us a clear picture of how your alternative could possibly work.
I don't think you speak for "most people".
In my experience, I've met a lot of people who claim they are the same person they were when they were born.
They'd be wrong though. I can't expect you to believe me just because of my charming personality, but I promise you that I read somewhere, and it was convincingly scientific and thorough, that the rate the body processes everything, and cell death and such... At those rates, your body is atomically different approximately every seven years. So seven years from now, not a single atom that composes your body now will compose your body then. You will physically be a completely different person.
Interesting? Shit yeah it is.
I think the important matter of the material changeover that gets left out is continuity. Even if at time A and at time B you have no atoms in common, there isn't a point between those times where you magically switch between the two, but rather periodically remove and add small parts.
Well, yeah. I'm not implying that at any point in those seven years you'll be completely, atomically obliterated and then born anew at your nearest Via-Chamber. That'd be... silly!
I also wonder if people thus consider how important their food is to them. I mean, you literally are what you eat. Your body is made up entirely of the matter you put into it. I mean, your bones, your muscles, your flesh. All made up of cheese, broccoli, peanut butter, bread, etc.
Not literally... Although I do have a candy heart. 8-)
The observer IS us, the personality structure is a program handed down to you by your parents and culture. The personality is always changing, but your awareness throughout life never changes. Now, we have to realize that when I say the observer is us, I am trying to point away from our personality structures to our more fundamental selves.
Of course people change, nobody is arguing against that, but the observer watching the person never changes. I don't know how to describe the observer though because it is literally outside of time and space, it isn't physical. I guess I would say it is everything you experience both within and without you. The more you identify with your personality structure, the more crystallized it becomes. The more you identify with the observer, the more likely you are to have a flexible personality. Even if the brain is damaged, we still have the power to choose how to react to these new changes.
"they think "Where the fuck does this urge for child abuse come from, what has happened to me, OH SHIT".
Which means they don't identify completely with the personality structure, hinting that they must be more than what they currently are.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited September 2007
Consciousness is self-referential, dinkus. It hints at nothing of the sort.
Also, I just reread the first bit - you're seriously suggesting that we have the power to decide whether or not to let brain injuries effect out personality? I think you should take your can-do attitude to the nearest neuro-surgeon you'll be able to wonderful things together. Not to mention the benefits your teachings to Alzheimers sufferes.
And what is the "observer" you're talking about, specifically the one which transcends space and time, you need to paint this picture, I am agog.
No need to call names, we're all intelligent adults here.
You are misunderstanding my point, and putting words in my mouth. We do not have the power to decide whether we let brain injuries effect our personality and I never said we did. What I am saying is that a personality is not a static thing, it is ALWAYS changing and adapting. A brain injury might make us interact differently with the world than before but we know we are still the same person (person, not personality) and we learn to cope with the changes.
If you want to see the observer, I suggest taking up meditation because I'm not going to be able to show it to you, ESPECIALLY if you are looking for it (duh, you can't look for it because you're the one looking!) The observer is closer to you than your own breath.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
A person, if you built a replica, would not be the same person, not without that person's personality and memories. So basically you have yourself, which is the personality and memory, and you have that awareness you had since you were born, which has been watching you as you formed your personality and gathered all those precious memories.
However, that awareness has been around a long time before you were even born - that awareness is the same observer that watched the big bang (if the big bang theory is correct) happen, only now that awareness has focused a infinitesimal amount of itself on to you, the observed. However, since you are both the observed AND the observer, you always have more things to discover about yourself or more aspect of your personality to bring forth into your awareness. These changes that these people go through when they get brain damage aren't really changes at all - those things were always a part of them, they just weren't aware of it.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
edited September 2007
I, for one, find bald assertion to be more convincing that an argument.
And you still haven't spelt out the details of what you're proposing.
Also, what the flying fuck at this thread, guys. I've seen everything from misunderstanding of quantum theory to calling dualism an "equally valid" viewpoint.
I don't think you speak for "most people".
In my experience, I've met a lot of people who claim they are the same person they were when they were born.
They'd be wrong though. I can't expect you to believe me just because of my charming personality, but I promise you that I read somewhere, and it was convincingly scientific and thorough, that the rate the body processes everything, and cell death and such... At those rates, your body is atomically different approximately every seven years. So seven years from now, not a single atom that composes your body now will compose your body then. You will physically be a completely different person.
Interesting? Shit yeah it is.
I fairly certain, and I don't expect to convince you otherwise without a link, that I have read a total and thorough debunking of this claim.
I don't think you speak for "most people".
In my experience, I've met a lot of people who claim they are the same person they were when they were born.
They'd be wrong though. I can't expect you to believe me just because of my charming personality, but I promise you that I read somewhere, and it was convincingly scientific and thorough, that the rate the body processes everything, and cell death and such... At those rates, your body is atomically different approximately every seven years. So seven years from now, not a single atom that composes your body now will compose your body then. You will physically be a completely different person.
Interesting? Shit yeah it is.
I fairly certain, and I don't expect to convince you otherwise without a link, that I have read a total and thorough debunking of this claim.
I don't think you speak for "most people".
In my experience, I've met a lot of people who claim they are the same person they were when they were born.
They'd be wrong though. I can't expect you to believe me just because of my charming personality, but I promise you that I read somewhere, and it was convincingly scientific and thorough, that the rate the body processes everything, and cell death and such... At those rates, your body is atomically different approximately every seven years. So seven years from now, not a single atom that composes your body now will compose your body then. You will physically be a completely different person.
Interesting? Shit yeah it is.
I fairly certain, and I don't expect to convince you otherwise without a link, that I have read a total and thorough debunking of this claim.
God tells me that you are both wrong.
I've often wondered about that little 'fact'.
What about your bones? There's no way you replace all that calcium every 7 years.
Unforgiven on
"I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
edited September 2007
What if this is real, and the Matrix is fake, guys? What if?
We've established that if it's possible for it to exist, it probably already exists, built by an alien civilization somewhere in the entire frickin' Universe at least once. Otherwise we're putting ourselves at the center again and anthropomorphizing the whole thing. If its possible for it to exist, it already exists, has been there forever and will be there for eternity.
The concept of an Omega Point isn't found solely in the realm of science and science fiction.
Omega point is a term invented by French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness, considered by him the aim towards which consciousness evolves. Rather than divinity being found "in the heavens" he held that evolution was a process converging toward a "final unity", identical with the Eschaton and with God. According to Teilhard and the Russian scholar and biologist Vladimir Vernadsky (author of The Geosphere 1924 and The Biosphere 1926), the planet is in a transformative process, metamorphosing from the biosphere into the noosphere.
Controversies about his line of thought centre on the question of whether or not the mission started by Christ was completed with his crucifixion, or whether mankind is meant to advance Christ's mission via the evolutionary process. Some theologians see an unbridgeable gulf between the traditional teaching that mankind was redeemed by a single act of divine intercession - mediated by the sacraments of the Catholic Church - and the notion that mankind might perfect itself by degrees, and over a long period of time. Holding with the latter, Teilhard proposed that the culmination of human history in the Omega point would represent actual Christogenesis. He said "A religion which is supposed to be inferior to our ideal as mankind, whatever the miracles surrounding it, is a Lost Religion."
And for those of you with an interest in those sorts of things, here's a link to an ongoing experiment being conducted at Princeton via the correlation of random data sets from around the globe.
What a fucking hoax. They use random number generators based on radio noise, act surprised it starts acting more predictable when a solar eclipse happens and somehow this implies a global consciousness. Yeah having cut out solar radiation for a big swath of planet, that will have no effect on the radio bands i'm sure. Also, new years eve happenings, what do you think happens to radio interbands when all radio shows have 30 seconds of silence regularly interspersed with counting down a number? The massively more predictable carrier waves will shine through in each silence. There are a thousand reasons to think of why radio noise was a very very bad choice for their random number generators.
What a fucking hoax. They use random number generators based on radio noise, act surprised it starts acting more predictable when a solar eclipse happens and somehow this implies a global consciousness. Yeah having cut out solar radiation for a big swath of planet, that will have no effect on the radio bands i'm sure. Also, new years eve happenings, what do you think happens to radio interbands when all radio shows have 30 seconds of silence regularly interspersed with counting down a number? The massively more predictable carrier waves will shine through in each silence. There are a thousand reasons to think of why radio noise was a very very bad choice for their random number generators.
Meh. Complain at them, not me.
Besides, the data plot has been running for 9 years. If you'd like to take a stab at proving their sampling is all bullshit, the data is there for anyone to take a stroll through.
Unforgiven on
"I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."
I don't think you speak for "most people".
In my experience, I've met a lot of people who claim they are the same person they were when they were born.
They'd be wrong though. I can't expect you to believe me just because of my charming personality, but I promise you that I read somewhere, and it was convincingly scientific and thorough, that the rate the body processes everything, and cell death and such... At those rates, your body is atomically different approximately every seven years. So seven years from now, not a single atom that composes your body now will compose your body then. You will physically be a completely different person.
Interesting? Shit yeah it is.
I fairly certain, and I don't expect to convince you otherwise without a link, that I have read a total and thorough debunking of this claim.
God tells me that you are both wrong.
I've often wondered about that little 'fact'.
What about your bones? There's no way you replace all that calcium every 7 years.
It wouldn't really matter if it weren't true. I had considered the bones, but it wasn't really relevant. My point is mostly just about the impermanence of the body. I think I followed that up with something about food, but I don't know where. I don't even remember why this was relevant at the time, I'm just pretty sure it was.
And The Matrix was Philosophy 101. This wasn't supposed to be the most intellectual philosophy thread ever! It was simply supposed to be an accesible topic, with a recent and understandable example and context, which would allow everyone to comment on it, or give it a thought for a chance.
Not for twenty people to show up, shove their nose in the air damning the thread entirely.
"Oh, ha! So Philosophy 101. Plebeians..." Which of course is an easy claim to make without actually showing you know what you're talking about, and you still look smart!
It's not like every event they've charted coincides with a solar eclipse for Christ's sake.
For consciousness to have a physical manifestation apart from what we do with our bodies (and the normal electrical fields of the brain), pretty much all of what we know about modern science and the brain would have to be wrong.
It's not like every event they've charted coincides with a solar eclipse for Christ's sake.
For consciousness to have a physical manifestation apart from what we do with our bodies (and the normal electrical fields of the brain), pretty much all of what we know about modern science and the brain would have to be wrong.
The onus is not on me.
How would modern physics have to be wrong for these results to be accurate?
The idea that the brain outputs an electrical field isn't new.
The idea that these electrical fields might interact in a sublime way to produce minor by noticable decrease in the random nature of white noise measured in proximity to large concentrations of these brain generated EM fields doesn't stretch the imagination too far.
The entire project is based on previous work regarding consciousness and random number generators, specifically studying the effects random number generation from white noise in close proximity to people undergoing altered brain states like deep meditation.
I'd rather think that we're simply lacking fundamental pieces of our understanding than put over a decade of research and recorded data and the professionalism of over 100 scientists working on the project into doubt.
Unforgiven on
"I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."
It's not like every event they've charted coincides with a solar eclipse for Christ's sake.
For consciousness to have a physical manifestation apart from what we do with our bodies (and the normal electrical fields of the brain), pretty much all of what we know about modern science and the brain would have to be wrong.
The onus is not on me.
How would modern physics have to be wrong for these results to be accurate?
The idea that the brain outputs an electrical field isn't new.
The idea that these electrical fields might interact in a sublime way to produce minor by noticable decrease in the random nature of white noise measured in proximity to large concentrations of these brain generated EM fields doesn't stretch the imagination too far.
The entire project is based on previous work regarding consciousness and random number generators, specifically studying the effects random number generation from white noise in close proximity to people undergoing altered brain states like deep meditation.
I'd rather think that we're simply lacking fundamental pieces of our understanding than put over a decade of research and recorded data and the professionalism of over 100 scientists working on the project into doubt.
Right but..."I am a scientist you can't go and expect me to prove my own work."
This is not really an accepted argument.
Anyone can pump out "Decades of work". It's easier if it's BS, because then you don't have to actually accomplish anything. The challenging them to prove it part is science.
The point is that the method has numerous glaring flaws that they've made no attempt to correct for. There are a huge number of radio transmitters in the world, as well as extra-terrestial and terrestial natural sources such as the sun and the various interactions of solar radiation and the ionosphere. To generate new, unbiased data, you need to show how you've corrected for all these types of possible interferences.
So again, the onus is not on anyone here to prove that their results have been interfered with, it's on them to prove that they haven't been.
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1. Machines, Civil Rights? Really? Even if radioactive materials were detrimental to them, I doubt they'd have sweat a positron worrying about a single, expendable machine.
2. How could they have fed off of the signals of the brain without severely affecting its function, which is clearly didn't? The body produces heat regardless of muscles, and that body heat could have heated the liquid around it, and perhaps that is how they farmed the heat. Or perhaps the plugs were the method in which body heat was converted into energy. In this way, only autonomic brain functions which kept the body running and generating heat would be necessary. Just a little damage to the cerebral cortex and they'd have quite a safe crop.
1. At some point, I think they'd almost have to develop their own version of civil rights. This is the Matrix we're taking about. A sense of individual personality between different programs is pretty obvious in the movies, so it's not like the robots are a single borg-like hive mind. And the Civil Rights issues were definitely raised during the Second Renaissance portions of the Animatrix. Intelligent Machines are living creatures too, therefore not expendable.
2. Maybe a digital consciousness requires less processing power than an analog one? They don't go into a serious amount of detail in the movies in regards to what that ginormous needle is doing in the back of someone's brain, as well as their spine, arms and legs. Perhaps they absorb the energy directly as it passes down neural pathways down towards the muscles. It's mostly speculation, and pseudoscience either way.
1. Perhaps. But I still say they could have. Humans can develop radiation suits. Machines couldn't put on a white parka?
2. If we're going to use in movie points or the Animatrix to argue, then this is all moot, as Morpheus directly states what the humans are used for. Heat. The needle in the back of the head is used to deliver the Matrix into their minds. The other needles, perhaps they were the tools to withdraw the energy. I don't know.
Mostly speculation? What part of this isn't speculation? What are you planning?
Edit: Long thread is loooong.
I tried to invoke him on page 2.
We skimmed over him on the last page actually.
I believe we're done with that quote tree... I don't want to go into detail as to what I'm planning.
Ahem.
I think the important matter of the material changeover that gets left out is continuity. Even if at time A and at time B you have no atoms in common, there isn't a point between those times where you magically switch between the two, but rather periodically remove and add small parts.
There is indeed such a case.
It happened in the 1800s, he stopped feeling emotions, and thus his personality changed accordingly. He proceeded to make a variety of very bad decisions. I wish I could remember his name...James something IIRC.
Glod I hate this argument. It's so fucking untenable. I submit the following counter argument.
We know that people who have damage to their brains change in personality, whether or not we assume their ultimate essense fundamentally changes or simply changes "how it appears to us"/"loses its conduit into the physical"/some old bullshit.
There are defects, such as brain tumours and chemical imbalances, which are reversible and can cause dramatic personality changes.
Most notably, brain tumours in certain areas of the brain can cause things such as uncontrollable pedophilic urges, disgust towards one's loved ones, extreme rage and a huge variety of insane beliefs. These go away once the problems are fixed.
Most important : The people whom these changes afflict often can and do observe these changes within themselves - they do not think "huh, I'm thinking normal things but I keep accidently thinking oter weird things and yelling as if I am enraged" they think "Where the fuck does this urge for child abuse come from, what has happened to me, OH SHIT".
So, the challenge is how exactly are you going to reconcile this with the contention that the people themselves do not change, merely the way they appear to us, given that they also appear to change to themselves - are you going to postulate that there's the us that observes ourselves and this is somehow separate to the true essence of us? Draw us a clear picture of how your alternative could possibly work.
Well, yeah. I'm not implying that at any point in those seven years you'll be completely, atomically obliterated and then born anew at your nearest Via-Chamber. That'd be... silly!
I also wonder if people thus consider how important their food is to them. I mean, you literally are what you eat. Your body is made up entirely of the matter you put into it. I mean, your bones, your muscles, your flesh. All made up of cheese, broccoli, peanut butter, bread, etc.
Not literally... Although I do have a candy heart. 8-)
Of course people change, nobody is arguing against that, but the observer watching the person never changes. I don't know how to describe the observer though because it is literally outside of time and space, it isn't physical. I guess I would say it is everything you experience both within and without you. The more you identify with your personality structure, the more crystallized it becomes. The more you identify with the observer, the more likely you are to have a flexible personality. Even if the brain is damaged, we still have the power to choose how to react to these new changes.
"they think "Where the fuck does this urge for child abuse come from, what has happened to me, OH SHIT".
Which means they don't identify completely with the personality structure, hinting that they must be more than what they currently are.
Also, I just reread the first bit - you're seriously suggesting that we have the power to decide whether or not to let brain injuries effect out personality? I think you should take your can-do attitude to the nearest neuro-surgeon you'll be able to wonderful things together. Not to mention the benefits your teachings to Alzheimers sufferes.
And what is the "observer" you're talking about, specifically the one which transcends space and time, you need to paint this picture, I am agog.
You are misunderstanding my point, and putting words in my mouth. We do not have the power to decide whether we let brain injuries effect our personality and I never said we did. What I am saying is that a personality is not a static thing, it is ALWAYS changing and adapting. A brain injury might make us interact differently with the world than before but we know we are still the same person (person, not personality) and we learn to cope with the changes.
If you want to see the observer, I suggest taking up meditation because I'm not going to be able to show it to you, ESPECIALLY if you are looking for it (duh, you can't look for it because you're the one looking!) The observer is closer to you than your own breath.
However, that awareness has been around a long time before you were even born - that awareness is the same observer that watched the big bang (if the big bang theory is correct) happen, only now that awareness has focused a infinitesimal amount of itself on to you, the observed. However, since you are both the observed AND the observer, you always have more things to discover about yourself or more aspect of your personality to bring forth into your awareness. These changes that these people go through when they get brain damage aren't really changes at all - those things were always a part of them, they just weren't aware of it.
And you still haven't spelt out the details of what you're proposing.
1. All of reality comes from awareness
2. We are only aware of our current experience
3. Thus our reality is the current experience we are aware of
Thus, it is impossible to know if we are in some kind of Matrix
Also, what the flying fuck at this thread, guys. I've seen everything from misunderstanding of quantum theory to calling dualism an "equally valid" viewpoint.
You should all be ashamed.
Okay.
Baldness is kind of ugly in men but in certain areas on certain women it is dandy.
There is a "bald assertion" for you.
I fairly certain, and I don't expect to convince you otherwise without a link, that I have read a total and thorough debunking of this claim.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
God tells me that you are both wrong.
I've often wondered about that little 'fact'.
What about your bones? There's no way you replace all that calcium every 7 years.
Then obviously marketforces are demanding someone go out and build the Matrix.
We've established that if it's possible for it to exist, it probably already exists, built by an alien civilization somewhere in the entire frickin' Universe at least once. Otherwise we're putting ourselves at the center again and anthropomorphizing the whole thing. If its possible for it to exist, it already exists, has been there forever and will be there for eternity.
The concept of an Omega Point isn't found solely in the realm of science and science fiction.
He was chastized by the Church for his beliefs.
And for those of you with an interest in those sorts of things, here's a link to an ongoing experiment being conducted at Princeton via the correlation of random data sets from around the globe.
It's called the Global Consciousness Project.
What a fucking hoax. They use random number generators based on radio noise, act surprised it starts acting more predictable when a solar eclipse happens and somehow this implies a global consciousness. Yeah having cut out solar radiation for a big swath of planet, that will have no effect on the radio bands i'm sure. Also, new years eve happenings, what do you think happens to radio interbands when all radio shows have 30 seconds of silence regularly interspersed with counting down a number? The massively more predictable carrier waves will shine through in each silence. There are a thousand reasons to think of why radio noise was a very very bad choice for their random number generators.
Meh. Complain at them, not me.
Besides, the data plot has been running for 9 years. If you'd like to take a stab at proving their sampling is all bullshit, the data is there for anyone to take a stroll through.
Then prove it.
It's not like every event they've charted coincides with a solar eclipse for Christ's sake.
It wouldn't really matter if it weren't true. I had considered the bones, but it wasn't really relevant. My point is mostly just about the impermanence of the body. I think I followed that up with something about food, but I don't know where. I don't even remember why this was relevant at the time, I'm just pretty sure it was.
And The Matrix was Philosophy 101. This wasn't supposed to be the most intellectual philosophy thread ever! It was simply supposed to be an accesible topic, with a recent and understandable example and context, which would allow everyone to comment on it, or give it a thought for a chance.
Not for twenty people to show up, shove their nose in the air damning the thread entirely.
"Oh, ha! So Philosophy 101. Plebeians..." Which of course is an easy claim to make without actually showing you know what you're talking about, and you still look smart!
For consciousness to have a physical manifestation apart from what we do with our bodies (and the normal electrical fields of the brain), pretty much all of what we know about modern science and the brain would have to be wrong.
The onus is not on me.
How would modern physics have to be wrong for these results to be accurate?
The idea that the brain outputs an electrical field isn't new.
The idea that these electrical fields might interact in a sublime way to produce minor by noticable decrease in the random nature of white noise measured in proximity to large concentrations of these brain generated EM fields doesn't stretch the imagination too far.
The entire project is based on previous work regarding consciousness and random number generators, specifically studying the effects random number generation from white noise in close proximity to people undergoing altered brain states like deep meditation.
I'd rather think that we're simply lacking fundamental pieces of our understanding than put over a decade of research and recorded data and the professionalism of over 100 scientists working on the project into doubt.
Right but..."I am a scientist you can't go and expect me to prove my own work."
This is not really an accepted argument.
Anyone can pump out "Decades of work". It's easier if it's BS, because then you don't have to actually accomplish anything. The challenging them to prove it part is science.
So again, the onus is not on anyone here to prove that their results have been interfered with, it's on them to prove that they haven't been.