[Ravening]

Well, I am coming from a pantheistic perspective: God is a synonym for that which I call reality.  Given that hypothesis, God's image is literally everywhere.  I doubt the ultimate can be perceived as one particular image but a barrage of images that one slowly comprehends.  Or at least, slow for me.  Sometimes, when I close my eyes, many images flash like I'm dreaming but I'm wide awake; simply closing my eyes.  Added to that, I have had signs of its presence, other than every waking moment.  Akin to burning bushes.  It didn't exactly convince me that there is a "God" but, instead, that what I perceive, all of it, is just smoke and mirrors.  Props on a stage and, in a sense, it didn't feel genuine.

[Muerte]

  So then God is everything?  This is what you are wishing to state?  I tend to want to know specifics.

[Ravening]

There's a slight difference between "God is everything" and what I personally believe.

A defining trait of God is that, whatever it is, it is all-encompassing.  (this is a wild divergence from defining God to be a creator)

Reality as I define it is the totality of all that exists (whatever existence means).  This totality is all-encompassing in the sense that the forest encompasses all trees in the forest.

That which is all-encompassing is in a sense ultimate.

If two things are ultimate, they are identical or at least congruent.  In other words, there can be only one ultimate.


From this I conclude that if there is a God, then it is reality: the totality of all that exists.  Or at least it is congruent to reality.

I attribute no human traits to God, nor even necessarily any of the "big O's".  I don't anthropomorphize God.

[hannibal]

I  found your favorite disturbing video Ravening 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAtwAWwRZ7U

[Muerte]

  It is good that you do not allow yourself to fall onto the same fallacies that most individuals do.  I too agree that God posses no human traits.  But again I ask a question.

  You say that God is akin to reality.  If this is so, then could we not conclude that Reality, like God, is self aware?  After all in order to make decision and to take action on said decisions one must be self aware to do so. 

  And no machines are not self aware because they act independently once activated.  They must be programmed then activated.  And no we cannot say "Well that is what we do with children, because unlike children, machine will only continue to do what is programmed not matter what happens.  They do not (at least currently) run into problems and then choose not to do something (unless already programmed to do so).  Machine are dependent upon what we program them to do, children posses the ability of self thought/awareness.  I have added this small blup to forgo those who wish to say "But what about Machines?"

[Ravening]

I  found your favorite disturbing video Ravening 

Yay!  Been looking for that for a while.  Where it used to be it isn't any longer.  Now with the powers of keepvid.com I will never lose it again!

  It is good that you do not allow yourself to fall onto the same fallacies that most individuals do.  I too agree that God posses no human traits.  But again I ask a question.

  You say that God is akin to reality.  If this is so, then could we not conclude that Reality, like God, is self aware?  After all in order to make decision and to take action on said decisions one must be self aware to do so. 

  And no machines are not self aware because they act independently once activated.  They must be programmed then activated.  And no we cannot say "Well that is what we do with children, because unlike children, machine will only continue to do what is programmed not matter what happens.  They do not (at least currently) run into problems and then choose not to do something (unless already programmed to do so).  Machine are dependent upon what we program them to do, children posses the ability of self thought/awareness.  I have added this small blup to forgo those who wish to say "But what about Machines?"

That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?  I believe it is plausible that reality is self-aware, if not a foregone conclusion.  It seems pointless to try to prove it here, for a couple of reasons...one being I haven't got a proof that I like yet. 

Would you say that an if/then routine is a sort of decision-making process?  And what about the theoretical A.I.?  Is it just not possible?  I would think Reality is akin to A.I. though by that I don't mean a human creation but incredibly sophisticated software and hardware.  With DNA I think it could be said that the hardware is the software, in a sense.  The same is true of reality, I suspect.

This might be a really dumb question but is "This is a sentence" a self-aware statement?

There is a lot of material out there on theoretical machines likened to human-style consciousness that I'm just grasping the surface of.  Here's an interesting diversion:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060117081628/http://cs.wwc.edu/~aabyan/Colloquia/Aware/index.html
(You might have to click on the Awareness link on the left pane)

Some conclusions:
If an agent of type 4 ever believes that it cannot be inconsistent, it will become inconsistent.

An agent of type 4 knows that it is normal, knows that it is regular, and knows that it is of type 4.

The article also speaks of "logical omniscience," in its own way.  Of course, it just gives a definition, which one might reject outright.

So if we could somehow massage our perception so that reality is a type 4 agent, then it will know it is a type 4 agent and thus provide evidence of self-awareness.  Converting reality to a description of reality which is in some sense isomorphic to reality (ie, a complete description of reality), is something I've been thinking about (there's a separate thread on this somewhere).  Once this conversion is done, it is conceivable to address the issue of reality being an agent at all (my guess is not, but an interesting idea, and I could be wrong of course).

I think that material can be found in the works of someone named Smullyan but I haven't consulted original sources.

[hannibal]

When machines exhibit the property of recursive self improvement then they could be said to be "alive"...

[Ravening]

They're already more alive than you. 

[ViciouslyMe]

All I have to say is that God is created in Man's own image. (Man being the human race, so noone take it the wrong way)

Wasn't it the other way around? Man creating a god in his image  and giving him human values in order to have an acceptable familiar way of perceiving the universe around him when he had no decent explanation  for various natural phenomena that scared him?

[Muerte]

Wasn't it the other way around? Man creating a god in his image  and giving him human values in order to have an acceptable familiar way of perceiving the universe around him when he had no decent explanation  for various natural phenomena that scared him?

  Raz if I had a door prize  you would have won it.

I miss moloch. he'd tell me i was stupid or something while i attempt to disprove him. Win or lose we'd both walk away with smiles.. Where's he hang out these days?


ITS NOT THE SAME!!!! !!!

  Raz if I had a door prize  you would have won it.

Thanks! But i'd much rather visit you people so I can take pictures. Prospects look good next year. Maybe then.

[Ravening]

Pretty neat trick, creating an omnipresent being.   

[ViciouslyMe]

Didnt Raz just say what I had pretty much said? What ever then, point is yes, very much agree with that point of view.

[ravinclaw]

I saw it. Raz dose that. Tricky little farker. I miss Mo to, ...... I was almost gona say somethin funny but lost my motivation...