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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 17, 2025 at 9:14 pm
It wasn't simple enough. Only a ghost is a simple enough explanation. Divinely simple. God is gravity, and god is not determined by physical laws.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 17, 2025 at 9:48 pm
(May 17, 2025 at 5:41 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Physical laws don't determine what happens, they just summarize what we observe.
You're conflating theory and phenomena here. Our physical laws are descriptive. They help us explain and predict what's going on. The phenomena on which these theories are based exist independent of the theories or explanations. In a complete absence of physicists or observers of any type, rocks will keep falling.
Theories don't determine what happens in the real world. Phenomena do. In a fully deterministic framework those phenomena govern everything. Emergent behaviours are lovely, but first and foremost, they follow the basic underlying rules. Langton's Ant doesn't suddenly decide to start turning left instead of right on a black square just because it's taken up an exciting new career in highway construction.
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 17, 2025 at 9:57 pm
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2025 at 9:59 pm by Alan V.)
(May 17, 2025 at 3:26 pm)emjay Wrote: Ie you can talk about all the cool things our brains can do, or 'we' can do in consciousness, but it's all in my view still ultimately achieved by and represented in physical neurons and thus determined by physical laws.
Every single machine works by the laws of physics, yet they can do very different things. So the laws of physics do not, in fact, determine what they do. Their specific designs do, which are built upon the laws of physics. And the human brain has multiple modules to perform different functions. So you are not addressing such questions at the appropriate level of complexity, and the human brain is just about the most complex single object in the known universe.
(May 17, 2025 at 3:26 pm)emjay Wrote: I think it basically comes down to... whether you consider consciousness 'epiphenomenal' or not.
Consciousness was evolved to perform specific functions in real-world circumstances. It can be epiphenomenal, as when we dream at night or when we are watching a show or listening to music, since those are not apparently among its originally evolved functions.
Perhaps I will explain in more detail when I have the time to reference the science involved.
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 17, 2025 at 10:26 pm
The question that needs to be asked is if information follows the same laws as the physical world and if there are any additional rules that might change the behaviours. A computer is pretty inert until it's fed just the right pattern of information. If we view the mind similarly, then it's reaction to external information might not be expected to conform to physical laws.
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 17, 2025 at 10:39 pm
(May 17, 2025 at 9:57 pm)Alan V Wrote: (May 17, 2025 at 3:26 pm)emjay Wrote: Ie you can talk about all the cool things our brains can do, or 'we' can do in consciousness, but it's all in my view still ultimately achieved by and represented in physical neurons and thus determined by physical laws.
Every single machine works by the laws of physics, yet they can do very different things. So the laws of physics do not, in fact, determine what they do. Their specific designs do, which are built upon the laws of physics. And the human brain has multiple modules to perform different functions. So you are not addressing such questions at the appropriate level of complexity, and the human brain is just about the most complex single object in the known universe.
(May 17, 2025 at 3:26 pm)emjay Wrote: I think it basically comes down to... whether you consider consciousness 'epiphenomenal' or not.
Consciousness was evolved to perform specific functions in real-world circumstances. It can be epiphenomenal, as when we dream at night or when we are watching a show or listening to music, since those are not apparently among its originally evolved functions.
Perhaps I will explain in more detail when I have the time to reference the science involved.
No need to expand, I think I want to leave it there. We just go round in circles, that's what we do, as I said I just think it is futile us trying to get on the same page on this. I respect your opinion but it's not one I think I can ever share, I'm sorry to say, we just frame the world too differently. I hope you can accept that; I still respect you very much but this conversation is just not for me.
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 17, 2025 at 11:12 pm
(This post was last modified: May 17, 2025 at 11:21 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Physics not only determines what a machine can do they categorize what kind of machine a thing is. A machine analogy in considering brain is the notion that brains are, essentially, machines like any other.
Model based control is a way to get a machine to behave like we behave. To notice things we notice, and report things we report. To produce what we then call autonomous behaviors. Now, here's the trick. Machine autonomy is not, generally, believed to be free will. Not in the usual sense of it, or the specifically christian ghost based explanation. There are other ways to produce behaviors like the ones we associate with our freely willed whatsits, ofc. Plants use a type of chemical analog control.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 17, 2025 at 11:28 pm
For my own part, I think the difference between what plants and autonomous machines and humans are doing is one of quality rather than kind.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 18, 2025 at 12:16 am
(This post was last modified: May 18, 2025 at 12:17 am by John 6IX Breezy.)
(May 17, 2025 at 7:46 pm)emjay Wrote: And the amount of correlational evidence is overwhelming, and anyone arguing the counter case that consciousness is independent of the brain... and I don't know if you are arguing that, but if you believe in an afterlife, I assume you must be to some extent... has to answer why they even have a brain and why physical interactions with it, such as brain damage and drugs, have reliable and predictable effects on consciousness.
As a Christian I'm a monist in terms of the mind-body problem, consciousness emerges out of complex processes and is inseparable from the brain.
But as a psychologist, I'm part of a newer school of thought that has begun to view consciousness as fundamental in the structure of reality, and that treats cognition not as locked inside a brain in a vat, but as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended (what's called 4E cognition).
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 18, 2025 at 12:17 am
Yikes.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: In your opinion what causes christians to believe in Jesus
May 18, 2025 at 12:31 am
(May 18, 2025 at 12:16 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: (May 17, 2025 at 7:46 pm)emjay Wrote: And the amount of correlational evidence is overwhelming, and anyone arguing the counter case that consciousness is independent of the brain... and I don't know if you are arguing that, but if you believe in an afterlife, I assume you must be to some extent... has to answer why they even have a brain and why physical interactions with it, such as brain damage and drugs, have reliable and predictable effects on consciousness.
As a Christian I'm a monist in terms of the mind-body problem, consciousness emerges out of complex processes and is inseparable from the brain.
But as a psychologist, I'm part of a newer school of thought that has begun to view consciousness as fundamental in the structure of reality, and that treats cognition not as locked inside a brain in a vat, but as embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended (what's called 4E cognition).
You'd probably enjoy David Bentley Hart's book All Things are Full of Gods, if you haven't read it already.
It's an extended argument about all the current mind/body theories, and comes to a conclusion something like the one you describe.
He wrote it all as a dialogue among Greek gods, with Hephaestus of course representing the materialists, and Psyche and Hermes on the other side. It sounds cringe, but it does work, and makes extended description of theory more readable. You'd no doubt get more out of it than I did.
https://www.amazon.com/All-Things-Are-Fu...315&sr=8-6
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