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Just a machine

billydkid

Illuminator
billydkid
Joined
Aug 27, 2002
Messages
4,917
There are a couple of threads in here suggesting we should feel great discomfort with the notion that humans are "just machines". The whole premise seems to be that anything that functions via any sorts of mechanisms - however incomprehensibly complex - is somehow less authentic than some hypothetical thing that functions without any mechanism by which it functions. The problem is that anything that happens has to happen via a mechanism for it happening. How anyone can even concieve of anything happening without sort of mechanism is completely beyond me. And I fail to see how the idea that we function via electrical impulses and chemical reactions in anyway diminishes what we are. I can not even comprehend what the "just a machine" people are getting at.
 
There's this ingrained belief that somehow we are 'more' than everything else.

Most people have trouble believing matter can support consciousness. I defy them to prove matter is not conscious (or that it is for that matter). The problem is (currently anyways) undecidable because consciousness is very subjective.
 
For 'mechanism' substitute 'puppet'.
Then ask yourself whether you're happy to be a puppet instead of the puppeteer.
There's a vast distinction between those two concepts.
Perhaps you'll understand better with this transference of concepts in mind.
 
Nope, 'puppet' infers a puppeteer.

A mechanism may or may not require an operator.

NEXT!
 
Piscivore said:
Then ask yourself if there's anything more laughably pathetic than a puppet who insists he can "prove" he's really a puppeteer. :D
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Then ask yourself whether there's anything more laughably pathetic than a puppet who has the capacity to be self-aware that he is a puppet!!!

The essence of my argument is that a puppet does nothing; knows nothing; chooses nothing; feels nothing; and is certainly not aware that It is a puppet.

Puppets are gloves that move by the hand of another.
They have no attributes, least of all that of self-awareness.

I put it to you that you cannot be a puppet (an effected machine), since 'you' are actually aware of your own existence.
 
zaayrdragon said:
A mechanism may or may not require an operator.
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All mechanisms are effects of a preceding order that gave rise to them.
The very definition of a mechanism must embrace the word 'order'.

If you are a machine, then you are nothing more than a puppet of the thing(s) that have effected your behaviour.
 
From a report on the "Mind, Brain & Consciousness" conference

Susan Blackmore, a one-time paranormalist turned skeptic after her research demonstrated no evidence for the paranormal, presented a brilliant outline of the major problems in consciousness research, noting that all dualistic theories of consciousness end in contradiction; there is no Cartesian Theatre in which a homunculus watches what happens and controls subsequent outcomes.
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Blackmore orchestrated an audience participation activity that replicated Libet’s experiments demonstrating that motor action potentials appear before a decision to move is made. That is, free will is an illusion. Something in your brain makes a decision to, say, move you hand. A moment later, you consciously decide to move your hand. But the decision to move it and the impulse was already well under way.
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We are machines but it makes no practical difference because the illusion is so good that we can't tell the difference. Psychologically, this realization can affect us adversely, but we once smacked up against the realization that we are not the centre of the universe but now we accept it as a matter of course. I'm sure we will all get over it some day. In fact, some of us already have. :)

BillyJoe
 
LG,

lifegazer said:
If you are a machine, then you are nothing more than a puppet of the thing(s) that have effected your behaviour.
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Think about this because it doesn't make sense:
If you are a machine then.....you ARE a machine.....and the machine IS you. In which case, there is nothing to be a puppet. There is just the machine/you.

BJ
 
BillyJoe said:
LG,

Think about this because it doesn't make sense:
If you are a machine then.....you ARE a machine.....and the machine IS you. In which case, there is nothing to be a puppet. There is just the machine/you.

BJ
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Exactly. Darren, BJ here has the right of it.

Machines are the result of a prior order of mechanistic effects. Our entire universe (as perceived) is the result of a prior order of mechanistic effects. So why should Man - being part of that perceived universe - not also be the result of a prior order of mechanistic effects?

You are right, to one degree - we are not puppets. Puppets are operated by intelligent beings, have no senses, no awareness, and no introspection. Machines, on the other hand, if sufficiently complex, may well have all three. And it's pretty clear there's no intelligence operating human beings.
 
BillyJoe said:
Yeah, some of us are complete idiots! :D

BJ
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After all, if we were intelligent, we'd be out trying to get laid, rather than wasting time waxing philosophic on Internet boards with other sexless geeks, right? :D
 
......er.....(looks around to see if faithful wife is looking over his shoulder).....right! :D
 
lifegazer said:
All mechanisms are effects of a preceding order that gave rise to them.
The very definition of a mechanism must embrace the word 'order'.

If you are a machine, then you are nothing more than a puppet of the thing(s) that have effected your behaviour.
Click to expand...
But how could any thought processes exist without any underlying order? Thought processes cannot exist on a framework of randomness - so they must exist on a framework of order and as such be effects of this underlying order.

So by extension of your own logic we are machines.
 
billydkid said:
There are a couple of threads in here suggesting we should feel great discomfort with the notion that humans are "just machines". The whole premise seems to be that anything that functions via any sorts of mechanisms - however incomprehensibly complex - is somehow less authentic than some hypothetical thing that functions without any mechanism by which it functions. The problem is that anything that happens has to happen via a mechanism for it happening. How anyone can even concieve of anything happening without sort of mechanism is completely beyond me. And I fail to see how the idea that we function via electrical impulses and chemical reactions in anyway diminishes what we are. I can not even comprehend what the "just a machine" people are getting at.
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No I can't understand the fuss. In fact it is much more interesting that we are these fabuously complex machines than - well what actually is the proposed alternative?
 
Re: Re: Just a machine

Robin said:
No I can't understand the fuss. In fact it is much more interesting that we are these fabuously complex machines than - well what actually is the proposed alternative?
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Ineffable magicky powers, I believe.
 
How complex does a machine have to be in order to exhibit consciousness?

I would certainly say more complex than any machine humans have so far created, but the simple fact that we cannot create a conscious machine does not rule out the possibility that we will be able to create one in the future, does it?

Make a machine complex enough, with the right sort of connections and the right sort of inputs, and it will become conscious in the same way that we are. There is no mystical barrier to prevent it.
 
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