Does artificial intelligence disprove the supernatural

bill

For example when humans eventually create robots doesn't that prove that intelligence is purely physical

caz

bill wrote: »

For example when humans eventually create robots doesn't that prove that intelligence is purely physical

It proves calculators can do better sums

IronRabbit

Eventually?
http://www.androidworld.com/prod02.htm
What about nanobots enhancing human intelligence - enlightenment? Cyborg Buddha!
Where is the line between artificial and human intelligence?
They are not two - not one.
Intelligence then could be seen to be purely intelligence - or purely wisdom......beyond physical - beyond thought......
http://www.tricycle.com/interview/cyborg-buddha?page=0,1
Wait.......disprove the supernatural? - it has been proven?

RichardH

This is just about the most goofy topic ever. But it is fun.

Artificial consciousness would be the more appropriate term no? .. since you can be extremely intelligent and completely unconscious, like when you drive your kid to school and can't remember how you got there. Subjectivity can never be verified by objective means, but it can and will be thorougly faked, which will do for some AI enthusiast.

The "supernatural" is not important in Buddhism. It is just stuff.

mugzy

The real question: Is our intelligence any more real than artificial programs?

See the Chinese Room

shanyin

Where is this artificial consciousness or intelligence? Never seen it.

My natural intelligence tell me it's impossible.

zombiegirl

bill wrote: »

For example when humans eventually create robots doesn't that prove that intelligence is purely physical

when we create something that does things we didn't program it to do, then i will be impressed. but at the present, all robots are still operating under the "if x, then y" directive.

but back to the original question, i do believe that intelligence is purely physical... what else would it be? are you talking about "the ghost in the shell", as it were?

ownerof1000oddsocks

zombiegirl wrote: »

are you talking about "the ghost in the shell", as it were?

I think you just fused manga with philosophy. Don't you mean 'Ghost in the machine'?

RobV

I am reading a book called How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker, countless hours I've spent reading about how intense and how elaborate our brains are. I believe we will never be able to build a robot with real artificial intelligence. In the book it marks out these problems.

So before we jump to conclusions about Artificial Intelligence being on the same capacity as human capacity, we need to prove Artificial Intelligence like this can even exist. I believe it cannot.

exonesion

Robots are intelligent machines which they operate from a set of stored instructions. They're also probably do not require human intervention. Now a days robots are used in computer-aided manufacturing, computer-aided-design, computer-aided learning etc.
However, intelligent machines/robots seem impossible even 50 years in the future as the intelligence of robots depend heavily on the programming by experts. Some machines also called expert systems are really experts
My favorite expert system is the computerized chess player. He even beaten the top human player of chess in the world

Alfonso

But Chinese Room does not prove that it is impossible to make AI, it only shows that Turing's paradigm is not correct.
The main problem with AI imho is intentionality and "awareness" (buddhistically understood), which go beyond mere sensation data. I think, as the Dalai Lama once said that it was possible that if in the future we can give the necessary conditions for a mental continuum to be contained within it, then computers could become sentient beings. He even joked about that saying that AI investigators will be reborn as computers hahaha (I'll try to find the exact quote if you compel me to it).
I try to view this thing from the 5 aggregates point of view, that is:

Namarupa:
Sensible Matter -(Contact)-> Consciousness -> Sensation, Perception, Formation
Maybe in the future the electrical components of chips and etc. Will be able to contain more complex type of exegetical structures, such as tigles, karmic winds and channels, thus being able to contain consciousness, because of thirstiness (trsna) it will search some kind of specific way of fulfilling its desires, and I think that it's very rational to think that the gates of perceptions can be thought as mechanicals inputs and outputs (although not the conscious activity per se)

samostatny

To continue on what exonesion and Alfonso have been saying. I think we already have Artifical inteligence. Afterall, the computer has "beat man" at chess.

But the "soul" or "spirit" isn't found in one's ability to win a chess game. It's found in the ability to experience that win, or even that loss.

Touch a peice of wood with your hands. You gain information from that action. The rough feeling of the wood under your fingertips... But touch it again. You not only gain a peice of data, but you have an experience of the wood moving under your skin. How would we ever know that the computer had not simply aquired information, but expeirienced something? I don't even know if my best friend has done so. But I can know this, that I myself have experienced that peice of wood.

Another thing to think about is:
If I teach my computer to suffer, does it have a soul?

Cloud

Intelligence is no different than the senses. You could say that the brain, or mind, is the sixth sense. In humans it is very complex and that complexity breeds intelligence. Sensory organs of other life surpass those of humans (i.e. the smelling ability of a wolf vs. a human) because they too have increased complexity. In this way intelligence is nothing special, and the problems that arise with thinking too much of ourselves are just what we have to deal with to make up for the other benefits.

Alfonso

samostatny wrote: »

To continue on what exonesion and Alfonso have been saying. I think we already have Artifical inteligence. Afterall, the computer has "beat man" at chess.

But the "soul" or "spirit" isn't found in one's ability to win a chess game. It's found in the ability to experience that win, or even that loss.

Touch a peice of wood with your hands. You gain information from that action. The rough feeling of the wood under your fingertips... But touch it again. You not only gain a peice of data, but you have an experience of the wood moving under your skin. How would we ever know that the computer had not simply aquired information, but expeirienced something? I don't even know if my best friend has done so. But I can know this, that I myself have experienced that peice of wood.

Another thing to think about is:
If I teach my computer to suffer, does it have a soul?

Good point. Imho, at this time computers don't experiment awareness in a Buddhist sense, i.e., they don't have intentionality... they are like mere plants that are receiving sensation data. But who knows what will happen in the future :P

Alfonso

Cloud wrote: »

Intelligence is no different than the senses. You could say that the brain, or mind, is the sixth sense. In humans it is very complex and that complexity breeds intelligence. Sensory organs of other life surpass those of humans (i.e. the smelling ability of a wolf vs. a human) because they too have increased complexity. In this way intelligence is nothing special, and the problems that arise with thinking too much of ourselves are just what we have to deal with to make up for the other benefits.

That's not so simple as you put it, that kind of eliminative materialism has been really put in doubt. Chinese room is an example of that; reducing consciousness activity to mere inputs and outputs, to a mere epiphenomena, is just evading the real problem. Consciousness activity is a fact, we should work from there and not doing what Mr. Dennett likes to do so much.
Here is an interesting thought experiment from Frank Jackson:

Mary is a brilliant scientist who is, for whatever reason, forced to investigate the world from a black and white room via a black and white television monitor. She specializes in the neurophysiology of vision and acquires, let us suppose, all the physical information there is to obtain about what goes on when we see ripe tomatoes, or the sky, and use terms like ‘red’, ‘blue’, and so on. She discovers, for example, just which wavelength combinations from the sky stimulate the retina, and exactly how this produces via the central nervous system the contraction of the vocal cords and expulsion of air from the lungs that results in the uttering of the sentence ‘The sky is blue’. [...] What will happen when Mary is released from her black and white room or is given a color television monitor? Will she learn anything or not?

Cloud

Wasn't even attempting to do or say what you think I was. Of course consciousness activity is a fact. Never said otherwise. Think you drew the wrong conclusions from my post.

Alfonso

Cloud wrote: »

Wasn't even attempting to do or say what you think I was. Of course consciousness activity is a fact. Never said otherwise. Think you drew the wrong conclusions from my post.

Sorry, but could you tell me then what are you trying to say when you say that intelligence is no different from the senses? That was not very clear to me

Cloud

The mind is a sense/control organ that gathers its data from the other sense organs, and can then act on that data immediately or at a future time through the process of "thought" (conscious and subconscious). This allows for the mind to continue functioning based on previously collected data even if cut off from the other sense organs entirely. The real trouble you'll have is imagining... if the other five senses were not available to the mind during development, would any thoughts have occurred at all?

To be true it's a very complex organ and it serves multiple functions, but at least in the Buddhist classification the mind truly is the "sixth sense", and only by the one-pointedness of mind found in meditation can reality be known; almost as if the mind can "see" the truth as clearly as the eyes see a face. Until the mind breaks through the attachments and beliefs it holds and gains the clear insight that washes away all doubt, we're all working on something like a scientific "theory" that fits the facts for us for the moment (and we all believe as we like, with many divisions amongst our species).

exonesion

Cloud wrote: »

The mind is a sense organ that gathers its data from the other sense organs, and can then act on that data immediately or at a future time through the process of "thought" (conscious and subconscious). This allows for the mind to continue functioning based on previously collected data even if cut off from the other sense organs entirely. The real trouble you'll have is imagining... if the other five senses were not available to the mind during development in the womb, would any thoughts have occurred at all?

In my opinion the brain is the sixth sense organ instead of the mind. The mind is something complex and profound and it exists even without external support. That is how meditators could extract themselves from the clutches of the five senses( under the torture of pain) and seek refuge in their mind and attain happiness which is reinforced by Jhanas.
Astral beings like spirits and devas doesn't have brains but they have a mind which enable them to think .

Cloud

And that's what makes this forum a great place; different opinions, both personal and sectarian, can be exchanged (which gives really "new" Buddhists more perspectives to hopefully hit a chord with one of them).

samostatny

I think there is a problem with your idea of cutting the mind(or did you mean brain) off from all senses. Just as the eyes see, and the hand feels, the brain is capable of sensing the passing of time...

As for the toruture part of things. I've played the torture yourself and escape into your mind game. This is very dangerous and I don't suggest it to anyone. The mind is far better at escaping into an imaginary world than it is at "letting go."

In the West, you'll notice a whole list of mentall ilnesses that have this bassic theme. Young girls mostly. They'll cut into their arms, starve themselves, work out for hours.... Are these girls acheiving Nirvana? Certainly not. I've done these kinds of practices myself, and I'd have to say I was using the pain to chase my mind farther from reality. Farther into a dream world. But a dream world that was on the opposite pole away from Nirvana.

I'll use the example of the anorexic girls as being the simplest example. Many if not all have suffered more in their typically young lives than is normal.

Many don't feel hungry when they starve themselves.
Many don't feel pain when they cut themselves.

Yet they have not "let go." They often talk about perfection and a disgust they feel about not being perfect. They say they look in the mirror and see a tremendously fat girl looking back. And then they go and run. And they don't feel the icy wind in their lungs, or the burning of their thighs. Some say "they don't feel anything."

The world they have escaped to is like negative Nirvana. A dream world of purified ideals, perfectionisms, and DESIRE.

I can imagine many of these monks find themselves in the same possition. They find themselves relatively easy to block out the pain of torture, and they feel invincible. It's a great feeling of power to feel no pain. And this makes them greedy for more of this power.

Certainly not a good way to achieve happiness.

exonesion

samostatny wrote: »

I think there is a problem with your idea of cutting the mind(or did you mean brain) off from all senses. Just as the eyes see, and the hand feels, the brain is capable of sensing the passing of time...

As for the toruture part of things. I've played the torture yourself and escape into your mind game. This is very dangerous and I don't suggest it to anyone. The mind is far better at escaping into an imaginary world than it is at "letting go."

In the West, you'll notice a whole list of mentall ilnesses that have this bassic theme. Young girls mostly. They'll cut into their arms, starve themselves, work out for hours.... Are these girls acheiving Nirvana? Certainly not. I've done these kinds of practices myself, and I'd have to say I was using the pain to chase my mind farther from reality. Farther into a dream world. But a dream world that was on the opposite pole away from Nirvana.

I'll use the example of the anorexic girls as being the simplest example. Many if not all have suffered more in their typically young lives than is normal.

Many don't feel hungry when they starve themselves.
Many don't feel pain when they cut themselves.

Yet they have not "let go." They often talk about perfection and a disgust they feel about not being perfect. They say they look in the mirror and see a tremendously fat girl looking back. And then they go and run. And they don't feel the icy wind in their lungs, or the burning of their thighs. Some say "they don't feel anything."

The world they have escaped to is like negative Nirvana. A dream world of purified ideals, perfectionisms, and DESIRE.

I can imagine many of these monks find themselves in the same possition. They find themselves relatively easy to block out the pain of torture, and they feel invincible. It's a great feeling of power to feel no pain. And this makes them greedy for more of this power.

Certainly not a good way to achieve happiness.

I think my words have been misinterpreted because they were vague and misleading. Meditation enables one to develop sustained concentration. Consciousness will be focused inside the mind until attention and feeling of the body is gathered at the body.
The follow quote from the E-document in my signature serves to help me explain.

Now as the peripheral faculties (of perception, memory, consciousness, and knowledge) sink right down into the diaphragm position and impermeate the areas of experience garnered from past lives (vipāka cittani), they become absorbed therein, and take on for the duration of that concentration the particular sphere of experience and refinement. Each stage of concentration has its specific nature, refined to scale, and, as a consequence, the plane of being and outlook is brought higher and higher as consciousness is winnowed away from the five human sense-door field of contact.

Therefore meditation serve as a tool which enables everyone to establish a permanent refuge in themselves as we return to the ancient advice of
"“Self is the refuge of self.”

and

“Be unto yourself a refuge, an isle, and not elsewhere. Let the Dhamma be refuge, the isle,
and not elsewhere. Thus shall the limit of darkness be reached, for those who are desirous
to learn.”

I hope you can get what I mean

BreakNeckTurtle

Cloud wrote: »

And that's what makes this forum a great place; different opinions, both personal and sectarian, can be exchanged (which gives really "new" Buddhists more perspectives to hopefully hit a chord with one of them).

Totally agree with you Cloud. I have only ever met one other Buddhist (in person) other than myself. And the discussions we had were amazing. Getting other perspectives is awesome. Having a online forum like this to bounce ideas off people is healthier than keeping them to yourself.

EricL

To the OP;

Nothing is ever proven.

Nothing needs to be proven.

Intilegence is what it is in the eye of the beholder.

Supernatural is supernatural without approval or disproval.

There are no if's or dualistic views in the eyes or mind/mindlessness of a buddhist.

There are no angles or points of view, there is no set number of reason or possibilities, only finites.

I do not agree with these statements about this forum.

They teach to reach outside the self for approval in the most stupid way, through the use of technological system's that eat and devourer energy and time so effectively that it makes me cringe by looking at this screen.

Meditation is, also, not a set definition of the point of view of the general description of other individuals.

It is nothing.

A complete stop of thinking. A complete and total silence in the nervous sytem. A state where action/reaction does not exist. A silence so powerful that it makes greed itself scream in insanity for not being able to be as quiet.

Meditation and complete stop and silence of the entire core of your very soul and being acheive through control of oxygen and emotion that is so precise that it causes all metabolism in your body to reach a stand still.

Your are able to control yourself so well that your can feel that exact place where the brain and all organs can be fed just enough energy and oxygen that it sustains them yet does not activate them or stirs them.

A complete stop to the push-pull conditioning that has been hard-programmed into your humanity since birth.

This is meditation.

This is trance.

You can't feel awesome in the presence of another buddhist.

Such a stupid statement.

If you are a buddhist you are at the pinnacle of bliss already. Being in the presence of someone else does not change you, because, my dear friend, in essence your are each other.

Meditation does not enhance concentration. It enhances everything.

There are no set limits of senses. Each atom in your body has an intuition of it's own. Capable of millions of senses on their own.

Your views of sub/counsiousness seem odd.

Cousious thinking is, basically, and in fact, nerve impulses where one can control, manually, himself in totality from physiology to mind and can, also, tap into the contained and collective sub-cousiousness that is seemlessly binds us all together in our will and desire for survival as a body and species.

Meditation is both, and many other ways for the mind to stop thinking (which ever term you want to use for *learning*) and to think trillions of times faster than it usualy does.

When going all-in or all-out with your thinking and your efforts you are actualy slowing yourself down. When you control yourself and direct, efficiently, your energy to the power of your mind then, my dear friend, bliss is a peice of cake that's been in front of you since birth.

Find a balance between diet/learning/energy expenditure (moving around effectively/exercisely effectively without exhaustion...etc) and you will reach a point, which in buddhism is called *trance*. When you are there, you will know what bliss is and you will desire to keep yourself there and the efforts of the past that seemed hard and difficult will suddenly become effortless and desired without being desired.

As for the toruture part of things. I've played the torture yourself and escape into your mind game. This is very dangerous and I don't suggest it to anyone. The mind is far better at escaping into an imaginary world than it is at "letting go."

The mind is not better or worse, it can do anything with or without effort. Nor is it dangerous. To see the world from every angle of the circle that it is, you must visit it's peaceful and dangerous nature. To know bliss is to know danger. To know danger is to know bliss.

How would you enjoy a sunny day if not by suffering because of a cloudy and rainy one?

Such limited view points

samostatny

I must appologise. My previous post about torture was stemmed by what I think was a missreading of something exonesion said: "That is how meditators could extract themselves from the clutches of the five senses( under the torture of pain) and seek refuge in their mind and attain happiness which is reinforced by Jhanas."

You see, there ARE Bhudists who believe self torture is a way towards Nirvana. They fast for days, lay naked in the ice, ect.. And then they attempt to meditate their way out of feeling pain. But simply learning to ignore the pain you feel is not Nirvana, it can be the opposite. It can end up with the practicer seeking higher and higher forms of self torture. Being able to ignore pain becomes a thing entrenched in desire. And can have very distructive effects on the body...

I was not trying to say anything about more typical forms of meditation.

As for suffering being nessesary for appreciation, I have met many people who have suffered for all their lives, and yet still never appreciated anything. I have also met many who have hardly ever suffered, yet still feel very thankfull for the sunny day.

I'm surprised by the use of the term "stupid" on this site. Not only by Eric here, but also others on this site. While honesty is certainly a value, there is also an element of empathy. There are stupid people in this world. People born with damaged brains or genetic dissorders. I don't think it would be very nice to call these people stupid though... And then there are missinformed people in this world. It's just incorrect to call them stupid. And there are people who have different ideas than you. And it's just non productive to call them stupid. And then there are people who are smarter than you, who see something you have yet to understand. And it's just stupid to call them stupid

Sorry for that.

exonesion

samostatny wrote: »

I must appologise. My previous post about torture was stemmed by what I think was a missreading of something exonesion said: "That is how meditators could extract themselves from the clutches of the five senses( under the torture of pain) and seek refuge in their mind and attain happiness which is reinforced by Jhanas."

You see, there ARE Bhudists who believe self torture is a way towards Nirvana. They fast for days, lay naked in the ice, ect.. And then they attempt to meditate their way out of feeling pain. But simply learning to ignore the pain you feel is not Nirvana, it can be the opposite. It can end up with the practicer seeking higher and higher forms of self torture. Being able to ignore pain becomes a thing entrenched in desire. And can have very distructive effects on the body...

I was not trying to say anything about more typical forms of meditation.

As for suffering being nessesary for appreciation, I have met many people who have suffered for all their lives, and yet still never appreciated anything. I have also met many who have hardly ever suffered, yet still feel very thankfull for the sunny day.

I'm surprised by the use of the term "stupid" on this site. Not only by Eric here, but also others on this site. While honesty is certainly a value, there is also an element of empathy. There are stupid people in this world. People born with damaged brains or genetic dissorders. I don't think it would be very nice to call these people stupid though... And then there are missinformed people in this world. It's just incorrect to call them stupid. And there are people who have different ideas than you. And it's just non productive to call them stupid. And then there are people who are smarter than you, who see something you have yet to understand. And it's just stupid to call them stupid

Sorry for that.

Dear samostatny,

It is Ok however the post you've posted isn't completely pointless. As a text in the Dhammacakkapavathana sutta states...

Attakilamathanuyoga is the practice of self-mortification, which according to the Buddha is fruitless. He said that it is not a practice in keeping with the tenets of Buddhism because the way in which defilements are purportedly removed are by practices of physical self-denial such as lying on a heap of thorns, burning oneself in the sun etc. however, for such practicioners, they misunderstood that they have rid themselves of their defilements. Eating insufficient food weakens the body to a point where there doesn't seem to be any further sensual desire. Because only temporary respite from desires can be found by such practices, the Buddha taught that such practices are fruitless.

And the correct way which the Buddha had taught:

Majjhima Patipada
Majjhima Patipada or The Middle Way is a path of practice that avoids the extremes of either of the two forms of practice already mentioned. It is a path of practice conducive to taming of the mind, supreme knowledge, virtuous knowledge, the extinguishing of craving and for liberation from defilements. It is the practice of the Noble Ones, fitting for monks who have goone to trouble to raise themselves from the status of the householders. Monks should practice the Middle way according to the Noble Eightfold Path( atthangikamagga).

Good day to you

Cloud

Not mentioning names but I'd only like to point out that taking the jhanic states as a goal, wanting to keep going there or remain there as a refuge from the world, is actually a harmful or unskillful practice.

exonesion

Cloud wrote: »

Not mentioning names but I'd only like to point out that taking the jhanic states as a goal, wanting to keep going there or remain there as a refuge from the world, is actually a harmful or unskillful practice.

Dear Cloud,

I do agree with you.
Taking refuge in only Jhanas is somewhat dangerous because If one dies while absorb in Jhanas one could be reborn in the Form/ Formless Brahma Realms and will be reborn in another plane of existence depending on their innate karma after their merit have been depleted.
What is important is we do not get attached to Jhanas. We should practice until we reach our Dhammakaya. The body of enlightenment.:)