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Automatons

Toady said:
On the flip side of the coin, why bother to make things better if the world doesn't matter?
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we make it better for us, and the people we care about. that' a lot more meaningful than making it better for "god" or the universe, IMO.

Who cares what difference you make?
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The people for whom you make it better. Just because that may not be 'everybody" does not make it worthless.

Their appearance of being alive is an illusion--their brains are cell-based automatons, no more alive or of value than a rock tumbling down a hill.
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No, they are alive. Cell based automatons are alive, if they are functioning.

But value isn't real.
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No, it's real. it's subjective, but still real.

The ultimate, objective conclusion on the physicality of the universe would be that morals, emotions, and social norms are illusions of the brain, evolved out of necessity for survival.
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Right.

That means there's no difference between a philanthropist donating to charity or a homicidal maniac killing ten people. To the universe, it doesn't matter.
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But to the ten people, it matters. A lot. You are making the mistake of thinking only that which is objective and/or universal has value, which is not the case. Why?

Who cares what impact we leave behind?
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The people affected.

There's no eternal god to care, and future generations are robots who will live through their generation and die as we will, so their thoughts--nothing more than biochemical signals passing through some cells--have no meaning anyway.
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Their biochemical signals have as much meaning to them as ours do to us.
 
Toady said:
But value isn't real.
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Value is real. What is not real is intrinsic value. For something to be valuable, there must exist something for it to be valuable to. I think a lot of people get this thing backwards. Life is not valuable. Life values. We do not care about things which matter. Our caring makes them matter. And if that caring, that valuing, is nothing more than a physical state brought about by an inscrutably complex series of preceding events (as I do believe it is), what of it?
 
Toady said:
It doesn't feel like an opportunity. It feels like a pointless excursion in physical suffering..
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You can seize the opportunity and choose your own point, or cling to this attitude and waste your one and only life pouting. That's up to you, but I know which I've chosen.
On the flip side of the coin, why bother to make things better if the world doesn't matter? Who cares what difference you make? If there's no reason or purpose, then this is simply a sphere of matter orbiting around a star in an observable physical universe that goes on existing, pointlessly. Those "real people" are just the latest generation of mathematically evolved cell structures that will reproduce more structures before dying off. Their appearance of being alive is an illusion--their brains are cell-based automatons, no more alive or of value than a rock tumbling down a hill.
But value isn't real. The ultimate, objective conclusion on the physicality of the universe would be that morals, emotions, and social norms are illusions of the brain, evolved out of necessity for survival. That means there's no difference between a philanthropist donating to charity or a homicidal maniac killing ten people. To the universe, it doesn't matter.

Who cares what impact we leave behind? There's no eternal god to care, and future generations are robots who will live through their generation and die as we will, so their thoughts--nothing more than biochemical signals passing through some cells--have no meaning anyway.

Am I coming off as overly analytical here? :) I don't mean to. This is just a realization that bothers and fascinates me, though I know it's nothing new.
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Wow, all this despair because the god-prop was kicked out from under? See, people don't like it when I say this, but this is one of my problems with the god delusion. It makes people weak minded and dependent. It gives them a lifelong ingrained idea that they need something outside of themselves to give them purpose dressed out on a plate, rather than finding that purpose, deciding what that purpose will be for themselves, and that the value of our mortal lives is nothing.

If you can't care because just being human isn't enough for you, and there isn't some mystical skydaddy to come gather you up, then DON'T care. Alternatively, you could get over needing to be superultradoubleplus special before you can just be glad that you do exist, and enjoy the hell out of it while you are here.

<==Slopes off to enjoy her life, family, and friends, which are real enough for her.
 
Toady said:
On the flip side of the coin, why bother to make things better if the world doesn't matter? Who cares what difference you make? If there's no reason or purpose, then this is simply a sphere of matter orbiting around a star in an observable physical universe that goes on existing, pointlessly.
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Why do people confuse atheism with nihilism? That seems to happen a lot. Right after the "Atheist? Why don't you kill yourself since there is nothing for you". Which doesn't explain why I would kill myself. They are the guys that get 72 virgins in paradise, their own planet to rule, two turntables and a microphone.

Which rather retardedly brings me to my point: You don't need a Purpose to have a purpose.

I care what difference I make. I care that when I am gone my friends will have a few drinks, have a few laughs and think "Man! He sure owed me a lot of money".
 
Hi

Toady said:
I'm struggling with the ramifications of being an atheist. If there's no soul and no afterlife, does that not make us cell-based automatons, going through the motions with the illusion that we're making decisions? What are your thoughts?
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If we didn't make decisions, we'd all respond to the same stimuli in the same manner, right?

We don't, ergo... uhhh... or maybe ego....

ANYHOW.

Your personality is just a collection of all the important decisions you've made. That set of decisional instances has not been unique, as other people have had to make the same subset of all possible decisions, but the decisions you have made within that set are unique.

I see no way an automaton could make a set of unique decisions.

Stress a heard of cows: Automatous behavior. Stress a school of fish: Automatous behavior.

Stress a crowd of persons: Autonomous behaviors.

I hereby propose the creation of a new word.
Autonomaton: /ɔˈtɒnə,məˌtɒn, -tn/
Spelled Pronunciation [aw-tonuh-mi-ton, -tn]
which would be something like an automaton in construction, but capable of independent decision-making.

That's the ticket.

Oh - and -

arthwollipot said:
[nitpick]"Automata" is the plural noun. The singular is "automaton". There is no such word as "automatons".

Honestly, I can't understand how people can continually get irregular plurals wrong all the time! :rolleyes:[/nitpick]
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[nitpick-nitpick] From Dictionary.com....
Dictionary.com said:
au·tom·a·ton /ɔˈtɒməˌtɒn, -tn/
Spelled Pronunciation [aw-tom-uh-ton, -tn]
–noun, plural -tons, -ta /-tə/ << emphasis mine >>
Spelled Pronunciation[-tuh]....
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Both appear to be allowable. [/nitpick-nitpick]

Oh - and - and -
–noun, plural -tons, -ta /-tə/
Spelled Pronunciation: [-tuh]
(Just for Arth.)

Fronzel said:
... snip ...

Which ... brings me to my point: You don't need a Purpose to have a purpose.

... snip ...
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LOL! Amen!

Ooh drat - can I say that here??
 
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Toady said:
It doesn't feel like an opportunity. It feels like a pointless excursion in physical suffering.
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Sorry you're having a bad day. It will pass.

Toady said:
On the flip side of the coin, why bother to make things better if the world doesn't matter? Who cares what difference you make?
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Doesn't matter to whom? It matters a lot to me, and to people who matter a lot to me. I care, and (to a lesser degree) they care what difference I make. They care, and (to a lesser degree) I care what difference they make.

Toady said:
Who cares what impact we leave behind? There's no eternal god to care
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Suppose there was an eternal god. What makes you think it would care? Do you think you could impress it, really impress it, by trying to return a wallet you found to its rightful owner, or volunteering time at a soup kitchen? You could be the guy who designed the tallest building in the world, and god wouldn't even bother to look up from filing its nails to say "Big deal. I can spit out fifty billion galaxies before breakfast, hot-shot, and I'm supposed to care how high YOU can make a pile of rocks?"

Face it, the ONLY beings who'll care what you do are the living, breathing cell creatures who are alive now or will be alive in the future. Your actions can make a lot of difference to them; they couldn't possibly make anything "better" or "worse" for an eternal god.
 
Patsy said:
Wow, all this despair because the god-prop was kicked out from under? See, people don't like it when I say this, but this is one of my problems with the god delusion. It makes people weak minded and dependent. It gives them a lifelong ingrained idea that they need something outside of themselves to give them purpose dressed out on a plate, rather than finding that purpose, deciding what that purpose will be for themselves, and that the value of our mortal lives is nothing.
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I grew up agnostic in a neighborhood of churchgoing Christians. I don't consider myself weak-minded or dependent on a "god-prop," nor would I make those kinds of belittling judgements about you since I don't know you.

I'm not trying to justify religion, claim atheism and nihilism are the same, or anything else people might imply that I'm doing. I just wanted to see how other people approached this issue. To me, viewing humans as mechanistic structures raises the question of why we should regard their lives or feelings in the first place if they have no intrinsic value. I wanted the opinions of others on this unsettling scenario.
 
Hi

rocketdodger said:
What does a human do that an automaton could not?

Can you actually prove your answer to the above question, or is it merely yet another exercise in hand waving?
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Come up with the dichotomous, simultaneous, and comingled concepts of justice and mercy.

Think of a nuclear-powered cheese-straightener.

Be John Cleese.

Find something both hilariously funny and heartrendingly tragic at the same time. (I used to go to science fiction conventions and tell funny stories about my tours of duty in Vietnam: Almost being killed, blowing up three American soldiers on a beach, a short stay I had at the Long Binh Evac hospital, or blowing up an elderly Vietnamese guy. They really are very funny stories.)

Make up a new joke. (One August, I made up a new joke.

"My life sucked so much that I decided to call a psychic hot-line for a reading, but just before calling, I changed my mind and didn't call.

"They sent me a bill, anyhow."

It was very funny then, but not as funny as it was at the end of that September when I got a bill from a psychic hot-line!!)

Laugh at a new joke.

Laugh at a joke that isn't funny to spare another's feelings.

...and on and on and on....

:D Ok - with just a little hand waving. :D
 
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Toady said:
To me, viewing humans as mechanistic structures raises the question of why we should regard their lives or feelings in the first place if they have no intrinsic value.
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For starters, failing to treat them thus often leads to unpleasant reprecussions. Or, if you prefer a rosier view of things, treating them thus often leads to pleasant ones.
 
Toady said:
To me, viewing humans as mechanistic structures raises the question of why we should regard their lives or feelings in the first place if they have no intrinsic value. I wanted the opinions of others on this unsettling scenario.
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Pragmatically?

- He who lives by the sword dies by the sword
- What goes around comes around
- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
- etc.

Philosophy is for after you have a civil society. ;)
 
Toady said:
I grew up agnostic in a neighborhood of churchgoing Christians. I don't consider myself weak-minded or dependent on a "god-prop," nor would I make those kinds of belittling judgements about you since I don't know you.

I'm not trying to justify religion, claim atheism and nihilism are the same, or anything else people might imply that I'm doing. I just wanted to see how other people approached this issue. To me, viewing humans as mechanistic structures raises the question of why we should regard their lives or feelings in the first place if they have no intrinsic value. I wanted the opinions of others on this unsettling scenario.
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I'm sorry if you felt my comments were directed specifically at you, rather than the effect of religion in general.

However, you also need realize that if one posts their opinions on a message board, judgments will me made about them, and comments posted, and if you ask for opinions, you may get some that are not to your taste.

<==doesn't take disagreements on the internets personally, that way lies madness :catfight:
 
Gagglegnash said:
...and on and on and on....
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Ah, I see. So you are going with the standard "we haven't made a machine that can do X, thus a machine that can do X is impossible."

Never mind that the entire history of human progress relegates that argument into the abyss of ignorant stupidity where it belongs -- people like you still cling to it!

Good for you! If nothing else, you stand up for what you <blindly> believe!

Gagglegnash said:
:D Ok - with just a little hand waving. :D
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Ah -- you are also predictable! Two mighty fine qualities in a human, if I do say so myself...
 
Jimbo07 said:
I see... so if an automaton were to pass a Turing Test, and subsequent generations to generate a new version?
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At some point in the future, all of these ignoramuses will have to just admit what they are really trying to say: "My shaky little worldview will implode if it turns out humans aren't intrinsicly special compared to everything else."
 
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