Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
From your link "1. The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction." Could we not argue that the chess program reasons in this way in selecting a move?
Materialism (championed by Darwinists) makes reason Impossible.
- Thread starter DOC
- Start date
-
- Tags
- darwinism materialism reason
From your link "1. The basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction." Could we not argue that the chess program reasons in this way in selecting a move?
Ignosticist
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2011
- Messages
- 311
Well, it evaluates the position of the pieces on the keyboard, and chooses a course of action based on that, with the goal of winning the game.
You can even look at (one particular) algorithm here.
Last edited:
Ignosticist
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2011
- Messages
- 311
In my opinion, the fallacy of division is a much better match (wikipedia article even uses almost the same brain/neurons argument)
Well Christ said I will send you the Holy Spirit who will teach you all things. So one form of knowledge could be from the Holy Spirit (to those filled with the Holy Spirit). It is believed Paul received revelatory knowledge in certain areas such as his "in the twinkling of an eye" verse.
Another way is through study of the Bible. One verse in the OT basically says God regretted making man because of man's sinning. This implies that God did not know that man would sin to the extent man did. Since we know the bible says God is perfect (able to do all things) , then God could have "chosen" not to know the future actions of man to give man the gift of free will (and not merely be a puppet programmed not to sin). All of this more suited to a "free will" thread though.
Last edited:
That it has a motive?
Anyway, from my link, to reason is defined:
1. To use the faculty of reason; think logically.
2. To talk or argue logically and persuasively.
3. Obsolete To engage in conversation or discussion.
v.tr.
1. To determine or conclude by logical thinking
(1) and (1) specifically mention "thinking", which seems right. I don't see how you have reasoning going on without thinking, so the question then becomes "Can computers think?" If they can, do they have minds? If they don't have minds, how does mindless thinking work? If they do have minds, what are they like? Would a calculator have a mind? A wristwatch? An abacus?
Well, it evaluates the position of the pieces on the keyboard, and chooses a course of action based on that, with the goal of winning the game.
You can even look at (one particular) algorithm here.
Oh, I don't doubt it follows a program. That doesn't equate to reasoning, or even knowing what a board is or a rook or that it has a goal.
10 Query "What's your name";A$
20 Print "Hello,"; A$
That's as best as I can remember BASIC on my old Commodore. A simple program that asks for your name and then addresses you by name. Is that an example of reasoning?
Sideroxylon
Featherless biped
Well I am not about to argue that computers think in the self aware way that humans do, but that seems limited among living creatures anyway.
To explore the issue of motive further, do you think that we could ascribe motive to the actions of a virus, bacteria or ant?
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
No, but I've probably derailed this enough.
Elizabeth I
Philosopher
I think perhaps doc doesn't understand the somewhat random nature of what goes on inside a computer processor - the huge number of tiny transactions that take place, for example, when Deep Blue plays a chess game. It seems to me that he's thinking of it more like what happens when you press a particular piano key - you get one note. Then if you press a different key you get a different note. What happens in a computer is more like what happens when Van Cliburn plays the piano, and less like a six-year old taking a piano lesson.
Which probably just confuses the conversation more than it was already.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 34,767
Meh, it's Geisler remember; not exactly an intellectual giant and with damn all knowledge of the science he purports to use to justify his xianity.
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 34,767
Or are the individual frames and pixels of a programme or film funny, tragic or dramatic?
catsmate
No longer the 1
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
- Messages
- 34,767
So you're just pimping his book them? Well if it's as awful as the excerpts suggest I won't be wasting time or money on it.
So no qualifications in biochemistry, neurobiology or any fields actually relevant to the argument you quoted? Gee what a surprise, xian apologist spouting off on subjects they don't understand.............
Akhenaten
Heretic Pharaoh
I don't doubt that such things are written in the bible, but that still doesn't explain how anyone could possibly have such knowledge. When some Old Testament writer says "God regretted...(whatever)" where is he getting this information from? How do any of these people presume to know the mind of God? Especially when they spend so much time telling us that no one can know the mind of God.
Don't you ever just get the feeling that these people had absolutely no idea what the hell they were talking about?
Robin
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2004
- Messages
- 14,971
Seismosaurus
Philosopher
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2003
- Messages
- 6,092
But this is clearly not true, Doc.
Lumps of silicon and electrons can't do math. But if you have a bunch of them connected in the right way, suddenly they can do math.
Neurons in your brain can't think. But if you have a bunch of them connected in the right way, suddenly they can think.
Why is this any kind of a problem?
Is it just because the writer said it so it must be true?
I am confused.
This one always gets me as we all pretty much every day see the empirical evidence for this not being true i.e. we eat - which is simply taking in "inanimate stuff" (on the whole so not including bacteria and stuff like cheese) and make it "animate". (There is an even better example of this and it is the taking of a "multi-vitamin supplement", many of these are just minerals or metals that have never been "animate".) There is no way to distinguish the "living" carbon atoms in my body from the "inanimate" carbon atoms in a piece of coal.