Re:AI Is Not a Horse
by Baeocystin on Sunday January 22, 2023 @08:40PM
(#34484411)
During my childhood, I moved around frequently, and one of my valuable experiences this taught me that a significant portion of a culture's understanding of the world is largely arbitrary. From my point of view, concepts like souls fall firmly in this category.
Re:AI Is Not a Horse
by avgcorrection on Monday January 23, 2023 @04:51PM
(#34495599)
And like concepts like conscious machines?
Re:AI Is Not a Horse
by Baeocystin on Monday January 23, 2023 @06:21PM
(#34496537)
I'm a materialist, so that matter can think I take as possible a priori, simply because we do, and we're made of matter. And since I think consciousness (however one ultimately defines it) is a physical process, the particulars of any specific substrate might be interesting, but none of it surprising that it might exist.
Re:AI Is Not a Horse
by avgcorrection on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @08:23AM
(#34503209)
Makes sense. Thanks.
The more I learned about the world, the less room there has been for souls.
Souls fit fine in a world where ghosts, mediums, possession by sprits, apparitions from the afterlife, dryads, and/or the katabasis of Orpheus are taken seriously. But each of these has turned out to have been mundane (in the old sense of the word) or pure fiction.
Re:AI Is Not a Horse
by avgcorrection on Monday January 23, 2023 @04:44PM
(#34495508)
> Souls fit fine in a world where ghosts, mediums, possession by sprits, apparitions from the afterlife, dryads, and/or the katabasis of Orpheus are taken seriously. But each of these has turned out to have been mundane (in the old sense of the word) or pure fiction.
And yet you believe there could be a ghost in the machine…
Why not?
I mean I could presume a lot on your behalf, like how the concept is non-falsifiable, lack of evidence that can be replicated, past trauma from people you trusted who insisted upon it but then behaved hypocritically, etc. but every time someone says they don't believe in souls I can't help but ask why not.
You don't have to answer but I'm always interested to hear what others say.
Disclaimer: I personally believe in something akin to souls, not individualized, and it's hard to explain my ideas so I like to hear what others think before I say what I think.