Mayby a way to disprove god :P

Mortensen · Dec 24, 2006

Hi. I just thought out this one, please give me some replys If science ever make a robot that is exactly like the human brain, or if science could make a complete replica of the human brain and by that calculate the choices each human makes by knowing how it workes. Wouldn't this prove that there is nothing devine about the human mind and that it is just a fancy machine? And if it is so: the meaning of "free will" would disapear, the choices we make is just a result of a series of calculations. And if God made us like complicated machines, then he cant blame us for the choices we make. It would just prove that the choices we make is just results of how our minds work on our envirement, the invirement that God made for us. Any disagree?

Asimov · Dec 25, 2006

I think you need to expand on your idea, define your terms and make it a little more readable before I make any comments on it.

Just a few thoughts:

How is human free will necessary for the existence of God?
How is the lack of divinity of the human mind disproving God's existence?

corvus_corax · Dec 25, 2006

Way too many "ifs" in the OP
Granted, this is the Philosophy section of CF

EDIT- Beyond that, everything Asimov said

Mortensen · Dec 25, 2006

How is human free will necessary for the existence of God?
How is the lack of divinity of the human mind disproving God's existence?

Well, not disprove of God, but it would ruin the whole foundation of Gods excistence which rely on that God made humans so that the could love, follow the ten commands, be kind to others and so on. If god made the human mind like a fancy computer, how can he then blame us for how we work when it was his creation? Means that he purposly made us to act in a sertain way that he dessided. Or, if the human mind is devine, that we have a soul and so on, we make our own choices regardless of how our brain works or how our envirement is... u agree?

Asimov · Dec 25, 2006

Mortensen said:
Well, not disprove of God, but it would ruin the whole foundation of Gods excistence which rely on that God made humans so that the could love, follow the ten commands, be kind to others and so on.

Gods existence doesn't rely on the Christian claim of why God made humanity.

If god made the human mind like a fancy computer, how can he then blame us for how we work when it was his creation?

The human mind is a fancy computer. If God gave us free will, how can he then blame us for how we work when we are his creations anyways? We're just doing what we were created to do...exercise our free will.

Means that he purposly made us to act in a sertain way that
he dessided.

By giving us free will he is purposely making us to act in a certain way that he decided.

Or, if the human mind is devine, that we have a soul and so on, we make our own choices regardless of how our brain works or how our envirement is... u agree?

No. It doesn't work that way now anyways and people still think we have a soul. What if the soul is mind-dependent?

How are you defining free will, btw?

elman · Dec 26, 2006

=Mortensen;30067504]Hi. I just thought out this one, please give me some replys If science ever make a robot that is exactly like the human brain, or if science could make a complete replica of the human brain and by that calculate the choices each human makes by knowing how it workes. Wouldn't this prove that there is nothing devine about the human mind and that it is just a fancy machine?

No it would just mean you had been able to duplicate what God created. If we have the ability to love or not love and that choice is not dictated by our creator, but decided by us, then the robot would then exist for the same reason we do, to love others.

And if it is so: the meaning of "free will" would disapear, the choices we make is just a result of a series of calculations

. No and the choices we make are not caluculations of the Creator, but our caluculations which the Creator gave us the ability to do.

And if God made us like complicated machines, then he cant blame us for the choices we make.

But you talked about a machine that was not programed a certain way but made choices as a human does, being their own choices and not the choices of the Creator. That means you are responsible for your choices and can be blamed for making the bad choices.

It would just prove that the choices we make is just results of how our minds work on our envirement, the invirement that God made for us. Any disagree?

Of course I disagree. It proves no such thing and would prove no such thing, if your robot was able to do it's own deciding on wheather to be loving or unloving.

elman · Dec 26, 2006

Mortensen said:
Well, not disprove of God, but it would ruin the whole foundation of Gods excistence which rely on that God made humans so that the could love, follow the ten commands, be kind to others and so on. If god made the human mind like a fancy computer, how can he then blame us for how we work when it was his creation? Means that he purposly made us to act in a sertain way that he dessided. Or, if the human mind is devine, that we have a soul and so on, we make our own choices regardless of how our brain works or how our envirement is... u agree?

Your hyposthesis was not about God making the human mind like a fancy computer. It was about man making the robot mind like a humans, where the robot could chose to love or not love and was free from the choice being imposed on him by his creator. God created you with the ability to hurt other people. When you do, God is not responsbile because He also made you with the ability to help other people and to know that helping was good and harming was bad. That is why he can blame you when you do what he had created you to know is bad and not what he wants you to do.

Mortensen · Dec 26, 2006

No no no. You guys have to go deeper. You don't get my point.

Ill try one more time. First statement. If men can make a replica of the human mind, there is nothing devine about it. Or else there would be some kind of magic in the production or God would have to make the machine devine after it was finished.

Ive discussed this before, and I as a atheist believe that there is two things that make a human how it is. His genes and his education. He is a machine which started on a bare ground with almost no intellegence. He then programmed him selves by living, by experiencing events and so on. Different people would also program it selves differently in the exact same envirement beacuse of their different genes. Last time I discussed this I figured out that believers think that there is something devine about humans, a third factor. Our soul. This would mean that two exact same persons, growing up in the exact same envirement would handle problems differently. I believe they wouldnt since they are 100% the same.

So again: If you agree with my first statement and then agree that it would be nothing devine about humans, I can try to make my point The consept of "free will" would be just an illution. We are machines, we look at a situation and handle the way we think is the best, its just how we work. Its like (a much simpler example), A little puppy machine which is programmed to take a backflip after 10 seconds. Humans can reprogram it selves, but this makes no differene. The dog could for example be made to stop taking backflips every 10 seconds, after it hits a wall.

This doesn't disprove the excistence of a God, but it would no longer be a reason for God's excistence, other than he created the universe and so on. If you can see the connection between the puppy robot and humans, you would see that God is just playing with him selves. Placing some puppys on the earth and then tells them to behave, tells them to lov other puppys and not to act bad, it just makes no scense. Humans doesn't act directly how we were made by God, but we are created by our ancestors which again leads all the way back to a creation by God. Our inverement is mostly made by other people and this again leads back to an envirement that was made by God. So the first humans (or animals) was created by God in a envirement also created by God. So the choices and reactions from these animals is just a result of how they were made. So this kind of shows that God dessided how they shoud act, by creating their mind and their envirement in a sertain way. And he is indeed all-knowing so he could easly predict the actions made by people today.

Tormac · Dec 27, 2006

I think your scenario could be evidence of materialism, at least in the sense that consciousness is a property of matter.

Im not sure that this would be evidence that God does not exist, only that God does not need to exist.

It would be harmful to many views of God that require free will as an out for issues of theodicy though.

us38 · Jan 6, 2007

That would only prove that god is not required to exist, not that god does not exist.

R0D · Jan 9, 2007

Mortensen said:
Hi. I just thought out this one, please give me some replys If science ever make a robot that is exactly like the human brain, or if science could make a complete replica of the human brain and by that calculate the choices each human makes by knowing how it workes. Wouldn't this prove that there is nothing devine about the human mind and that it is just a fancy machine? And if it is so: the meaning of "free will" would disapear, the choices we make is just a result of a series of calculations. And if God made us like complicated machines, then he cant blame us for the choices we make. It would just prove that the choices we make is just results of how our minds work on our envirement, the invirement that God made for us. Any disagree?

Yeah, I would disagree.
You are only touching on one infinitesimal little area of God's ability or nature dealing with creation and choice. God doesn't fit in that box.
Besides, the whole thinking foundation is messed up that because one thing might be able to imitate another, it means the original doesn't exist.

ETA - now that I read more of the thread, it was your thread title that was talking about disproving God's existence. That's why people gave replies on that.

R0D · Jan 9, 2007

Mortensen said:
No no no. You guys have to go deeper. You don't get my point.

Ill try one more time. First statement. If men can make a replica of the human mind, there is nothing devine about it. Or else there would be some kind of magic in the production or God would have to make the machine devine after it was finished.

Ive discussed this before, and I as a atheist believe that there is two things that make a human how it is. His genes and his education. He is a machine which started on a bare ground with almost no intellegence. He then programmed him selves by living, by experiencing events and so on. Different people would also program it selves differently in the exact same envirement beacuse of their different genes. Last time I discussed this I figured out that believers think that there is something devine about humans, a third factor. Our soul. This would mean that two exact same persons, growing up in the exact same envirement would handle problems differently. I believe they wouldnt since they are 100% the same.

So again: If you agree with my first statement and then agree that it would be nothing devine about humans, I can try to make my point The consept of "free will" would be just an illution. We are machines, we look at a situation and handle the way we think is the best, its just how we work. Its like (a much simpler example), A little puppy machine which is programmed to take a backflip after 10 seconds. Humans can reprogram it selves, but this makes no differene. The dog could for example be made to stop taking backflips every 10 seconds, after it hits a wall.

This doesn't disprove the excistence of a God, but it would no longer be a reason for God's excistence, other than he created the universe and so on. If you can see the connection between the puppy robot and humans, you would see that God is just playing with him selves. Placing some puppys on the earth and then tells them to behave, tells them to lov other puppys and not to act bad, it just makes no scense. Humans doesn't act directly how we were made by God, but we are created by our ancestors which again leads all the way back to a creation by God. Our inverement is mostly made by other people and this again leads back to an envirement that was made by God. So the first humans (or animals) was created by God in a envirement also created by God. So the choices and reactions from these animals is just a result of how they were made. So this kind of shows that God dessided how they shoud act, by creating their mind and their envirement in a sertain way. And he is indeed all-knowing so he could easly predict the actions made by people today.

Umm.. seriously.
Follow me when I think the thought out there.
You have either created a paradox if we go with the OP's existence of God basis.
But if we go with this 'needed existence' route - once the crafted brain started to function, your same basis means that their is no further use for man.
The problem there is that your philosophical pieces do not have interdependency.

heron · Jan 9, 2007

Add a little more onto it --

1. When someone writes a hit song, then another singer remixes it,
it is really the same accomplishment?
(This was on my mind because this morning a 2003 Doc Watson bluegress song came on that my kids said was a Grateful Dead song... hm. ... stealing from the Dead... robbing the grave... those Bluegrass boys... :shakesfist: )

2. Were there rows of brain eggs sitting around waiting to be hatched at the beginning of time. (Which came first.)

JohnLocke · Jan 20, 2007

Sorry, but no.

It's an interesting idea, and fascinating in its own right, but the nature of the human brain, free will etc. isn't necessary for God. That is to say, that God is utterly independent of those things.

If such a robot were created, however, you might have an argument that the creators of such were gods, or any of a number of things.

Alas, proving the non-existence of something is almost impossible. I won't say impossible, because I lack the wisdom of ages, but I have yet to see a convincing proof of the non-existence of a thing in my entire life.

Ammoratti · Jan 20, 2007

JohnLocke,

Are you sure? Perhaps the most convincing proof I can think of that would demonstrate the non-existence of some thing would be to show that such a thing is a logical impossibility... such as a round square. Beyond that, I would agree it is immensely difficult to prove the non-existence of some entity with deductive certainty...

Mortensen,

First, we should say that the Mind/Body problem (as well as the matter of "Free Will vs. Determinism") has been with us for centuries, and is likely to be with us for quite some time into the future. But we have come to realize a couple things over the years:

First of all, many atheistic philosophers have agreed with you that if we can reduce all of nature (including humans) to a Newtonian Mechanical understanding of how things work without having to appeal to God, then there is no "ghost in the machine" of the cosmos or the human mind. "Free will" is but an illusion, and instead of having free will where we effect change on our environment, our "choices" are simply the passive outputs of our heredity and our environment working on us. We'd be living in a universe operating purely under the laws of "cause and effect".

If that is true, then it turns out that atheism itself is no longer a rational position to hold. Why is this so? Because if the only reason why you began thinking about atheism in the first place is because of some prior influence over which you had no control, then even your "thinking" is simply a pre-scripted series of events. You didn't really make a choice to become an atheist. Atheism just "happened" to you, perhaps like an affliction, and there was no rational process or reason behind it to make it any more true than someone who was "struck by" Christianity. It's just all part of unguided natural processes in the works. In a nutshell, the atheist attempting to argue against Free Will pulls the rug from under his own feet and destroys Reason in the process.

But of course, there's no reason for the theist to accept the non-existence of Free Will as fact from the atheist. Apart from nullifying rationality itself, it runs counter to our most basic intuitions about what makes us distinctly human from say.... an ant. No human being lives everyday life assuming free will does not exist... if you were dating someone, and she shafts you, you're not going to say, "Well that was an interesting set of hereditary and environmental influences on her behavior!" You're going to want to hold her responsible precisely because you really do believe people are capable of making responsible choices.

Even if such a robot were to be created, this would probably do more to demonstrate that it took an extraordinary intellectual effort (rather than just an unguided process + millions of years) to design and develop the technology to even mimic what we humans already do quite well on our own, what does this say of what is necessary for intelligent human beings to exist?

Martin^^ · Jan 21, 2007

I think this whole analogy of human existence as a brain-centred machine is deeply flawed. The brain is just one organ influenced by the behaviour of other bodily systems.
Our moods and feelings can be influenced by hormone levels determined by other organs.
If violent and aggressive behaviour can be caused by high testosterone levels, does that mean that testicles are the work of Satan? If man-made testosterone implants cause the same effects, does that disprove the existence of Satan?
Maybe I should post this on my local satanic message board and see what they have to say...

heron · Jan 21, 2007

Our moods and feelings can be influenced by hormone levels determined by other organs.

Ooh, good point. I think we also respond to others' pheromones, etc. a lot more than we give credit for.

JohnLocke · Jan 29, 2007

Ammoratti said:
JohnLocke,

Are you sure? Perhaps the most convincing proof I can think of that would demonstrate the non-existence of some thing would be to show that such a thing is a logical impossibility... such as a round square. Beyond that, I would agree it is immensely difficult to prove the non-existence of some entity with deductive certainty...

Mortensen,

First, we should say that the Mind/Body problem (as well as the matter of "Free Will vs. Determinism") has been with us for centuries, and is likely to be with us for quite some time into the future. But we have come to realize a couple things over the years:

First of all, many atheistic philosophers have agreed with you that if we can reduce all of nature (including humans) to a Newtonian Mechanical understanding of how things work without having to appeal to God, then there is no "ghost in the machine" of the cosmos or the human mind. "Free will" is but an illusion, and instead of having free will where we effect change on our environment, our "choices" are simply the passive outputs of our heredity and our environment working on us. We'd be living in a universe operating purely under the laws of "cause and effect".

If that is true, then it turns out that atheism itself is no longer a rational position to hold. Why is this so? Because if the only reason why you began thinking about atheism in the first place is because of some prior influence over which you had no control, then even your "thinking" is simply a pre-scripted series of events. You didn't really make a choice to become an atheist. Atheism just "happened" to you, perhaps like an affliction, and there was no rational process or reason behind it to make it any more true than someone who was "struck by" Christianity. It's just all part of unguided natural processes in the works. In a nutshell, the atheist attempting to argue against Free Will pulls the rug from under his own feet and destroys Reason in the process.

But of course, there's no reason for the theist to accept the non-existence of Free Will as fact from the atheist. Apart from nullifying rationality itself, it runs counter to our most basic intuitions about what makes us distinctly human from say.... an ant. No human being lives everyday life assuming free will does not exist... if you were dating someone, and she shafts you, you're not going to say, "Well that was an interesting set of hereditary and environmental influences on her behavior!" You're going to want to hold her responsible precisely because you really do believe people are capable of making responsible choices.

Even if such a robot were to be created, this would probably do more to demonstrate that it took an extraordinary intellectual effort (rather than just an unguided process + millions of years) to design and develop the technology to even mimic what we humans already do quite well on our own, what does this say of what is necessary for intelligent human beings to exist?

Ammoratti,

Forgive my tardiness.

Relative to your point the first about the impossibility of the existence of a round square, it is true that there cannot be a round square, because the definition of square precludes any roundness. But this is an operation of definition rather than proof.

These kinds of definitional arguments might be used more in a theodical way, for example showing that the existence of evil precludes the existence and interest of an all knowing, all powerful, all good God.

I would draw your attention to a traditional non-existence argument, "prove to me that invisible, intangible, scent free ducks do not exist?" It would be very difficult, because you could draw no definitive conclusions about the failure of any of the senses to empirically observe an evidence of the duck, because the duck definitionally leaves no such evidence. In fact, your failure may be used by your more sophomoric opponents as proof of the existence of invisible, intangible ducks.

Finally, whilst I might use logic to prove Socrates is mortal
"All men are mortal"
Socrates is a man
Therefore Socrates is mortal

The inverse is not necessarily true
All men are mortal
Holly is not a man
Therefore Holly is not mortal.

So to go back to your example,
The object before me is round
Square admit of no roundness
Therefore the object before me is not a square; rather than the object before me necessarily does not exist.

Cheers!

heron · Jan 29, 2007

It would just prove that the choices we make is just results of how our minds work on our envirement, the invirement that God made for us.

I do think this has a stronger influence than we'd like to believe. Psychologists find trends in patients' reactions to abuse and poor environment. -BUT-

Don't you have days where you can't make decisions firmly? You open the refrigerator and can't figure out what to eat... you start to go out the door on an errand and change your mind...you have a fever and start to get incoherent. Even my dog changes her mind (although she does no backflips).

Tap your finger.

You had a choice to follow that command, delay, do it differently, ignore or not read it at all.

elman · Jan 30, 2007

Mortensen said:
Hi. I just thought out this one, please give me some replys If science ever make a robot that is exactly like the human brain, or if science could make a complete replica of the human brain and by that calculate the choices each human makes by knowing how it workes. Wouldn't this prove that there is nothing devine about the human mind and that it is just a fancy machine? And if it is so: the meaning of "free will" would disapear, the choices we make is just a result of a series of calculations. And if God made us like complicated machines, then he cant blame us for the choices we make. It would just prove that the choices we make is just results of how our minds work on our envirement, the invirement that God made for us. Any disagree?

I agree that if we have no choices and no free will we are simply robots with no purpose and no significance. I don't see how that proves the robots were not created by a robot maker.

Mayby a way to disprove god :P

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