> On Aug 16, 12:05 pm, Jan Panteltje yahoo.com> wrote:
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>> On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Aug 2008 09:12:57 -0700 (PDT)) it happened Jerry Kraus
>> yahoo.com> wrote in
>> m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>:

>

>>>On Aug 16, 11:02 am, Jan Panteltje yahoo.com> wrote:

>>>> On a sunny day (Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:00:10 -0500) it happened John
>>>> wrote in <18-dnVwozvoYdjvVnZ2dnUVZ_r7in...@supernews.=

>>>com>:

>

>>>> As to 'mystic' and ,consciousness,, well 'mysticism' will have to go,
>>>> if we look to the past, where the earth was at the centre of the universe=

>>>, and

>>>> the sun and stars orbiting around it, we will now have to give up on the =

>>>idea

>>>> that 'we' are special, we are controlled by just a larger collection of n=

>>>eurons.

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>>>Spendid.  So why do you care?

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>> There is more to neural nets then I can explain here in a reasonable size posting.
>> There is much more to 'neurons', and our current software model of those neurons
>> needs fixing.
>> I find understanding our selves, our nature, and nature, a facinating enterprise,
>> And we need to.

>

>>>  And why bother studying it at all?  If
>>>all we are is a few utterly meaningless electrochemical connections.

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>> Well, if _you_ call yourself meaningless is not anybody else's problem.
>> That would be as dumb as saying: 'Because the earth is not at the centre
>> of the solar system we are all meaningless'.
>> Makes no sense to me.
>> Nature is beautiful, it is, in a way, 'mechanical', our understanding
>> is limited, but growing, will there be an end? (for us) I think not.

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>>>And, by the way, why haven't we made more progress in Artificial
>>>Intelligence by this time?

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>> For the reasons I just mentioned, and 'artificial' intelligence is a bad word ;-)
>> We need _real_ intelligence, and so what is that according to you?

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>>>No computer comes remotely close to human
>>>intelligence except in extremely narrowly defined activities like
>>>chess.

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>> Chess is a dumb example, it is 100%% methodical, some of those very good
>> chess programs have old games programmed in them (look at the source of GNU chess for example).
>> Chess has nothing to do with intelligence, the fact you waste your time with it proves that.

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> If you accept that knowledge is limitless -- or may well be, in any
> case -- then what is your objection to "mysticism"?  Generally, what
> people mean by "mysticism" is simply trying to find new ways of
> looking at things.  And how do you know that everything is
> "mechanical"?  As far as that goes, what do you mean by "mechanical"?
> Most likely, you mean in terms of currently understood structures like
> neurons.
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> For all we know, our brains may be linked to some universal
> consciousness spreading beyond the stars, which we currently have no
> understanding of.  Who knows?- Hide quoted text -
>