₦airaland Forum

LordReed:
Do even read and understand what you respond to or are just responding for responding sake. Did I say law wasn't for order or what are you implying?

It matters because there is no single objective source for what age limits are set. So when you tell me there is an objective source for morality the very facts on ground deny that.

It seems you do not understand the subject of objective molarity. Objective morality is ABSOLUTE as it is not debatable. Objective morality can be set both by God or a governing authority. Subjective morality can vary from one person to another as it is NOT absolute.
Objective morality does not stem from the fact that it can be logically justified. No! It simply means that it is a take it or leave it kind of law: absolute in nature.


When God says fornication is wrong, to those who believe in God's law, it is objective and there is no argument of justification.

Same as per when the government sets a legal age for sex, alcohol or even speed limit.

The problem atheists have is when Christians for instance speak about the source of an objective law of morality as God but take for granted that objective law of morality can also be set by Governments.

Like is it moral for me as a store owner to sell cigarettes and alcohol to a primary school pupil?

killyaselfie:
“Objectivity by thinking” coming from a Christian is a joke.

All you have to do is show what the soul is and where it’s located. You keep hammering on ignorantly about computers and asking needless questions.

Exactly why cannot objectively answer a simple question relating to the computer. You could at least consult Google.

SMH!

killyaselfie:
Go to the nearest computer technician and ask them.

I wish you can at least show some level of objectivity by thinking.

You asked a question

LordReed:
Nope. Land speed laws are not morality they are laws. Laws and morality often coincide but they are not the same thing.

Again no, these are laws put in place in society to establish order. Age limits differ from place to place so do the land speed limits. It is the society that determines what those limits should be based on their own societal demands. There is no singular source dictating what these limits should be.

Animals are not under obligation to follow our morality.

Never said they would.

Almost ALL laws are in place to establish ORDER!
Is embezzlement of government resources not also moral?

Laws are meant to GUIDE our behaviours.

However, it doesn't make a difference to the point. Is it logical to argue or dispute why the road speed limit is set at 100km/h and not 102km/h. Or why adult age is 18years old and not 15 years?

Why do you think that sex with a 17year old girl (in Nigeria) by an adult is immoral (rape)?

Your last argument/post is flawed sir!

LordReed:
LoL see why I said you misunderstand. It is you who is claiming the mind can be independent of the body not me. You are the ones who believe in concepts such as soul and an afterlife.

Sorry, I have updated the response.


You were the one who says that the mind cannot be independent of the body



I have given you a parallel between the mind and the programmings of a computer and thus I asked the question

Can a program/algorithm exist outside a computer (HDD, CPU, GPU, RAM, ROM)?

The answer is YES!

You said NO it can't but you are wrong.
A Computer Program is a Sequence of Instructions, Directives and Information which of course first exist in the MIND of the programmer, then it gets put on PAPER before it is TYPED in a Text Editor. From the Text Editor it is Compiled into machine language after which it is loaded into a computer.

The sequence of instruction is the real computer programs: several different mediums can be used to record it. It just happens that the last media is the HDD, CPU, RAM of the computer.

So, how different is a paper and a HDD in the storage of the computer program?

LordReed:
You keep asking the same question that has been answered and does not provide any answer to question asked. No it can't, now can you stop asking this question and answer the one I asked you.

You were the one who says that the mind cannot be independent of the body

LordReed:
The facts point to the full grounding of mind in body, you who say mind can be independent of body are the one who needs to provide evidence for your assertions.

I have given you a parallel between the mind and the programmings of a computer and thus I asked the question

Can a program/algorithm exist outside a computer (HDD, CPU, GPU, RAM, ROM)?

The answer is YES!

You said NO it can't but you are wrong.
A Computer Program is a Sequence of Instructions, Directives and Information which of course first exist in the MIND of the programmer, then it gets put on PAPER before it is TYPED in a Text Editor. From the Text Editor it is Compiled into machine language after which it is loaded into a computer.

The sequence of instruction is the real computer programs: several different mediums can be used to record it. It just happens that the last media is the HDD, CPU, RAM of the computer.

So, how different is a paper and a HDD in the storage of the computer program?

LordReed:
Morality doesn't have an objective source. We (humans) are the source of morality which is why we discuss what it should be.

I hope you know that when the government says that the speed limit in a particular road is 30km/h, it is a form of objective moral source. Objective source of morality is NOT exclusive to God.

LordReed:
Good now you make it clear that you are following a "divine" command not because you know it is good or bad. Nor do you care about the facts, you will obey this "divine" command even in the face of contrary facts.

Have you ever argued with the rational why a speed limit on a road is 100km/h and not 101km/h?
Why is adult age 18years and not 16 years. That's why a 17year 10month old girl is treated as a minor with respect to sexual activities with an adult.

Same with any objective morality?

LordReed:
We don't because we have evolved from beings who were instinctively following survival dictates. Now that we have more complex reasoning capacity we are faced with how continuing to eat animals fits with our morality and ethics. The move has been from indifference to treating animals more humanely then to not eating them at all. How you can see that and think bestiality will become normative is the blind spot I am point out to you. Again consent is one of the legs morality stands on and continuing to kill animals for food is kicking against it.

Did you even read what I wrote about why it is censured in public?

But we will also feed and accept that carnivorous animals in our zoos must be fed with MEAT!
Humans will never get to a point where rationality makes us all vegetarians!

HardMirror:
you err in this.... while you cannot control your own brain (directly), you quickly and promptly forget that you can do this through drugs?
You quickly forget or deliberately ignore the fact that drugs and absolutely alter reality. Which is proof that a chemical process affects what we think is the mind... therefore proving that the mind is not spiritual. Your reality is in and through you brain activities only

Sorry for taking you back!

Let's look at things from this perspective:
Some scientists are arguing about the source of artificial intelligence in the new AI robot. The scientists were in two groups
Group A: said that the AI robot functions through a Software Program acting on the hardware
Group B: said the AI robot functions through electrical currents. They even have evidence of how magnetism and electric impulses can change how the robot operates

Which of the two Groups do you think is correct?


I think it is very similar to the argument of chemicals changing/modifying how a living being function. Could it also be that it is the software/algorithm/soul is the one who releases the appropriate chemicals for the appropriate event?

DeepsightX:
Except those who claim the the human body to be some sort of abominable spectre: especially Allahu Akbar people dem.

My argument to him was that an activity no hurting others does not make it moral and okay!
Imagine of Buhari should decide to exercise his freedom of expression by appearing in the public with nothing other than a bowtie, pants and shoe.

LordReed:
This is funny because you don't say why the issue of consent is weak with regards to homosexuality instead you substitute other things in and argue against those. Can you show how consent is actually weak with regards to homosexuality? Not that I was even arguing that consent is the reason why homosexuality is normative. It seems you don't understand my statements and instead of asking for clarification you are arguing against what I didn't say.

And you don't see that people are waking up to the fact that our treatment of animals goes against our very conception of morality or even good health. Or why do you think vegans and vegetarians exist? Do you think only atheists are vegans and vegetarians? A footballer was dropped by his sponsors because he kicked a cat for shittìng on his bed. Society is changing its mores towards animals.

Nudity is not immoral, public nudity is censured because it could lead to a breakdown of order. Your nudity in private is not considered immoral, you are free to walk around your home nude all day every day, nobody would say boo to you but once you step out of your home you are going to be indicted. You who was talking about aberration, don't you realise clothes are the aberration in nature? Even your favourite Hebrew myth acknowledges this fact.

Consent is one of the legs on which morality stands. Check it, stealing, rape, murder, pedophilia, assault, etc all violate that ideal. Consent is not the only principle on which morality stands and I didn't say it was.

BTW morality comes from ourselves both individually and collectively so your assertion that atheists don't take their morality from outside themselves is just wrong on several levels.

To a very large extent, All laws are to protect the people and Morality can be Objective or Subjective. Where morality has an objective source, no argument suffices. Where morality is subjective, we can argue and postulate why or why not it should remain a standard.

For me, Homosexuality is an example of an objective morality (from my God). No argument or suffices. It's like arguing why the maximum speed limit on a particular road is 100km/h and not 105km/h.

Vegetarians can be atheists or theists. My argument was that: if consent is the reason for a subjective morality we don't ask for the consent of chickens before eating them, why should we ask for consent from them if we feel like having sex with them?

On nudity: I believe you understand that nudity is not offensive indoors. It only becomes offensive in public. BUT it hurts nobody; does it?

LordReed:
The facts point to the full grounding of mind in body, you who say mind can be independent of body are the one who needs to provide evidence for your assertions.

Can a program/algorithm exist outside a computer (HDD, CPU, GPU, RAM, ROM)?

budaatum:
Are you saying my consciousness is my soul?

The totality of your consciousness is your soul: expressed as your PERSONAL IDENTITY and the source of your Will, Emotion and Intellect.

budaatum:
Do you not see a problem with this? Why would I generalise about something I admit to having insufficient information about? Is that not the same as ignorantly asserting?

Consider how you would react if I generalise about what you in fact have more information about. Would I not sound rather ignorant if my insufficiently informed generalisation does not conform to your own knowledge or the actual facts?

I think one should just admit one does not have sufficient information and go look for more information instead of believing ones insufficiently informed generalising and then asking others to believe it too.

You have never seen God, yet you know/believe He is!

In the scientific community, we have what is called a THEORY!

A theory attempts to explain the unknown by what is known.

No one has be able to cut open a body and bring out the mind/soul. Meaning that until that happens, every understanding about the mind/soul will be just a THEORY!

It's is a valid way of reasoning my dear Buda

budaatum:
I would claim it is my mind that I feed with knowledge and experience and learning with my entire being too for it to grow well, me being a huge fan of ask and knock and seek with all one's heart and soul and mind and being.

Can we agree that where you say soul I say mind? It has to do with the level of control one has over either, I think.

I have no problem with using the mind and the soul synonymously.

Only that I feel that the mind is a little restrictive as it concentrates more on the intellect and less on emotion or will of a person.

killyaselfie:
Dude, tell us what a soul is and how we can see or detect it before claiming there is a "strong interface" between it and the liver, brain, kidneys or whatever.

Okay!
Can you tell me how to detect, see or describe the software in a HDD or CPU of a computer without using another software?
Or what sensor is available for detecting or viewing the Softwares in a computer/MPU without using another Software?

killyaselfie:
The Brain is the source of the WILL, INTELLECT, EMOTION. These three effects amongst others are part of conciousness or mind and you don't need a soul to explain how the brain generates the effects. On the other hand, your "soul" is totally dependent on the acceptance of your claim that it "interfaces with the liver ,spleen ,brain.

Can you answer this question:
Can you truely say that the CPU, GPU, RAM is the source of all the attributes of a computer?
OR
The Softwares Bundle (Application Softwares, Systems Software, Operating Systems software) is the Source of all activities of the Computer?

budaatum:
Hmm. Your soul is that which your mind identifies as you? (I say, mind, on the assumption that is where you ability to be conscious resides).

I don't have an "Internal/Personal Identity", TenQ. I find that my mind constantly evolves as I feed it with knowledge and experiences, and the ability to reflect has ensured the feedback loop creates constant flux so that buda saying buda identifies as this or that would be untrue almost immediately after it is said.

Others do label one with personal identity however, though obviously not internal, but I find they often have insufficient information and are just generalising.

I see that you are doing everything to discard the term soul in favour of the mind.

But of a truth, the mind is just a subset of the activities of the soul.

Let's review the definition:
What is the Soul?
1. The Soul is the self/personal/internal IDENTITY of a person: the source of our WILL, INTELLECT and EMOTION!
2. These three effects of the Soul is called the MIND! Someone like me sees the soul as the Software of the Body (hardware). The software thus must interact with the hardware of the brain in other to control the body.

In other words, the Soul is the OBJECT while the Mind is the ATTRIBUTE of the Object.

The only alternative is to reduce the Mind to just the BRAIN (hardware) without the Programming Software.

In other words, just like the five senses are parts of the Physical Body, your mind is a part of your soul!

Once you can see the Soul as the bundle of Softwares that run the body, everything becomes clear.

LordReed:
So back to the question, how can we tell the correct position?

I think I've answered this question at least twice.

Since in either position, no objective evidence can be established (no one can cut open any part of the body to show the mind or the soul), the best we can humanly do is to give a logical postulate/theory.

Therefore we have to propose our theory using the already known to explain the unknown.

For me, a known information is about the workings of a computer. I see a very strong parallel between how it functions with how the body of a living being function. In this case, the brain, central nervous system, eyes, and other organs of the body being analogous to the computer hardware and the Soul/Spirit represent the Application Softwares, System Softwares and Operating systems of a computer.

With this knowledge, I can describe the unknown from what is already known.

Like in all scientific theory, a theory is discarded if a better theory comes along. Any good theory must solve emergent problems and observations.

Do you think you have a more robust alternate theory?

LordReed:
It seems you misunderstood what I said. I didn't say same sex attraction was a relic of archaic fables. I said society is discovering that it no longer has to tie itself to archaic fables when it comes to being. This is especially with regards to the 2 things you initially mentioned which I responded to, transgender and homosexuality. Your mentioning cannibalism, beastiality or necrophilia are outside the scope of my address but even if I was to address it I would tell you that I don't see those becoming normative because they represent one of the most egregious form of harm society will not tolerate and that is lack of consent. Animals don't consent, cannibal victims don't consent nor do dead bodies or their families. If society must maintain order this is something that must continue to be upheld. Same sex attraction or transgender does not violate this particular ideal or introduce harm to the society so they're not even remotely in the same class as these others.

The argument of mutual consent is extremely weak to justify same sex attractions. The problem is that atheists don't take their morality from outside themselves.
Bestiality for instance by the argument of consent falls apart. Putting it in perspective: if we can legally and morally kill and eat animals, having sex with animals should be nothing difficult.
Nudity is another example where no one is hurt by our action. How come it is still treated as immoral especially for an adult.
The argument of mutual consent or the argument of not hurting others is very weak in establishing rules for morality.

budaatum:
I can not argue that you might identify me by my physical body, TenQ, though grabbing the trunk of an elephant does come to mind, but I would object to your claim that my Internal/personal identity is some sort of soul.

Personal Identity is simply how one identifies oneself, as in, how one sees or describes oneself, and nothing to do with some imaginary soul. I may drive a huge car for instance, earn good money and live in a big house and identify my self as successful, but none of that would be describing what you term a soul. One may also identify oneself as a Samaritan when one might truly be a Levite of a Priest.

Perhaps you have gotten me wrong.
By personal Identity/Internal Identity, I mean
1. how you recognise yourself as you
2. how you don't confuse yourself with another person
3. The person you describe as ME, MYSELF, I
4. Your consciousness

It has nothing to do with how you want to perceive yourself. It certainly has nothing to do with ones status

budaatum:
Really? Perhaps define soul.

In summary: We do not have sufficient information similar to that which we have with softwares acting on a computer: thus, we can only generalise

What is the Soul?
The Soul is the self/personal/internal IDENTITY of a person: the source of our WILL, INTELLECT and EMOTION! These three effects of the Soul is called the MIND! Someone like me sees the soul as the Software of the Body (hardware). The software thus must interact with the hardware of the brain in other to control the body.

DeepsightX:
This is a very good question and should be directed to Diridiri on account of his comments on self-learning AI.

For once, it looks like the Atheists here are admiting that a kind of Software seem to run the hardware of living beings. We shall soon get to the point where we ask them if the simplest Software can self assemble itself.

I hope Diridiri know that self learning is a product of instructions, data and training of the computer to take future decisions based on previous data?

LordReed:
It was the focus of that piece of conversation.

Your question is weird.

I think it is weird to you because you atheistic mind has been able to accept same sex attractions as NORMAL but you at least for now reject bestiality or cannibalism or necrophilia as normal (which is good).

You have described same sex attractions as relics of the archaic fables: I didn't want you to cherry-pick.

killyaselfie:
What’s your point? The software may be intangible but it still requires a material object to be functional.
If the soul is like software, you have to show where these instructions are written. Before you say that these instructions are written on the brain, keep in mind that the heart was once thought to be the seat of intelligence and that’s why they wrote, “the heart of man is wicked”. The only reason you will respond with brain is because that’s what science has shown to be responsible for what “the soul” is said to be responsible for.


What kind of AI/Humanoid doesn’t/wouldn’t depend on instructions?

One may not be able to localise or locate exactly where the soul resides in the body because it isn't tangible. But one can say that there seems to be a strong interface between the operations of the soul and the nervous system (including the brain).

It's like an attempt to pinpoint exactly where the software of a computer is. There is not one simple answer as the software can be in the HDD, RAM, ROM, ALU, GPU or the CPU since the certain activity of the software can be active or passive at any given time.

Yes, for a software to interact with the hardware, there must exist at least one point of interface just like for the soul to control the body, there must exist at least one physical interface.

Interestingly, even in a computer, it is impossible to View where the software is written in the HDD except you have both the inner workings of both the software compiler and the engineering of data storage in the HDD. To even do this, you will need a code reader and a decompiler (which is another software created specifically for such purposes).
If we are to use another Soul-Software to decode instructions written on a hardware for which we have no clue of how it interacts, it is for now an impossible task.

LordReed:
The mind is not the brain. The mind is an emergent phenomenon birth by the interaction of the brain and other bodily systems. So while it is not the physical systems themselves it is firmly entrenched in them much like software. There is no way to have software without the hardware that contains it. In the case of the mind it is not an external influence injected into the body to control it but mechanisms of control that arise from the workings of physical systems.

Add to this diridiri's great summation of what the self is:


The picture should be a little more clearer on how the body and the mind are an integrated unit.

However you still haven't answered the original question I put to you.

This means that there isn't much difference in our understanding except that you'll prefer to use "the mind" as an inseparable fusion of the hardware and software, whereas, I prefer to use "the soul" as a detachable software from the hardware of the body. I hope I'm correct with this view.

And you are correct that the soul/mind cannot survive without its hardware.

For Christians then, all animals have their souls and when they die, they cease to exist. Humans on the other hand have in addition their spirit body: such that when they die, their soul even though disconnected from their body is not disconnected from their spirit body. I am not saying this that you might agree with it: I am just stating how Christians relate to the concept of body, soul and spirit. God Himself is a Spirit! Angels, Demons too are spirits who all have their unique souls/personalities.

LordReed:
I specifically pointed out same sex attraction but instead of focusing on that you went with what I didn't mention.

You mentioned it as an example of the so called ancient fables!

Do you think we should retain others but reject same sex attractions?

killyaselfie:
So between option 1and 2, you choose the most unsupportable and unfounded option. The brain is responsible for everything you people ever attribute to the mythological soul. You have no soul.
The mind itself is nothing but a product of arrangement and interaction of matter. And it doesn’t matter how much you believe otherwise. I am yet to see a person devoid of a living and functional brain interacting with people as his “soul” expresses mind and emotion. Mind, emotion, etc are functions of the brain and only the superstitious or indoctrinated continue to say otherwise. Damage to the brain alters conciousness, emotions, intellect, will etc but y’all continue to pretend that it is something called a soul.

Not to appeal to authority, but these two put it succinctly.

This is what Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA, called “The Astonishing Hypothesis.” In Crick’s words, “You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal iden­tity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”

Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene summarizes the situation as follows:
Most people are dualists. Intuitively, we think of ourselves not as physical devices, but as immaterial minds or souls housed in physical bodies. Most experimental psychologists and neuroscientists disagree, at least officially. The modern science of mind proceeds on the assumption that the mind is simply what the brain does. We don’t talk much about this, however. We scientists take the mind’s physical basis for granted. Among the general public, it’s a touchy subject.


PS: the software is not intangible. Instruction written on a material surface is not intangible.

Here are the two options again

The question was knowing which position is correct from
1. The intangible Soul/Mind/Spirit as the fundamental source of living activities
OR
2. That the tangible organs/genes/brain/chemistry as the fundamental source of living activities

If you had understood that the Software in a machine is Not tangible the case would have been simple for you to comprehend. The software is simply DIRECTIVES and INSTRUCTIONS given to a machine to make it behave in a certain format. The medium of interface or reception of such directives or instructions is the memory of the computer.

Is it possible that an AI computer/humanoid robot can be created that wouldn't need to be fed any kind of instructions/directives?
If such is possible, then you have a valid point!

If tampering with the CPU or RAM affects the working of a computer, could it be the evidence that computers are not controlled by Softwares?

budaatum:
I love the fact that you recognise that others might not see like you see. I, for instance, do not see souls at all, never have, though I do witness the functioning of minds in their respective bodies like their software propelling their physical hardware.

To me, TenQ's soul is not TenQ (self/personal/internal IDENTITY), nor is your soul responsible for the development of your mind (software).

What effects the mind is how well the self/personal/internal IDENTITY of TenQ bothered to propel TenQ to develop TenQ's "WILL, INTELLECT and EMOTION" and that learning is what forms TenQ's self/personal/internal IDENTITY identity, as seen especially by those who do not merely rely on the material hardware they see nor on their assumption of their understanding of softwares alone but on the produced fruit of the being too.

A different seeing I suppose, though chicken and eggy.

But I can prove that Buda is truly the person Buda calls "I", "ME" or "MY SELF"!
Let's do a thought experiment:
Let's assume you slept only to wake up from sleep 4 months after. Now, unknown to you, someone has performed a reconstruction plastic surgery on you that you look perfectly And exactly like Vice President Oshinbajo.

Would you be confused about your true identity?
Would you not ask the question: who did this to ME?
Who then is the me you refer to?
Of cause, the "me" cannot be your brain!
The "me" in this case is the unseen you inside your body. It is the one who feels all the emotions and makes all the decisions you make.

Just as your Physical Identity is your BODY, your Soul is your Internal/Personal Identity.

Now, just as you feed your body with food and other nutrition for it to grow well, you also feed your soul but this time with Knowledge and Experience! A soul could have a stunted growth or be deformed or even be sick based on the kind of knowledge and experience you feed it with. Sometimes, the hardware (brain) could be compromised either physically or chemically to cause a malfunction in the interface between the soul and the brain.

Just as the Software interfaces with the CPU and Memory, so the soul interfaces with the brain!

LordReed:
Where did I mention those?

Must you mention ALL the available relics of ancient fables?

The two mentioned are also part of those ancient fables!

LordReed:
Nobody is making the argument that because it exists in nature that humans have to do it so I dunno why you keep mentioning that.

If something exists in nature it makes it natural, it's in the very meaning of the word. Even if you call it an aberration it is still natural. Fortunately, it doesn't matter what you call it, society is waking up to the fact that being is not tied to ancient fables.

Then one day cannibalism will be legal. Bestiality will also be encouraged. They are relics of the ancient fables! LOL!!

HardMirror:
are you thinking?

I should ask you that!

LordReed:
It seems you don't understand the question. The mind and the body are a singular unit which much like an autonomous vehicle is a working combination of intangible and tangible, you on the other hand believe that mind is an aspect of soul/spirit that drives the body like a human driven vehicle. My question is how can we tell which position is correct.

The facts on ground do not support the view that some spirit/soul is driving the body. They have consistent point to the fact the mind and the body are a functional unit not a duality.

Okay, I see where the misunderstanding is coming from.

What is the Soul?
The Soul is the self/personal/internal IDENTITY of a person: the source of our WILL, INTELLECT and EMOTION! These three effects of the Soul is called the MIND! Someone like me sees the soul as the Software of the Body (hardware). The software thus must interact with the hardware of the brain in other to control the body.

From the explanation above, I should ask you the question of what you consider as the MIND?
Is it just the physical brain?

DeepSight:
Especially the program for something like the human brain. To suggest so has been likened to thinking that an orangutan playing with a laptop could produce the complete works of Shakespeare, once given sufficient time!

Writing a dictionary or a book is even out of it. Can such a permutation write:
"Hello World!"

There is an underlying rule guiding any program no matter how simple are Syntax, Reserved words, Identifiers etc
On the basis of this, "Hello World" makes sense!