Robert Baird
Paranormal Maven
The neuroscience forum (I belonged to - see thread on the Singularity) has a minister of the Unitarian Universalist persuasion. We are discussing all manner of things related to the soulful sciences and I wish to have my readers see this wise older man has a lot to offer at this juncture. Here is Rev. Lindsay King’s response to me (as RTB) in a thread dealing with healing and hypnotic effective or positive thinking potentials.
‘BTW, RTB, to my great relief, way back when, I came to understand that--and I am not sure where I first got the idea, maybe from the writings of Milton Erickson--hypnosis is not something that a "master" does to a "subject". It is, rather, what happens between people when they interact with one another. Hypnosis is something a curious student learns from a wise teacher.
For good or ill, this powerful interaction can take place between individuals and, on a one to one basis, lead to negative and/or positive things happening. Or, like the example you gave, charismatic personalities or leadership types, including entertainers, spiritual leaders, evangelists, political leaders, whoever, can "work" the audience and make positive and/or negative things happen.
THE "FORCE" IS NEUTRAL
For some time, now, I have been convinced--and I am always open to be persuaded otherwise--that this powerful mental/spiritual force, which I call the pneuma component and factor, is like the light and energy which comes to us from the sun. Of itself, it is neutral. It can be used to do evil or good. If I exposed myself to the blazing light and heat of the sun for too long, without mercy, it will physically kill me. If I look at it, without proper protection, it will blind me.
In my opinion, if there is a powerful mental/spiritual force waiting to be understood and used, the worse thing we can do is nothing. Sure the taking of any kind of action involves risk, and the making of mistakes that could cause us some pain. However, if we allow ourselves to be motivated by fear of the unknown and other destructive emotions-powerful pneumatological tools often used by clever obscurants--and not to try to understand and to work with this "pneumatological force", evil is bound to happen.’ (4)
That same forum has a Doctoral engineer in artificial intelligence (AI) that works at an aerospace company in LA. Here is my response to him.
Dear Rick
You say:
‘So that leaves the giant question: assuming that artificial computers are unconscious how is it that we can imagine computer-driven robots that behave intelligently?’
Quite a lot of assumptions there - both explicit and implied. The word 'artificial' implies something that may not be fully factual. For example - it is a mystical premise that each chakra in the human body is a nexus of lesser consciousnesses all of which are not on the radar screen of what our original poster here seems to think are conscious. In fact there is evidence of a lesser brain in the solar plexus or stomach area chakra that physiologists have described briefly operates with headless people such as I have posted here.
The issue of consciousness being collective goes to what is called Intelligent Design - I hope I do not have to explain.
The collective is operating according to the same laws of reality (science - such as in the Law of the Magi - As Above, SO Below) that show us the microcosm and macrocosm have similar design constructs (and adepts use these archetypes or constructs to affect Matrices through Myths and more subtle means).
The last part of your question I presume relates to Gary Hillis and the sentient robots he is working on that we have discussed before; including dumping the contents of a human brain into them which was done in 1999 at Stanford.
In that discussion we must again ask what is consciousness and the soul - as Bill Joy and others have properly done. You perhaps used the phrase 'behave intelligently' to mean that - although it would have been better to word it differently. If you did not mean that and work in the area you do - I would be amazed. I say that because the matter of behaving intelligently is implicit in the whole idea of AI.
At Berkeley and Arizona universities (going from memory) there are people who posit that consciousness is a purely synaptic issue and this can be created and the robots will soon replicate themselves to the same end. Some of these people clearly do not believe in a soul which I think is collective despite some interesting regressions I have witnessed and can explain within the hierarchies of layers of organizationally attuned lattices and wells of energy. Then a few months after I had written this book came the University of Florida’s scientist named DeMarse who built a brain computer that could fly an airplane. It was made from rat brain cells and is alive. That report in October 2004 is the harbinger of more ethical quagmires which mankind must address. (5)
Notes:
4) The Rev. Lindsay G. King, also posts to several Brain-Meta.com topics. He was ordained in 1953, as a minister of the United Church of Canada, which respects freedom of thought. He served the church and had a successful ministry, until 1994--just over 40 years. Now, he likes to think of himself as re-directed, not retired. Not your typical theist--though he respects all sincerely held beliefs which contribute morally and ethically to the public good--the Rev. King advocates a fairly unique theological approach which he calls 'unitheism' similar to the Panentheism of Professor Marcus Borg and others. He supports the scientific study of all things to do with religion, including any claims made by it. [If you wish, you may refer people to my site http://www.flfcanada.com for details.]
5) [http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/braindish.htm]
Noam Chomsky's contributions to society are vast and varied. But when I am reminded about his linguistics expertise I still cringe. Neuro Psycho-Linguistics has been used by the CIA and military psy-ops and I suspect it has been incorporated into the work of Persinger and his DIA backed mind control.
But this article has interest in trying to ascertain why academics are so infantile in seeing animals have languages and humans never were less than an animal. Animals use sign and body language as well as clicking noises or other complex and proven means to communicate. You can hear me discuss the matter with Jack Landham on a link here. But when they say language requires certain phenotypes and defined syntax I ask whether that improved communication and conscious wisdom acquisition. I too could use jargon and avoid real discourse.
"The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language “phenotype.” According to the “Strong Minimalist Thesis,” the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain) is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000–100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}."
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology...l.pbio.1001934
‘BTW, RTB, to my great relief, way back when, I came to understand that--and I am not sure where I first got the idea, maybe from the writings of Milton Erickson--hypnosis is not something that a "master" does to a "subject". It is, rather, what happens between people when they interact with one another. Hypnosis is something a curious student learns from a wise teacher.
For good or ill, this powerful interaction can take place between individuals and, on a one to one basis, lead to negative and/or positive things happening. Or, like the example you gave, charismatic personalities or leadership types, including entertainers, spiritual leaders, evangelists, political leaders, whoever, can "work" the audience and make positive and/or negative things happen.
THE "FORCE" IS NEUTRAL
For some time, now, I have been convinced--and I am always open to be persuaded otherwise--that this powerful mental/spiritual force, which I call the pneuma component and factor, is like the light and energy which comes to us from the sun. Of itself, it is neutral. It can be used to do evil or good. If I exposed myself to the blazing light and heat of the sun for too long, without mercy, it will physically kill me. If I look at it, without proper protection, it will blind me.
In my opinion, if there is a powerful mental/spiritual force waiting to be understood and used, the worse thing we can do is nothing. Sure the taking of any kind of action involves risk, and the making of mistakes that could cause us some pain. However, if we allow ourselves to be motivated by fear of the unknown and other destructive emotions-powerful pneumatological tools often used by clever obscurants--and not to try to understand and to work with this "pneumatological force", evil is bound to happen.’ (4)
That same forum has a Doctoral engineer in artificial intelligence (AI) that works at an aerospace company in LA. Here is my response to him.
Dear Rick
You say:
‘So that leaves the giant question: assuming that artificial computers are unconscious how is it that we can imagine computer-driven robots that behave intelligently?’
Quite a lot of assumptions there - both explicit and implied. The word 'artificial' implies something that may not be fully factual. For example - it is a mystical premise that each chakra in the human body is a nexus of lesser consciousnesses all of which are not on the radar screen of what our original poster here seems to think are conscious. In fact there is evidence of a lesser brain in the solar plexus or stomach area chakra that physiologists have described briefly operates with headless people such as I have posted here.
The issue of consciousness being collective goes to what is called Intelligent Design - I hope I do not have to explain.
The collective is operating according to the same laws of reality (science - such as in the Law of the Magi - As Above, SO Below) that show us the microcosm and macrocosm have similar design constructs (and adepts use these archetypes or constructs to affect Matrices through Myths and more subtle means).
The last part of your question I presume relates to Gary Hillis and the sentient robots he is working on that we have discussed before; including dumping the contents of a human brain into them which was done in 1999 at Stanford.
In that discussion we must again ask what is consciousness and the soul - as Bill Joy and others have properly done. You perhaps used the phrase 'behave intelligently' to mean that - although it would have been better to word it differently. If you did not mean that and work in the area you do - I would be amazed. I say that because the matter of behaving intelligently is implicit in the whole idea of AI.
At Berkeley and Arizona universities (going from memory) there are people who posit that consciousness is a purely synaptic issue and this can be created and the robots will soon replicate themselves to the same end. Some of these people clearly do not believe in a soul which I think is collective despite some interesting regressions I have witnessed and can explain within the hierarchies of layers of organizationally attuned lattices and wells of energy. Then a few months after I had written this book came the University of Florida’s scientist named DeMarse who built a brain computer that could fly an airplane. It was made from rat brain cells and is alive. That report in October 2004 is the harbinger of more ethical quagmires which mankind must address. (5)
Notes:
4) The Rev. Lindsay G. King, also posts to several Brain-Meta.com topics. He was ordained in 1953, as a minister of the United Church of Canada, which respects freedom of thought. He served the church and had a successful ministry, until 1994--just over 40 years. Now, he likes to think of himself as re-directed, not retired. Not your typical theist--though he respects all sincerely held beliefs which contribute morally and ethically to the public good--the Rev. King advocates a fairly unique theological approach which he calls 'unitheism' similar to the Panentheism of Professor Marcus Borg and others. He supports the scientific study of all things to do with religion, including any claims made by it. [If you wish, you may refer people to my site http://www.flfcanada.com for details.]
5) [http://www.napa.ufl.edu/2004news/braindish.htm]
Noam Chomsky's contributions to society are vast and varied. But when I am reminded about his linguistics expertise I still cringe. Neuro Psycho-Linguistics has been used by the CIA and military psy-ops and I suspect it has been incorporated into the work of Persinger and his DIA backed mind control.
But this article has interest in trying to ascertain why academics are so infantile in seeing animals have languages and humans never were less than an animal. Animals use sign and body language as well as clicking noises or other complex and proven means to communicate. You can hear me discuss the matter with Jack Landham on a link here. But when they say language requires certain phenotypes and defined syntax I ask whether that improved communication and conscious wisdom acquisition. I too could use jargon and avoid real discourse.
"The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language “phenotype.” According to the “Strong Minimalist Thesis,” the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain) is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000–100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}."
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology...l.pbio.1001934
