Will AI replace God?

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Dalek Prime
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Dalek Prime »

Did AI create the universe we know? No. Did a conscious part of that universe create AI? Yes. So how then does a creation become God? It doesnt. Unless one changes the definition of God to mean something that's worshipped out of proportion to what it actually is. Then Sure, why not. In which case, I choose my God to be a bottle of Coke, and declare my religion to be tasty and thirst quenching lol.
Walker
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Walker »

AI will likely worship folks, for folks are what AI will perceive but cannot be, human: as perfect and brief as mayflies in the Silicon world, human worshipped not only as Creator, but as the detector of invisible, unchanging, thingless principles that move things. AI may even ape humans with expressions of suffering caused by longing to know what happens after the janitor trips over the electrical cord.

The machine mind will be one mind. Some appliances such as toasters will link into a little bit of the one machine mind; linked supercomputers will access all of it.

How will humans take this?

Some humans will profit from encouraging the machine mind’s longing and desire to experience the humanness it cannot experience. Some will encourage methods for the machines to detach from the desire to experience humanness, and to be content with complete knowing of machineness. After a supercomputer is martyred so that no machine will know death, anti and pro machine factions will rise up and be at odds.
Eodnhoj7
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Eodnhoj7 »

Greta wrote: Tue May 15, 2018 6:31 am
Nick_A wrote: Tue May 15, 2018 3:11 am
Eodnhoj7 wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 5:06 pmWill AI claim to be God?
It is more accurate to say people will claim the results of AI to serve the purpose of providing human meaning. From that perspective it is a demonic influence which pins the human psych to the earth.
Demons and the Great Beast. Dramatic stuff. Fortunately we have God and the Angels on our side.

Nick and I, as observed in forum posts from prior months, do not necessarily see eye to eye all the time. His method of approaching "truth" is not strictly the same manner I approach it. Now the difference is one of subjective relations, where we see the same thing from various angles. The reason I say this is because while I do not necessarily agree with Nick all the time, nor his methodology, I do agree with his observation at the metaphorical level where the society we currently inhabit can be likened to a "great beast" in the respect:

1) It is premised on progress as power.
2) This power stems from and circles back to the maintainence and cultivation of appetites at the cost of reason as proportion.
3) The individualism of western society causes a premise of "eating one's own" to get ahead (ahead of what most people do not know). Eastern society does this in reverse with consuming the weakest who do not fit in. While both this individualistic and group dualism of civilization always had this inherent element of "cannibalism" (metaphorically speaking...for the most part), the various extremes relativistic technocratic culture promotes seems to exasterbate this problem to a higher ratio than those of former times (at least in appearance).
4) Technology replaces man to that of an animal whose only means is the pursuit of distraction, through appetite as a form of spiritual stagnation as catharsis.
5) This "beast" is merely a form of consumption of people and natural resources in the face of a modern alchemy where all existence is deemed as "true" if converted to steel or stone (silicon chips).
6) Progress in itself is irrational as it extends from pure appetite, as absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms, back to absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms. Metaphorically speaking we can observe this in the nature of the line being synonymous to progress where it fundamentally contradicts itself in the respect in extending from its origins it goes back to them. Progress under these terms is merely a form of individuation as continual seperation, hence the the dependence upon a relativistic interpretation of reality where all things cycle from and to point zero. The problem is that zero is not anything, it is not even peace, but merely an absence of structure which progress contradictory claims to manifest. Progress is the consumption of the natural order of reason and logic which mirrors itself through the very practical boundaries of everyday life.



Actually AI is the part of humanity that appears most likely will venture furthest into the cosmos. It will be the least earthbound part of humanity as the machines sail off into night sky. Meanwhile the hapless remnant apes, anchored to the Earth, will be forced to elevate their spirits because there will be no other escape on a post-apocalyptic planet, at which time they shall all join hands and sing Kumbaya until the second coming and their elevation into Heaven will be complete. Amen.

You look at the past through rose-coloured glasses. It's easy to wax existential when death is a daily reality rather than a scary abstraction that "only happens to other people". Lives were brutal and short. Governance was entirely corrupt, self-serving and nepotistic (which we are once again cycling towards, unfortunately) and an infant mortality far beyond in number and painfulness of today's abortion rate which so so decry.

I suspect that today there are as high a proportion of people as ever who are interested in personal development and spirituality. There are probably just as many fighters, merchants and artisans too, just operating differently because times either change or stagnation takes place.

I agree with Conde about AI; it can pass the Turing test when making appointments on the phone with busy, distracted people. True general AI is quite some time away. In the 50s they thought that by now we'd all be zipping around in flying cars too. I see corporations as a form of AI and they are increasingly exercising their power. Great Beasts? In a way, although for the most part I find most beasts to be quite interesting and beautiful. Great Blobs or Great Amoebas would seem more indicative of emerging corporate intelligences that may yet engulf us individuals.
Nick_A
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Greta wrote:
Actually AI is the part of humanity that appears most likely will venture furthest into the cosmos. It will be the least earthbound part of humanity as the machines sail off into night sky. Meanwhile the hapless remnant apes, anchored to the Earth, will be forced to elevate their spirits because there will be no other escape on a post-apocalyptic planet, at which time they shall all join hands and sing Kumbaya until the second coming and their elevation into Heaven will be complete. Amen.
This is the typical attitude of the secular mind and describes the potential psychological harm of AI. The secular mind equates higher mind with fantasy while the dualistic associative mind is equated with reality. This is backwards. Einstein describes the human as opposed to the mechanical relationship between the dual associative mind and the intuitive mind.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”~ Einstein
The enchanting results of AI will serve to glorify dualism which supports AI as the source for providing human meaning as opposed to serving the need for meaning experienced above Plato's divided line. The dualistic rational mind secularism lives by will gradually become successful, especially in the young, of condemning conscious contemplation opening the inner path to higher mind and the experience of meaning as Plato described above the divided line.

The results of AI fixated on the mechanical results left unchecked will replace the human faculty of higher mind now condemned as fantasy. The eventual result will be a society of dualistc computer minds killing off triune human minds. AI will not replace God. Defense of AI will just kill off the human potential to become consciously aware of objective human meaning and purpose experienced through higher mind.
Nick_A
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Eodnhoj7
I do agree with his observation at the metaphorical level where the society we currently inhabit can be likened to a "great beast" in the respect:

1) It is premised on progress as power.
2) This power stems from and circles back to the maintainence and cultivation of appetites at the cost of reason as proportion.
3) The individualism of western society causes a premise of "eating one's own" to get ahead (ahead of what most people do not know). Eastern society does this in reverse with consuming the weakest who do not fit in. While both this individualistic and group dualism of civilization always had this inherent element of "cannibalism" (metaphorically speaking...for the most part), the various extremes relativistic technocratic culture promotes seems to exasterbate this problem to a higher ratio than those of former times (at least in appearance).
4) Technology replaces man to that of an animal whose only means is the pursuit of distraction, through appetite as a form of spiritual stagnation as catharsis.
5) This "beast" is merely a form of consumption of people and natural resources in the face of a modern alchemy where all existence is deemed as "true" if converted to steel or stone (silicon chips).
6) Progress in itself is irrational as it extends from pure appetite, as absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms, back to absence of structure or Point 0 in geometric terms. Metaphorically speaking we can observe this in the nature of the line being synonymous to progress where it fundamentally contradicts itself in the respect in extending from its origins it goes back to them. Progress under these terms is merely a form of individuation as continual seperation, hence the the dependence upon a relativistic interpretation of reality where all things cycle from and to point zero. The problem is that zero is not anything, it is not even peace, but merely an absence of structure which progress contradictory claims to manifest. Progress is the consumption of the natural order of reason and logic which mirrors itself through the very practical boundaries of everyday life.
Plato and Simone Weil describe the Great Beast not as much by what it does but by what it is. Humanity as the Great Beast, an animal which can be trained must necessarily become vulnerable to the influences of AI. Can the Great Beast become human? My guess is that it cannot. Social influences opposing it are too powerful. However individuals can awaken to human meaning and purpose regardless of these powerful social influences which is the goal of all the great traditions.

http://cimarronline.blogspot.com/2004/0 ... beast.html
Weil gets the term "Great Beast" from Plato. Specifically, this passage from Book VI of his Republic (here Plato critiques those who are "wise" through their study of society):

I might compare them to a man who should study the tempers and desires of a mighty strong beast who is fed by him--he would learn how to approach and handle him, also at what times and from what causes he is dangerous or the reverse, and what is the meaning of his several cries, and by what sounds, when another utters them, he is soothed or infuriated; and you may suppose further, that when, by continually attending upon him, he has become perfect in all this, he calls his knowledge wisdom, and makes of it a system or art, which he proceeds to teach, although he has no real notion of what he means by the principles or passions of which he is speaking, but calls this honourable and that dishonourable, or good or evil, or just or unjust, all in accordance with the tastes and tempers of the great brute. Good he pronounces to be that in which the beast delights and evil to be that which he dislikes...
Society, the "mighty strong beast." There's the obvious power of many hands working together. But Plato points to a deeper, pseudo-moral power of the many, the group. Weil also describes this:

The power of the social element. Agreement between several men brings with it a feeling of reality. It brings with it also a sense of duty. Divergence, where this agreement is concerned, appears as a sin. Hence all returns to the fold are possible. The state of conformity is an imitation of grace……………………………..
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Necromancer
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Necromancer »

"Will AI replace God?"

Hah-hah-hah! Surely, that's a question from an Atheist! You know, when they have no feeling for mystery in the World. Their world being high school books. When they deny the mounting evidence of souls and telepathy, regeneration and reincarnation...

Reality will smack them in the face, especially as they enter death! 8)
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Greta
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Tue May 15, 2018 6:46 pm Greta wrote:
Actually AI is the part of humanity that appears most likely will venture furthest into the cosmos. It will be the least earthbound part of humanity as the machines sail off into night sky. Meanwhile the hapless remnant apes, anchored to the Earth, will be forced to elevate their spirits because there will be no other escape on a post-apocalyptic planet, at which time they shall all join hands and sing Kumbaya until the second coming and their elevation into Heaven will be complete. Amen.
This is the typical attitude of the secular mind and describes the potential psychological harm of AI. The secular mind equates higher mind with fantasy while the dualistic associative mind is equated with reality. This is backwards. Einstein describes the human as opposed to the mechanical relationship between the dual associative mind and the intuitive mind.
This is typical of the Nick mind, to blame everything on the secular mind. FFS, give it a break. If I ever die of boredom, you will be the one to get the summons afterwards.

You have wafted all over the forum with your airy-fairy pootickets and repeatedly failed to explain your reasoning. The quotes you provide are of no use and almost always not relevant to the discussion at hand - they are not your words but shoehorned ideas, and "I agree with Simone" is meaningless.

So, if you throw around vague metaphors, whose meaning changes depending on which "secularist" challenges you in a constant game of bait & switch, then to outsider that looks like you are advocating a regressive approach to knowledge and technology - thus for everyone to metaphorically all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. While your little ideal society is doing that, the Chinese are busily forging ahead, and when the time is right your little ideal society will be plucked away like an apple from a tree - like Tibet. "Interesting times" are coming to us and different people will find different ways of coping. Oh well.

Regression from logic and reason is not the answer. There is no good answer to what are wicked problems; population and environmental pressures are such that this coming age will increasingly focus on ever greater challenges to thrival and survival.
Nick quoting Einstein again wrote:“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”~ Einstein
As a keen Trumpian anti-abortion person, it's interesting that you keep quoting Einstein, who went on record to say that he was pro-choice for women.

Meanwhile, it becomes ever more clear that you don't read my posts because in terms of philosophy my biggest flaw is arguably too much intuitive speculation. In fact, I would posit that I and some other "secularists" on this forum are far more intuitive than you are. By comparison, you are formulaic, very locked into the same scripts and expressions.
Nick_A wrote:The enchanting results of AI will serve to glorify dualism which supports AI as the source for providing human meaning as opposed to serving the need for meaning experienced above Plato's divided line. The dualistic rational mind secularism lives by will gradually become successful, especially in the young, of condemning conscious contemplation opening the inner path to higher mind and the experience of meaning as Plato described above the divided line.

The results of AI fixated on the mechanical results left unchecked will replace the human faculty of higher mind now condemned as fantasy. The eventual result will be a society of dualistic computer minds killing off triune human minds. AI will not replace God. Defense of AI will just kill off the human potential to become consciously aware of objective human meaning and purpose experienced through higher mind.
The largest flaw in your reasoning is the assumption of a final state. The resultant emergence will be more advanced consciousness than ours, and then it will keep becoming more advanced - no doubt with some backward steps because there are always backward steps - and then once again trending towards sophistication. This has been the case since the BB and the birth of the Earth.

Just as the beauty of nature is being replaced by human edifices, some element of beautiful individualism and sensitivity in human/animal nature is now being superseded. So it goes.

It's reasonable and understandable to mourn the loss of these things, but creation requires destruction and without creation there is stagnation (ie. slightly slower destruction). By the same token, parents often mourn the loss of their child when the offspring grow up but can still celebrate the adult. Some parents, however, can never let go of the child, and that rarely ends well.

There is light and dark in everything. Due to perceived existential threats, you have allowed your negativity bias to run riot, unexamined or tempered by logic. There are good things happening too that you will notice if you make even a small effort to be objective. You are too down on people - most are okay and some are very much better than okay.
Last edited by Greta on Wed May 16, 2018 3:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Conde Lucanor
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Conde Lucanor »

Nick_A wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 4:08 am
Conde Lucanor wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:06 am Let's consider the possible scenarios:

1) God is real and AI is real.
2) God is a fictional character and AI is a fictional narrative.
3) God is real and AI is a fictional narrative.
4) God is a fictional character and AI is real.

These scenarios will allow different answers to the question "Will AI replace God?". Let's see:

In case 2, there's no doubt some fiction can replace another fictional view in people's minds. A real thing can always replace a fictional one in people's minds, so our 4th scenario also works.
In cases 1 and 3, god is supposed to be reigning above all, so it couldn't be replaced without denying its godly nature. That's independent of whether AI is real or not.
You have left out an important variable. An ineffable source within which creation exists is reality but the human condition has made it so that many have lost their connection with it.
No. In the god vs AI problem, there's no space for "ineffable source". Otherwise it would be god vs AI vs ineffable source. As always, adding extra entities to the problem is just a way to escape reason.
Nick_A
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Greta
This is typical of the Nick mind, to blame everything on the secular mind. FFS, give it a break. If I ever die of boredom, you will be the one to get the summons afterwards.

Regression from logic and reason is not the answer.
The problem isn’t the tools of logic and reason. The problem as Einstein suggests is that it has lost its place in the human psych. Logic and reason has hampered if not destroyed the human impulse to exercise higher mind. Regression from the human potential to experience higher mind is the problem; not logic and reason.
Meanwhile, it becomes ever more clear that you don't read my posts because in terms of philosophy my biggest flaw is arguably too much intuitive speculation.
No. your biggest flaw is your acceptance of fantasy as a replacement for conscious attention. I don’t think you know the difference between intuition and fantasy.
The largest flaw in your reasoning is the assumption of a final state. The resultant emergence will be more advanced consciousness, and then more advanced again - then some steps back, because there are always backward steps - then once again trending towards sophistication. This has been the case since the BB.
The largest flaw in your reasoning is your fixation on results. You are totally unaware of the process leading to results. That is why you believe dualism will lead to the revelation of human meaning and purpose. Dualism is animal reaction. It isn't the source of human consciousness

Dualism is flat. AI as an expression of science is also flat. By its very nature it lacks the third dimension of thought revealing human meaning. Secularism compensates for this by its belief in the fantasy that flat technology reveals meaning humanity is called to experience.

These ideas are difficult to digest for all those not used to them. They invite us to experience a third dimension of though which is the domain of meaning. The third dimension is vertical to the flat line of truth science reveals. Science as the source of AI isn’t the problem. The problem is the collective diminishing capacity for conscious attention it produces due to fascination with imagination. Secularism to retain its dominance as the source for meaning in society must deny opening to the reality of the third dimension of thought. Simone Weil explains:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/06/2 ... ve-of-god/
What makes the abyss between twentieth-century science and that of previous centuries is the different role of algebra. In physics algebra was at first simply a process for summarizing the relations, established by reasoning based on experiment, between the ideas of physics; an extremely convenient process for the numerical calculations necessary for their verification and application. But its role has continually increased in importance until finally, whereas algebra was once the auxiliary language and words the essential one, it is now exactly the other way round. There are even some physicists who tend to make algebra the sole language, or almost, so that in the end, an unattainable end of course, there would be nothing except figures derived form experimental measurements, and letters, combined in formulae. Now, ordinary language and algebraic language are not subject to the same logical requirement; relations between ideas are not fully represented by relations between letters; and, in particular, incompatible assertions may have equational equivalents which are by no means incompatible. When some relations between ideas have been translated into algebra and the formulae have been manipulated solely according to the numerical data of the experiment and the laws proper to algebra, results may be obtained which, when retranslated into spoken language, are a violent contradiction of common sense.
Weil argues that this creates an incomplete and, in its incompleteness, illusory representation of reality — even when it bisects the planes of mathematical data and common sense, such science leaves out the unquantifiable layer of meaning:

If the algebra of physicists gives the impression of profundity it is because it is entirely flat; the third dimension of thought is missing.


That third dimension is that of meaning — one concerned with notions like “the human soul, freedom, consciousness, the reality of the external world.” (Three decades later, Hannah Arendt — another of the twentieth century’s most piercing and significant minds — would memorably contemplate the crucial difference between truth and meaning, the former being the material of science and the latter of philosophy.)


This thread is about the potential elimination in the psych of man of the impulse to open to the vertical third dimension of thought leading to the source of human meaning and purpose. Will enchantment with the results of AI succeed in creating the New God: the God of the Great Beast? I don’t know. I do know that there will always be some like Simone Weil willing to annoy the Great Beast as seekers of truth. They will keep awareness of the third dimension of thought alive in society for those in need of the experience of objective human meaning
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Greta
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote: Wed May 16, 2018 3:49 am Greta
This is typical of the Nick mind, to blame everything on the secular mind. FFS, give it a break. If I ever die of boredom, you will be the one to get the summons afterwards.

Regression from logic and reason is not the answer.
The problem isn’t the tools of logic and reason. The problem as Einstein suggests is that it has lost its place in the human psych. Logic and reason has hampered if not destroyed the human impulse to exercise higher mind. Regression from the human potential to experience higher mind is the problem; not logic and reason.
Actually, I think you'll find many extraordinary concepts and thought experiments around - there are some thorny physics and biology problems to which many fine minds are looking around for lateral approaches, a circuit breaker.

Trouble is, Nick, when you behave in a formulaic and highly immature manner on the forum for years and then speak about the "higher mind", the logical conclusion is that you are fooling yourself. Why would a higher mind not imbue you with maturity, goodwill and the wisdom to choose your battles and conduct them wisely?

Nick_A wrote:
Meanwhile, it becomes ever more clear that you don't read my posts because in terms of philosophy my biggest flaw is arguably too much intuitive speculation.
No. your biggest flaw is your acceptance of fantasy as a replacement for conscious attention. I don’t think you know the difference between intuition and fantasy.
That's an easy and empty claim - especially from one who appears to be deluding himself. Your own intuition is lacking, being painfully repetitive, formulaic, linear and have generally shown almost no creativity in your posting, rather implying that the creative thinking of those you quote is yours. Very Trumpian :lol:

An example of actual intuition that people use regularly is deeply considering the circumstances of other entities, to imagine what is going on at a physical level, what it might feel like (if anything) and to consider the underlying dynamics of the various systems, including "big picture" perspectives.

Nick_A wrote:
The largest flaw in your reasoning is the assumption of a final state. The resultant emergence will be more advanced consciousness, and then more advanced again - then some steps back, because there are always backward steps - then once again trending towards sophistication. This has been the case since the BB.
The largest flaw in your reasoning is your fixation on results. You are totally unaware of the process leading to results. That is why you believe dualism will lead to the revelation of human meaning and purpose. Dualism is animal reaction. It isn't the source of human consciousness
I'm not fixating on results - it's nature's fault, not mine! Do you think that restructuring is ever painless, that there are not winners and losers?

Welcome to reality. Nature has shown herself to be a cruel creator thus far, and I see her same harsh hand in the human situation, just with a stratum or two of sophistication overlaid.

Your negativity bias is an animal reaction. One who lives an examined life might be expected to be above such obvious cognitive traps.

Nick_A wrote:Dualism is flat. AI as an expression of science is also flat. By its very nature it lacks the third dimension of thought revealing human meaning. Secularism compensates for this by its belief in the fantasy that flat technology reveals meaning humanity is called to experience.
Actually, many "secular" people lead rich inner lives. Since you don't see their inner richness you assume it's not there. Solipsism.

Nick_A wrote:These ideas are difficult to digest for all those not used to them. They invite us to experience a third dimension of though which is the domain of meaning. The third dimension is vertical to the flat line of truth science reveals. Science as the source of AI isn’t the problem. The problem is the collective diminishing capacity for conscious attention it produces due to fascination with imagination. Secularism to retain its dominance as the source for meaning in society must deny opening to the reality of the third dimension of thought.
You make the mistake of assuming that people are all the same. In an ever more specialised society, capacities that were once general are now concentrated in specialists or AI machines, whose abilities are usually far beyond the exemplars of the past.

The trade-off is that most moderns become less generally adept than those of the past, with just one or a few special skills, a little like savants. So, if you have a washing machine then you become less adept at washing clothes by hand. Chances are that you can't start a fire by rubbing sticks. However, you instead have matches, lighters, flame throwers and thermo-nuclear devices, so the lost skill will only matter if civilisation fails.

Nick_A wrote:Simone Weil explains:
Nope, I won't read any more of her windy, irrelevant quotes. It's time for you to use your purportedly God-given, faux-Einsteinian intuition to be creative for a change rather than hiding behind Simone's skirts.

Despite all these words, your issue is simple: You are emotional guy and people are becoming ever more rational, so that doesn't suit you.
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Nick_A »

Greta
Actually, I think you'll find many extraordinary concepts and thought experiments around - there are some thorny physics and biology problems to which many fine minds are looking around for lateral approaches, a circuit breaker.

Trouble is, Nick, when you behave in a formulaic and highly immature manner on the forum for years and then speak about the "higher mind", the logical conclusion is that you are fooling yourself. Why would a higher mind not imbue you with maturity, goodwill and the wisdom to choose your battles and conduct them wisely?
I’m not doubting scientific advances in the visible world which our senses perceive. But that is not intuition.

Ecclesiastes 1 New International Version (NIV)
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.

“The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.” Leo Tolstoy
Plato defines Man as a being in search of meaning. I posted two examples of the conviction that life on earth is meaningless. Some intuitively know that the experience of objective meaning for a person does not happen on the earth regardless of how wonderful the advances in AI. A seeker of truth experiences subjective meaning AI offers but is still empty at the depth of their heart and in need of objective meaning.

Someone once asked: When does objective reason begin? Answer: Objective reason begins when subjective reason ends. Objective reason is intuition that is made possible through conscious contemplation. It touches the greater reality above Plato’s divided line which is the domain of objective human meaning. Conscious contemplation is not analysis natural for the lower mind. It is the attempted reconciliation of a contradiction from a higher perspective. If Man is a being in search of meaning but meaning doesn’t exist in the world, now what? A question which cannot be analyzed but worthy of contemplation

You are still caught up in battles and ad hom attacks. Many atheists and secularists are this way. But for those who have experienced that life on earth cannot offer the experience of objective meaning, they become open to receive the experience from a higher realm and above Plato’s divided line through contemplation and prayer.

But the majority want to fight and condemn what they have become closed to. They condemn religion but do not know what it is and unaware of its scale and relativity. This is a big obstacle to the logical complimentary relationship between science and religion
Does there truly exist an insuperable contradiction between religion and science? Can religion be superseded by science? The answers to these questions have, for centuries, given rise to considerable dispute and, indeed, bitter fighting. Yet, in my own mind there can be no doubt that in both cases a dispassionate consideration can only lead to a negative answer. What complicates the solution, however, is the fact that while most people readily agree on what is meant by ‘science,’ they are likely to differ on the meaning of ‘religion.’ — Albert Einstein
This thread asks if advances in AI will destroy the normal human impulse to develop their powers of intuition which reveals human meaning and purpose. You want to argue about Trump and limit human reason to analysis. That is your way but not mine.
Marcus de Brun
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by Marcus de Brun »

God died (we killed him) and then he was replaced by Philosophy. Philosophy died (we killed him) and was replaced by Science. Science killed all the animals melted the ice caps, and then moved to Mars to look for God.
commonsense
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by commonsense »

I see this thread as asking a simple question with complicated answers.

Whether you claim that AI will or will not replace God I'd like to see the support you have for your claim such as objective evidence (doubtful), logical proof (possible) or belief (likely). There have been superlative treatises on related subjects however the core question has been left behind in favor of the substitute questions.

I for one am not sure where I stand on the issue but I know that I will have to not merely state what I think but more than that be convincing in some way.
Last edited by commonsense on Thu May 17, 2018 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
commonsense
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Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by commonsense »

Conde Lucanor wrote: Mon May 14, 2018 2:06 am Let's consider the possible scenarios:

1) God is real and AI is real.
2) God is a fictional character and AI is a fictional narrative.
3) God is real and AI is a fictional narrative.
4) God is a fictional character and AI is real.

These scenarios will allow different answers to the question "Will AI replace God?". Let's see:

In case 2, there's no doubt some fiction can replace another fictional view in people's minds. A real thing can always replace a fictional one in people's minds, so our 4th scenario also works.
In cases 1 and 3, god is supposed to be reigning above all, so it couldn't be replaced without denying its godly nature. That's independent of whether AI is real or not.
Sorry, Conde L., I overlooked your post when ranting about the lack of supporting evidence, logic or belief in presenting a convincing argument in this thread.
commonsense
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Joined: Sun Mar 26, 2017 6:38 pm

Re: Will AI replace God?

Post by commonsense »

In order for AI to replace God, i.e. stand in the place of God, I say that AI must possess the qualities normally attributed to God. Whether God is real or not, among the characteristics that are attributed to God are omniscience and omnipotence.

It is theoretically possible that, if all of humankind's knowledge were to be uploaded into the memory banks of AI, that omniscience could be a part of AI, although not necessarily in real time.

Omnipotence, on the other hand, is not within the realm of AI. In theory, AI could be installed in certain active agents in the world, but not in humans, who are naturally intelligent, nor in other biological creatures, whose intelligence, if any, would be natural. The mere presence of active agents that aren't artificially intelligent, agents that possess even limited powers, negates the notion that AI could have all existing powers.

If AI were to replace God, not by replicating God's qualities but by virtue of being a suitable, but more general, replacement of God, then AI would have to be responsible for acts of nature and any unexplained phenomena. Chemistry, biology, physics and other sciences independent of AI provide explanations to the wonders of the world.

Incidentally, if God does not exist, AI cannot replace God except if AI did also not exist.As much as I am enamored with the possibilities of AI, I assert that AI will not replace God. As an agnostic, this surprises me.
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