Despite the enthusiasm for the issue, Michael Shermer actually believes that the singularity is not close, but hope is eternal
Watson is an IBM computer built by David Procchi and the 25 scientists on his team with the goal of creating an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can compete with the human champions of the televised trivia game Jeopardy. After defeating, in February 2011, the game's greatest champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, he is now employed in more practical tasks, such as answering medical diagnosis questions.
I have a question: Does Watson know he won Jeopardy? Did he think, “Yes! I beat the great Ken Jen!”? In other words, did Watson feel overwhelmed with pride after his victory? That was my usual response whenever someone asked me about this man-versus-machine duel. People usually respond negatively to my question. They understand that such self-awareness is not yet the lot of computers. And so, at a recent conference, I directed my question to none other than Procchi himself. His answer surprised me: "Yes, Watson knows he won Jeopardy." I doubted this: how could this be, after all, computers are not yet capable of such self-awareness? "Because I told him he won," replied Prochi with an ironic smile.
for sure. Even Watson can be programmed to produce a victory squeal, but the distance is still far from the feeling of victory. Such a level of self-awareness in computers, and the amount of time needed to achieve it, were prominent themes at the Singularity Summit held in New York City one weekend in October 2011. Hundreds of Singularity enthusiasts gathered there to hear a report on our progress toward the year 2045. Visionary and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil stated This year as the date when the intelligence of computers will surpass that of all humanity a billion times. Humans will then gain eternal life and the technological changes will be so rapid and fundamental that they will bring us to an intellectual event horizon beyond which life will no longer be the same life, just like beyond the astronomical event horizon surrounding a black hole, from which the term was borrowed. [See: "The approaching merger between mind and machine", by Ray Kurzweil, Scientific American Israel, April-May 2011]
I was filled with inspiration and skepticism at the same time. When I was asked my opinion about eternal life, for example, I answered: "Go for it!" But the quest for eternal life, and suggestions for unproven ways to achieve it, is a topic that has occupied billions of people throughout history. My alarm system for detecting nonsense is activated every time some fortune-telling predicts that he and his contemporaries are facing "the greatest thing in the history of mankind" that will occur during the prophet's own lifetime. I remain faithful to the Copernican principle which claims that we are not special. For a change, I would like to hear the futurist or the religious preacher predict that "it" will happen, say, in 2025 or 7510. But where is the hope in such a forecast? Herein lies the appeal of Kurzweil and his band of singularity seekers. However depressing the daily news that assaults our senses may be, our eyes should be fixed on the prize that awaits us beyond the horizon. patience.
And patience is what we need, because, in my opinion, we are hundreds of years away from the moment when artificial intelligence will equal that of man. And as Christoph Koch, a neuroscientist from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), said when he described the complete wiring diagram of the nervous system of Caenorhabditis elegans: We have no idea how this simple round worm "thinks", much less how to interpret (and reproduce on a computer) the The human system is made up of billions of times more. We don't even know how our brain produces conscious thoughts and where the "self" resides (if it can even be located anywhere), and even more so how to program a machine to do similar things. Pop duo Zager and Evans were probably closer to the truth in their 1969 hit In the Year 2525, in which they predicted that the most important landmarks, from start to finish, would occur between 2025 and 9595.
And ironically, in all this ridiculous talk about how computers are taking over the world and imitating human thinking, I should have prefaced my talk, "The Social Singularity" (the evolution of political, economic, and social systems over the past 10,000 years) because computer scientist James McLukin from Rice University was unable to activate his swarm of robots. Someone's wireless microphone, or the wireless network in the room, interfered with communication between his tiny robots, and no one could solve the problem. And my prediction regarding the singularity: we are 10 years away from it... and we always will be.
About the author
Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine (www.skeptic.com his new book is "The Believing Mind". Follow him on Twitter:
104 תגובות
At the time, I sent a link to some Haredi about Prof. Amos Fromkin's in-depth research on confirming the dating of the Shiloh female to the time of Hezekiah, and he refused to accept it because it is the same dating methods that determine the dating of fossils, the age of the world, etc., etc. in a way that completely contradicts the Book of Genesis .
ironic..
http://tinyurl.com/cqrm249
^
A passer-by doesn't take long
Zvi, listen to the interview with Professor Gorfinkel until the end: http://www.kr8.co.il/BRPortalStorage/a/56/72/79-kv1SDwmpR6.mp3
Ruby,
I already saw the article. I don't see how it reinforces your point.
Zvi, read the new article on the Hedaman website about findings from the time of King David: https://www.hayadan.org.il/shrine-from-king-david-era-090512/
Patience pays.
Of course there will always be those who will deny such findings.
Ruby,
But what if such things are not discovered? What will happen if, on the contrary, only more and more things are discovered that contradict it?
Agree with me that there is a chance, even if a very small chance, that you are wrong, in this case when will you be convinced?
The same goes for me, and I'll be convinced once I see evidence, but you can't expect me to rely on your gut feeling that sometime in the future evidence will come to light, can you?
Grace, science and archaeologists will discover many more things that will verify what is written in the Bible in the future.
There is no doubt that he was ahead of his time...
Good day to you
Ruby
How lucky indeed that Einstein came back and developed the theory of relativity, and thanks to her the whole matter of absurd times changes.
If it is impossible to learn one scientific thing from the Tanach, then it is of no value to me (scientifically), what does it help me if I first discover and then find an obscure verse that, with the help of creative interpretation, comes to the conclusion that it was always written there?
Is there anything that can be found out first from you?
Honestly Robbie, I lost my patience, your last comment caused me great frustration.
I stop responding, have a nice day.
Ruby,
The Exodus is not a historical truth.
The relativity of time still does not solve the problem because according to the Torah less than 6000 years have passed since the first man was created and from that moment on time is no longer relative but is measured in relation to humans living on earth. And one more thing, if by days it is not meant to be days, and the seventh day is not a day, then why do you observe Shabbat?
Zvi, I did not say that the Exodus did not take place, it is a historical truth that you are free not to believe. The story has additional layers with meanings regarding the human soul itself.
Chen, it is already known in today's science that the human body is built from materials that came from the earth or star dust, the one that lived was created from the human rib, this is also theoretically possible by using stem cell technology and the like (you are invited to see Jurassic Park).
Regarding time in the Torah, and also according to what is known today, time is relative, and under certain conditions it can also stop.
You want to understand everything on one foot but it is simply impossible.
Ruby,
If by divine spark you mean the possibility that I will be convinced then yes, it is possible. If it is from your metaphor of a spark wrapped in thick shells of darkness I gather that you think I deny the existence of God, which is simply not the case, as I have not yet received a single reason to believe in him.
There is a very simple law in everything related to the interpretation of the Torah.
Everything that is not suitable to be true is a parable, everything that is not suitable to be a parable is true, what is not suitable to be a parable or truth is a hidden secret that we cannot understand. I hope it's clear that you can say that about every book. And hence you actually say nothing.
The main problem with this is that we are not provided with tools to decide in advance what is a parable, true or not this and that. People used to believe in creation in 6 days (and many people believe it today), then when it turned out that scientifically it was not true they decided it was a parable, even though the text itself has not changed.
In any case, turning the story of creation and Adam and Eve for example does not answer old questions like why create people with an evil nature when you as omniscient know what will happen in the future and as omnipotent can prevent it. It is also not clear why we have to bear the consequences of original sin. After all, today you will not punish the child of a murderer for the crimes of his father. So is God immoral? Or can he decide for himself what is moral and what is not? Because what he did is not considered moral by today's standards.
If the exodus is all a parable then why are all the descriptions of the ten plagues exemplary? It seems pretty clear that the writer's intention was that there was indeed a physical exodus from Egypt and to say otherwise is simply lying to yourself. And besides that, why when celebrating Passover and teaching the children about the exodus from Egypt does no one bother to tell them that it is all a parable?
Ruby
Be the supreme goal of the Torah that you will be
If people conclude from it that the world has existed for 5000 years, that man was created as he is from dust, and there was no big bang.
So there is a very, very big problem here.
Chen, from the beginning of the discussion I wrote that those who read the Torah and are only interested in simplicity are sinning against its ultimate goal. Beyond writing, these are symbols and secrets and most of us do not have the tools to fully understand them.
For example, Eric's talking snake symbolizes the evil inclination of Adam and Eve that they were unable to overcome and therefore were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The soul of the primitive man, after the sin of the Garden of Eden, was shattered into fragments of souls that continue to roll with us until now and will continue to roll in future generations until each and every soul is repaired and returned to the furnace of its quarry.
Another example, according to Kabbalah, the exodus from Egypt symbolizes the exodus of man from his own Egypt, the removal of his own flesh, overcoming obstacles and temptations. The desert is a place where man reaches purification.
Of course, there is a grain of truth in the Torah stories, but to say that these are practical stories and grandmother's stories, you have to be a person with a very big ego.
Ruby
The Tanach is not a reliable book as far as I'm concerned because of all the supernatural events, that in all the years of my life I was not close to seeing anything like that.
Every story about the exodus from Egypt, for example, is problematic for me, and there is a great article on the science website that details why.
In short: 2 million people who run away in one night and walk for 40 years in the desert, a sea that is torn in two, and food that falls from the sky..
Is this the historical source for you?
I didn't rule out the exodus from Egypt, but sorry due to the supernatural events and the illogical numbers, I can't be satisfied with the testimony from the Bible, and out of curiosity I want to really understand what happened there, where do you stand?
I'll spare myself the continuation of the stupid argument..
Good Day
Ruby
Do you mean your excuses along the lines of 'the Torah is built in layers, layers...simplify, hint, etc.'" about simple descriptions that the book of Genesis writes about reality? It really doesn't make sense even with the addition of a disparaging tone like 'it's a shame to chew again.'..
Eric, you have returned to the desert snake and to simplify that in turn, return to the previous correspondences, it is a shame to chew again.
Zvi, Kabbalah says that every person has a divine spark. Anyone can ignite the spark into a great fire and great light or wrap it in thick shells of darkness.
God's existence does not depend on your or anyone else's belief, you can open the door, window or keyhole for him or seal it, it depends on you. Even if you don't believe in him, he is still there.
I'm not looking for inner truth. Truth is something objective and internal implies subjectivity and this is a contradiction.
For my part, each person will be proud of whatever he wants, that's not what we're arguing about. All I'm asking you to understand is that despite the pride and respect you have for your faith, it is entirely your faith. This is in contrast to let's say some scientific fact, that regardless of how you feel about it and how it affects your feelings, will be true for you and every other person.
The problem is that many religious people try to make their god internal and external at the same time. That is, on the one hand, they believe that God does exist, towards everyone, that is, even if I don't believe in him, he is still there, and on the other hand, when they start to ask questions, they say that it is a choice of each person and it is something internal. Just decide, if you say it's an internal matter then you have nothing to argue about, because it's all a matter of taste. If you say that it is something that exists in reality regardless of the subjective feelings of such and such people, then stop involving emotions and talk about concepts like inner truth.
DNA tests also confirm the ancient MRCA of the human race, which contradicts what is written in the Torah, and also for identifying other peoples among themselves.
What does the ethnic origin of the Jewish people have to do with the absurd practices written in the Torah?
"The Bible is the most eloquent and oldest history book that exists that combines historical information with religious laws and instructions."
Are you serious?
Even as a child I didn't buy the story about the talking snake, a woman created from a man's rib on the sixth day of the creation of the world and wooden sticks that turned into snakes, move on bro.. it's so eight hundred BC..
Zvi, why do you treat the history of the Jewish people as a belief only and not as a historical fact?
From what retroactive date is this fact and from what date is it fantasy?
Do you believe in the existence of the Temple Mount and the Temple that was there in the first and second? In the war of the Maccabees? In the different kingdoms? The Bible is the most eloquent and oldest history book in existence that combines historical information with religious laws and guidelines.
Even in DNA tests, there is confirmation for the Jewish people and the tribe of priests and they can be identified from other peoples.
I do not impose my views on anyone, I am simply proud of the important asset I have as a Jew and this is not at the expense of any other religion.
For my part, every nation will be as proud as I am of what it has and thus everyone will be happy.
As for you, keep searching and I hope you find your inner truth.
"Every nation believes according to the culture and history of its ancestors."
You summed up the whole problem very nicely in one sentence. Faith is not based on objectivity. Since there is only one reality, while the mechanism of belief brings different people to believe in different realities, without any way to decide between them, then it is clear that belief does not provide a tool that reliably describes reality.
Objective reality does not go hand in hand with arbitrary things like your place of birth or your family's religion. And that's why no argument about the religion of my ancestors will be able to convince me simply because there is nothing between it and the objective reality.
Billions of people do respect the Bible. But there is a very close number of people whose faith has nothing to do with the Bible (religions of the Far East). Why is their opinion not considered? Why do you continue to put the monotheistic religion in the center when it is in the center only from your point of view and not from the point of view of another person whose knowledge of the Bible is no greater than your knowledge of the Hindu religion. You cannot impose your subjective views on the objective world. And since when is our reality democratic? What does it matter how many people in the world believe in one god or another?
I do not despise the Bible, at least not from my point of view. I give him exactly the respect he deserves.
You will notice that throughout our discussion you rarely use objective arguments. Only in the last response did you talk about respect, pride, tradition and faith that passes from generation to generation, and not a word about logic. The difference between our opinions stems from the different approaches one focuses on emotion and the other on logic. You will not be able to convince me by appealing to emotion, because for me it is not at all used as a tool to describe objective reality. Could you explain why you think it does serve as such a tool, and how it doesn't lead you to contradictions (given the fact that different people feel different things)?
Eric, I don't understand why you brought Elijah into the discussion in his war with the prophets of Baal? Were false prophets assigned out of disgust?
Was husband's work a sin punishable by death?
Why are miracles unfounded? I don't know what is happening to you, it is bordering on your self-hatred...
"Chen, do you think that an entire nation will begin to embrace the history of the exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the land, the period of the judges and kings out of nowhere? Without a factual basis?"
Do you think that one clear day a whole people started to embrace all this history? The Bible itself, in a very clear tendency, fought according to what it says throughout the centuries in paganism... what? Did the prophet Elijah just have to kill the prophets of Baal according to the biblical stories? After all, according to you, the people of Israel passed the status of Mount Sinai from father to son, didn't they?
And what about the Josiah reform that describes the finding of the Torah book as part of the purification of foreign worship... and the concentration of worship in Jerusalem
Even without referring to the demonstrably refuted miracles, it is difficult to know from what is described in the Bible what happened and what did not happen, because it is very tendentious and didactic, and even political. Take for example the story of the Mistress of the Hill, which is suspiciously similar almost one to one to the story of Lot's wife and the people of Sodom, and is markedly politically oriented.
"Zvi, it's clear that if there was a flood then it was felt all over the planet and hence more stories of similar experiences of refugees from the same or the same natural disasters that were at different times in human history."
Yes, but suspiciously, the story of the biblical flood is most suitable in its version to the Gilgamesh stories from our area for some reason..
Zvi, I do not rule out the flood stories of other peoples and likewise, every people believes according to the culture and history of their ancestors.
It is not clear to me why you are looking in foreign fields for various clues to one or another deity when you and your ancestors have a written history that billions of people respect, accept and believe in and some of them added to write more of their own.
You should be proud of what you have and not underestimate this treasure.
Zvi, I have academic degrees in the fields of engineering and I don't even wear a kippah, but I keep tradition and greatly respect the Bible and the wisdom that is written in it and I don't search for errors in the scriptures. Don't forget that it was written with the tools of expression and technological knowledge that existed about 3000 years ago.
Ruby,
It is true that if there was a flood then it was felt all over the earth but that does not explain why you can say that the Jewish version is correct while the Babylonian version is incorrect. And in any case, the Babylonian version can serve as an example of a story that a people completely invented or partially invented. And there is no reason to assume that this is not what happened with the Jews as well.
What is certain about the video is that it is more scientific than your version of events, because it tries to rely on evidence and not faith.
You ask why not to believe all these things, when what you should be asking is why to believe. I have no reason to think that the divine revelations described in the Bible did happen in reality, is this a sufficient reason?
It's not a matter of trend or primitiveness or something related to my feeling about religion. It has nothing to do with the fact that it doesn't make sense.
Why look to the Indians? Maybe because I'm aware of the possibility that they might be right? That the fact that we were born into a certain religion does not make it superior to other religions? After all, in the same way the Indians will say "Why look to the Jews? When we have our writings that our ancestors wrote." All this attitude of following the beliefs of your tradition and the books of your ancestors cannot bring you closer to the truth because even before you know what the truth is you define for yourself what you believe. The only way to understand what is true and what is not is to investigate all beliefs, yes also of the Indians. Your religion is one of many and not special just because you were born into it.
Zvi, it is clear that if there was a flood then it was felt all over the planet and hence more stories of similar experiences of refugees from the same or the same natural disasters that occurred at different times in human history.
I saw the video that describes in the English language the Jewish history in a pseudo-scientific way with a touch of trendiness.
Say, why graze in foreign fields, when we have a historical writing that has been preserved for thousands of years and parts of copies of it have been discovered in caves or archeological excavations and will be discovered in the future?
Why not believe in the lineage of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob whose names are immortalized to this day in the names of the inhabitants of the land?
Why not believe that Abraham had a divine revelation and so on down the line of the ancestors? Because it's not trendy to believe? Maybe a little primitive? Why look among the Indians among the Shitin for some expressions that perhaps imply one god or many or anywhere? When it is clearly written to you in a book that is yours and your ancestors'?
It reminds me of the exiled Jew who was constantly beaten in exile and who constantly blamed himself for the beatings and looked for reasons and clues from the gentiles for the reason they were beating him.
Ruby,
The creation of a single god is (perhaps) original and it is not clear why it is important. Why attach so much importance to this idea? I assume you believe in the existence of a soul and life in one form or another after death, so why not give importance to the first religion that mentioned these things? Or the first religion that said that an intelligent being was behind the creation of the universe?
Regarding originality, while Judaism did invent the concept of a single God and did not copy it from anyone, this does not mean that the concept did not appear elsewhere. In reading about the Hindu religion I sometimes came across the following:
"God is one but also many", "God is in everything", "All the gods and goddesses are forms of his expression". I am not saying that the Hindu religion is monotheistic, but the concept of monotheism is not foreign to it, and so is the idea that God is something abstract that exists everywhere and not some entity that sits on a cloud. I think definitions of monotheistic religion or polytheistic religion simply cannot describe what is going on there, maybe because these are concepts that we invented and then tried to impose them on other cultures. The concept of God can be very abstract in the religions we define as polytheistic.
If you go to the still skeptical link and watch the video you will see a theory that explains the development of the monotheistic god in Judaism. It is important to note that this is a hypothesis that is not universally accepted, but even a hypothesis that is partially based on evidence is better than the approach of blind faith. According to this theory, the Jews were not originally monotheists at all, and monotheism developed continuously from polytheism (and did not just appear one day as you present it). That is, from worshiping different gods we moved to worshiping one god out of many (that is, giving importance to a single god knowing that there are other gods) and out of this group arose a group that believed that there was only one god and its idea spread.
And you don't need any time machine to know what happened or didn't happen in the past. The Exodus from Egypt is an example of something that, at least by the standards described in the Bible, is simply unacceptable (in terms of the amount of people). Why do you need to see examples of other peoples who made up their own history when you can clearly see that the Bible is not an accurate historical document?
In any case, Babylon had a creation story, and also a story about the flood, and there was also a man who built an ark and was saved (of course there are differences between these stories and the stories of Judaism, although there are also points of similarity), and these stories are older than the fall of Mount Sinai. So tell me, are these stories made up or true?
Hello Chen, it is clear to me that the different beliefs of the peoples of the countries, whether it is shamans, voodoo, Buddha, Greek idols and others are part of the human development of tribes in all kinds of places in the world who sought protection from the forces of nature and found some kind of protection in different beliefs.
In the case of Judaism and later, Christianity and Islam, it is a singular case of an original and important creation centered on belief in a single God.
It's a shame that many in the forum underestimate such a huge work that is an extraordinary asset that the Jewish people have and many among us dismiss it with a wave of their hands.
Chen, does it seem to you that an entire nation will begin to embrace the history of the exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the land, the period of the judges and kings out of nowhere? Without a factual basis?
Do you have an example of another nation that "invented history" because of natural forces, drought, etc.?
Ruby
But it is not only in Judaism that the majority of the people observe any laws and rituals.
You see it everywhere in history: in the Greek gods, in Buddha...etc.
Now I will ask you a logical question
Surely you wrote these things down to confirm the truth of the Jewish religion, is there a small pinch of chance that there is another reason why an entire nation observes laws and commandments and rituals?
If you ask me, since this has happened in so many different places, is it perhaps a necessary step in the unification and development of the human race?
Maybe because people are trying to survive, but the conditions of nature are not so usual: sometimes drought, sometimes rain, sometimes sick people, sometimes experiencing love, sometimes an erupting volcano, sometimes a shower of meteors, sometimes a rainbow, sometimes an earthquake, sometimes a tsunami. .
So many strange phenomena that we have no idea where they came from, sometimes good for us and sometimes not.
Let's hope it will be good, because they are watching over us from above, and they must be responsible for those phenomena.. Let's make it good for them!
Is the explanation I gave, a small percentage of it possible and correct?
Ruby
But it is not only in Judaism that the majority of the people observe any laws and rituals.
You see it everywhere in history: in the Greek gods, in Buddha...etc.
Now I will ask you a logical question
Surely you wrote these things down to confirm the truth of the Jewish religion, is there a small pinch of chance that there is another reason why an entire nation observes laws and commandments and rituals?
If you ask me, since this has happened in so many different places, is it perhaps a necessary step in the unification and development of the human race?
Maybe because people are trying to survive, but the conditions of nature are not so usual: sometimes drought, sometimes rain, sometimes sick people, sometimes experiencing love, sometimes an erupting volcano, sometimes a shower of meteors, sometimes a rainbow, sometimes an earthquake, sometimes a tsunami. .
So many strange phenomena that we have no idea where they came from, sometimes good for us and sometimes not.
Let's hope it will be good, because they are watching over us from above, and they must be responsible for those phenomena.. Let's make it good for them!
Is the explanation I memorized, a small percentage of it possible and correct?
I do not represent them and Judaism in general since Shabtai Zvi sternly denies any Messianic claim of Man Dehu and considers it a dangerous and divisive thing.
"And I knew a living savior"! And just as not a single hair of his holy words fell to the ground, so we believe with complete faith that the Rebbe Shlita the King of the Messiah lives and exists in the Beit Moshiach - 770 in his physical body literally in eternal life without any change, not even the change of genizah and burial, peace be upon him. "No stranger will sit on his throne and no one else will inherit his honor, because in your holy name I swore to him that his candle will not be extinguished forever and ever"! We believe and proclaim: Long live our Lord our teacher and our Lord the Messiah King forever and ever!"
[...]
Eric, I'm talking about an entire people and not a small faction. This is a complete Torah with history that was written in a certain period and accepted by an entire people. It doesn't make sense that in a certain section of time an entire people would accept the history and laws just because someone, however senior, wrote them unless there was an attack on the writings with the testimonies of many people from father to son and the like.
You don't really think that those Chabadniks think in the dimension of simplicity, which is an existing life. In my opinion, they believe in the remains of the soul and from this they draw different conclusions.
Ruby, you wrote to Zvi
"How do you explain that an entire nation begins to observe different laws and texts such as placing tefillin on the head and hand and memzuzot on the door and others for thousands of years. "
How do you explain the delusional stream of Chabad that believes the Rebbe is still alive and well..?
And nowadays we..
Ruby
The difference between every atheist and you is that he believes in one less God .. that's all.
Eric, Camila, for my part, believe in Shinto or Apache feather clouds or don't believe in anything. Your right to think only logically and as a result not to believe anything or in Hal 2000.
I only said my opinion that living without belief in God or in any supreme being who created the universe is a life without colors and shades, you think I'm wrong and you have the right to think so, in my opinion just like computer characters (like an avatar) in virtual life "think" they live in a world full of color.
Logic is not everything in life and it is not the new religion, it is only a tool for the physical existence of humanity (not the spiritual / mental).
Zvi, when we have a time travel machine, we will be able to verify or deny the status of Mount Sinai or other chapters written in the Bible. Since we do not have such a machine, we will have to make do with the scriptures we have, archaeological evidence that is discovered from time to time and Jews who preserve the scriptures and transmit and preserve the history of the Jewish people from generation to generation.
How do you explain that an entire nation begins to observe different laws and texts such as placing tefillin on the head and hand and memzuzot on the door and others for thousands of years. Does it seem to you at any point in history and even today that an entire people will start behaving in such a strange way according to a text sucked from the finger? It was said that today I would present to some nation a text with a story that there was someone named Abram and then he had children, etc. and therefore you would begin to do this and that, does it make sense for any nation to carry out the scripture unless it existed and percolated for generations?
Ruby
Sorry. As a Japanese Pagan, I can only tell you that this whole monotheism thing is a mistake.
This innocent guy - Jesus of Nazareth in all his stupidity thought that a monotheistic religion could bring love and instead dragged Europe into the Middle Ages.. Not to mention Muhammad, that wherever the monotheistic religion he adopted reached you see only degeneration.. All this happened only because they moved away from the roots Their original and true pagans.. and only the Shinto religion preserves the true spirit of the kami..
Ruby,
The correctness of an opinion is measured by the amount of evidence that supports it and not by the number of believers.
The book of the Bible is not considered accurate historical documentation by historians, archaeologists and other people whose profession is related to biblical events. This is what counts, and not any other number of people who received the Bible is not necessarily based on evidence.
As an example, according to Jewish tradition the Torah was given to Moses by God, while most experts agree that the Torah had several writers, and that it was written and compiled over several hundreds.
I think you see things in black and white. This is not a choice between a historically accurate document and an outright lie. The historical events described in the Bible are indeed real in some cases, but it must be remembered that they were written by human beings, who could interpret the events incorrectly and link them to God, as well as exaggerate the numbers or the meaning of the events and insert their own political agendas into their description.
What binds each person to live somewhere? Most people (if not all) live in places that were conquered and taken from other people in the distant or recent past.
Eric, Zvi, I wonder what stage in Jewish history you are willing to accept as historical fact.
The book of the Bible (the Old Testament), is accepted by billions of people, Jews, Christians and Muslims as a true and historical document. You treat it as a backlog of fabric stories and legends. I wonder what binds you to live in this country?
"A source of belief in one God? Do you have any references?”
You didn't understand, she is the source of the one and only truth.. everything else is just a fake..
What does it matter what the source of belief in one God is? Why not look at the source of belief in many gods or the first source that spoke of life after death? And why does there even have to be one source? Beliefs can develop independently in different parts of the world. Who knows what religions were and died out or what religions will arise in the future.
Robbie, you attach importance to the monotheistic origin knowing that Judaism is that origin, but can you reason why this is important?
And as you will probably see in the video (which I haven't seen yet) even though Judaism is the first monotheistic religion it could still be influenced by older religions.
If I had the proper skills I could produce a film explaining why the Flying Spaghetti Monster must exist and is eternal. You just have to read the secret recipe book of the Hottentots in their language.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
A source of belief in one God? Do you have any references?
^Ruby
I personally think that the Shinto religion is the origin..
Ruby,
It seems to me that you are confusing modesty with tolerance.
You can say that Judaism is the source of Christianity and Islam, but you deny the sources of Judaism... probably in the name of the same modesty (tolerance?) that you preach to. It is true to say that at some point in history it was written (by humans, unless God suffers from a split personality and writes in a different style at each time). It is also true that the Jewish people have adopted different and different customs for themselves, just as other nations have adopted different and different customs for them, one of the last customs adopted by religious people is dressing foxes in plastic bags, consuming amulets and personal rituals of the Kabbalists, living and dead (which is really idolatry according to all scale) and more and more as the imagination goes. However, the claim that the religious Jews observe the laws and commandments as written in the Torah is a complete lie. The religious Jews (and depending on which stream or court they belong to) maintain the different interpretations of the same ancient text. Interpretations that can turn white into black ("You shall not steal" is an oversimplification, but it is permissible and even desirable to steal in order to promote the religion and the name and there is a suitable non-trivial interpretation that will qualify the creep).
It is true that relative to the question of the identity of the writers of the Torah, the question of when it was written is relatively unimportant, and it is still a rather important question because the later it was written and in separate parts, the greater the chance that, overall, this is a man-made manipulative tool whose connection between the scriptures in its various parts and the historical reality is loose quite, not to mention distorted and false. In any case, a little modesty and tolerance towards the opinions (which are at least based on facts and rational reasoning) which deny the existence of some intelligent higher power, be it Thor, the God of the Jews or the spaghetti monster, will not hurt.
I will be the first to welcome any contribution, yours and anyone else's, that comes up in the scientific context while being based on facts and rational thinking and I will try to be the first, or at least join, to come out against those who tell me how empty my cart is or that my world lacks colors or shades and in the same breath talk about modesty (tolerance?)
It is the right of every person to believe or not to believe in one, two or more gods or not to believe at all.
The fact that some of the commenters here are from the latter group who do not believe at all, that is your right, but as I wrote before, a little modesty, you will accept that there are also people from other groups who believe in one or more gods.
I have no problem with people who believe in the same god but in a different way (a different son or prophet), as long as you don't force their belief on me.
The fact that Judaism is the source is a fact you cannot deny and whenever it is in history it was written also this is a fact, whenever it is, the Jewish people decided to accept what is written there and observe its laws and commandments. When did this happen? 2500 years ago or 3500 years ago, it is not relevant.
It seems to me that we have exhausted the topic and we should focus on the scientific issues relevant to this forum where we are in agreement and can contradict each other.
For something like 100 years, people live in a particularly unpleasant way - the life expectancy is something like 30 years, people die from diseases, from natural phenomena that they don't know how to deal with, from hunger, crazy people...
And after 100 years, the creator of this wonderful world decides that he's had enough and he doesn't want to just watch but to participate a little, so that they know who he is, and of course the best place is a remote place in the Middle East during the Bronze Age, a place full of myths and superstitions - indeed the ideal place for revelation.
Sorry Robbie, you can't believe it, it just doesn't make sense.
Yes, this is the well-known and wonderful argument of the late Christopher Hitchins.
Ruby,
You have beautifully illustrated in your responses the tragedies of the circularity and closure in which the religious believer is a subject as a rule of necessity. Every time I read this type of response, I marvel anew at those virtuous individuals who managed to open the eye that was stolen from them by religion (more precisely by society and the religious establishment). My opinion is that every lucky person who manages to escape from the captivity of the degenerate religion is a testimony and hope for a better future for humans. Although you did not use this phrase, your "full" cart stems from your unjustly arrogant comments. Arrogance is an obscene habit and perhaps even a necessity of religious people, whether it is towards the secular "infidels", the gentile "infidels", the "infidels" of various tendencies and of course towards women. Maybe your cart is full but it seems that you make sure to miss the main point that other commenters here took the trouble to direct you to and that is that your cart seems to be full of straw and hump and that's how your arguments sound. As was written here before, you make your choice in your faith, assuming that you repented in your adulthood and were not washed away and imprisoned as a baby (what do you think is the faith of someone who grew up on the knees of another religion?), but beyond the truth of this faith experience for you, there is no reason to think (even for you) That it has something to do with the reality in which we all live, all human beings wherever they are. If you imagined yourself to be righteous, continue to live in your faith and do us a favor and focus your responses on science and not on your private experiences.
Ruby
The simultaneous viewing you speak of has never been proven correct.
National Geographic is exactly where I first heard that Solomon and David's existence is uncertain. I know they found buildings that are attributed to their period but this still does not prove their existence. The dispute is among historians and archaeologists. I do not have the necessary knowledge to assess what findings are necessary to verify the existence of historical figures and how much an inscription with the name David constitutes proof. The point is that there is disagreement among the experts, so we should not talk as if it is agreed that David and Solomon were indeed real people.
Why is what comes after Judaism irrelevant? What does it matter that Judaism was the pioneer in believing in a single God? Christianity and Islam do not believe in a new single God, but in the same God that was spoken of in the Bible. They simply claim that in addition to the events of the Bible, Jesus was the son of God/a prophet and that Muhammad was a prophet. If you believe that God revealed himself to people in the biblical period then why wouldn't he reveal himself to Muhammad?
Nor did anyone say that belief in a single God is the only belief that should be considered. Polytheistic beliefs make less sense to us only because from a young age in Torah lessons we were taught that belief in many gods is wrong, but objectively I can't think of anything that makes a polytheistic belief wrong over a monotheistic belief.
"And you're talking to me about ten thousand people who received food each in turn, something any magician like Lior Soushard and others can do."
Great Robbie, I see you're starting to get the point:
There was some founding story about a people who came out of Egypt, over the years after that, more and more details were added such as typological numbers ('sixty hundred' - men) that 'inflated' this people to unusual dimensions.. People with authority later added more stories to these stories About the 'stations' that this people went through in the desert, and the founding story of a divine revelation for all to see..
This is a didactic act.
Read in the Passover Haggadah some 'drushim' regarding the reality that existed then..
"Rabbi Akiva says: Whence came that every plague that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon the Egyptians in Egypt was five plagues? As it was said: Haron Apo will send among them, trouble and anger and trouble, a delegation of evil angels."
There is no documentation outside of writing in the Torah about 'miracles' as described in the Book of Exodus.
And there is no record of a talking snake either
And not on a flat earth and a sky that separates lower and upper waters
And not about a flood that happened 4000 or so years ago..
what? Does Einstein just think that the Bible is 'actions for children'?
Robby, seriously.. are you the one giving a chance and doubting? You made me laugh..
Zvi, you again sin by giving irrelevant examples, sightings of aliens in aggregate are many but it is again not similar to the case in question of simultaneous viewing of a large crowd.
The Jewish religion is a pioneer in believing in a single God and everything that comes after it is less interesting and not relevant to the discussion.
Regarding evidence for the existence of Solomon and David, there are cross-references between what is written in the Bible regarding the buildings that were discovered in the excavations of Megiddo, Hazor and others and in addition inscriptions were found with the name David from the same period in which he reigned according to the scriptures.
I suggest you watch National Geographic and other science shows.
Ruby,
You forget again that there is no evidence that there were indeed 600 men there. The only source that states this number is the same source that you are trying to prove its credibility by relying on the testimony of those 600 thousand. And you have a circular argument.
That is, even if we accept that it is possible to rely on evidence, you still have not proven that in our case there is anything to rely on at all.
Either way, evidence is very difficult to rely on, the number of people around the world who claimed to have seen aliens is greater than 600 thousand. One estimate I came across of the total number of alien sightings worldwide by 2010 was one hundred million. According to your logic, it cannot be that so many people around the world would just say that they saw aliens and why would someone invent such a thing?
My point is that if you really think evidence can be relied upon, you need to explain why other evidence doesn't interest you so much.
And historically it has not been proven at all that Solomon and David existed. The only source that refers to them directly is the Bible. I'm not saying they didn't exist, maybe they did or maybe they didn't.
In any case, the fact that people observe a mitzvah does not prove that the mitzvah has any meaning.
You do not believe in the miracles of Jesus or Muhammad or in all the claims that connect them with some higher power, and are ready to accept that all the stories about them that describe these things are the product of human imagination. And the same goes for any other religion, from the beliefs of the ancient Greeks to the Indians and ending with the religions of the East, all of these with all the details in which they were invented by humans. Some also had commandments, books, stories, miracles and testimonies. So why is it so hard for you to accept that the creation stories and divine revelations of the Jews are also fictions?
Eric, I'm talking about six hundred thousand men and an even larger amount of women, old and young, and many Arabs who were present at a sonic light event at the same time, and you're talking to me about ten thousand people who received food each in turn, something any magician like Lior Soushard and others can do.
Pay attention to what I wrote and don't get locked up and bring insufficient evidence.
Ruby
In the New Testament it is written that Jesus fed ten thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.. I have decided at the moment that these are ten thousand 'very suspicious' people.. I still do not believe that this event happened.
You call our people a 'suspicious nation', and you yourself are 'suspicious' enough to not even consider for a moment - maybe - Einstein (whose name you yourself mentioned a moment ago) is actually right in his attitude to the Bible..
Eric and Zvi, Einstein did not deny the existence of God, unlike you, it seems to me from what you wrote that you are complete atheists. At least he left some kind of opening.
Regarding the status of Mount Sinai, it says sixty men (each man is equal to ten thousand) besides old and young women and many Arabs. It is not about miracles that individual people saw in the case of Jesus or Muhammad, it is about hundreds of thousands of people with the DNA of a people who are suspicious and doubt everything.
Now, the Torah commands to pass on the mitzvot and the scriptures from generation to generation. If you go in the opposite direction, from now on backwards, whenever in Jewish history, the Torah was written. I assume that you believe in the history of the period of the kings headed by Solomon, David and Saul who clearly kept the Torah commandments. Only recently was a mezuzah found with the blessing of the priests folded inside it (a blessing written by Moses and passed on to Aaron and his sons the priests).
Who do you think wrote the Torah and managed to "work" on our wise kings? Or are they invented too….
The mitzvah of placing tefillin is written in the Torah and was performed in the past at Beit Rishon (even tefillin were found in the Qumran caves).
Try to go back in time to Beit Rishon and suddenly observe strange mitzvahs that someone suddenly invented out of nowhere, would you perform them? Unless it was written and passed down from generation to generation from father to son.
The original argument in the minute:
00:21:00
Look at Dr. Craig
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-fDyPU3wlQ
I think he sums up Ruby's arguments well from the angle of the Christian religion.
And that too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEw8VzzXcjE
at 1:38:10
The historical evidence that Jesus was resurrected.
I think it just shows that every religion has arguments and every religion markets itself as if only they have good arguments.
Ruby
I imagine you have intellectual fairness.
Now: You yourself brought Einstein and wrote: "Even Einstein said that God does not play with dice (meaning he believed in his existence)." I imagine that if you allowed yourself to bring Einstein as evidence for something, your intellectual fairness would not allow you to ignore other things he said..:
So here it is, for you: a letter from Einstein:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/world/1.1324090
'The Bible is a collection of respectable but primitive legends.. childish'
Not just! 'Primitiveness' and 'childishness'..
I personally didn't need Einstein for this, but for you..
Einstein should not be included in the story. First, because one person who believes even if he is wise does not prove that there is logic in belief just as a wise person who does not believe does not prove the opposite. Second, Einstein would not have believed like you at all. You can read about his beliefs on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein
It was written there that he was critical of atheism, but also that he saw belief in a personal God as childish.
And of course in God he could refer to anything, from a metaphor to any other god that apart from being a god different from your god in every sense.
Besides, in the specific quote about the cubes, Einstein was wrong, and if he was wrong about that, then why wouldn't he be wrong about God?
The revelation of Mount Sinai was in the presence of 600 thousand people? Where are the findings and proofs for this claim? And if I'm not mistaken, the number of those present according to tradition is 3 million, a number that is even more unbelievable.
It is very difficult to rely on such a testimony, the testimony can be made up, distorted along the way, misinterpretation of what people saw... Will you believe the testimonies of other religions? Muhammad and Jesus did not perform miracles? What about Muhammad's miracle of crossing the moon. There is evidence for this too. But you will dismiss these evidences in the blink of an eye.
How many people have claimed to have seen aliens or ghosts? What is your attitude to these testimonies that describe events that are happening now? Evidence whose witnesses are still alive and can tell you how they personally were abducted by aliens?
Regarding the comment about the amino acid, the same process that led from those building blocks to the life we see here today took a very long time and could have included many rare events, so the fact that a scientist is unable to reconstruct evolution and arrive from an amino acid to Lord does not mean that this is not what happened.
However, creating an artificial consciousness in the relatively near future may be possible, and if it happens, will it be enough for you to question your belief in God?
Our logic is based on information and techniques we have accumulated over the past thousands of years.
It is about a period of time that is a blink of an eye compared to the greatness of creation and the universe
When I talk about faith, I'm talking about believing in the existence of God / a higher power that created the universe and the laws in the universe. Even Einstein said that God does not play with dice (meaning he believed in his existence).
I believe in our ancient ancestors (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and the history written afterwards in the Torah.
The revelation of Mount Sinai was in the presence of 600 thousand people (Jews known for their skepticism) and then the conquest of the land by Joshua, judges, kings and so on.
This is about the history of our people and if you deny it as a myth, you deny your past and your right to live in the Land of Israel.
As for the logical debate whether or not there is a God, it is pointless because the tools for debate are limited. Not that I am afraid to go into the logical side, I think that this is not the place and the time to go into another detail that requires early and wide-ranging knowledge.
Start reading Sefer HaKozari as a start.
In conclusion, with the help of science, you can build robots, computers and play genetic engineering in proton accelerators, but for an inanimate, plant, living, speaking creature, only that higher power can do it.
As soon as a scientist succeeds with the help of an amino acid or another substance to create a rose or cockroach (not to duplicate or change existing DNA) then we will start talking.
You are focusing too much on the belief itself and not on the question of whether there really is a god or not. Yes, faith is something that you either have or you don't and it is related to education, the society in which you grew up, etc. as you said. It can also add color to some people's lives. But this has nothing to do with the objective existence of God. It seems you don't care at all whether there is a god or not, just that you are comfortable with your belief. And that's fine, it's your choice.
If you involve logic in faith then faith collapses, and that is the only reason people like you (a close religious friend of mine said exactly the same thing) insist on not involving logic in discussions about faith. To me this request sounds ridiculous, but I guess the idea of faith and God is so deeply rooted in our society and in people from a young age that they are willing to give up reason in favor of faith.
Just to add to what I wrote before that belief in God is something you either have or don't have, the divine spark exists in everyone and anyone can light the fire to a big fire or extinguish the spark to a minimum.
Zvi, it's a shame that you get into arguments related to logic on issues related to belief in God.
Read what I wrote before because I don't want to repeat myself.
Belief in God is something you have or don't have, as a result of education, staying in a suitable society, internal, psychological structure, a broad view of the world, intuition, and such tools.
From my point of view, it seems to me that you are losing the color and spice of life. In my opinion, an atheist lives in black and white, but you may see it the other way around than I do.
What is special about the human developmental leap compared to other leaps throughout the evolutionary history of other animals?
And how do you get from here to the intervention of an external force? How the existence of an almighty higher power is more likely than any other explanation for that jump (if there was one at all).
The ease with which you draw conclusions shows that you use intuition and emotion more than logic.
"God is everywhere you let him enter"
Regarding evolution, it is now clear even to the experts on the subject that the time that passed from the cooling of the earth (after the collision with another star and the formation of the moon) to the development of the thinking man, is not enough with all the disasters and there were in the past of the collision of meteors and super volcanoes.
There was a developmental leap for the thinking person, probably with the intervention of an external force...
Still skeptical
The conclusion is that the man must have actually become a ghost
still skeptical,
My knowledge of neuroscience is very little but I have read in several places that sometimes when part of the brain is damaged the rest of the brain adapts and transfers the functions of the damaged part to other parts of the brain. Especially when the injury occurs at a young age, and in this case the man was injured in an accident at the age of 14. In any case, I would appreciate it if someone who understands more about the matter would comment on the matter.
In addition, it is not clear whether the man underwent comprehensive tests that indeed proved that his functioning since the accident was not impaired.
In any case, this case does not prove that consciousness is created by some non-physical factor (if that is what you were implying). I am sure that most of the people who have suffered such serious injuries and even minor injuries have their function impaired, what does this prove to you?
http://globalgrind.com/news/half-head-man-carlos-sosa-rodriguez-explains-what-happened-mugshots-explains-it-all-video
What about the man who has almost no brain and still lives a normal life and has memories?
Where does his consciousness come from?
Yaron,
I agree with you that evolution or the creation of artificial consciousness does not contradict the existence of any God.
If so, I know one religious person who told me explicitly that the creation of artificial consciousness would prove to him that there is no God. The personal God he believes in is at odds with the creation of artificial consciousness.
No one is forcing religious people to choose between evolution and belief in God, simply a large part of those who believe in God believe in creationism and this comes in contradiction to evolution.
One hundred percent right, the fantasists should be put in their place.
The discussion has been postponed but I want to participate in it.
Why create artificial paradoxes: if I believe in the correctness of the theory of evolution then there is probably no God. I mean join us atheists if you are enlightened. Or: If you believe in our ability to produce a self-aware artificial mind, then you don't believe in God. This kind of decision has helped the fact that the majority of the world's population does not believe in the theory of evolution. There may be a God and there may not be. It may not be possible at our current level of consciousness to sense God and the great prophets only saw aliens or the thoughts of their hearts. What's more, the religious coercion and the accelerated childbirth are not only in Judaism, they are a kind of culture war.
In my opinion, scientific creativity is not a consequence of pure rationality, but it strives for objectivity. In my opinion, it is the result of an infinite spring that can be called by any nickname you want. The existence of God is more complex than the religious explanation if there is a God at all. In my opinion, the Holocaust cannot be explained with a simple religious explanation.
The ever-changing reality does not give rise to purely rational phenomena. It has phenomena that literature or art are better suited to describe. or new more abstract mathematical theories.
I think it's better to free yourself from fixed thoughts here and there.
And regarding the article: Those who are familiar with the progress in the study of rationality, in my opinion, believe that the singular point will arrive in about 50 years. Those who are familiar with concepts such as: machine learning, pattern recognition, decision making, data mining. The chess player Kasparov who played against Deep Blue said that he recognized in him insights that he thought only a man was capable of. Maybe it's just that the human brain is built as described here and this machine yields insights.
If someone insists on remaining religious - divinity can dwell in any material object according to a religious view, and is not prevented from dwelling in artificial consciousness and making use of it.
Regarding the analogy between God and love. Love is an emotion that we may not fully understand but that doesn't mean it makes sense to deny the existence of this emotion. Denying its existence is like denying the existence of fear or sadness. But what is the difference between this and the logical statement that God does not exist?
When you say there is a God you are making a statement about reality that is valid for everyone. Whereas when you say you love someone you are generally describing your feeling. Note, in the case of love you are merely describing an emotion that you experience and do not determine anything about the external reality, whereas in the case of God you say that you feel his existence (and that is your right) but from here you are trying to apply your emotion to the external reality and this is a mistake.
A more correct analogy to belief in God because of emotion would be a person who because of his emotion of love believes that he and his wife are meant to be together or that his wife is the most beautiful woman in the world. Similar to belief in God, here too, man tries to establish assertions about external reality that have no logical validity, and I do not agree with these assertions.
I posted another comment but for some reason it is still waiting for approval.
Ruby,
You need to apply your demand for modesty and doubt to yourself.
I don't claim to know why the universe was created, or why life was created, but only that apparently no god was behind it. Why? Because all the gods are clearly a human invention, because those people of faith reach it through emotion and not reason, and because God's "solution" to the problem of the creation of the universe actually does not solve anything but only complicates the problem (an attempt to explain the complexity of the universe or life using something even more complex) .
Even those smart people who believe in God (what God? There are also smart people who believe that Jesus was the son of God, what does that prove?) They do not have any proof or logical argument for the existence of God. They generally build an island of their faith, that is, they use logic and reason in their field of occupation and in any other field related to establishing facts about inventions, but when they reach the question of why the universe was created, they stop using it and decide for themselves that in this question it is okay to use emotion.
Humility and doubt is admitting that we don't know why the universe was created (or whether this question even has meaning) and leaving the question open, which is not what believers do.
You can always find smart people and professors who believe in God, fairies, reading in coffee, normology and any other nonsense invented by humans, their belief proves nothing. Unfortunately in many cases faith is stronger than all logic and common sense, especially when it comes to people who grew up in a religious home from the age of 0.
Many surveys show unequivocally that the higher a person's level of education (having an academic degree: bachelor's degree, master's degree, doctor, professor) the less and less he believes in God and the stories of creation. The vast majority (over 97 percent) of scientists with a degree in biology think that evolution is the explanation for the development of life on Earth, think about it - the people who understand better than anyone else how complex our bodies are, and how complex our brains are, are actually the most enthusiastic supporters of The theory of evolution.
All the evidence clearly shows that evolution is correct and explains well the diversity of life on earth including us. Evolution drops the ground under the stories of creation as they are described in the Torah.
There is no logical reason to revolve life around something for which there is not a shred of evidence.
By the way, how was this amazing God created? Hocus Pocus?
I did not say that a secular person has no love.
Love is a gift that everyone has.
I made an analogy, between a logical statement of an atheist who tries to prove that there is no such thing as God and a logical statement that there is actually no such thing as love. Is there such a word? Atheist of love?
Zvi, life itself and the meaning of life are so deep that we are not able to get to the root of their meaning.
It's that the scientists wonder how the universe was created and where it is developing, and why is there actually matter and what holds it? And the more we travel, the more they linger on the wonders of creation.
It doesn't seem to me that any person can determine whether or not there is a god. It is not about selling any product, we are dealing with things that are bigger than us and we need a little modesty since we do not have the right information to draw conclusions.
Regarding logic, the Israeli Nobel laureate is an expert in game theory and observant. I wouldn't say he's ignorant. With logic you create robots and fly to Mars or create an IBM supercomputer, while creating a person, with feelings, self-awareness or creating a life or a plant requires much more than logic.
My suggestion to you, leave some space, a small opening in you to doubt that maybe there is some higher power after all and call it whatever you want...
Google will fall to Hell 2110
Ruby,
You admit that from a logical point of view a person without God is just, from what other point of view can one be right?
"They live in black and white without shades and colors and it's a shame they lose." – Is that your argument? That we lose by not believing? What are you trying to sell us a product? You have to understand that not all people are interested in the profit they get from this or that belief, but they are interested in having a correct perception of reality (or rather as close to reality as possible). The key word here is reality and it has nothing to do with belief in God.
And another thing, there is no connection between faith and love. The fact that the feeling of love ultimately boils down to brain chemistry does not mean that a person who is aware of this cannot experience the feeling and enjoy it.
You are wrong and misleading, the world of an atheist secular person is a rich and colorful world, a secular person has movies, plays, concerts, dances, social activities, trips, knowledge enrichment, science, technology, studies, books, classes, loves.... Why just say wrong things?
Why do you claim that a secular person has no love? Does the fact that love does arise from hormones and electrical/chemical activity in the brain detract in any way from the subjective feeling of love itself? A secular person feels and loves just like you! Indeed, the purpose of "love" is culture, a species of animal that does not have this attraction between males and females will simply become extinct and disappear from the world, without love there will be no evolution and no development (no offspring will be born to inherit the traits of their parents).
As a secular person, I also have faith, faith in myself, faith that only my actions will determine my future and not some imaginary god from the world of fairy tales, I have faith in my friends, my family, my country.
A person without faith is like a person who says there is no such thing as love. That is, man is a complex of flesh and bones, chemistry and electrochemical pulses, and love is actually hormones designed to cause the race to multiply and preserve itself.
Logically, man without God and without love are right, but they lack the color of life.
They live in black and white without shades and colors and it's a shame they lose.
Maybe I didn't explain correctly, I have no complaints about the fact that we settled here (although it might have been better in Uganda), every nation needs a place to live, I think there is almost no nation in the world that does not live in a place that was previously inhabited by other peoples or tribes.... It's part of nature. Animals also constantly take over territories that used to belong to other groups.
I'm just saying a simple thing, the story of the "divine promise" to the Land of Israel for the Jewish people is probably an invention whose sole purpose is to give "legal validity" (and perhaps moral) to our control of this piece of land in the world.
"We just arrived, we destroyed, we conquered and we decided it was ours"
A sentence that constitutes the tragedy of both religious and secular ignorance.
It uses biblical texts to obtain divine authority over the land and it uses the same text itself to prove (what actually? "The occupation" again).
According to the popular perception, the people of Israel developed from a merger of tribes that settled in the Land of Israel, different beliefs (Baal, Asherah, etc.) finally merged into a belief in one God.
A righteous man in his faith will live, may you also have good health
On the contrary, singularity = eternal life.
I really do not intend to argue with you on the subject, it is perfectly clear to me that God does not exist and it is perfectly clear to me that all the stories about him are inventions of the imagination of people who lived in ancient times. I won't waste my time on simple things and sermons and hints and not on prayers to the air and other nonsense.
If it makes you feel good, for your health, enjoy.
Your problem is that you treat the stories of the Bible as they are, and I also see it as a problem of the education system. The Torah is built in layers (pardes = simple, sermon, hint and secret). You begin to rightly ask questions (and so do I) how can it be that the world was created in 6 days or that the age of the world is a little less than six thousand years. All these questions are at the level of simplicity and therefore you will not arrive at any logical conclusion.
I am personally secular and traditionalist but I very much respect the messages in the Torah and especially the history of the Jewish people from Abraham our father, the Exodus from Egypt to the time of the kings and beyond.
You have to understand that this is what we have as a people against the Palestinian and anti-Semitic propaganda. Without our context to the Shabtorah past, we have no right to sit in the land.
In contrast to this history, we are a people who were in exile, and returned to their native country, like a prisoner in prison returns to his home after serving his prison term.
Singularity = death
As far as I know, no actual evidence of the Exodus story has been found, except for some ancient papyrus that describes in a few short sentences the escape of some single slave (it is not even indicated that he is Hebrew) and there are people who in a very demagogic way try to claim that this story is actually the story of the Exodus.
Great natural disasters have always occurred in human history, it is very easy to take these disasters and without any connection associate them with the Exodus or any other fictional story you want.
Most of the stories in the Bible (not all) are indeed folk tales and legends, do you really believe that there were talking snakes in the past? That a person managed to survive 3 whole days inside the belly of a leviathan? that wooden sticks turned into live snakes? A woman was created from a man's rib, and people ascended in the heavenly storm?
Really, I wonder about you.
God does not exist and never has, and he certainly did not promise us any Land of Israel. We simply arrived, destroyed, conquered and decided it was ours, the story of the exodus from Egypt and the "divine" promise are just an attempt to give these actions "legal" validity.
Certainly, I wonder about you, every now and then archaeologists in Egypt or Israel find a sign of writing in the Torah.
The eruption in Santorini, according to the same archaeologists, created a tsunami and volcanic ash that caused some of the plagues of Egypt, and scrolls and seals from the biblical period and the reigns of David and Solomon were found in Israel.
The Torah is the greatest asset we have as a people and it is what gives us the right to return to Israel and settle there. And unfortunately many Jews look down on it and treat it as a collection of stories of cloth and rope.
Robbie, do the archeological discoveries verify the Tanakh stories?
Are you serious ?
Computer game, mathematical calculations and trivia quiz are only a tiny part of human ability. The human brain contains more than a hundred billion neurons and synapses of orders of magnitude more that interface between them. The brain was created to deal with everyday life and a simple activity of identifying a danger such as a snake and running away from it, will take a fraction of a second while the computer will need a long time and billions of calculation operations to identify and react.
Not to mention self-awareness, feelings such as affection, love, hate, fear, jealousy, things that help us in daily survival.
You mentioned Moore's Law, but in about 10 years the silicon era will end because the semiconductors will be so small that they will reach the size of individual molecules and then it will be necessary to switch to a different technology because then the quantum theory will be dominant with the principle of uncertainty.
The future probably belongs to quantum computers, DNA, optical or atomic computers.
Thanks! I love skeptics like you, they remind me of a quote from the beginning of the 20th century "heavier then air vehicles will never happen" and like you there were many others who repeated this mistake, as Ray Kurzweil says, every technology that goes on the digital track joins the curve of Moore's Law, therefore The more technologies in the current era make the transition, the more significant breakthroughs will begin to happen, in recent years the technology of mapping the electrical activity in the brain is also undergoing an accelerated process of miniaturization that will lead to interfaces that only the science fiction genre could imagine, and this is only to calm your concerns about the complexity of the brain, and even if It is complex on a galaxy scale, we are also currently mapping the Milky Way with eager diligence.
Finally, with nano technology will come the resolution that we have been looking for for the last century where we can finally understand the brain as well.
Robbie, even in the early days of aviation only clumsy and slow planes were built that barely lasted half a minute in the air, and look where we are today. By the way, I think that there are much more effective tests for that purpose than the Turing test, why for example not let a computer pass an IQ test in the same format that humans pass? Wouldn't that be more efficient? In addition, you can let the computer solve logic problems, or let the computer read a book or an article and then ask it questions of understanding and logic.
It seems to me much more successful than the classic Turing test.
Quantum computers, in my opinion, are not at all related to the matter, they are supposed to solve problems formulated in a very specific way that allows the system to "collapse" to the correct answer (for example, getting a list of all the prime numbers up to the value one million) There is also no indication that our thinking or consciousness is based on any quantum principle.
The Einstein of artificial intelligence has not yet been born.
When the computer passes the Turing test, (place a person and a computer in sealed rooms and ask them a variety of questions and if it is not possible to identify who is who, then the person considered has passed the test), only until then will it be possible to talk...
Meanwhile the most sophisticated robot cannot compete with the intelligence of an insect in everyday life.
Maybe when there are quantum computers...
(-;
For the people - exactly, instead of all the fans of the singularity talking about starting to do...
Unfortunately Schermer turned his skepticism into a profession. Maybe even a religion. It seems that even when something really fantastic is discovered or happens he will no longer notice it out of skepticism. One should also leave an opening for doubt about skepticism itself. This is my opinion.
Already today, we see how computers succeed in performing more and more tasks that were not long ago considered an exclusive human ability, beating the world champion in chess, defeating the world champions in a televised knowledge game, recognizing faces, animals and objects in a picture, turning fluent speech into text and vice versa, driving a car, fly a plane, recognize handwriting and a thousand and one other tasks that people didn't believe a computer could ever do.
To say that a computer will never reach the level of human intelligence (and will not surpass it) is the real nonsense, this is the claim of a flightless and visionless person who is unable to see what exists today and the rate of progress, and project from that forward to the next years and the coming decades. This reminds me of the people who claimed 150 years ago that a heavier-than-air machine would never be able to take off, even though they saw birds flying around them.
There is no magic or mysticism in our minds, it's all just chemistry and electricity. Our mind is conclusive evidence that matter when properly arranged is capable of thinking and capable of being self-aware and intelligent. The claim that our mind is "very, very complex" fails to impress me (it is true that it is very complex!) because most of this complexity comes from massive repetition (copy-paste) of much simpler structures that are replicated hundreds of millions of times all over the brain (the segment of DNA responsible for building the brain is much simpler than the brain it creates). The claim that we still do not know "where self-awareness is" is also irrelevant because apparently when a computerized/electronic brain is built correctly (according to everything we have learned about the biological brain) then phenomena such as self-awareness and intelligence will develop in this brain spontaneously just like a baby's brain which at a certain point begins to become self-aware.
There is a high chance (and I'm not the only one) that self-awareness is created when a sufficiently large "mass" of neural networks is connected together, just like an airplane that can take off only after it has gained a certain speed and like an atomic bomb that can explode only when the material that has entered it has passed a critical mass.
Skepticism is good, but it seems that sometimes too much skepticism also blocks logical thinking.
Schermer may be gifted with common sense, but he clearly has no vision, and he just thinks like one of the Yishuv, he does not understand what is happening these days under our noses.
Today, the total computing power of all computers, and the supercomputers together, is on the order of an exaflop (10 to the 18th power), and this is equal to the estimated computing power needed to simulate the activity of one human brain.
to the universe,
Well, then what's the point of even talking about it?
It is impossible to know what is developing in the basements of governments, it is impossible to know what will happen in a minute, a determination here or there has no meaning, he is not a prophet either.
"We are hundreds of years away from the moment when artificial intelligence will equal that of man"
You made me laugh! I think you have no idea what you are talking about, it will take much less than the time you mentioned, I give it a roof of 50 years and this is also a very pessimistic forecast in light of the dizzying (and accelerating!) rate at which technology is developing, and the amount of knowledge we gain every year about the operation of our brain.
There is no magic in our minds, no miracles, and no mysticism, if a completely blind process like evolution managed to create the structure of our brain without any prior intention, then I have no doubt that we will succeed in doing so and in a much shorter time, with the help of technology and with the help of our creative ability. We have the finished product, the worker that can be researched and reproduced (it will take some time, but certainly not hundreds of years)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ZbwRxhRYw
http://www.kurzweilai.net/henry-markram-simulating-the-brain-next-decisive-years