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#81
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George Gleason wrote:
Joe Sensor wrote: playon wrote: Get a clue. The woman's cerebral cortex has been liquified, there is nothing in that part of her brain anymore but spinal fluid. You can't recover from this, period. As she gets closer and closer to death, well not really death, but rather what remains of her, expiring, notice she has the same contented look on her face. Nothing is changing because she really isn't alive anyway. And this will be a huge burden lifted off the rest of her family. Too bad they can't see the reality. All will be better off. She was trying to starve herself when she did this on herself enough of the whining about a self destructive twit you want to cry over dead cry over the innocent women and children we are slaughtering in IRAQ George Ah, the wing nuts come crawling out. |
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#82
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Troy wrote:
George Gleason wrote in message ... She was trying to starve herself when she did this on herself Care to explain the above line?????. She went into the coma as a result of a heart attack that resulted from her anorexia G If I pumped myself full of heroin, had a heart attack, by brain liquefied would you keep me alive ? I'd hope not this ISN'T life support its artificial life G Gerorge she had a sickness.....should we condemn everyone that is sick and tell its their own fault for being sick??? That's coming next. |
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#83
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#84
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:21:02 +0000, Logan Shaw wrote:
The question is whether there is some sort of subjective consciousness that exists independently of objective reality. I am not saying that there necessarily is, but I don't see how observable, objective evidence can help you investigate that. It's more of a philosophical question. Yes, Turing proposed the Turing Test, but is there universal agreement that something that passes the Turing Test has a mind? It would be a good indicator of intelligence, but I have seen no convincing evidence that intelligence and consciousness are the same thing. Ah, so you're saying that when and if human level AI and/or human mind uploads become possible....you'll be among the *new* breed of ignorant bigots. Good to know. |
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#85
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Liam Slider wrote:
Ah, so you're saying that when and if human level AI and/or human mind uploads become possible....you'll be among the *new* breed of ignorant bigots. Good to know. Wow, I really don't get why you feel it's necessary to call me a bigot because I pointed out that you are acting like reductionist materialism is the only ontological viewpoint that exists. Please note, for the zillionth time, that I am not even saying I hold a different viewpoint. You seem to believe I am against reductionism, despite obvious evidence (i.e. my saying so) that I am not claiming to be against it. I am merely arguing that viewpoint to illustrate that viewpoints exist other than the one you called "fact". It's not accurate to call your viewpoint (monism) a fact when the majority of humanity has held the opposite viewpoint (dualism) for most of history. Monism has recently become the more popular viewpoint, which is significant, but that does not mean it is so widely accepted that we can called it "fact". - Logan |
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#86
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:22:49 +0000, Logan Shaw wrote:
Wow, I really don't get why you feel it's necessary to call me a bigot because I pointed out that you are acting like reductionist materialism is the only ontological viewpoint that exists. Please note, for the zillionth time, that I am not even saying I hold a different viewpoint. You seem to believe I am against reductionism, despite obvious evidence (i.e. my saying so) that I am not claiming to be against it. I am merely arguing that viewpoint to illustrate that viewpoints exist other than the one you called "fact". It's not accurate to call your viewpoint (monism) a fact when the majority of humanity has held the opposite viewpoint (dualism) for most of history. Monism has recently become the more popular viewpoint, which is significant, but that does not mean it is so widely accepted that we can called it "fact". Ok, how about you demontrate to me that you have some of this ineffable....something any more than an AI would. Who's to say that what gives it to us wouldn't also give it to a sufficiently intelligent machine? And, here's the important part....how would you tell, aside from a *belief* that something is different about AIs? The point about an AI that could pass the Turing Test is that you could sit down with one, have a conversation with it, and never know you weren't talking to a person. If that's the case (which is the basic assumption talked about at the moment), how would you know? You'd just go around saying, "oh sure, it's completely and utterly indistinguishable from a human conversationally, can think and learn like any human, adapt like any human, and basically do anything that any human can do....but they aren't the same, they lack...uh...something that makes us concious." Yeah, that'd make you sound about as intelligent as those people who once claimed that neither Native Americans, nor Africans, had souls (yes it was argued by prominant religious figures back in the 1600s).....or those who today say certain races are inferior on account of their skin color. Might as well nip this idiocy now, before it becomes an issue. |
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#87
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Liam Slider wrote:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:22:49 +0000, Logan Shaw wrote: It's not accurate to call your viewpoint (monism) a fact when the majority of humanity has held the opposite viewpoint (dualism) for most of history. Monism has recently become the more popular viewpoint, which is significant, but that does not mean it is so widely accepted that we can called it "fact". Ok, how about you demontrate to me that you have some of this ineffable....something any more than an AI would. Who's to say that what gives it to us wouldn't also give it to a sufficiently intelligent machine? And, here's the important part....how would you tell, aside from a *belief* that something is different about AIs? The point about an AI that could pass the Turing Test is that you could sit down with one, have a conversation with it, and never know you weren't talking to a person. If that's the case (which is the basic assumption talked about at the moment), how would you know? That's a good point: if something did pass the Turing Test, it would be tough to defend the viewpoint that it doesn't have a mind though a human does. Still, as you point out, that doesn't absolutely refute mind/body dualism since dualists can always fall back to the argument that whatever imbues humans with consciousness must've decided to imbue robots as well. (But that does seem a bit laughable.) On the other hand, there is still one big assumption that hasn't been addressed: the assumption that any machine ever really *will* pass the Turing Test. For one thing, right now we don't have any computer that's even vaguely powerful enough to do it, and we don't have the right software worked out even if we did. Even looking into the future, it's not necessarily a given that it's only a matter of time until we achieve Strong AI. For whatever reason, we might simply never get there. I think it's likely that we will, but what if we succeed in producing machines that show intelligence and are great problem solvers, but that we find are still for some reason not able to ever be convincing in a Turing Test? That's about the state that we're in with the current chess machines: they can beat the best human players, but the humans say they "play like a computer". It could just be sour grapes, but we know they do go about things differently that humans do when playing chess. - Logan |
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#88
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 01:28:08 +0000, Logan Shaw wrote:
That's a good point: if something did pass the Turing Test, it would be tough to defend the viewpoint that it doesn't have a mind though a human does. Still, as you point out, that doesn't absolutely refute mind/body dualism since dualists can always fall back to the argument that whatever imbues humans with consciousness must've decided to imbue robots as well. (But that does seem a bit laughable.) Indeed it does. On the other hand, there is still one big assumption that hasn't been addressed: the assumption that any machine ever really *will* pass the Turing Test. For one thing, right now we don't have any computer that's even vaguely powerful enough to do it, and we don't have the right software worked out even if we did. Even looking into the future, it's not necessarily a given that it's only a matter of time until we achieve Strong AI. For whatever reason, we might simply never get there. I think it's rather silly to assume that we can't...after all, nature seems to be able to do it just fine. We should be able to not only do the same, but improve on it. And in fact, the evolution of computers is coming along at a much higher rate than the evolution of brains. It's an encouraging sign on the hardware side. Strong AI has always been "just around the corner" yet never appears...mainly for the reason that for years Strong AI focused on the software side. It was believed that all you needed was the right software, and the hardware didn't need to be *all* that powerful really. Now we've mostly wised up. As for software, it may take longer than hardware, but I don't doubt that'll get there either. If only from studying and mapping the neural networks of our own brains (the science of which improves daily), and applying them to neural networks on computers. In my mind, machine intelligence (and consciousness) is only a matter of time. I think it's likely that we will, but what if we succeed in producing machines that show intelligence and are great problem solvers, but that we find are still for some reason not able to ever be convincing in a Turing Test? That's about the state that we're in with the current chess machines: they can beat the best human players, but the humans say they "play like a computer". It could just be sour grapes, but we know they do go about things differently that humans do when playing chess. Well, they aren't *built* to think like us though, but are built specifically as expert systems, designed around a single task. They don't think like we do because they aren't emulations of the way humans think. That much is obvious. |
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#89
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:26:24 GMT, "Troy"
wrote: playon wrote in message .. . On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 01:04:37 GMT, "Troy" wrote: its got nothing to do with recovery Yes, it does. I certainly hope to hell someone pulls the plug on me if I was in that situation. Al This is exactly the problem that I have with this case.There is no plug to pull.I would want them to pull the plug on me also.....problem is she is not on life support.If she was on life support pulling the plug would mean death in minutes not days of starving to death.It would be more humain to put her to sleep like a dog than to starve her to death. Do you really want your government deciding your fate when you can't ?.....I sure don't Exactly... that's why the govt should leave it the hell alone and the person she trusted, her husband, make the decision. And polls show that 80% of Americans think that congress should butt out of the scene on this one. Al |
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#90
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:32:00 GMT, "Troy"
wrote: I am not against anyones right to die if that is their wish.....the problem I have is the way its being done to her and its the courts and government making the calls.This is not good for the future of mankind. It's not the courts, it's her husband, carrying out her wishes. The courts merely are validating this. It's the rule of law. Al |
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#91
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On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:55:12 GMT, Logan Shaw
wrote: Liam Slider wrote: Well, you are entitled to your belief...but there is nothing that scientifically supports it. The point wasn't what I believe about anything in particular. The point was that it seems like a stretch to say it's "fact" that "there's no person there anymore" because there is wide philosophical disagreement about what makes a person, whether the mind is an effect of the brain, etc. Let's just say that without a cerebral cortex, the lights are very dim and nobody's home. Al |
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#92
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Troy wrote:
I am not against anyones right to die if that is their wish.....the problem I have is the way its being done to her and its the courts and government making the calls.This is not good for the future of mankind. If I understand correctly, her husband voluntarily chose to give up his right to decide this and put it in the hands of the courts instead. - Logan |
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#93
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Liam Slider wrote: As for software, it may take longer than hardware, but I don't doubt that'll get there either. If only from studying and mapping the neural networks of our own brains (the science of which improves daily), and applying them to neural networks on computers. "If the human brain were simple enough to be understood, it would be too simple to understand." I don't know who said this but I think it is probably true. Intelligence, awareness, consciousness, call it what you will, is an emergent phenomenon. It is the complexity itself that produces the result and there are levels of complexity and scale that will always remain beyond our grasp. The numbers involved, neurons, fanout, degrees of freedon, etc., are easy enough to write down but to truly appreciate the scale involved is an entirely different matter. Bob -- "Things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler." A. Einstein |
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#94
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Guess after that, starving someone to death, doesn't seem so bad!!!
It still does seem a bit, "cruel and unusual" to me though. Tom "Bill Van Dyk" wrote in message news  Gosh. Lower even than forcing poverty-stricken third-world nations to repay debts run up by military dictators buying U.S. made weapons systems 30 years ago? Which were used against their own people? Lower even than selling plastic land-mines that end up blowing the legs off children and women? Lower even than selling carcinogenic herbicides that can't be used safely here to farmers in India and Pakistan? Lower even than trying to patent indigenous corns and rice varieties that have been grown for centuries by peoples native to Indonesia? Lower even than turning a blind eye to torture and civil rights abuses in countries that claim to be our friends? Lower even than charging huge premiums on pharmaceutical drugs allegedly for expensive research and development that is actually mostly funded by governments and foundations? flatfish+++ wrote: For a country that claims to be civil, we have sunk to a new low. What are we coming to. I'm not saying Terri isn't a vegetable, I am saying that death is final and there is much evidence that points to her side. What's the difference if she dies this week or in 5 weeks? Her parents offered to pay for support, so why is her husband so against this? |
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#95
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So we agree, right?
Tom "Logan Shaw" wrote in message news  Tommy B wrote: Might be true, still how'd you feel about starving your cat to death? It would be more compassionate to throw him in front of a truck! Where's Clint Eastwood when you need him? I'm not a "religous nut"! As a matter of fact, I think Man's biggest joke on God, is Religion! Starvation is one of the worst ways to die, even if the one whose starving doesn't know it, everyone else does. I took a philosophy class once, and one of the issues we discussed was euthanasia. There is a distinction between what's called "active" and "passive" euthanasia. The idea is that in active euthanasia, you take action specifically meant to end the life of the terminally ill person, where in passive euthanasia, you simply avoid taking actions that will keep them alive. The problem is, in either case you are making a choice to take a course of action and you know what the outcome of the course of action will be. And yet, people make a moral distinction between active and passive euthanasia. To me, at best making such a non-existent distinction is just pointless and stupid. At worst, it causes the patient extra suffering and/or perpetuates the fallacy that if your choice only involves choosing not to take action, then you are not to blame for the outcome. (So, it's not a real moral distinction. It's fake one made for social convenience.) - Logan |
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#96
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Terri is beyond help, at this point.
It's everyone else who's got the problem. Always remember: sometimes a bullet in the brain, is the nicest thing you can do. Horrible, but true! Tom "playon" wrote in message ... On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 11:52:08 GMT, "Tommy B" wrote: Might be true, still how'd you feel about starving your cat to death? They should give Terry an OD on an opiate years ago. But that could hever happen in this perverted puritanical culture. Al It would be more compassionate to throw him in front of a truck! Where's Clint Eastwood when you need him? I'm not a "religous nut"! As a matter of fact, I think Man's biggest joke on God, is Religion! Starvation is one of the worst ways to die, even if the one whose starving doesn't know it, everyone else does. Sure gives the term, "benign neglect" a whole new spin. Tom "Rod Engelsman" wrote in message ... Troy wrote: Liam Slider wrote in message news 
On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 19:42:42 -0800, Cut Across Shorty wrote: flatfish+++ wrote: There is a lot of evidence that may implicate Terri's husband, may involve So he poisoned her, then used rehab to get a malpractice settlement. Of which there is no evidence. Then remarried and now wants to kill her. Except she's dead already. You must be also.....I see no signs of inteligent life from you either. She breaths on her own....she is not on a resperator .......Her body does the same things yours does in a day......except she is probably smarter than you and she needs help eating.She may be in her own world but she is alive without help from machines this is the difference.If it was a machine keeping her alive all these years then I may agree with "pulling the plug".......but starving her to death is just wrong.Think about it.....think if it was your little girl. At this point my cat has a larger cerebral cortex than Terri Schiavo. Her parents and the religious kooks behind this should be arrested and tried for abuse of a corpse. |
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#97
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 01:07:16 -0800, Bob Cain wrote:
"If the human brain were simple enough to be understood, it would be too simple to understand." I don't know who said this but I think it is probably true. Intelligence, awareness, consciousness, call it what you will, is an emergent phenomenon. It is the complexity itself that produces the result and there are levels of complexity and scale that will always remain beyond our grasp. The numbers involved, neurons, fanout, degrees of freedon, etc., are easy enough to write down but to truly appreciate the scale involved is an entirely different matter. We don't have to understand the entire emergent process, just enough of the processes that lead up to it in order duplicate it. That's the beautiful thing about emergent processes. Hell, there are scientists working with emergent processes in the lab, creating the starting conditions, and creating very complex, sometimes things beyond their understanding, already. |
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#98
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playing wrote:
On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:26:24 GMT, "Troy" wrote: playon wrote in message . .. On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 01:04:37 GMT, "Troy" wrote: its got nothing to do with recovery Yes, it does. I certainly hope to hell someone pulls the plug on me if I was in that situation. Al This is exactly the problem that I have with this case.There is no plug to pull.I would want them to pull the plug on me also.....problem is she is not on life support.If she was on life support pulling the plug would mean death in minutes not days of starving to death.It would be more humain to put her to sleep like a dog than to starve her to death. Do you really want your government deciding your fate when you can't ?.....I sure don't Exactly... that's why the govt should leave it the hell alone and the person she trusted, her husband, make the decision. And polls show that 80% of Americans think that congress should butt out of the scene on this one. Al This is the reason we have a congress. Judges are starting to think they are gods. It's not their job to make law. |
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#99
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Liam Slider wrote: We don't have to understand the entire emergent process, just enough of the processes that lead up to it in order duplicate it. That's the beautiful thing about emergent processes. Hell, there are scientists working with emergent processes in the lab, creating the starting conditions, and creating very complex, sometimes things beyond their understanding, already. Agreed, but in the case of a brain there is a remarkable amount of initial structure and restructuring mechanism specified by the genome. Again, due to problems of scale I doubt that we can understand and replicate that supporting structure to the degree necessasary for a sufficiently similar phenomenon to emerge. I don't think we've accomplished that with biological systems comprised of tens of neurons which exhibit complex behavior. To think that we could do so with a brain having 10^12 to 10^13 times that many neurons seems really unlikely to me. Bob -- "Things should be described as simply as possible, but no simpler." A. Einstein |
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#100
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flatfish+++ wrote: I'm not saying Terri isn't a vegetable, I am saying that death is final In the same way that it is to ppl on Death Row ( especially blacks ) convicted on flawed evidence. Funny that the US Right seeks to 'save' a vegetable whilst happy to fry ******s. Graham |
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#101
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Garf wrote: I don't wish to sound rude or heartless, but what does this have to do with audio. Nothing - but topical subjects invariably raise their heads here. besides what business is it of anybody else but the family. I most certainly agree. It's become a cheap media feeding frenzy. The media should have some *respect* for the family and back off - but that doesn't make 'good tv' does it ? Try judging the ethics of the broadcasters instead of the participants in this unfortunate scenario ! Graham |
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#102
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This is the reason we have a congress.
Judges are starting to think they are gods. It's not their job to make law. No, it's obviously people like George Bush's job to make law. Ooops, no it's not. He's the executive branch. But that didn't stop him from initiating and signing into law a bill in 1999 that helped kill a 5 month old baby within the first week of Terri's feeding tube removal, primarily because the child's parents were unable to pay for extreme measures necessary to keep the baby alive. So George helped take the decision off the parent's back and place it with the guys who want to make money - the hospital administration. The point is that regardless of whether it's a conservative judge or a liberal judge, on the overall they are not activisitic, but rather cogniscent of changing mores and values of society and apply, as per the lattitude allowed by the Constitution, precidence in law to legal decisions of today. The fact should be seen clearly by the fact that two separate regional federal Court of Appeals decided that Florida state's decision was the correct one and that Congress did not have the right to tell the judiciary how to respond to a specific position. And the US Supreme Court agreed, twice in a little over one week that the lower court's decision was indeed the correct one. Congress cannot pass a law that tells the judiciary how to respond to a specific case. If it did, the US Supreme Court would have ruled differently. Nowhere in the Constitution is this abuse of power by Congress allowed, but the politically motivated religious right and the majority party decided that they had the ability to bypass the Constitution. In the first US Court of Appeals decision of 2-1 even seemed not to express the Court's outrage and where a majority of justices were conservative appointees, they came back with a full judicial vote of 10-2. This is not activism on the part of the judges, but rather another facet of the misleading call to republican talking points of an executive branch that wants totalitarian power under any guise it can get it. A one party system is what they seek, and if you truly believe that judges can't see the fallacies of political motivations by these people, you haven't been paying attention. Look, no one in the world wanted Terri to die, but it's rather big headed of anyone to think they have the right to step into someone else's life and start making decisions for them. And somewhere close to 30 judges heard or reviewed the case and the decision was always clear to them. Plus these types of decisions take place all the time, but this particular occurance of a particularly bad experience for all concerned became a false piety pretense for politically motivated diatribes of the right to lifers who, with the next breath still maintain it's perfectly ok to have state sponsored killing of convicted felons, of which over 1% of those on death row have already been proven innocent. So there's no reason to believe these guys have some higher moral calling. They only have political expediency and cache on their minds. How else if they are so bent on keeping Terri alive over her wishes when they won't expend one iota of effort to make certain that absolutely no person be murdered by the state and could be innocent. How many innocent people have died at the hands of George Bush's gubernatorial administration, where Alberto Gonzales only gave him compulsory information of little content as to possible innocence of scheduled executions, even when there was mitigating circumstances or even exculpitory evidence? As far as Congress, remember, they are OUR REPRESENTATIVES and SHOULD pay attention to the polls because this next interim election may show some serious changes for Congress not paying attention to what their constituents want. -- Roger W. Norman SirMusic Studio |
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#103
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flatfish+++ wrote:
[snipped lots of garbage] Please, this is an international newsgroup, NOT LOCAL US!!!! Anyway, the lady is now dead (legally), so please drop this topic! FYI, this topic do not belong to these newsgroups at all. Next time you want to blame the American government (and I'll agree, they should be blamed for a lot of things during the past 20 years), please find the correct news group(s)!!! |
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