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There are many rational reasons for a person to see these questions differently to you and plenty of explanations of those reasons around. You may disagree with

There are many rational reasons for a person to see these questions differently to you and plenty of explanations of those reasons around. You may disagree with them, but to claim that differing views must spring from phobias or other irrational mental states rather from a different assessment of the evidence is baseless ad-hominem. I would strongly recommend avoiding statements of that form in general as they achieve nothing good. I could make a similarly disrepectful and unsupported claim about the mental state of people who believe most human creative activity is simply recycling learned ideas, and we could spend some time flinging insults at each other, but why?

donatj 4y ago
Hear me out. In the most basic sense, to believe the mind a box that can output things not based on input is inherently to believe it "irrational" in the truest sense of the word. It is to believe the mind to be non-functionally pure[1] in the programmatic sense. Output based somehow other than purely on input. And if that's the case, the question is where does that irrationality come from? A random number generator? Any developer knows there's no such thing as actual random. It's all either list based or based environmental aspects. I don't see room for an argument to be made that the human mind isn't just mixing ideas/the environment that doesn't rely on some form of magical thinking. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_function
- omnicognate 4y ago
  This is a profoundly counterproductive way to approach a debate and I won't engage with it.
  - donatj 4y ago
    I don't see how coming at a debate from first principles is somehow counter productive? Shining light on the unsupported parts of the other person's argument is step one of debate. I contend there is no proof of a machine capable of creation purely from the ether.
- dinkumthinkum 4y ago
  The first paragraph is just a non sequitar anyway.
  - donatj 4y ago
    Care to explain?
- yyyk 4y ago
  >In the most basic sense, to believe the mind a box that can output things not based on input is inherently to believe it "irrational" in the truest sense of the word. No, it believes that the mind has an internal state. We have many physical cases of state which is in practice undecidable. Moreover, in many formulation of quantum physics one can have a state which is unreachable even in theory - not just hidden variable style QM theory, there are ways to get unreachable state even in 'regular' QM[0]. >And if that's the case, the question is where does that irrationality come from? The universe itself. The linked PDF - you might be familiar with the author, he features often on HN - provides one method this is possible. Though, I'm not saying this is true, I suspect it may not be. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159 https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159

donatj 4y ago

Hear me out. In the most basic sense, to believe the mind a box that can output things not based on input is inherently to believe it "irrational" in the truest sense of the word. It is to believe the mind to be non-functionally pure[1] in the programmatic sense. Output based somehow other than purely on input. And if that's the case, the question is where does that irrationality come from? A random number generator? Any developer knows there's no such thing as actual random. It's all either list based or based environmental aspects. I don't see room for an argument to be made that the human mind isn't just mixing ideas/the environment that doesn't rely on some form of magical thinking. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_function

omnicognate 4y ago
This is a profoundly counterproductive way to approach a debate and I won't engage with it.
- donatj 4y ago
  I don't see how coming at a debate from first principles is somehow counter productive? Shining light on the unsupported parts of the other person's argument is step one of debate. I contend there is no proof of a machine capable of creation purely from the ether.
dinkumthinkum 4y ago
The first paragraph is just a non sequitar anyway.
- donatj 4y ago
  Care to explain?
yyyk 4y ago
>In the most basic sense, to believe the mind a box that can output things not based on input is inherently to believe it "irrational" in the truest sense of the word. No, it believes that the mind has an internal state. We have many physical cases of state which is in practice undecidable. Moreover, in many formulation of quantum physics one can have a state which is unreachable even in theory - not just hidden variable style QM theory, there are ways to get unreachable state even in 'regular' QM[0]. >And if that's the case, the question is where does that irrationality come from? The universe itself. The linked PDF - you might be familiar with the author, he features often on HN - provides one method this is possible. Though, I'm not saying this is true, I suspect it may not be. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159 https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159