You keep talking about "glitches". This term makes no sense within an evolutionary mindset. Once again, if religion really is a byproduct of an evolutionary path, there is absolutely nothing that says it would ever happen again.

In fact, if we found alien life and they were exactly like us including there desire for a personal creator, I think that should give you pause. If not you are being dishonest.

It would not give me pause if their desire stemmed from the same causes as it does in humans. If aliens explained their religion to us, and it was like nothing we've ever heard, I'm pretty sure that would be cause for atheist high-fiving. If it was all about some guy on Earth who died for their sins, I'd probably go find a local church.

You seem to imply religion is a unique cognitive mechanism, and it is not.

Pattern recognition is a perfectly fine explanation for religion, and any concept of intelligence we humans can (as of yet) grasp relies on pattern recognition. I can't see pattern recognition to be some trait that would be surprising given evolved intelligence - heck it is what most people indirectly mean when they say intelligence.

Gambler's fallacy and superstition are pretty much identical in how they work.

Given that natural selection is a nonrandom process, it could very well be the case that these useful accidents are inevitable byproducts of an evolving primitive intelligence. For example, I can't imagine hyper-pattern seeking not being part of the cognitive process of modeling reality. (This of course is an argument from incredulity so I don't expect anyone to take it seriously. This is just my speculation) Just as it seems inevitable to me that social creatures evolving in a scarce resource environment will evolve a tribal morality, there may be strong selection pressures shaping primitive brains towards all these useful (at least at one time) glitches.

If you actually believe humans are predisposed to be atheists then you must be extremely ignorant of cognitive science/human psychology. (I mean we're talking more ignorant than me. That's pretty ****ing extreme!)

I hope this FYP highlights your mistake here. If not click here to read about a host of other glitches. Our brains have been designed to help us propagate our DNA. They were not designed to approximate reality as best as possible. This is why we have so many cognitive glitches. This is why human intuition is so piss-poor. As LuckyMe has mentioned before, this is why we see the train tracks coming together even though they never do.

Assuming the Darwinian algorithm is universal, we can expect that other life forms out there will also be handsomely rewarded for out-replicating their neighbors. Since replication is the top priority of natural selection, NOT accuratley assessing reality, we should expect other primitive intelligent lifeforms (i.e. those who do not yet possess the technology to upgrade themselves) to have many glitches too.


If "we" find alien life, we'll be so advanced and glitch-free, we'll completely understand why the primitive (relative to us) aliens have a desire for a personal creator. If alien life, advanced enough to find us, desires a personal creator, it will more than give me pause. It will shock the **** out of me.

An evolved God can also be one that has eternally existed in its present perfect form. You just have to change the way you think about time.

This is B-theory of time right? Is that where the smart money is? This stuff is over my head, but as a betting man, I'm willing to throw my hat in the ring with the smart guys.

When I was a kid my dad would often talk about how if we kept evolving some day we would be Gods ourselves and he suggested that perhaps that's where God came from. I've always liked this story, and I've noticed you like it too, given your omega thread. If I were a believer again, this is the type of God I would believe in. All the other gods humans have created, including the h0mo-hating, baby killing Christian God, seem so primitive and naive compared to this emerging god conception.

I wonder who was the first to come up with the emerging god hypothesis? Also, thanks for the Isaac Asimov link. What a wonderful story. All religious people should read that. If they believed in that type of God, I would be ok with that.

Why do you think this should be a problem?

Rather than deal with whether that is a problem, everyone here should be talking about the two examples that Jib said would be a problem. Do you agree with him about that?

?

No I don't agree because I think its extremely unlikely either will happen.

But if they did it wouldn't bother me.

By hypothesizing that either of them is convincing overlooks that God guides our spiritual processes. Just because we manage to simulate a look alike doesn't mean we captured God's purposes in his creation and we still haven't captured his interaction with us.

Also science keeps turning up more functions and complex interrelationships in the brain so that its possible we could think we made an exact replica then along comes science to add a new step and the copy won't include it.

My opinion is your OP doesn't adequately describe the soul or capture the process of religious belief.

I don't think you can reduce it to matter to get an answer. You're still lacking the divine spark.

Sentience and the "divine breath" are two different things.

Also since sentience is the ability to perceive subjectively it presupposes a being prior to subjective awareness but what you're talking about doing reverses that order.

Do you think it would be an issue for theists if we could create a situation where you would, when observing two specimens (one human, one AI), be unable to ascertain through any amount of interaction which one possessed a soul?

*bump*, hoping to get more theist responses

The www.thefreedictionary.com defines "theist" as one who believes in the existence of a god or gods. So by "Would this be a problem for theists?" I assume you mean, would this somehow disprove the existence of a god or gods.

I am a theist and I see no connection whatsoever. Perhaps you can enlighten me.

This quote refers to disproving the bible. A theist may or may not believe the bible, the koran, some other book etc. So I don't see how this quote specifically addresses the OP.

Did the OP really mean to ask, would this be a problem for bible-believing Christians? Again, what kind of problem? Disprove the bible?

More precision with terms, along with using some actual logical arguments (see http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...hew/logic.html on what it means to be logical) would be helpful.

I think he meant theists that believe consciousness has a supernatural element to it.

OK, I think I get it now. The Argument From Consciousness for the existence of God goes something like this:

1. Human consciousness exists.
2. Human consciousness can be explained by theism, but cannot be explained materialistically.
3. There is a fact that can only be explained by theism.
4. Therefore, God must exist.

This is an airtight argument. The question is whether the premises are true, particularly premise 2. The OP asks us to accept a hypothetical scenario in which humans create consciousness artificially. Clearly, if that were possible, then premise 2 would be shown to be false, since the inventors of such AI consciousness would have to use materialistic principles to build it.

More generally, the OP asks us to accept a hypothetical scenario in which the premise to an argument is false. Well, by definition, that would render the conclusion false. But so what? That's true of any argument for anything.

So to sum up:

1. The OP presents a hypothetical situation that neither validates nor invalidates the Argument From Consciousness. It merely suggests the obvious - that if one of the premises are invalid then the conclusion is false, even though the argument is sound.
2. The real issue is whether premise #2 is ACTUALLY (rather than hypothetically) true or, better stated, is at least as reasonable as its negative. I'm not familiar with any materialistic explanations for consciousness that are more convincing than theistic explanations but one could be discovered.
3. Even if any of the premises are proven false and, therefore, the conclusion, that simply invalidates the Argument From Consciousness for the existence of God. It does absolutely nothing to disprove the existence of God.

You've just narrowed down the question in the OP to, "is the argument from consciousness important to your belief in God."

Imo the OP is an easier way to ask the question.

This is not an airtight argument but a leap of faith on the part of the theist, there are many scientific theories for point 2. Why not just believe in them without any evidence? how do we know one theists viewpoint is correct when there are so many that explain human consciousness? Why cant I just make up an explanation for consciousness that sounds better than the theist one?

Theism explaining a theory does NOT equal the existence of God without taking a leap of faith

You don't seem to know what an argument is. Please see http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...hew/logic.html

This doesn't make sense. What are the theories? That's kind of the point. Aren't scientific theories based on evidence?

I'd like to hear one. If it sounds better, then one might be justified in thinking my argument's conclusion is invalid since you've shown that my premise #2 is not true. But you haven't provided a single explanation.

Why would theism explaining something logically require a leap of faith while non-theistic explanations would not require a leap of faith? Your comment is simply an assertion. You provide no proof of it whatsoever.

1. Consciousness exists
2. Consciousness can be explained by the belief that Hector the Almighty Midget Druid created Evil Cannibal Kittens whose hairballs formed consciousness, but can not be explained by the belief that all lifeforms are in fact delusional pebbles.
3. There is a fact that can only be explained by belief in Hector the Almighty Midget Druid and the creation of Evil Cannibal Kittens
4. Hector the Almighty Midget druid and Evil Cannibal Kittens exist.

of course not

it was created by a human, who was created by god

whats the problem?

Sorry for quoting my own post, but I just realized that this is a ripoff of Alvin Platinga. I hope he does not sue.

sepose we make an AI 1000 times smarter then us, what would it say when it wakes up? ''my name is god''.