Identity (Identity)

by David Turell , Monday, September 28, 2009, 19:49 (5533 days ago) @ xeno6696


> > http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/
> 
> One major criticism:
> 
> we believe the problem is not computer power and ability to program parallel machines, but rather our nearly total ignorance about what computations are actually carried out by the brain. Our view is that computers will never equal our best abilities until we can understand the brain's design principles and the mathematical operations employed by neural circuits well enough to build machines that incorporate them.
> 
> I contend that we will never "understand the brain's design principles" without a trial-and-error process of literally trying to build a brain.-It will be trial and error, with 100 billion neurons, self-controlled, with million of miles of axons and dendrites and who knows how many synapses. I admire your optimism but I'm still with Penrose.- 
> I chuckle a bit at this line too: Religion drives science and it matters. -I really intended for you to ignore C. Hunter. I know how nutty he is, but he is bright and does turn up interesting articles for me to review. The moral is: he supplies good stuff to study. He interprets it his way I and I go my way. - 
> On an interesting sidenote, you've used the Einstein quote before about science without religion being lame. Here's something pulled from an old issue of Skeptic:
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> I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being. 
> 
> - Albert Einstein, letter to Guy H. Raner Jr., Sept. 28, 1949, quoted by Michael R. Gilmore in Skeptic, Vol. 5, No. 2 -Great comment from Albert, and I think it means the same as my brief quote that I use. He was an agnostic, but interestingly, Israel offerd him the first presidency when that country started. He was a strong supporter of Israel but did not want to be political.