Identity (Identity)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 20:38 (5532 days ago) @ David Turell

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.
> -Nonsense here, digital logic requires none of those silly dendrites, axons and synapses. Electronic representations are more than sufficient. -> 
> > 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:
> > 
> > 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.-Well, you can take the God out of the Jew, but you'll never take the Jew from the Jew. Just as I wish the best for my Nordic heritage, so did he and his Jewish one. Actually, have you ever taken time to read some of the writings from the Zohar? Some excellent philosophy and theology came out of that monster. (I've only read selections.)

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"