The ghost in the machine

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Serge
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The ghost in the machine

Post by Serge » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:18 pm

This is an interesting commentary i have taken from the Hallindsey.org

The ghost in the machine

A team of American scientists has invented a machine that they say is capable of reading the human mind.

Well, maybe "mind" reading isn't exactly the right word; it is more a case of reading the brain. The human "mind" has been described as the "ghost in the machine" – it has no weight or substance, cannot be excised or implanted, but it exists within the human brain, somehow.

And "how" is what the scientist team is hoping to figure out. The machine uses Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI, to measure brain activity by monitoring changes in blood flow to different regions of the brain.

A test subject is hooked up to the machine and shown a series of images over a five-hour period while the MRI "maps" patterns that tell it how that person's brain decodes the information.

The next step involves using the decoder to predict the brain activity of the test subject when exposed to a new series of images. The system then matched their observed brain activity when they watched the new images to what the decoder predicted would be the reaction.

When using a set of 120 images, the software got it right nine out of 10 times. With 1,000 images, the accuracy was eight out of 10, which is way beyond the possibility of random chance.

For 120 images, if the software were to simply make random predictions, its success rate falls from 8 percent to under 1 percent. One of the scientists involved with the project predicts they may one day be able to apply the technology to reconstruct visual memories or dreams.

The technology may one day be used to help witnesses reconstruct details of an event by picking it out of their brain, or even as an aid to interrogation. Imagine being able to hook up an al-Qaida terrorist and read his brain like a laptop hard drive.

Of course, this also raises all kinds of ethical problems. If we perfect the technology for "reading" a brain, the next step is to improve on the hardware. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to envision equipment that can target someone's brain like an antenna and then transmit it like a TV signal.

A hundred years ago, Marconi discovered a way to read radio waves.

Today (if I wanted to), I could watch TV – on my cell phone.

For those searching for a reason to deny the existence of a Creator-God, the ability to scan a human "brain" is evidence that the mind is just a collection of electrical impulses translated into thought by a complex series of highly evolved neural receptors.

After all, they reason, if we can decode it, then it must be natural, rather than supernatural. That is a "chicken or the egg" argument. It was the human mind that was able to conceive of a machine that could read itself. And at best, it can only approximate thought by complicated guesswork. (Of course, then, there is the whole concept of "thought" remaining to be addressed.)

Granting the evolutionist's "random-chance-plus-unlimited-time-can produce-anything-theory," we are now asked to believe that this "scientific breakthrough" proves there is no need for a Creator-God.

Why? Because after billions of years of evolution, man has designed a machine that can almost approximate what a baby is capable of doing while still in the womb.

Wow! Talk about a leap of faith. The evolutionist has more faith than I do.

If anything, this is undeniable evidence of a Designer Who programmed the baby who grew up to design a machine that can almost approximate what he could do while he was still in the womb.

But at best, it is a collection of wires and sensors and cameras and gizmos that only highlight the fact that each of us is a complex creation, operated by what they call a "ghost in the machine" that man can never duplicate.

As for me, all this latest "breakthrough" really accomplishes is to prove what the Bible Psalmist already knew three thousand years ago:

"For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" (Psalms 139:13-14; 14:1)

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Post by sebastiaan56 » Sat Mar 15, 2008 6:38 am

I'll bite,

Serge this logic is disjointed, how does a machine that can decode electrical brain impulses relate to what a baby can do. What can the baby do? Can the baby read minds? As for how it proves 'God's" existence and debunks evolution there are some bits of the reasoning missing. Conversely how it proves evolution is also not established. Maybe this machine story is part of a larger research project. I understand that you are obsessed by this stuff and it makes sense to you but logical presentation will allow me to follow it.

These arguments BTW can be reversed very easily. Just because research hasnt eastablished a source for conciousness at the moment doesnt mean it wont. It just hasnt happened yet. Scientific research lives with "we dont know, lets find out" as an attitude rather then "My Bible Says therefore its unalterable truth" The leap of faith in proposing a creator god is the same, just on the other side of the ledger. The main difference is that scientific method allows testing and modification of hypothesis rather than a charge of apostasy because a mistranslated ancient book say so.

Here is a link to a press article. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7304 note that there has been no establishment of higher thought processes, merely "we have stimuli" and of course the mind control guys are having a great old time. http://www.netti.fi/~makako/mind/yu.txt
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Post by Serge » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:11 pm

sebastiaan56 wrote:I'll bite,

Serge this logic is disjointed, how does a machine that can decode electrical brain impulses relate to what a baby can do. What can the baby do? Can the baby read minds? As for how it proves 'God's" existence and debunks evolution there are some bits of the reasoning missing. Conversely how it proves evolution is also not established. Maybe this machine story is part of a larger research project. I understand that you are obsessed by this stuff and it makes sense to you but logical presentation will allow me to follow it.
First Sebastiaan, let me start by saying Hi to ya! :D

Well, the baby thing was there to show you that what secular man thinks took billions of years to evolve, God creates within 9 months in a mother's womb! :lol:

No but think a little bud, if your perceptions of reality have been biased by evolutionary thinking, your belief system is ancred on the false doctrines and premisces that you come from slime and that when you die, your corpse will return to slime and that from that perspective, if there is no God for you, you can become the self-policing agent of your universe and that if you allow things in your life that feel good then it's ok because you are the god of your own perceptions. That kind of perception is very dangerous and i'll tell ya why, it is because everyone who thinks that way can decide that this or that is good and interfere in a negative way in anyone else's sphere of activity without any sense of guilt because it is seen as good in their own eyes and great intolerance results from it in the long run. BTW, Do you love soul music friend?
sebastiaan56 wrote: These arguments BTW can be reversed very easily. Just because research hasnt eastablished a source for conciousness at the moment doesnt mean it wont. It just hasnt happened yet. Scientific research lives with "we dont know, lets find out" as an attitude rather then "My Bible Says therefore its unalterable truth" The leap of faith in proposing a creator god is the same, just on the other side of the ledger. The main difference is that scientific method allows testing and modification of hypothesis rather than a charge of apostasy because a mistranslated ancient book say so.
Oh and they did find the source and His name is Jesus and some scientists already know that because He gave a conscience to everyone on this small planet. BTW, how easy do you think it is to make a human being? i mean, if you first create the dust and gather it all in one spot and make a jar of clay out of it, install a conscience in that jar and make it think and speak...

For us impossible to do but that is how wonderfully made we are nonetheless and Intelligent Design has all the answers that you would need. the Ancient book is also the "guide" or instruction manual that was given to us so that we would not destry that wonderful and well built machine or vehicle that the human body is, you know, without following the instructions that were given by the manufacturer, we have a tendancy to destroy each other. Just like at communist Russia, they got the book out and Siberia was filled with corpses.
sebastiaan56 wrote: Here is a link to a press article. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7304 note that there has been no establishment of higher thought processes, merely "we have stimuli" and of course the mind control guys are having a great old time. http://www.netti.fi/~makako/mind/yu.txt
Of course not, their assumption is biased from the start, they think that they can explain everything by natural means just like every evolutionary thinker does but the basis on what it stands has no solidity and those who are having fun with that tecnology might just use it against you one day soon as another fancy tool of mind control because television is losing ground with the internet. There are those who want you to think that you and i are just evolved animals, that there is such a thing as natural selection applicable to humans as well as animals and since you, as an ordinary citizen, is seen by them like cattle, they can do whatever they want with you because they think they own you. It feels right in their own eyes and call it "population control" just do a quick search on this subject and you'll be amazed to see that the freedoms you thinkyou have is just a stubbern illusion...

As for God...try to see it this way, you're walking in the middle of the road and a large 18 wheeler is coming your way at great speed but closing your eyes and denying it's existence would be futile, it is still going to hit you hard no matter if you believe in the truck or not.

You got every right to deny the existence of God even if there are countless proofs out there to verify and i do respect that Sebastiaan, i live and let live, i'm just the friend who cares even if what i bring on here bothers some. One thing though, there is an event in the Bible that is called the rapture or taking away of the believers and if that happens in the next day, weeks, months or even the next few years, who knows? but if it does happen, then everybody will know that what this "skillully designed" Sacred and Holy book was not made by the contrivances of mere men but that they were driven to write it from the inspiration of a Higher source Being and that, over a period of several thousands of years by 40 different men apart from each other.

Your friend Serge
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sebastiaan56
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Post by sebastiaan56 » Tue Mar 18, 2008 10:32 am

Serge,

It blows me away how far apart our world views are. There is so little we seem to agree on. Our basic assumptions about reality are based on totally different premises. This leads to discussions that never actually address the points proposed, fascinating stuff. Neither of us shows the slightest sign of shifting either.....

Ive forgotten where I read the quote but it goes like "mankind is unique in its vanity that it believes the current generation will be the last". Sums up the sons of Abraham and the Judeo Christian prophetic tradition for me. Its a real pity these short sighted pigs rule the world, this could be such a wonderful place to live.
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Post by Serge » Tue Mar 18, 2008 3:10 pm

sebastiaan56 wrote: Serge,

It blows me away how far apart our world views are. There is so little we seem to agree on. Our basic assumptions about reality are based on totally different premises. This leads to discussions that never actually address the points proposed, fascinating stuff. Neither of us shows the slightest sign of shifting either.....
Sebastiaan, yes you're right, our premisces our very diametricly opposed, i'd say that my standing firm may seem to you offensive and that the views i bring forth are exclusives in and of themselves, i have accepted these views by faith first but then went on a sort of personal investigation that just yells the veracity of such claims that i proclaim to be as "Absolute Truth" which differs significantly from what you or "the world" views as "relative truths" ie that you have you're truth, they have their truths, everybody has a truth's truth which is the way of the world but Jesus' kingdom is not of this world...
sebastiaan56 wrote:Ive forgotten where I read the quote but it goes like "mankind is unique in its vanity that it believes the current generation will be the last". Sums up the sons of Abraham and the Judeo Christian prophetic tradition for me. Its a real pity these short sighted pigs rule the world, this could be such a wonderful place to live.
Assumptions Sebastiaan, just assumptions you've made without a real serious homework that you are making here, atrocities were made by religious fanatics who proclaimed that they were Christians yes, but they were not following Christ, they were following a religion just like New Age or Evolution is IE CREATED BY MAN'S IDEOLOGIES.

Christ is real and far from being a human ideology though.

A real Christian follows Christ in His footsteps, forgives and prays for his enemies, i wonder what these people were that did the Inquisitions and wars in the Name of religion but they were not Christians.

To be and live with Christ has nothing to do with the political nor the religion OF MAN, it is to live a personal relationship with Christ and learn from Him directly.

Serge
Jesus, family, friends, guitar and mandolin : D

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