Originally posted by humy
How would you define the word 'supernatural' ?

I'd look up definitions. This one shows up first on google search but doesn't give the source:

adj
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.

supernatural is just nature we don't understand yet
apathist
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Originally posted by Suzianne
Wow, this topic really took off since I was in here last. I really didn't expect it to do that. I did expect the crowd here to blow it off as "unscientific", as in "It's not in MY experience, therefore it doesn't exist", but I didn't expect it to devolve into "Yes, it does", "No, it doesn't".

(I know there's a joke in there somewhere about nerds finding religion, but it's early, so it is escaping me...)

Do we believe in devolution?
"Yes, we do!"
"No, we don't!"
"Yes, we do!"
"No, we don't!"

Originally posted by Suzianne
Wow, this topic really took off since I was in here last. I really didn't expect it to do that. I did expect the crowd here to blow it off as "unscientific", as in "It's not in MY experience, therefore it doesn't exist", but I didn't expect it to devolve into "Yes, it does", "No, it doesn't"....

I've managed to learn something from this thread.

Originally posted by apathist
I've managed to learn something from this thread.

And what is that?

Originally posted by sonhouse
If we downloaded our brains and all our thoughts and a duplicate of our curiosity, intelligence, knowledge and morality then a robot made to look like me would be pretty much indistinguishable from me. It would not be ME though. Like if I die, I would not all of a sudden go WHOH, that was strange, I thought I just died but here I am again.

If I died and th ...[text shortened]... ge, it would not feel the possible pain of my death and I would not jump into the mind of the robot.

The idea (expressed in this thread) that Whether the robot would be YOU or not is really a matter of perspective and very much a judgement call. always trips me out. Either it is a fundamentalist view based on ideology rather than on reality and experience, or the author is actually a p zombie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

Originally posted by chaney3
And what is that?

Nothing on the subject so far.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well just as there is no soul, there is also no YOU. YOU is not a physical thing, but rather an ethereal concept. Whether the robot would be YOU or not is really a matter of perspective and very much a judgement call.
The atoms that constitute what you think of as you, are not the same atoms as yesterday.

The YOU is a complex matrix of neurons and not some supernatural aspect. It would be arrogant beyond belief to think humans so special as to have a soul while the rest of Earthy life forms do not.

If it ever were possible to exactly duplicate our brains in a robot, copy the brain to a robot, and the robot looked like us, people could think that robot is the person but of course the person is in the original body and the two are totally separate, especially considering the divergence of personality after the download, where two people would have different thought patterns as soon as they were downloaded.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The YOU is a complex matrix of neurons and not some supernatural aspect. It would be arrogant beyond belief to think humans so special as to have a soul while the rest of Earthy life forms do not.

If it ever were possible to exactly duplicate our brains in a robot, copy the brain to a robot, and the robot looked like us, people could think that robot is ...[text shortened]... ownload, where two people would have different thought patterns as soon as they were downloaded.

You seem to contradict yourself. First you claim that the YOU is really just a complex physical pattern then you insist that it has a special property beyond the physical pattern.

Originally posted by sonhouse
It would be arrogant beyond belief to think humans so special as to have a soul while the rest of Earthy life forms do not.

All dogs go to heaven.

Originally posted by twhitehead
You seem to contradict yourself. First you claim that the YOU is really just a complex physical pattern then you insist that it has a special property beyond the physical pattern.

You misrepresent. He said The YOU is a complex matrix of neurons. Neurons are instantiated. Copy the pattern all you want, and the YOU stays right where it was in the first place.

It's interesting that you consider this to be a special supernatural property.

Originally posted by apathist
All dogs go to heaven.

what about butterflies? mosquitoes? lizards? whales? dolphins? gorillas, dinosaurs? trilobites? pigeons? nematodes? amoebas? the stark raving mad secret experimental chimpanzee-human hybrids?

Originally posted by humy
what about butterflies? mosquitoes? lizards? whales? dolphins? gorillas, dinosaurs? trilobites? pigeons? nematodes? amoebas? the stark raving mad secret experimental chimpanzee-human hybrids?

And trees, grass, mold, germs. Not sure about viruses. Ah what the hell, let them in too.

It's the biosphere. The living earth.

Originally posted by apathist
A post or two above yours, wildgrass gives a much better definition for spirituality.

Btw, concepts such as 'free will' and 'spirituality' were around long before christianity, and it sucks to let them co-opt the words.

So "it sucks" to let Christianity use words the way they are defined?

Using words like "co-opt", claiming that Christians are somehow claiming exclusive use of the words (and this is demonstrably untrue), shows some bias under your hem.

Originally posted by apathist
And trees, grass, mold, germs. Not sure about viruses. Ah what the hell, let them in too.

It's the biosphere. The living earth.

Gaia, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, does not exist.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well just as there is no soul, there is also no YOU. YOU is not a physical thing, but rather an ethereal concept. Whether the robot would be YOU or not is really a matter of perspective and very much a judgement call.
The atoms that constitute what you think of as you, are not the same atoms as yesterday.

Funny that you believe there is some "ethereal concept" called YOU, but, at the same time, you deny there is such a thing as the "soul". That "ethereal concept" you speak of, IS the soul. I guess the word "soul" just carries too much religious baggage for you to be comfortable with.