comment on intrinsic information

Regards Searle I respond that a number corresponds to a wide variety of things, not just a number, if analyzed in the right way within it may lay a picture, a sound, music, video, writings, etc or multiple simultaneously. This is intrinsic information, no one put it there, it is simply an aspect of this number. The feeling of understanding, may simply be something that lay within certain numbers, and as an aspect of these will be present wherever the number is present. Thus Consciousness would be a kind of intrinsic information that exists at the same time as the numerical information(just like a stored written poem exists within an encrypted binary sequence even if one were unable to decrypt it, it simply is part of the number and exists occupying the same exact space it does and will be present wherever this sequence appears).

Now regards the idea that computers can’t accomplish what man can or better, we need to assume that the brain can perform a noncomputational operation that allows it to do so. We must assume that there must be some special property of the universe, that somehow allows this. We must also say that while doing so, this special property cannot increase the computational power of a computer, or else hypercomputation would be physically possible.

Given that the brain is a machine, we must assume that if we designed a new biological thinking conscious machine from the ground up, some aspect of our design must tap this special property. But what would constitute it? As far as is known, consciousness does not depend on the exact molecular composition of the brain, I see no reason why different functionally equivalent neurotransmitter molecules and receptor proteins wouldn’t also produce consciousness. If evolution had happened to use different molecules or the proteins used where different, I honestly think it implausible to suggest the resulting organism wouldn’t exhibit consciousness if all the related changes where functionally equivalent.

That said toassume impossibility of computer consciousness we would also have to assume that digital physics is impossible. That there is some inherent property of the world that is not informational in nature. Keep in mind, that the brain does not have direct access to the world, all the information that enters the brain is action potentials and the same, in kind, from all sense except in a statistical way, that is yes or no, digital information. IF there is some special property to the universe for consciousness it somehow extracts qualia from digital information not from reality. So what sort of property could take in digital information and somehow its procedure generate noncomputable states that result in digital information being outputted. Keep in mind that within the brain, that is between brain areas, the information exchanged is also digital in nature, action potentials.-link

nice talk on suspended animation advancements

Comment on this video regarding the apparent death argument:
The debaters comment on apparent death hypothesis at one point, but the rebuttal is 1)most scholars do not agree with apparent death?  2.) The romans were very good at killing and they seem to have verified that he was dead.

But this is simply not a sound counter-argument, the arguments brought indicating that even modern day physicians sometimes fail to discern true point of death was not elaborated upon and is far too strong to dismiss.   It is not that they always don't properly do diagnosing procedures, it is that some people can have undetectable vital signs and still be alive and still fail most reasonable ways to verify death.    So how could a roman soldier distinguish between someone having undetectable vital signs  and someone truly dead?  The answer is they can't, so they can't really verify that someone is truly dead at all.... their verification may as well not have occurred as it will always fail in these cases.

We also know that these undetectable vital signs can occur after seemingly fatal accidents and survival can occur without medical intervention(after all they were declared dead), and at the same time judging from the video it seems some people have survived being crucified for much longer periods of time, indicating that it is possible that should someone show undetectable vital signs early on in a crucifixion they could be erroneously declared dead and easily survive.    Why most scholars would dismiss such a realistic possibility out of hand, is either due to ignorance of modern cases(which would also be erroneously verified as dead by romans), ignorance of the details( e.g. undetectable vital signs), or bias to presume that a supernatural explanation is much more likely than a natural one.

On objective moral values

The problem of knowing objective moral values, is that the idea of obtaining them either from divine commands in ancient texts or from our moral compass is not sound.      Our moral compass is the product of evolution, and just as  we can't even say our senses are an exact objective representation of the external world as they're subject to illusions so too can't we say that our moral compass somehow matches exactly with any possible objective moral values that may exist.    These morals we have are simply rules that confer reproductive advantage to agents within a societal species.   As for ancient texts, without substantial evidence to back them up(extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims of such absolute authority), there is simply no valid reason to believe they offer any truth.

We have no REAL way of knowing which if any objective moral values actually exist.   Posit for example that we use artificial selection to cause humans to eventually become intrinsically immoral(by our standards) at least in some of these moral rules, and we provide them with fake ancient texts.   These people will have a wrong moral compass and wrong ancient texts, from our point of view.   For all we know we ourselves have been the subject of such an experiment from another entity or species.

As for god being intrinsically moral and good, and his godness making these properties absolutely correct and beyond contention, that is also unfounded.   Nothing about being God makes his morality absolute or correct unless you start by defining him as having absolutely correct morality as part of his definition from the start.   Now even if we assume that God has absolute correct morality and goodness as part of his definition(by basically assuming these to be so, that is that these are correct and absolute properties), we have no way to know what exactly classifies as TRUE GOODNESS nor absolute correct morality from an objective point of view, neither ancient texts nor our moral compass provide us with an objective way to define what is truly good or morally correct.  As previously mentioned, there is no way to connect these(moral compass, ancient texts) to absolute divine realm or entity, nor are they immune to corruption either by man, natural selection or artificial selection. 

No way to say that our notions of goodness and morality as we apply to the definition of god, actually correspond to any true goodness and true morality that may exist and be properties of a true god defined as truly good and truly moral, a species morally corrupted by say artificial selection might just apply erroneous notions of goodness and morality to a god and say these are the true properties of a true god defined as truly good and moral, but their corruption would show they've a false definition of god, goodness and morality... for all we know phenomena like natural selection might have provided us with corrupted intuitive notions regarding morality, goodness, and god.

nice quote

synthetic biology, the ultimate factory and computing substrate-d.s.

News interview regarding bowhead genome

Bowhead whale genome sequenced

A whale that can live over 200 years with little evidence of age-related disease may provide untapped insights into how to live a long and healthy life. Researchers present in a new report the complete bowhead whale genome and identify key differences compared to other mammals. Alterations in bowhead genes related to cell division, DNA repair, cancer, and aging may have helped increase its longevity and cancer resistance.-link

A mammal that appears to live for multiple centuries,and some have said may exhibit negligible senescence, has been sequenced.    This data will help elucidate what modifications are necessary to attain extreme longevity.