eLBe wrote:i would dispute that a computer could ever work like a human brain.
there are too many level our brain work on.
how can you programme feelings, likes/dislikes, abstract thought?
and to a greater extent, without a complete understading of how our brains work (which are still very far from
) you cannot recreate exactly.
on the point of another civilisation or us already in such a simulation it brings no serious questions, life is life, i can consider who I am, that is as real as I need to be, simulation or not.
tbh, as far as a theory goes it can't be disproved, so scientifically it can stand as a truth.
"life is life?" What does that mean? I can't agree with you that because one can consider something, that makes the something 'real'. Yes, that 'something' may be a reality for that one person at that one moment in time and place, but do people truly want to live in such a limited perspective [even after being given the opportunity to consider other 'somethings' and other perspectives]? There is a Buddhist adage that goes 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him'. You haven't possibly become so enlightened about life, have you? Truly?
I have to disagree with your point that our brain has 'too many levels' to understand, and to subsequently manipulate. Consider the many neurological discoveries we have made as a species in the past 100 or so years. I'm most certainly not sure how the 'levels' or 'connections' which make up our neurophysiology could or would be programmed, but I am open to the possibility that some other entity has considered/discovered this programming. However I am also a believer in free will, which I haven't necessarily been able to incorporate into this schema.
I'm not going to satiate myself with beliefs that humans are the most evolved and capable life-form in the universe/galaxy. There are infinite possibilities.
Parson wrote:Socrates says in the Republic that people who take the sun-lit world of the senses to be good and real are living pitifully in a den of evil and ignorance. Socrates admits that few climb out of the den, or cave of ignorance, and those who do, not only have a terrible struggle to attain the heights, but when they go back down for a visit or to help other people up, they find themselves objects of scorn and ridicule.
According to Socrates, physical objects and physical events are "shadows" of their ideal or perfect forms, and exist only to the extent that they instantiate the perfect versions of themselves. Just as shadows are temporary, inconsequential epiphenomena produced by physical objects, physical objects are themselves fleeting phenomena caused by more substantial causes, the ideals of which they are mere instances.
this
Although I think you already know how I feel about the idea of 'evil', 'good' vs 'bad'. It's possible that Socrates' 'evil' might have had a different connotation than the 'evil' of what we know today. I could be wrong, though. I haven't studied enough of his philosophies to not be talking out of my ass regarding what he meant by this.