Scarlett, Thanks. Don't skip Knt's discussion too. He has elaborated some of my points better and more beautifully. Besides, he has meticulously replied to rrirala's major points. *** *** *** *** Knt, I am enjoying the discussion. I hope rrirala comes back to resume the discussion. Needless to say, we both share the same scientific view, approach and temperament on the topics being discussed. There is one particular statement in posting that I would like to talk about more. >There are innumerable facts about which scientists have >no idea, but the primary reason behind this is that science >and technology will hardly ever be so advanced as to >allow us to become cognizant of all these facts. Clearly, you are talking about technological limit here. There is one gentleman who has talked about very different kind of limit, I would call it a logicological limit for being cognizant about 'God', which he defines as something of an 'unknowable' nature. Here is a relevant excerpt from an exchange between Gokuljee and I on this theme. - http://www.sajha.com/archives/openthread.cfm?threadid=13146&dsn=sajhaarchive2003#117155 There is no doubt that an atheist's world is cold, lonely and scary as compared to a believer's world. Perhaps for this reason, human sought mysticism very early in his civilization. Deepak Chopra says human mind is hard-wired to believe in God. I think there is some truth in it. I think it derives from our fear, our need to feel safe and secure. And with this understanding, I am totally in peace with believer's God. As for myself, I am still in search for a good or rather a noble or at least an unselfish reason to surrender to God. I know surrendering is giving your 'self'. So, isn't it an unselfish act by definition ? No, it is not. The expectation or at least the anticipation of something good happening to myself when I do so makes it a selfish act. But before all that nitty-gritty I must know more about Him. And Gokul ji, you have been scaring me by using this word 'unknowability' whenever you talk about Divinity or it's manifestations, supposing human mind is one of them. I have some questions, doubt and curiosity about this notion of 'unknowability'. Let me try to put them here briefly. My first question is, is there any basis, apart from a hypothetical possibility, for the existence of the unknowables ? I know it is paradoxical question because if we *know* it exists or may exist, then it is already not any more unknowable. So, it appears to me that we will never ever know anything about the unknowables. I also speculate that among the unknowables, those who have consciousness, will never *know* about us too. As you should have noticed, I am using 'unknowable' not to mean 'undetectable' and certainly not 'unpredictable'. Undetectability would be tool-dependent whereas 'unknowability' is tool-independent. And 'unpredictable' goes to the realm of statistics. You had used Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in similar context somewhere. But I suppose Heisenberg's uncertaninty which is about the precision does not lead to any notion of Unknowability. Or does it ? ****** >If human mind is so simple, then can it understand itself? >If human mind is so complex, then can it understand itself? You have asked a brain-teasing question, Gokul ji. My answer is Yes and No. No is straight forward. Because mind is not an independent entity, it is simply a data processing activity of an active brain. Yes in the sense of understanding about it by simulation, education etc., which I suppose you did not mean. Although you did not mean it, let me share an ordinary but interesting enough experience of mine about what I meant by understanding about one's mind by simulation of your own mind. Until I entered into the world of politics and got corrupted, I was the least aggressive boy among my friends. My maternal grandmother even called me a Buddha once ! Anyway, I never initiated fight with anybody. When I had to fight, argue or show my anger, my person used to get split into two- one used to be a mere observer while the other used to engage in the business at hand. So I used to see myself live doing things, my face, it's reaction, it's intensity etc. This often used to moderate my reaction, which was good, if I was doing less desirable things. However, this strange self-consciousness used to occur even when I was doing nicer things. I suppose this is more or less normal to everybody. Anyway, I learned a great deal about myself by this way. Back to mind, you mentioned Artificial Neural Network. I did not know much about it before, except that the little bioinformatics I use sometimes to analyze my DNA sequence employs this method among others. Now I am curious to learn more about it. Of course the researchers of the seventies that you mentioned hoped too much too soon. But wouldn't you agree, in every new decade we will be learning more and more about functioning of our brain and building smarter and smarter machines ? Never mind if we never ever be able to build a machine with a feeling and intellect of a human mind. In any case, nobody except we human being ourselves has told us what we can or can not do. Therefore, there is no reason to set a limit before knowing there is one. ____