hey science

[Hayabusa Rider]

And I don't have to tell you why I'm glad one of us gets his knowledge from this century. But I will anyway.

Heh, I don't mind

Still a good read.

One doesn't have to like Godel, but there's not been any, not one, suggestion that he was wrong, quite the opposite. I'm not sure why anyone would believe that all things can possibly known since human minds are obviously finite. To actually understand them? Of course we won't. It's not shameful thing.

 

[Perknose]

Ha! Pretty much just got done reading this before I stumbled sideways into this thread.

Take again the case of color and wavelength. Wavelength is a real, physical phenomenon; color is the brain’s approximate, slightly incorrect model of it. In the attention schema theory, attention is the physical phenomenon and awareness is the brain’s approximate, slightly incorrect model of it. In neuroscience, attention is a process of enhancing some signals at the expense of others. It’s a way of focusing resources. Attention: a real, mechanistic phenomenon that can be programmed into a computer chip. Awareness: a cartoonish reconstruction of attention that is as physically inaccurate as the brain’s internal model of color.

In this theory, awareness is not an illusion. It’s a caricature. Something — attention — really does exist, and awareness is a distorted accounting of it.

One reason that the brain needs an approximate model of attention is that to be able to control something efficiently, a system needs at least a rough model of the thing to be controlled. Another reason is that to predict the behavior of other creatures, the brain needs to model their brain states, including their attention. This theory pulls together evidence from social neuroscience, attention research, control theory and elsewhere.

Almost all other theories of consciousness are rooted in our intuitions about awareness. Like the intuition that white light is pure, our intuitions about awareness come from information computed deep in the brain. But the brain computes models that are caricatures of real things. And as with color, so with consciousness: It’s best to be skeptical of intuition.

 

[disappoint]

I'm not sure why anyone would believe that all things can possibly known since human minds are obviously finite. To actually understand them? Of course we won't. It's not shameful thing.

I'm not sure why anyone would believe that all things can be known by finite human minds either. I don't see anyone that made such a statement.

What I was saying is that I see no limitation in what humans can cognitively accomplish in the understanding of consciousness. In other words, there is nothing in the known laws of physics that limits our potential to someday understand consciousness.

To broaden it further, I see no limitation to our understanding anything sometime in the future. Even if our brains are still finite in the future. Understanding anything is very different from understanding everything. I never said all things can be known all at the same time by a finite mind.

To go even further still, admittedly into territory I don't know, how do we know humans will never achieve omniscience?

If we define omniscience as all knowing, that doesn't mean infinite knowing since all knowing may be applied to a finite amount of information that exists anywhere, anytime in this universe or others if there is a multiverse.

Now if a physicist were to chime in with a proof that an infinite amount of information is impossible because it would violate some laws of physics, I'd be all set in claiming omniscience is attainable, so is possible. Of course it could be argued that those laws of physics are incomplete and could be wrong, but then I'd argue the onus of such proof lies with the claimant of incorrectness of laws of physics that have so far stood on very solid ground and can be used to make predictions to very high degrees of accuracy.

To be clear, I am defining omniscience as all knowing in a multiverse of finite information. Then a finite mind can attain that.

 

[iLEktron]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

omniscience as all knowing. this is not a statement, rather an idea....

 

[OverVolt]

Science is totally broken right now, just IMO.

 

[disappoint]

Science is totally broken right now, just IMO.

I'll probably regret asking, but how is science broken? I would say it's evolving as we are evolving, or developing, as we are. I'd argue that's the opposite of broken. The fact that scientists do not fear change, but embrace it, is what makes science able to evolve more quickly than a set of beliefs that are set in stone for example.

 

[OverVolt]

I'll probably regret asking, but how is science broken? I would say it's evolving as we are evolving, or developing, as we are. I'd argue that's the opposite of broken. The fact that scientists do not fear change, but embrace it, is what makes science able to evolve more quickly than a set of beliefs that are set in stone for example.

Maybe if you read popular science, but we aren't even developing a next generation of antibiotics despite the obvious inevitability of antibiotic resistance. Stuff like that. Inb4 everyone says we should be researching it. Well guess what. Nobody is paying for it so its not getting done. Both peer review and funding are both becoming broken. The big journals have way too much control over what gets published and what doesn't. They don't take too many risks publishing new ideas anymore. IMO. Also private//corporate funding is starting to replace public funding. There are conflicts of interest galore in science right now.

...and not surprisingly there haven't been any new big discoveries. Lots of rehashing old ideas without adding anything new.

...and actually even if you read popular science you would know how they keep crying about funding like a popup advert on yahoo.

Everybody thinks you just crack the whip and presto the scientists make science. One of my professors was big into academic integrity to maintain peoples trust in science because you guessed it... fraud is big time on the rise in science.

If you know what to look for...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/s...idespread-in-retracted-scientific-papers.html

Lots of little things like that add up to a pretty piss poor atmosphere for actual you know... discovering stuff like science is supposed to be doing.

While the fraudulent papers may be relatively few, he went on, their rapid increase is a sign of a winner-take-all culture in which getting a paper published in a major journal can be the difference between heading a lab and facing unemployment. “Some fraction of people are starting to cheat,” he said.

Science today is nothing like it was in Pasteur's day or Watson and Cricks day.

 

[witeken]

explain consciousness.

Why don't you ask an appropriate scientist? Maybe philosopher because I don't know if there is much to scientifically investigate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Philosophy_of_mind might be a good starting point to get some answer.

But really, from a high level, (human) consciousness is just the result of nature "having to" (I don't mean that intelligent life is the goal of evolution, jut that some conditions that I will now describe have to be fulfilled if there were to be intelligent life) invent a system that collects information from the world (with senses) and process it (similar to what a CPU does) to be able to create productive life that fulfills evolution (surviving, analyzing the world to see danger,... and reproduction) and is intelligent (able to solve problems, etc.).

One of the things that follow from this is that it needs to have a sense of self; it has to value its own life, do things in its own interest etc. This (experiencer and decision-maker) could probably be called the conscious person.

The problem with understanding it is that we don't know, we can't experience how other forms of life and even other people experience, which makes scientific research difficult to say the least, even more so than psychology. But in any case, it should be understood as a biological phenomenon.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I'm not sure why anyone would believe that all things can be known by finite human minds either. I don't see anyone that made such a statement.

What I was saying is that I see no limitation in what humans can cognitively accomplish in the understanding of consciousness. In other words, there is nothing in the known laws of physics that limits our potential to someday understand consciousness.

To broaden it further, I see no limitation to our understanding anything sometime in the future. Even if our brains are still finite in the future. Understanding anything is very different from understanding everything. I never said all things can be known all at the same time by a finite mind.

To go even further still, admittedly into territory I don't know, how do we know humans will never achieve omniscience?

If we define omniscience as all knowing, that doesn't mean infinite knowing since all knowing may be applied to a finite amount of information that exists anywhere, anytime in this universe or others if there is a multiverse.

Now if a physicist were to chime in with a proof that an infinite amount of information is impossible because it would violate some laws of physics, I'd be all set in claiming omniscience is attainable, so is possible. Of course it could be argued that those laws of physics are incomplete and could be wrong, but then I'd argue the onus of such proof lies with the claimant of incorrectness of laws of physics that have so far stood on very solid ground and can be used to make predictions to very high degrees of accuracy.

To be clear, I am defining omniscience as all knowing in a multiverse of finite information. Then a finite mind can attain that.

That sounds nice, but the fact remains that there will always be things which are true and things which are false but you can't know what is what.

If I were to define consciousness I'd say that it would be intellect which is aware of itself. The question would be to what degree can the mind understand itself. Laws of physics really don't enter into this. Physics can be broken down to the language of mathematics and we all know mathematics is complete, or in principle can be right? Well, no. That last bit is fundamentally impossible. You ought to find out why, and if you can refute that with more than "one day", but in concrete terms you will win a Nobel, and I'll guarantee that right now. Likewise the mind fully understanding the mind is more than a little problematic. Besides, one never knows what one does not know anyway. The most significant thing in the universe could be right in front of you and you might not be able to recognize it for what it is. Ever. That's the problem I think some are missing. I don't think they understand that understanding everything isn't the thing but there is no reason whatsoever to assume that humans are magic and the constraints a physical brain places on us are solvable by determination and time. Like I said, name the first thing that you can't put a name to. You can't do it. A dog rides in a car. It experiences it and dogs can do puzzle solving, primitive by our standard, but they can sort things out. How long would it take a dog or all dogs or all things that all dogs might try to grasp a car as we do? Suddenly we're gods that have like limitations removed? I don't think so. The "nice" thing is that there's no need to worry because we wouldn't have a clue to begin with so there's no relevance to us as we could understand it.

 

[moonbogg]

I see a potential issue coming. Lets say that in order to fully understand consciousness, not just in principle, but enough to replicate it, you need AI level capabilities. But in order to create AI level capabilities, you need to create a conscious machine. That would be a real tough one.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I see a potential issue coming. Lets say that in order to fully understand consciousness, not just in principle, but enough to replicate it, you need AI level capabilities. But in order to create AI level capabilities, you need to create a conscious machine. That would be a real tough one.

How would you really know you had a conscious machine? You might just have something which mimics it. In any case I'm not sure how well we'd have to understand something in order to make it happen. We've often done things then figured out later just how that works.

I once read about an AI that was tasked to discover the origin of the Universe. After a long time it announced to the scientists that he has done so. When asked of it was certain of it's understanding it replied "Yes". When the scientists asked it to explain what it has learned it explained "I cannot. You are not intelligent enough to comprehend." That would suck

Yet that's not too far off what may one day happen. We find answers to questions but aren't bright enough to get it. Worse, we might not be smart enough to even formulate questions to explore. Bummer.

 

[moonbogg]

How would you really know you had a conscious machine? You might just have something which mimics it. In any case I'm not sure how well we'd have to understand something in order to make it happen. We've often done things then figured out later just how that works.

I once read about an AI that was tasked to discover the origin of the Universe. After a long time it announced to the scientists that he has done so. When asked of it was certain of it's understanding it replied "Yes". When the scientists asked it to explain what it has learned it explained "I cannot. You are not intelligent enough to comprehend." That would suck

Yet that's not too far off what may one day happen. We find answers to questions but aren't bright enough to get it. Worse, we might not be smart enough to even formulate questions to explore. Bummer.

Well I think you are right that we can create consciousness with having no way of verifying it. If the machine solves problems for us, then that's good for us whether its conscious or not. But in order to know the machine is conscious, you would need to be able to verify, and to do that you need to understand it. We know it occurs in nature somehow, so replicating it is a certainty IMO.
It could be the key to unlocking the really good life in the future. Being able to engineer your experiences and enjoy them without fear or anxiety of dying would be an ultimate goal of sorts. I for one, am an optimist. In this way, the universe seems to be a kind of experience factory IMO. That's just what it seems to do IMO, like an apple growing trees, the universe generates experiences.

 

[Jeff7]

I'm not sure why anyone would believe that all things can be known by finite human minds either. I don't see anyone that made such a statement.

What I was saying is that I see no limitation in what humans can cognitively accomplish in the understanding of consciousness. In other words, there is nothing in the known laws of physics that limits our potential to someday understand consciousness.

To broaden it further, I see no limitation to our understanding anything sometime in the future. Even if our brains are still finite in the future. Understanding anything is very different from understanding everything. I never said all things can be known all at the same time by a finite mind.

I'm not so sure.

How would you go about explaining calculus to a cat? Would a cat's brain ever be capable of understanding it?

Or let's go with something closer to a human: A chimp.
Explain the Large Hadron Collider to a chimp. Will it ever understand how it works? Will it ever know why it's important?

Our brains aren't some magical apex-of-existence assemblies. They're a bunch of neurons stuffed together and arranged in such a way that it permits regulation of bodily functions, permits analysis of information concerning our surroundings, and retains and processes a representation of the environment and past experiences.
I think that there are things out there that the human mind simply can't figure out. It's not sufficiently capable, in the same way that a chicken brain lacks the capacity to construct a machine to get live chickens to Mars and back again. They're not even capable of comprehending that sort of problem description in the first place.

Or you've got some large birds in the Galapagos Islands that suffer from smaller birds that break their skin and lap up the blood. It's a problem that the larger birds are not able to properly address, perhaps by simply watching each others backs, and biting the smaller birds to death when they show up.
Humans can conceive of such a solution, in part because of our naturally gregarious behavior. Not all animals see others as cooperative helpers that can be used to work toward a common goal. Collaboration is something that we do well.


We face problems as well for which we can't figure out a good solution.
- We're constantly fighting with one another. Reading our history on a long timescale, wars and deadly conflicts appear as frequently as commas.
- Most of the planet's population lives in poverty.
- Wacky things happen with the climate that we can't figure out.
- Gravity doesn't make sense with respect to other fundamental forces.
- We're genetically programmed to propagate our genes as much as possible, such to the point that we're facing depletion of resources - the same depletions that affect many other species when they rapidly reproduce in the presence of abundant resources. Yet we lack the willpower or ability to do anything about it.
- Asteroids have caused mass extinctions in the past, yet it's seen as a non-issue. This is likely because of our comparatively tiny lifespans. There's a good chance of it happening again, but a low chance of it happening during one person's lifetime, therefore they deem it to be inconsequential. (Tunguska was just at the start of the 1900s and could have devastated a large city. Simple luck of the draw is that >70% of Earth's surface is uninhabited. Chelyabinsk was just in the past 2 years. That one happened to blow up high in the atmosphere, but it still manage to cause damage and injuries.)


- ??? - Like the chicken's mission to Mars, there are likely problems out there that we cannot identify. Our brains can't comprehend them. The unknown unknowns.

To go even further still, admittedly into territory I don't know, how do we know humans will never achieve omniscience?

If we define omniscience as all knowing, that doesn't mean infinite knowing since all knowing may be applied to a finite amount of information that exists anywhere, anytime in this universe or others if there is a multiverse.

Now if a physicist were to chime in with a proof that an infinite amount of information is impossible because it would violate some laws of physics, I'd be all set in claiming omniscience is attainable, so is possible. Of course it could be argued that those laws of physics are incomplete and could be wrong, but then I'd argue the onus of such proof lies with the claimant of incorrectness of laws of physics that have so far stood on very solid ground and can be used to make predictions to very high degrees of accuracy.

To be clear, I am defining omniscience as all knowing in a multiverse of finite information. Then a finite mind can attain that.

Maybe we'll manage to create something that will exceed our intelligence.

We'll also have to define "omniscience" in a manner that we can quantify and test for. (How can you call something "omniscient" for sure if you can't do those things?)

Look at the difference in intelligence between a dog and a human, and the difference in what our respective species can do. Our technology is simply absurd. We've abused the laws of physics in some very specific and unusual ways, using them to do our bidding. A dog can't figure out those sorts of things.
Now imagine a life form or computer system that's as far ahead of us as we are of dogs. It would damn well seem to be either omniscient or outright magical. But neither would be the case. It would just be very intelligent and advanced.

 

[disappoint]

Or let's go with something closer to a human: A chimp.
Explain the Large Hadron Collider to a chimp. Will it ever understand how it works? Will it ever know why it's important?

How about an ape? Will it ever build and understand a Large Hadron Collider?

It already did. After millions of years of evolution, but it did it. I wouldn't have blamed one of your ape ancestors if they would not only have disbelieved me, but not know wtf I was talking about if I went back in time and told them what they would accomplish millions of years later either. Likewise, I don't blame your disbelief now. You simply don't know any better.

 

[Jeff7]

How about an ape? Will it ever build and understand a Large Hadron Collider?

It already did. After millions of years of evolution, but it did it. I wouldn't have blamed one of your ape ancestors if they would not only have disbelieved me, but not know wtf I was talking about if I went back in time and told them what they would accomplish millions of years later either. Likewise, I don't blame your disbelief now. You simply don't know any better.

Millions of years of evolution and a few transitions through different species. Our species also didn't solve the problem of "My brain is too small to do....you know, things that don't make sense right now." That problem was solved through attrition and genetic mutation.


(An still, "everything" is a pretty substantial amount of information to contain and understand.)


I guess there are some examples of things that we did accomplish, though it wasn't always the original intention of the invention.
A big one is written symbolic language. It permitted the retention of detailed, specific, and reproducible information that could persist beyond a human lifespan, and even exceed the amount of information that a single human brain can contain. Mathematics and an advanced understanding of physics eventually permitted things like the Moon landing, or things like semiconductors, which employ knowledge of quantum physics. Try doing that without math or physics books.
So that there was something that we did invent, unlike our own genetic progress, but not because we wanted to use symbolic language to attain crazy scientific goals and technological progress. We just accidentally created a terribly useful and versatile tool without understanding at that time what we had truly accomplished.

What tool might we create, or perhaps already have created, which could permit even more intelligence? Don't know. Maybe it's the computer. Maybe it's optical computing. Or quantum computers. Or something else entirely that we are unknowingly overlooking.

 

[moonbogg]

If we play our cards right, we can be one of the species in this universe that leaves the cocoon. If not, then its back to business as usual.

 

[Ruptga]

Create a system that's capable of modelling itself without a loss in precision, then you might have something that's capable of being truly omniscient. Since that's impossible (barring some bizarre breakthrough from the upside-down world of quantum mechanics) the best we could ever aim for is the ability to solve any given problem. In that case we might be able to predict any given event, but not all events at the same time in real time.

If hyperspace exists and can be accessed, it may be possible to build enough computing machines there that our normal universe could be modeled in complete detail and in real time, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

 

[momeNt]

How about an ape? Will it ever build and understand a Large Hadron Collider?

It already did. After millions of years of evolution, but it did it. I wouldn't have blamed one of your ape ancestors if they would not only have disbelieved me, but not know wtf I was talking about if I went back in time and told them what they would accomplish millions of years later either. Likewise, I don't blame your disbelief now. You simply don't know any better.

I remain unconvinced that we evolved from lesser primates. I believe there was some alien crossbreeding that aided the process.

 

[disappoint]

(An still, "everything" is a pretty substantial amount of information to contain and understand.)

Seemingly impossible? Seems impossible that an ape would one day evolve to build the LHC as well. So much so that many people refuse to believe we descended from apes even today, despite the evidence.

But the original topic was understanding human consciousness. I still stand by my statement that it's possible. I just went beyond that to an extreme amount...because I could.

What tool might we create, or perhaps already have created, which could permit even more intelligence? Don't know. Maybe it's the computer. Maybe it's optical computing. Or quantum computers. Or something else entirely that we are unknowingly overlooking.

The human genome project could be helpful as well. There may be technology we can't even imagine today, much like no human just 2000 years ago, for example could have imagined or understood today's technology.

A word of caution: We also have tools that could destroy intelligence. Like religion, and nuclear weapons.