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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 22, 2017 - 08:03pm PT
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paul:
birds can’t be convinced to sit down and take IQ tests
WBraun:
Only the clueless falsely believe they can measure true intelligence that way .....
You are making progress, paul.
I agree that, among primates, humans have a knack for twig technology. Also a tendency toward hubris, likely to be followed by nemesis.
A new creature arrived that was much more intelligent than the lemurs—according to it—, (Laughter) much more competitive, much more aggressive, and incredibly interested in all of things you could do with twigs. (Laughter.)
from Parrots, the Universe, and Everything
Douglas Adams
http://nokyotsu.com/parrots/
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 22, 2017 - 09:12pm PT
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You are making progress, paul.
Yeah, you should give it a try.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 22, 2017 - 09:18pm PT
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When I think of mind I keep returning to the notions of weak and strong emergence (WE, SE), more or less as described by Chalmers, who confesses he doesn't know if SE actually exists. Others argue that water is a simple example of SE since its qualities are virtually impossible to predict from knowledge of the atomic constituents. Actually, Chalmers opines that if SE exists its only materialization may be consciousness.
What encourages my gravitation to emergence are the many images I have derived from my hobby of infinite compositions of complex functions - a subject isolated from mainstream mathematical research and one in which I have derived only elementary theory. These images are in practice almost impossible to predict from the underlying mathematical formulae, but not theoretically impossible. They are clear-cut instances of WE.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 22, 2017 - 11:27pm PT
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Others argue that water is a simple example of SE since its qualities are virtually impossible to predict from knowledge of the atomic constituents.
I guess knowledge gains in philosophy take place on the time scales of decades, centuries, millennia, but physics is generally a bit quicker than that... so it is interesting to here that it is "virtually impossible" to predict water from the underlying atomic constituents. It has been a major focus of research with the new generation of High Performance Computing.
You might take a look at this article in Nature:
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14358
It has been a major focus of Giulia Galli for many years, her group now at U.Chicago:
http://galligroup.uchicago.edu
and in particular, water,
http://galligroup.uchicago.edu/Research/water_solutions.php
Maybe someone should clue in the philosophers.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Jan 22, 2017 - 11:35pm PT
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jgill-
Interesting pattern. Beautiful red color too. It's the first one that hasn't reminded me of any Hindu symbology or unconscious imagery. Too angular for that but very attractive. I wonder what this signifies in your style evolution? Then again, I see tiny green peepholes here and there. Are they glimpses into the unconscious or peeks into another dimension? You could probably publish these in a mandala book for self discovery and make some money.
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rbord
Boulder climber
atlanta
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Jan 23, 2017 - 01:40pm PT
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Yeah, I wonder why that is?
Yea, me too :-)
I wonder in general why we believe things - what processes have created our abilities to believe things, and what advantages being able to believe things gives us. And then also I wonder the same about the specific beliefs that we come to believe.
There are a lot of things that we believe that aren't true, and we have a lot of belief processes that are (seemingly) irrational. Maybe more than seemingly - there are many widespread well documented logical fallacies that humans excel at. But still, we unfailingly believe that whatever it is that we believe is true.
Our evolved belief processes don't always lead us to beliefs that are true, but they do always lead us to believe that our beliefs are true, regardless of how often we've proven to ourselves that that's not true.
And we believe in the existence of and superiority of own consciousness. IMHO, it's a way that our brains work that we don't quite understand yet.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jan 23, 2017 - 01:45pm PT
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Prediction, risk assessment, contingency thinking, scenario thinking - they all have life quality and survival value...
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 23, 2017 - 04:00pm PT
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I see tiny green peepholes here and there
Jan, those are tiny spots where the absolute value of the function suddenly jumps considerably. Like little emeralds aren't they? When you look at the entire process leading to the imagery you get a feeling for the scope and complexity of "emergence". I begin by postulating a mathematical concept, then derive and prove elementary theory, then bring up BASIC and write a program, putting in colors and shades that I think might be appropriate, then imagine an example of the theory, write it down and enter it into my existing program, then set various parameters in the program, experimenting by running the program to obtain the best results, resetting parameters and revising the functions involved, etc. The computer does the grunt work, but it's a combination of mind and machine. I feel like a cyborg.
Ed, interesting articles about water. I expropriated that comment from the Wiki page on emergence, and wondered about it. Chalmers doesn't make that claim, I don't think. As computing continues to expand exponentially the vague definitions revolving about emergence probably change. Perhaps, ultimately, all is weak emergence. Subjective fading into objective.
To state that cannot be the case is irrational.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 23, 2017 - 09:26pm PT
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Another image with those tiny emerald jewels
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Jan 24, 2017 - 12:06pm PT
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For rbord, a short version of Charles Taylor's The Language Animal
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 24, 2017 - 02:04pm PT
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wisdom is realizing how little we know
Wisdom is realizing the unique way in which we know, what it means to know and the remarkable amount we do know.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Jan 24, 2017 - 02:09pm PT
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... and do not know...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 24, 2017 - 08:43pm PT
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So it's hubris to recognize a human being has more intellectual ability, a higher IQ, than a bird or any other sentient creature on this planet? Is it hubris to realize the aesthetic capabilities of human beings are more refined and complex in comparison to other animals?
Romanticism has a tendency to subvert reason.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Shelley
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Jan 24, 2017 - 09:45pm PT
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There are a lot of things that we believe that aren't true, and we have a lot of belief processes that are (seemingly) irrational
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 24, 2017 - 10:45pm PT
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Modern education is the slaughterhouse of the soul .......
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 24, 2017 - 10:51pm PT
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Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Shelley
Shelley the king of Romanticism dismissing the accomplishments of humanity, and what a tragedy that science would embrace such a sentiment. Where else in the universe can we find the remarkable accomplishments of the human mind, and as a result, its terrible and inevitable responsibilities to both itself and others?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jan 24, 2017 - 11:11pm PT
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...and what a tragedy that science would embrace such a sentiment
though I appreciate your over-reaching here, I can hardly be considered the embodiment of science... I am merely a scientist...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 24, 2017 - 11:14pm PT
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I am merely a scientist...
Unfortunately you're not alone.
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