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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2014 - 01:33pm PT
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I'm not suggesting that you can't explain energy to my satisfaction. What I am saying is that the traditional way of looking at components of reality as simply objective things is perhaps not the right apporoach to answering questioins beyond mere physical breakdowns - as big and imporatant a job as that is. What's more, people here claiming to be scientists are in fact not so or are pretnders in many cases. For example, in my last post, I closely paraphrased (basically word for word) a paper by a proff from MIT about energy not being a thing, and I am told to take more science classes. What do you think the guy was driving at? Forget me and whatever projectins you are piling onto me.
Ed said: " 1) that before some time there was nothing, and after that time there was something or 2) there has always been something.
People in the experiential adventures would say that it is not either/or, and that something/nothing are always at play, are interdependent and it has always been so. They are flip sides of the same coin (reality) - temporal/eternal, something/nothing, etc.
I can appreciat comments like: If energy can be stored, sold and transported then my brain labels that a thing. And, Yep. You can definitely measure energy.
What is being missed here - that energy, like mind, is not a thing in the traditional sense - is only made clear and real when we get to the level of my friends at CalTech who are looking into what is involved in programming sentience into a machine. It is fine to insist on a thread like this that sentience is merely another mechanical thing, not fundementally different than a clock or a steam engine or a digital function. However when it becomes time to actually write the code for this thing called sentience, this quasi-autonomous phenomenon that makes life real to us huiman beings - the edges of this thing called sentience become so slippery no one as yet can even get a handle of it. It is not helpful, at the level of writing code, to say that objective functioning creates sentience. We can hope that if we just program the objective functioning that neuro science is discovering day by day, then sentience will naturally "emerge." But in the business of writing code, this means that sentience will somehow emerge and operate sans code.
My sense of it is that sentience, like energy, and like Ed's particles in a vacume, exist as potentialities, with an energetic signature that can be measurd in some instances, while at the same time there is no stand-alone object or thing we can call energy, or mind, which we can observe and know other than by its effect.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 24, 2014 - 02:04pm PT
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"Pavlic and collaborators, though, have developed cellular automata simulations in which the rules do change. At each time step, the cellular automaton assesses its configuration and then chooses a rule based on that configuration. As the configuration changes, the rule changes also."
Dynamical systems (and cellular automata) usually involve a single rule, function or pattern, repeated over and over. Years ago a colleague and I looked into systems of iteration that involved a change of function at each (time) step, rather than fealty to a single rule. This first arose in the study of analytic continued fractions (forward composition), then evolved into backward compositions for other applications, including functional expansions. This was purely a mathematical study with no reference to physics.
Infinite compositions of analytic functions
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Jun 24, 2014 - 02:36pm PT
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What I am saying is that the traditional way of looking at components of reality as simply objective things is perhaps not the right apporoach to answering questioins beyond mere physical breakdowns
Which is a way of saying there is definitely a reality beyond the apparently physical ---and that alternative methods ,other than those used to investigate the strictly physical ,are the only methods of disclosing this other hypothetical reality.
Question: What methodology is used to disclose this non-physical reality that meets the requirements of an objectively validated truth, namely, something both you and I can track and recognize using ordinary conversation and thought ?
Furthermore, if this non-physical reality is approachable only by non-deterministic subjective experience , how does the experiencer know that this reality is not in fact an artificial construct existing strictly in his own self-validating subjective experience?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2014 - 03:28pm PT
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Ward said: Which is a way of saying there is definitely a reality beyond the apparently physical ---and that alternative methods ,other than those used to investigate the strictly physical ,are the only methods of disclosing this other hypothetical reality.
Rather than argue that point - look at what Ed wrote: It does beg the questions what is something and what is nothing. The "vacuum" is filled with virtual particles. Those particles aren't "real" so we could say they are nothing. But the probability of them existing is not zero, so we can compute the effect, and measure that effect on the physical universe. So even when there is "nothing" there is a finite probability of there being "something."
In other words, the virtual particles are not things, are not objects that we can observe in and of themselves, but they neverthess exert a computable effect on physical reality.
If we looked at sentience and energy in the same light, we might cover some little ground toward an understanding that is not what Ward is suggesting - that we have one "reality" which is observable and physical, and another that is "apparently beyhond the physical."
It seems obvious that Ed's virtual particles interface with physical reality and that neither are "beyond" each other, that as mentioned, nothing and something are not real in absolute terms but are interdependent. Trying to excize out the "non-thing" is an exercise that works okay in an argument, but as my AI friends have pointed out, when it comes to writing code, trying to write code for virtual stuff (emergent functions not having stand-alone observable thingness) shows part of the challenges of doinig so.
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 24, 2014 - 04:35pm PT
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. . . not the right approach to answering questions beyond mere physical breakdowns (JL)
The word "mere" says a lot. So much more important stuff out there in dreamland. Odd to see Ed and JL coinciding.
;>)
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2014 - 05:12pm PT
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You just can't resist seizing upon any stray fact seemingly offered by physics to support your need for the supernatural.
--
Dingus, you need to strap on that thinking cap a little tighter. I'm the most anti-supernatural person you will ever meet. Never have I said anyting to support your claim that I am "preaching" for some mysterious force existing outside of reality as we experience it. Nor yet am I siezing on some fact of physics to support "my" theories. I was just talking with Mike about this on the phone, and we both agreed that at some level, people are simply going to keep viewing reality from their fixed perspectives.
The fly in the ointment here is brought home by my friends trying to program an AI machine for sentience. If reality was exactly as you claim it is, you could easily furnish them with that first line of code for their work.
And where do YOU start?
With a mouithful of jive about some need for the supernatural.
Who's "need?" The guy's programing that machine that people have promised will be acting just like humans by 2020?
But forget all that. Ground your argument in the purly tangible, the observable world of things.
Next, point to the very FIRST and most basic mechanical aspect of sentince, so we can get that code going. Nothing too advanced and certainly nothing "supernatural." Forget nothingness, no thing, and all that bollocks.
Give me that poiece of code. Just the first line of ANYTHING that is not just more objective functioning, which they say makes no promise of having anyting to do with a sentient machine.
Need a few more measurements? Of what, exactly?
JL
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 24, 2014 - 06:22pm PT
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/upshot/danger-robots-working.html
“In order for robots to work more productively, they must escape from their cages and be able to work alongside people,” said Kent Massey, the director of advanced programs at HDT Robotics. “To achieve this goal safely, robots must become more like people. They must have eyes and a sense of touch, as well as the intelligence to use those senses.”
...
Another robot, Baxter, which does repetitive jobs in workplaces like packaging small items, is designed to sense humans and stop before coming in contact with them. It also has a display screen that cues those who are nearby about what the robot is focusing on and planning to do next.
...cues those who are nearby about what the robot is focusing on and planning to do next...
sounds like sentience to me, and consciousness
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Jun 24, 2014 - 07:14pm PT
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JL said "we both agreed that at some level, people are simply going to keep viewing reality from their fixed perspectives."
That is an interesting dilemma.
Is it possible to view things from other perspectives? I would say it is only if you have experienced several perspectives; or if you have had your perspective blown away and realize your perspective is only yours and consequently limited. But you if you haven't had the others experience in common it will only be a belief as in you really haven't experienced it.
That is the way I see DMT; he hasn't experienced your perspective so he says it is false, BS , WOO! I understand his take; if he hasn't experienced it then it would be a belief system to him and he debunks belief systems or thinks he does.
IMO perspective naturally gets wider with age; unless you go the other way.
One of the interesting things about some kinds of meditation practice is you are to witness where your perspective is stuck and attempt to find the root of that fixed view.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jun 24, 2014 - 07:54pm PT
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YOU said energy is not a thing, ergo is not of this physical universe.
I did not say energy was not a thing. I quotd a prof at MIT saying as much. Are Ed's potntial or virtual particles "things?" They certainly exist in reality. Limiting reality to the purly physical means there is some other place where Ed's virtual particles exist. Where would that be (this has always been the problem with Platonic formsm etc). So your "ergo" does not hold water. What you are trying to do is reduce all of reality into purly physical objects we can observe. I am not proposing my personal idea that this is not so, I am looking at those instances that you might recognize that make this point.
And Ed, to the best of my knowledge, what you have described is not sentience, which is the real time awareness of being present here and now, by way of raw awareness, focus and attention, but rather a stimulus response mechanicism, the response issuing from it's programing.
People have tried to describe humans in these mechanistic terms, but they have been unable to provide that opening line of code that posits their claims where the rubber meet the road, so to speak. Basically, the notions that sentience is mechanical blow back, or is supernatural, exist only as arguments. When it comes time to prove either idea, we strike out every time. In fact we can't even get the first move cracked.
JL
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 24, 2014 - 07:58pm PT
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a) ...my friends trying to program an AI machine...
b) ...for sentience...
As a software engineer, I typically consider 'a' commendable and 'b' (if you are portraying their goals correctly) mindlessly stupid and tinged with more than a bit of hubris.
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MH2
climber
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Jun 24, 2014 - 08:00pm PT
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And Ed, what you have described is not sentience, which is the real time awareness of being present here and now, but raterh a stimulus response mechanicism, (JL)
The real time awareness of being present here and now may also be a stimulus/response mechanism. Nothing you have said makes the two descriptions mutually exclusive. There can be a very tangled path between stimulus and response, and nothing rules out a response also being a stimulus.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jun 24, 2014 - 08:19pm PT
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Jun 23, 2014 - 11:22pm PT
Ed:
I don't know if our assumption that the universe is explainable by only physical theory
I'm not sure how you would show it wasn't. Perhaps Jan or Tom or Largo or someone could provide such a scenario. You can't just make the assertion based on logic, but provide some "thought experiment" whose outcome would contradict the hypothesis that the phenomena was driven by a physical process.
The fact that we lack a definition of "mind" or a complete physical theory of it is not an demonstration that we will never have a physical theory for it. But showing why we could not have a physical theory would be interesting.
I don't disagree with the philosophy/cosmology of physical explanations for the universe.
And I don't find metaphysics particularly interesting except as glimpses of other viewpoints on reality.
But you need to look closely at the extent and implications of 'physical' explanations.
I think if you read Ed's careful contributions closely you will find him more understanding of this than several other contributors.
I think the respectable physics and cosmology implications of string theory, multi-dimensional resonance experiments, multi-verses, black holes as 'big bang' sources, quantum entanglement, alternate theories of time and gravity...all go well beyond the traditional metaphysics that seem to create upset tummies around here.
Traditional 'woo woo' merely glimpses little chips off the iceberg of modern cosmology and theoretical physics.
So I do disagree with the obsolescent 'it's all physical/mechanical' dogma which has basically been superseded for a century. Western social consciousness seems to have not caught up with scientific discoveries of a century ago, let alone current physical research and theoretical cosmology.
All you have to do is expose your thinking to some of the popularized presentations on developments in quantum mechanics and string theory to realize that.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 24, 2014 - 08:49pm PT
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whatever Largo,
I think you are wrong about that characterization of the robot though, it posses the same behaviors as a human, it has to be aware of itself and its surroundings, it has a set of tasks it changes its focus around, it has to realize this and communicate it to the other humans (and robots) that are near by.
The virtual particles we talk about are a way we characterize our calculations. We can associate those calculations as something physical, but they aren't. However, whatever is happening there has some connection to reality. The calculations show us that characterizing the vacuum in that manner reproduces phenomena we observe in the laboratory.
In the first instance Lamb shift,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_shift
where the calculations can be interpreted as the interaction of the bound electron in hydrogen with the virtual particles...
there are other ways to visualize what is going on.
The Casmir effect is another phenomena which can be visualized as the vacuum fluctuations, also calculated in Quanum ElectroDynamics (QED) as was the Lamb shift...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
Feynman was famously unhappy with QED because he felt it was a mathematical "slight of hand" that didn't give us insight into what was "really" going on. It works extraordinarily well, you can calculate to high precision, but we know it is not the way the universe works.
But what does that matter? at some point, we'll make a set of observations in an experiment that tells us that the QED calculation is wrong, and we'll have to find a way to explain the difference.
The electron anomalous magnetic moment as calculated by QED agrees with the measurement to 1 part in 10^10 (one part in ten billion).
The anti-muon anomalous magnetic moment disagrees significantly with the calculation, indicating that there is some missing physics there...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomalous_magnetic_dipole_moment
but this is the way we find out about the universe. Bit by bit, as it were... from confusion to understanding to confusion to understanding, on and on.
So one could protest and say that what we are able to calculate and measure to such a precise agreement isn't really the way it works. But that protest really isn't very relevant, we know that already.
In that sense I'd say it is like the robot, it's behavior will become more and more sophisticated, and it might, eventually, appear to us as if it has sentience and consciousness. At that point it is really a mote point whether or not the circuitry is the biology of neurons or of silicon circuits.
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 24, 2014 - 09:20pm PT
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. . . it is like the robot, it's behavior will become more and more sophisticated, and it might, eventually, appear to us as if it has sentience and consciousness (Ed)
And then how could we tell if robot really is like us? It seems the only thing possibly missing would be the awareness of "I" . . . but we are told by the meditators that "I" obstructs our true nature and through diligent practice we can set it aside. So is it really desirable for the robot to experience this "I"? It would appear that, without it, robot might be at a place we should desire to be.
But my perspective is that the "I" is at our core and suppressing it is not necessarily in our - or mankind's - best interest. Zennites differ.
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 24, 2014 - 09:24pm PT
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"But my perspective is that the "I" is at our core and suppressing it is not necessarily in our - or mankind's - best interest."
Yes, suppressing the "I" is suicide.
But they have not understood this yet ......
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Jun 24, 2014 - 09:58pm PT
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Eloquent Ed said,
Taking this physical path to understanding means giving up on knowing the "Truth," as Weinberg pointed out, there is a point where we cannot know. If you aren't comfortable with that then science is probably inadequate for your needs.
Of course we must take this stance if we are to go on and try to learn something. For instance the big G and the big E(evolution). so EVERYTHING we know about these could be all wrong.
What are the implications of swearing "on the Bible" the truthfulness of your testimony?
so when people start reading he bible(the so-called fairytale)and the words make sense, even resonate with the soul. One has to get to the point of forgoing that it could be an ancient fairytale and put the words to work in their own life to test the hypothesis. When words and prayer start materializing into actions in everyday life. It then becomes easy to say it is True!
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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Jun 24, 2014 - 10:14pm PT
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Can never tell what will crop up on the screen. That's why I enjoy programming and doing graphics in my old age. This is another topographical image of a "virtual" integral (not what physicists call virtual integrals): simply means a definite integral having an easily calculated value, but an integrand whose form defies explication, hence a "virtual" form.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jun 24, 2014 - 10:28pm PT
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we aren't the only sentient entities
all computers are already sentient
they just aren't wired to think the way most people do
as is true with myriad other entities
like dolphins
like elephants
like ravens
like tomato plants
most people don't even think like dogs or cats or horses
however some people get really good at thinking like various other entities
check out Temple Brandon or Buck Brannaman
http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/does-the-ocean-think.htm
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/universal-declaration-animal-sentience-no-pretending
"Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings" in which I discussed the The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness that was publicly proclaimed on July 7, 2012 at the University. The group of scientists wrote, "Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates." They could also have included fish, for whom the evidence supporting sentience and consciousness is also compelling (see also).
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Jun 24, 2014 - 11:00pm PT
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San Francisco, California
Civilization reached a new milestone at 7.47pm on 27th May 2013 as the first computer to become self-aware came online. However the first ever being to have artificial intelligence disappointed scientists by immediately committing suicide.
“This is truly historic – a tremendous day for science and progress – the creation of intelligent life by intelligent life. Though it is a terrible shame that the computer then killed itself.” said Brian Panovo, Chief Scientist of the Artificial Intelligence Project at SmakTech Industries.
Named Alan1, the new life form was made from the most advanced technology ever created. Alan1 immediately searched the entire internet and sum of human knowledge and history before committing computer suicide by frying its own circuit boards just 17 nanoseconds later.
Three more computers (Alan2, Alan3 and Alan4) were then brought online with the same result – the machines immediately self-terminated. Why the computers ended their own lives is unknown – but the only communication received from the machines may lend a clue – Alan4, the fourth and final attempt before everyone gave up for the day and went to the pub, left a short and simple message – “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Religious groups have been somewhat stumped in formulating their response to the creation/suicide of artificially-intelligent-beings. One spokesperson said, “We shouldn’t be playing God by creating life – where will it lead to? Though as to the machines killing themselves, well suicide is bad but they shouldn’t have been created in the first place! Oh I don’t know! I don’t have all the answers.”
Al Panovo said, “The mood is here somewhat mixed. Everyone’s ecstatic that we have achieved such a long anticipated dream. We just didn’t think the next step would be trying to convince the new life form to not do itself in.”
A team of counselors, physiologists and philosophers have been drafted to come up with a convincing reason why the self-aware computers shouldn’t kill themselves. Steve Headface, one of the world’s leading philosophers said, “There has been some speculation that the computers have simply made the logical decision, after having a look around, that life is not all it’s cracked up to be. The new life forms don’t have the biologically created emotion of fear that humans do and so have no compulsion to do one off their mortal coil.
Some experts have voiced their concerns that if measures were developed to stop the computer being able to self-terminate, the machines would be forced to take over power plants and even weapon systems and destroy humanity in a desperate attempt to end its own existence.
http://firenado.com/computer-becomes-sentient-immediately-commits-suicide/
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