Is it important for a scientist to identify themselves (at least to themselves) as being part of investigative and forward-looking endeavour?

Do you find yourself impressed with knowledgeable people, who are obviously intelligent about some subject, or can at least illustrate that they can think about stuff?

Are you someone who believes that identifying like this is important? Do you go to the extent of proclaiming your own learning? Do people react positively?

Is this identifying (with the results of some exam), similar to a kind of faith in the power of talismans, and ritual? How are these kinds of beliefs (in one's ability and/or mental or learning level), different from a priesthood?

Is a priest declaring he is such (a faithful believer, and representative), and a scientist performing his "ritual" of identification, all that different?

Just an idea...

http://www.nc-outerbanks.com/images/janiceseagulls.gif

It is like a rhytm amongst the waves of ocean...once born the angel falls with wings closed around the body, falling through clouds sleeping until the body takes dive into the waters below, the test however is not to swim back up but to go with the rhytm of the ocean. So the angel moves trying to follow the ocean's rhytm, causing less and less disturbances in water...until its wings open to the cyan sky above. And rise the angel shall!

Identifying with science is for the purpose of constant self recognition amongst others.

Something which is supposed to be some unbound chaotic property which is modified by 'reality' in a process resembling a telic response.

Consider the dualism of measurement an axiom of this reality, duality: 'Reality', is the "problem".

Language is information and all observers must use some internal language regardless of the size of their 'brain' or their place in the evolutionary scheme. All observers must posses a "phenomenological syntax" to be able to explain the world to themselves.

Describe the language of reality (Nature) as its 'obvious' properties (regular events, harmony, a music).

...two infinite computers, each one imagining each other's existence. The information "tells itself" that it is substance: because there is nothing else to relate.

We reveal the cosmos as self-sustaining, self-organised and deterministic: evolving toward some 'intelligent' end (ourselves).

Intelligence is like becoming aware that you're here already, that you've made it this far.
Other minds are there to reflect ourselves; to remind us who we are.

"...there are no answers, only choices." -unknown

"What the observer knows is inseparable from what the observer is". -W H Zurek

We classify information as the symbols we use for any message, and measure a content, or certainty, that external symbolic information has (books, electrical signals or magnetic regions on a disc, or photons from a screen).

But it has absolutely zero content unless it is processed; ultimately by some observer, who must expend energy to interpret the message and its content.

So where is the information? If it's the content of the message and this reduces the informational entropy of the observer, what corresponding increase in thermodyamic entropy is needed for this reduction in uncertainty (by the observer's processing the message)?

There's a semantic comparison we make between the words: knowledge and belief. Knowledge (science), is learning; learning is an accumulation.

Opinion (conjecture) is something that "arises from" knowledge of the world or something in it. An opinion is understood to not (necessarily) be something that is known to be true, but uses things that are known (draws on knowledge) to project a possibility of some outcome or extant 'situation'.

Knowledge is something we "believe in", and belief in that knowledge, is then possibly what derives from what we know. Or alternatively believing something is 'knowing' that it's true, it explains something we observe.

Philosophy is the examination of what we know, and why we know it, or why we believe it.

There is a distinction between knowledge (things that are provable or demonstrable), and belief: if the belief does not arise from epistemological 'proof', but is formed from opinion.

We believe things because we have 'seen' them: experienced them directly via our sensory apparatus. As agents of observation, we "know", for example, that many birds can fly, so even if we have never been to Australia, or India, we can believe (conjecturally) that if birds live in these places, there is a good probability that some of them can fly.

We also 'borrow' belief from other (human) agents: a kind of observation that lets us extend our knowledge, if we concur with the observations of others. Borrowing can lead to conflicting beliefs, since these are not acquired directly (as our own agency), we usually attach some scepticism, or doubt, to other's beliefs, or claims of knowledge about something.

We believe 'in' what we know, so therefore knowledge is (a form of) belief, but we are also able to believe things we are simply told: "there's been an earthquake in Turkey", or: "elephants never forget"; despite not having directly experienced these things ourselves; however, when we 'borrow' like this, we accept something at "face value", and we don't give these borrowings the same status, but file them under "contingent -needs verification". Except seeing news-footage of the earthquake, or watching a Nature program about elephants, tends to confirm this kind of (non-epistemologic) belief.

If we get told something that's demonstrably false, but have no way of testing if it's true or false, then we are obliged to accept it as contingent. If we are told the same falsehood by several agents (especially if we attribute authority to these agents), we tend to believe it, but our wisdom should inform us that it is only ever contingent, and still awaiting confirmation (we need to "see it", ourselves).

What should we tell each other about this? :cool:

Do you find yourself impressed with knowledgeable people, who are obviously intelligent about some subject, or can at least illustrate that they can think about stuff?

the boston strangler could think about stuff. hitler could think about stuff.
the green river killer could think about stuff.

just because you can think about stuff doesn't make you scrupulous, honest, or desirable.

because you can think about stuff doesn't make you scrupulous, honest, or desirable.
So, it depends what you think about, or to 'what end' you turn your thinking, e.g. personal gain at other's expense?

Cheating or lying? Benefiting from the efforts of others, without contributing any yourself?

Or assuming power, then arranging to keep that power, for no other reasons than all of the above? That sort of thing?

i was simply stating that just because a person can think, it doesn't really mean much without some history.

just because a person can think, it doesn't really mean much without some history.
OK, so when does a history come into it? We all know about the history with some of the names up there; are you commenting on each of our individual histories? Or some history that's 'recorded' externally, an organised record (say, in computers, and in files and so on).

history, as in a persons background.

a person
This term: usually we mean it to be someone we know or have met (a shopkeeper, say).
"Person", implies personhood, or "individualness", a human being, or member of H. sapiens (sapientis). Someone, say, much like yourself, for instance.

It occurs to me that just as there is science and pseudoscience, so there are intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals.

Possibly also pseudo-communication.
Does anyone have any ideas on any of that stuff I put up there?
(I can't understand a word of it myself, I thought it sounded cool though)

Possibly also pseudo-communication.
Does anyone have any ideas on any of that stuff I put up there?
(I can't understand a word of it myself, I thought it sounded cool though)

You have made allot of statements some which are understandable and some that

aren't, at least to me. It is like you've rambled about stuff that was on your

mind, not a rant but a ramble.

Possibly also pseudo-communication.
Does anyone have any ideas on any of that stuff I put up there?
(I can't understand a word of it myself, I thought it sounded cool though)That it is pseudo intellectual. You have at least set my mind at ease that you recognise this. I'm just not sure what the point of it was.:shrug:

A point, must first be made, before there is one.

..some which are understandable and some that aren't, at least to me.
You want to ask about the ones that aren't?
What specifically don't you understand about it?
I can't specifically say, myself. Maybe if someone asks something.

About this, say
"...two infinite computers, each one imagining each other's existence. The information "tells itself" that it is substance: because there is nothing else to relate."

I think this is more or less what cosmologists, complexity and ergody theorists, info-theoreticians, and quantum Darwinists are on about; I can't get anyone else to talk about the subject, because they seem to think I'm proselytising (I tend to think things like, they don't have any imagination, or they're hiding behind what they think they know).

I also feel this is possibly due to my great big imagination (I tend to get metaphorical for some reason -Science is meant to be exact and mathematical- "bullshit", I say). I choose to discuss subjects I find interesting, is all.
There are plenty of things I don't know, and I'll never learn them, but I understand what math is, you know? Some people seem to cling to a very fixed, sorted worldview (especially their beliefs about Science).

I find it ironic that I am trying to communicate with someone, when this happens, who appears to believe that Science has nothing to do with belief!? This is pretty strange (at least to me). People are strange; I'm a people.

I got flamed for this lot at SFN (science-free-notions-r-us):

Light (a very narrow, life-tolerant, part of the spectrum), colour (frequency), and so on are "thrown" at us randomly; they "collapse" on a screen in front of us, somehow. We select those events which point in the most available direction.

Reality is like a resonance, or a note (or music) playing all around us, sort of thing. Or our mind is like an "enclosed cathedral", kind of like the one Achille-Claude (deBussy) found in that wood, "la cathedrale engloutie". But who is playing the organ? Is 'god' the conductor... something inside, and outside us also?

Ah well.

So posting to any particular forum, I've noticed, can bring you into contact with people who claim to understand certain concepts, but then explain something that appears to be incorrect (despite the claims they also make about qualifications they have).

For example: confusion about whether something "is" energy, or "has" energy. If something, well the obvious is photons of EMR, is energy, then I guess you can say it "has" energy as well. But claiming it isn't energy, but instead is something that "has" it, is just nonsensical. Or that heat isn't a property, or a 'thing', what the hell does that mean?

Such a qualified person (if they are in fact qualified) should be ashamed of making such ludicrous, and clearly nonsensical claims. I certainly hope you read this, whoever you are.

There are way too many people like you who really should know better than that, or who think getting some piece of paper means they understand everything; that looks like arrogance.

Some appear to believe there is something to protect; exact terminology must be defined and applied rigorously. They tie themselves in knots trying to do this, it's pathetic. And I've met the types who try to tell you you're wasting your time, you haven't got the required intelligence to understand the deep, comprehensive knowledge they have. Sure, pride in what you've learned, but arrogance with it is taking it too far, and they should realise that they actually know only very little after all.

There aren't all that many scientists around, by the look.

Check Mr. Infinite Bullshit's notions of "correctness"; what an idiot...

Posted this at another forum, where it turns out this science-nob has access, as well as SFN where we've come to verbal blows in the past. I think this dude is a complete wanker (but then, there's no such thing as a complete "anything", is there?):
P.S. This is a note about non-coupled oscillators and the effect of randomness, or noise ("chaos", according to the early Greeks):

"Absent any coupling, two clocks at the same frequency will move out of sync. There will always be random frequency noise, and the phase (i.e. time) is the integral of frequency.
When you integrate white noise you get random-walk noise, so two clocks that are synchronized will random-walk away from each other. You have to keep synchronizing the clocks."
--scienceforums.net
I sincerely hope you know that a person's post on another internet forum is not a valid citation. How about if you're going to quote somebody else, you at least have the decency to acknowledge WHO on scienceforums.net posted it, or provide a link directly to their post.


This is such a remedial request. You shouldn't have to be told somthing so simple, but now you have, so there's no excuse.

My reply to this particular old woman was along the lines of: "I don't give a monkey's asshole" (actually exactly along those lines), then told him what I thought of his suggestion, that I "be told somthing"; told him (in Latin) that it didn't make any sense to be "told somthing" by a jabbering monkey-man.
Got a warning, which I'm quite happy to wear, with some pride possibly.
But I've decided to now ignore this particular Troll (who accuses me of being one -I told him to go find his own bridge once)
Other minds are there to reflect ourselves; to remind us who we are.
Sure, and we can choose to look at the reflection, or not (how comforting).

Someone's keeping an eye on this crap, so I'll ghost the stuff that got "deleted" when I posted a certain comment at a certain forum today. Which shall remain nameless (it's SFN)

You (may) think I'm some kind of asshole: this is only "true", as you must be aware, as far as all "groupthinker" assholes are some kind of asshole. Thinking you aren't an asshole doesn't make it come true (this is something I think I realised a fair while ago, how about you?).
I've met intelligent assholes, dumb assholes, assholes who don't know where their asshole is, and assholes who think everyone (except them) is an asshole. Anyone can be an asshole if they choose to (except no-one actually has any choice, right?).

Being "banned" has no meaning that I can discern anywhere. None whatsoever.
Surely one or two of you have managed, by now, to adapt a notion something like: (the Fred) has the same opinion of arbitrary authority and groupthink crap (and troll-doll collectors) as he has of what the neighbour's dog does on the lawn sometimes?

I personally have (some of you may have realised) a fairly low opinion of people who view themselves as somehow "important"; as having "correct" points of view, notions of certain basic science (mis)concepts, and use of some talismanic "authority" they believe they have. I've been practising my sock-puppet technique (or should that be "troll-on-a-stick")?

The paradox of observation: Observing paradox
(or: how to look serious while laughing hysterically as you come in for a landing) :cool:

There is something about our world that we can't explain about its intrinsic nature, or its fine structure. We haven't had the ability to examine the world at very small scales for all that long (~100) years. We are still battling various Maxwellian and logical demons that appear to inhabit the place.

For much of recorded history, and up until the end of the 19th century, when certain aspects of the behaviour of matter were proving difficult to explain (and would overturn, eventually, the cherished beliefs of those who saw Nature as mechanical and deterministic), the world and observable phenomena in it were believed to convey "events", or information about them, as effortlessly floating ideas, in some vessel (the mind, or consciousness, of an observer).

Measurements, of change, motion and harmony, or regularity, were believed to be available to an ontological observer, who conceptually had a complete set of epistemically observable information about any event, and could determine the cause of any event: causality, and the notions of a compulsion, or irresistible and irreversible agency, were developed. Every motion was caused by some previous motion, and all events were, in principle, determinable.

The interaction with external reality that is projected at us, and the one that currently seems unable to yield to our knowledge--which appears to "require" observation or measurement before it becomes real; through our biological and thermodynamically functioning brains and senses, is both a Descartian despair of connection--we never observe the "now" but always look backwards at it--in some logical and physical sense, and an accepted and biological (evolutionary) fact of our existence, and something we "just live with".

The external world, not the internal one, has, (as we who are in it, and a part of it have) an existence, due to 'mass-energy' and 'extent'. The extent (space), contains this mass-energy, and is also produced by another property of mass-energy (entropy), which means it (matter) disperses, there is an 'excursive-property' the universe has.

Our concepts (our logic and thinking), are connected to these external symmetries. The connections are obvious to us, but our logic, capable of projecting imagined and innate maps onto the external, appears to us, when we examine it, to be a work in progress. We are learning.

..plas scriptator

The bunch of idiots-who-think-they-know-what-science-is at Science-Free-Notions is a bunch of hall-monitors who group together and discuss plans, schemes, and ideas that will "improve" the "communication" going on. They have a few "extra-hard-working", well-trained pets, who are congratulated with brownie points, patted on the head (sometimes given a special mention in dispatches even). Their favourite monkey goes around looking for things to pick out and chew on.

Sometimes he appears to think (if that's what you might call it) that he's found something, and can be quite persistent and "annoying". Of course, ignoring the fuckwit is always a valid option. The thing is, what he thinks is a nice tasty morsel, is actually something he's picked out of his own ass.

Examples of "Mr. I'm a gibbering idiot's" style to follow, at some stage, along with examples of the application of "logic" from these pseudo-scientists, who don't seem to realise their monkey-man "pet" is actually eating shit all the time.
Because he has a mouthful, no-one can make out what he's saying all that well, so he gets away with being an actual shithead as well as being a complete tosser.
One of the "head-monitors" aimed something at me yesterday about leaving, my response is: you didn't ask nicely. But hall monitors and school prefects aren't supposed to posses that particular quality, right?

Thought for the day:
Idiots don't like to be told they are fools; fools don't like being idiots, they just can't help it.

"
* What would the world be like if people did not have a desire for monetary, or material wealth, ...power, or the control of others?
* What if we wanted only what we truly needed?
* What if everything we truly needed was freely available?
* What if humanity [valued] life, all life, above monetary, or material wealth, the desire for ...power, or the control of others?
* What if the control of the self was all the control that was ever desired?
* What if everyone was looking out for everyone else instead of just themselves?
* Would anyone in such a society go hungry, be without a decent place to live or clothing?

If you compare the world we have chosen to live in, to the one we could have, what does this tell you about the global belief system?

It tells you that wealth, power, and control which are virtually the same in this world, are sought after without regard [for] human life, the environment, the quality of the life of others, or the condition of the Earth itself?

It also tells you that economic systems (money) puts people in positions of power, control, influence and leadership that should not be.

It is amazing to watch the mental gymnastics people perform in order to justify some of the things they do. Some people actually believe they are of more value than others. It is probable they get this idea ...because they receive special treatment. They may receive special treatment because of their position, their wealth, or their accomplishments, and this sometimes sets up barriers between themselves and the people around them.

There are other barriers to be sure (social, religious, racial, sexual (gender or preference), ethnic, age, etc.), but the ones of position, wealth, or accomplishment, are usually applied to individuals.

[M]ost people do not wish to believe they are what they are, while others are completely clueless due to self delusion (they do not think about it at all). The real problem comes in because we choose (because we have not made any changes) to think, speak, and act from [a] perspective, as reflected by the condition of our world.

We view ourselves from this perspective also, which is another reason we are no better than we are. If we change, by default the world will change because of it. We are immensely more than we could ever possibly imagine, but yet no more than we believe or choose to be."

--Karl Woods fringewisdom.com

VIDI HOSTIS NOS SUNT.
"I have seen the enemy, the enemy is us." :wallbang:

Change is inevitable. The Universe changes constantly, as Life does too. There is compulsion, but also striving, to this change; a contention, a constant egressing or extending (growing) and energy consuming process. Life is cursive: it excurs and incurs constantly.

All life observes its environment. It is obliged to do this. It requires or maintains a store of (chemical) energy, against the dispersive effects of free energy, and has learned how to meet this requirement in gradual steps, that have yielded an ability to aggregate and communicate better with other lifeforms, and eventually develop, via this more efficient storage, "better communicating" lifeforms (with each other, and with the environment). Life observes. This is an active, energy requiring, and ongoing process. When it stops, the individual organism also stops. or disperses; its information is randomised, or re-ordered.

Information, in the form of photons of EMR, chemicals, and electric potential (in special cases -certain metabolic pathways, involving electron transfer), is collected, or received -in the case of prokaryotes via channels or pores (or simple gaps) in their outer wall, or sheath, that contains their substance (prevents it dissipating) and protects it.

Life only samples the constant 'flow' of mass/energy and it then uses these samples to 'remember' or map its environment. In eukaryotes, there is more structure, and more 'sophisticated' transport systems (proteins embedded in cell walls). Also, these more developed cells have learned how to live as a single community, an evolutionary step which led to collections of differentiated cells becoming more dependent on the collective behaviour of all the others.

The photon is the "message" we get from the quantum world, which we convert into "information" in our brains; in information theoretic terms, photons' mass or momentum produces a set of orderings, involving many different encodings, algorithms, communication and compression/expansion, a really big deal from a little bit of light energy, with a thermodynamic equivalent. It includes a "special" kind of projection called "meaning", into which IT will not step, or with which it doesn't commute. It has no defined thermodynamic equivalent, or does it? Can we determine the "map", what it looks like, how stable -some of it exists in a memory, or stable entropic form that requires less energy to maintain, or is self-maintaining, as in actual neuronal growth, perhaps.

We know that mass/energy is conserved (throughout the universe, presumably). We know that it "emits" photons, little packets of energy that "convey" information into our biochemical, thermodynamic brains. What is meant by information, regarding what is known about a system, classical or otherwise, and what's the difference between ontology and epistemology. information about some external system as ontogenic, or ontic (i.e. observation is because of the systems character), and information which is projected, as epistemogenic, or epistemic, since it comes from within us;
both projections, axiomatic in that neither is 'available' ontically or epistemically, without an observer and an observed.

5. Is "information" (e.g. sequence of bits defining Shakespeare's Hamlet) independent of space and time and matter? Is information (we can imagine) always material/physical ? In our world it is 'obvious' that we always need something physical to represent information, e.g. paper and letters.
If we accept that body and mind is just sequence of bits, there seems to be no contradiction, why one could not affect another.

6. What is 'thinking'? If it is based on informatics (information & algorithms) - because we are part of such an informational universe, then thoughts can be represented by a sequence of bits. One interesting thing about thinking is, that information itself without algorithms is useless (.JPG file without proper viewer would be just meaningless sequence of bits) what gives information sense is algorithm - a kind of interpretation of that information. We can use various algorithms on the same sequence of bits and receive various interpretations (some of them meaningless) Information without algorithm would only exist, but we're unable to realize that it exists thus it is the same as if it would not actually exist.

There would be "no-one" able to discriminate between existence and nonexistence - no kind of consciousness (this seems like reversed "cogito ergo sum"). But in fact algorithm is also just a sequence of bits (in modern computers - algorithm exists as a binary encoded machine instructions, alternatively - algorithm written in some programming language is only text file - thus only information) From other point of view - can algorithm exist without information? (As some abstract concept)

Problem then is how to represent such an algorithm (when there is no information) and also - if we deny existence of the information, algorithms would become useless because there would be no need for algorithm to transform one 'message' to another (and that is what we would normally expect from algorithms to do) As a consequence, it seems to me logical, that information and algorithm can not exist one without each another (existence of information implies also existence of algorithms and vice versa) - one of them can exists only and only if both of them exist.

And as it was explained in previous paragraphs, hardware required for running such information and algorithms could also be made only from information and algorithms (we have something as virtual computers - e.g. Virtual Playstation running on Intel x86 architecture, virtual VAX architecture running on Intel x86 - and i am not sure but there may also be virtual Intel x86 running on Intel x86.)

If human thinking (information + algorithms) is just sequence of bits then "thinking" is just a "big" natural number. But when our Universe is computational (also based on information and algorithms) then it could perhaps be just a "big" number or set of all natural (or real ?) numbers (if Universe in its true nature is infinite)

One consequence of fact that our universe could be computational is that even human beings can be "digitalised" (as mentioned above) As human beings are the most complex objects in the universe we know, it is quite interesting that there exist one indirect evidence to support such "digitalisation theory". (and consequently, if the most complex known object in the universe can be digitalised there is no reason to think that universe as a whole can not be.)

That kind of indirect evidence is existence of DNA - because DNA can be most definitey digitalised (C, A, G, T are just four bases in the whole DNA sequence and can easily be assigned to numbers <0..3>) And I think, there is no doubt that DNA in cooperaton with the environment defines complete human (if we do not consider metaphysical questions). For example the same DNA put into different conditions (two human clones) will evolve differently just because it has different inputs from the environment (Humans act like programs or agents, getting input from sensors, making decisions and giving output.)

7. All laws of physics (conservation of energy, conservation of momentum etc) could be reduced to law of conservation of information (at the beginning there was "nothing" but I think that it is not so difficult to show, that even from "nothing" can be created information = "something" - a number or set of natural numbers, on which basis perhaps the whole universe can be build somehow (as I was trying to show that even such complex object as human and his thoughts could perhaps be represented only by "big" number).

According to this - whole entropy of "everything that exists" should be 0. Let's not forget that if we are talking about "everything that exists" it is not the same as "visible part of universe in certain time" or some other subset of "everything", where locally entropy can vary from zero.

It is not that complete nonsense to think about infinite bit sequence and infinitely complex algorithms (definition of such algorithms would differ from classical meaning of "algorithm")

-anon
o
What reason is there to assume that it must be possible to represent the laws of nature algorithmically, or by any symbolic system at all? -Tyler arxivblog.com
o
Godel and Turing basically say that “there are some scientific facts that we will never know for sure to be true (even in an algorithmic world). With a slightly off analogy: concluding from Turing that the universe can’t be broken down algorithmically is like concluding from our inability to predict next year’s weather that weather can’t be broken down mathematically.

The limitations of an internal observer of the universe are not to be confused with the properties of the universe itself. --Daniel arxivblog.com

A "special" kind of projection: "meaning", with which IT doesn't commute.
Now, of course, none of the algorithmic and abstractive processes that "go on" inside a brain are that well understood, either, or not yet anyway. The thing about meaning is it's something that science tries to avoid when observing something, but is also the goal of much of what we do, in pursuing explanation.

We've been trying to assign meaning to the apparent order and regularity we find in the world ever since before we started making noises and the beginnings of communication, and language; symbolism embodies meaning, abstraction takes meaning from one level to another, objectivity and observation involve beliefs about how the world behaves.

Science likes to take pictures, snapshots of "reality" in action, in order to find difference. The difference, the gap between; the interval that two different pictures of the same thing represent. No single picture, or representation, or time-slice, can represent difference by itself, a picture different from it is needed for any comparison. A distance can't be represented by a single milestone, another reference, or milestone, is needed to calculate the number that represents the interval.

Separation or dispersal is entropy; probability or randomness (order/disorder), is information. Information is devoid of meaning, in that any order of a deck of cards has the same meaning as any other. The point is that the cards are all different. There is a difference between any ordering of the deck (say along a single row), and any dispersal (how far apart the cards are).

Same in a randomly ordered collection of gas molecules; dispersal due to kinematic collisions, and vibrational modes that cause some to emit photons (of "heat"), has nothing to do with any particular measurement, of, say, orientation, or number of vibrational modes, or even instantaneous velocity.
The ordering of any partition, or any statistical measure, is a picture of the state, regardless of how discrete or separate any such state is, and can be represented as an arbitrary string of bits. Then any possible string (any symbol in the alphabet) has the same meaning, and all states can be represented by all the different possible strings. Obviously, for a mole of gas, this will be a large number, of bits and possible arrangements of the bits.

The idea of a system approaching an equilibrium is related to the notion of heat, or energy, finding a maximum dispersal, or lowest entropy. Relaxation and harmonic motion are also connected to this.
There is no meaning in a system that "moves toward" a relaxed, or equilibrium, or balanced state; it's just another ordering of the information, but it is a maximum dispersal of energy.

I was going to post something but I thought I took a wrong turn and walked into the Frud Show. :)

I'm not a scientist and never call myself one. I didn't finish my scientific education, instead got a degree in accounting and ended up as a computer programmer. But I can't forget what I did learn and I keep reading about it and talking to other former future scientists. So when people start talking about science I often just chime in and explain something or tell them about the latest research if I happen to have read it.

After a couple of those, people tell me I should have stuck with it and become a scientist, because my explanations are always so clear. I suppose I have better communication skills than the average scientist and would have been a good science teacher.

The whole point of science is that it's supposed to make sense. You want people's eyes to light up and say, "Aha, so that's why electric cars don't exactly solve pollution; they just move it to where somebody else lives!" We don't ask people to take things on faith or authority the way certain competing belief systems do. We want them to KNOW that something is true, by UNDERSTANDING it. Scientists need to be better communicators.

Making sense goes a lot farther than saying what you do for a living.

I was going to post something but I thought I took a wrong turn and walked into the Frud Show. :)

LMAO :D

We want them to KNOW that something is true, by UNDERSTANDING it. Scientists need to be better communicators.

Making sense goes a lot farther than saying what you do for a living.
A-freakin'-men.

Is it important for a scientist to identify themselves (at least to themselves) as being part of investigative and forward-looking endeavour?

Do you find yourself impressed with knowledgeable people, who are obviously intelligent about some subject, or can at least illustrate that they can think about stuff?

Are you someone who believes that identifying like this is important? Do you go to the extent of proclaiming your own learning? Do people react positively?

Is this identifying (with the results of some exam), similar to a kind of faith in the power of talismans, and ritual? How are these kinds of beliefs (in one's ability and/or mental or learning level), different from a priesthood?

Is a priest declaring he is such (a faithful believer, and representative), and a scientist performing his "ritual" of identification, all that different?

Just an idea...

an idea confirmed by Prof. J. Weizenbaum (http://www.rationalvedanta.net/node/83)



As many have observed, modern science has become a religion, at least for Western man. Like other religions, it has a priesthood, roughly organized on hierarchical lines. It has temples, shrines, and rituals and it has a body of canons. And. like other religions, it has its own mythology. One myth in particular states that if, say, by experiment a scientific theory is confronted in reality with a single contradiction, one piece of discontinuing evidence, then that theory is automatically set aside and a new theory that takes the contradiction into account is adopted. This is not the way science actually works.

.......

In fact, some people have the same type of very deep faith in modern science that others do in their respective religions. This faith in science, grounded in its own dogma, leads to a defense of scientific theories far beyond the time any disconfirming evidence is unearthed. Moreover, disconfirming evidence is generally not incorporated into the body of science in an open-minded way but by an elaboration of the already existing edifice (as, for example, by adding epicycles) and generally in a way in which the resulting structure of science and its procedures excludes the possibility of putting the enterprise itself in jeopardy. In other words, modem science has made itself immune to falsification in any terms the true believer will admit into argument.

Perhaps modern science's most devastating effect is that it leads its believers to think it to be the only legitimate source of knowledge about the world. Being a high priest, if not a bishop, in the cathedral of modern science— my university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology —I can testify that a great many of what we sometimes like to call "the MIT family," faculty and students, believe that there is indeed no legitimate source of knowledge about the world other than modern science. This is as mistaken a belief as the belief that one cannot gain legitimate knowledge from anything other than religion. Both are equally false.

Is it important for a scientist to identify themselves (at least to themselves) as being part of investigative and forward-looking endeavour?

Do you find yourself impressed with knowledgeable people, who are obviously intelligent about some subject, or can at least illustrate that they can think about stuff?

Are you someone who believes that identifying like this is important? Do you go to the extent of proclaiming your own learning? Do people react positively?

Is this identifying (with the results of some exam), similar to a kind of faith in the power of talismans, and ritual? How are these kinds of beliefs (in one's ability and/or mental or learning level), different from a priesthood?

Is a priest declaring he is such (a faithful believer, and representative), and a scientist performing his "ritual" of identification, all that different?

Just an idea...

I do have considerable respect for anyone who's very knowledgeable.

But I don't think that can be equated with religious rituals. Religious rituals are based in superstition and what is essentially fantasy. Science and research are purely to do with facts, and about learning new facts.

You don't 'believe' in your medulla oblongata, it exists. Not much scope for faith or any equivalent of priesthood there.

Is that what you were asking, or am I missing the point?

As many have observed, modern science has become a religion, at least for Western man.
Rubbish.

Like other religions, it has a priesthood, roughly organized on hierarchical lines. It has temples, shrines, and rituals and it has a body of canons. And. like other religions, it has its own mythology.
More rubbish.

One myth in particular states that if, say, by experiment a scientific theory is confronted in reality with a single contradiction, one piece of discontinuing evidence, then that theory is automatically set aside and a new theory that takes the contradiction into account is adopted. This is not the way science actually works.
Duh. Anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of how science "really works" already knows this.

.......

In fact, some people have the same type of very deep faith in modern science that others do in their respective religions. This faith in science, grounded in its own dogma, leads to a defense of scientific theories far beyond the time any disconfirming evidence is unearthed.
Who is he talking about here? My local plumber? What a load of twaddle.

Moreover, disconfirming evidence is generally not incorporated into the body of science in an open-minded way but by an elaboration of the already existing edifice (as, for example, by adding epicycles) and generally in a way in which the resulting structure of science and its procedures excludes the possibility of putting the enterprise itself in jeopardy. In other words, modem science has made itself immune to falsification in any terms the true believer will admit into argument.
Holy shit! What era does this guy live in? This is demonstrable bullshit as evidenced by some of the most revolutionary science in history that has occurred within the last century.

Perhaps modern science's most devastating effect is that it leads its believers to think it to be the only legitimate source of knowledge about the world.
I love this. Please give an actual example of these other modes of knowledge and some examples of that knowledge. Same goes for this:

Being a high priest, if not a bishop, in the cathedral of modern science— my university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology —I can testify that a great many of what we sometimes like to call "the MIT family," faculty and students, believe that there is indeed no legitimate source of knowledge about the world other than modern science.
Ok, So....

This is as mistaken a belief as the belief that one cannot gain legitimate knowledge from anything other than religion. Both are equally false.
Equally false. Bullshit. c'mon LG. This is crap at it's best (or worst). Give me an explicit example of this other way of knowing stuff. Please.

I do have considerable respect for anyone who's very knowledgeable.

But I don't think that can be equated with religious rituals. Religious rituals are based in superstition and what is essentially fantasy. Science and research are purely to do with facts, and about learning new facts.

You don't 'believe' in your medulla oblongata, it exists. Not much scope for faith or any equivalent of priesthood there.

Is that what you were asking, or am I missing the point?
that is the "myth" on how science works

One myth in particular states that if, say, by experiment a scientific theory is confronted in reality with a single contradiction, one piece of discontinuing evidence, then that theory is automatically set aside and a new theory that takes the contradiction into account is adopted. This is not the way science actually works.

at least it is apparent to (some) persons in science, that it very often doesn't work like that

Fair enough...excuse me for being naive.

Supe

“
As many have observed, modern science has become a religion, at least for Western man.
”
Rubbish.

“
Like other religions, it has a priesthood, roughly organized on hierarchical lines. It has temples, shrines, and rituals and it has a body of canons. And. like other religions, it has its own mythology.
”
More rubbish.
erm - that's the introduction supe

“
One myth in particular states that if, say, by experiment a scientific theory is confronted in reality with a single contradiction, one piece of discontinuing evidence, then that theory is automatically set aside and a new theory that takes the contradiction into account is adopted. This is not the way science actually works.
”
Duh. Anyone with even a rudimentary grasp of how science "really works" already knows this.
then it's not clear why you write it off as rubbish

.......

“
In fact, some people have the same type of very deep faith in modern science that others do in their respective religions. This faith in science, grounded in its own dogma, leads to a defense of scientific theories far beyond the time any disconfirming evidence is unearthed.
”
Who is he talking about here? My local plumber? What a load of twaddle.

“
Moreover, disconfirming evidence is generally not incorporated into the body of science in an open-minded way but by an elaboration of the already existing edifice (as, for example, by adding epicycles) and generally in a way in which the resulting structure of science and its procedures excludes the possibility of putting the enterprise itself in jeopardy. In other words, modem science has made itself immune to falsification in any terms the true believer will admit into argument.
”
Holy shit! What era does this guy live in? This is demonstrable bullshit as evidenced by some of the most revolutionary science in history that has occurred within the last century.
actually it was a lead up to some paragraphs I didn't submit

eg

Until recently, modern science, seen as a religion, lacked a deity suitable as an object of worship. The machine, which is generally pictured as something that has gears, moving parts, and so on, has existed for a long time now. To modern man the machine certainly represents power, control, mastery over nature-in other words, attributes a worshipable deity should have. But the machine lacks mystery. In fact, it often demystifies in the sense that people believe that most anything can be transformed, metaphorically at least, into the form of a machine and then understood as such. The machine has become an almost universally applicable metaphor that demystifies both itself and the thing to which it refers. This thinking holds true for both intellectuals of all persuasions as well as for ordinary people. Perhaps most people today think a thing is not understood until it has been reduced to a mechanical process.

anyway more is there - maybe you should read the article if you want to lodge a serious criticism (or alternatively, tagging "Bullshit" and "rubbish" to the metonymic might be more delightful ...)

“
Perhaps modern science's most devastating effect is that it leads its believers to think it to be the only legitimate source of knowledge about the world.
”
I love this. Please give an actual example of these other modes of knowledge and some examples of that knowledge. Same goes for this:

“
Being a high priest, if not a bishop, in the cathedral of modern science— my university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology —I can testify that a great many of what we sometimes like to call "the MIT family," faculty and students, believe that there is indeed no legitimate source of knowledge about the world other than modern science.
”
Ok, So....
:eek:
I see we have a serious "believer" on our hands here

what he is talking about is how EVERYTHING is assumed to fit the model of reductionist knowledge

for instance, in the part where he is talking about developing a program

But, as I said, this leads to the crossing of a very subtle line, and after running over that line during programming, the first impression many people get is that the person is inferior to the computer — that the programmer is in some way a defective imitation. And in certain ways the computer is better than human beings. This is what gives rise to the feeling, not that the computer is made in the imitation of man, but, quite the other way around, that in a certain sense man is made in the image of the computer. So we may start out by thinking that the computer is modeled after the brain or human thought, but then we turn around and say instead that the brain itself is a kind of computer. For example, yesterday someone pointed to his head and said, "the computer up here." Perhaps it was intended as an amusing gesture, but at the same time, it was an almost universally recognized comment, one which is, I think, quite serious and, under the circumstances, dangerous.

“
This is as mistaken a belief as the belief that one cannot gain legitimate knowledge from anything other than religion. Both are equally false.
”
Equally false. Bullshit. c'mon LG. This is crap at it's best (or worst). Give me an explicit example of this other way of knowing stuff. Please.
this article is not so much about alternative models of knowledge but how a model of knowledge (the scientific reductionist type) has a "religious" type of sentiment driving it (the exclusive/monopolizing "truth, the light and the way")
otherwise how is that we know that the brain operates like a computer?

this article is not so much about alternative models of knowledge but how a model of knowledge (the scientific reductionist type) has a "religious" type of sentiment driving it (the exclusive/monopolizing "truth, the light and the way")
Bullshit. You can't just decide to apply the word "religious" to something just because you think it makes a point or something. Science is called science because it's not religion. Just like we call Corn FlakesTM Corn FlakesTM because they're not transistors.


otherwise how is that we know that the brain operates like a computer?
Who "knows" that? No one in modern neuroscience thinks the brain really works like a common computer. The better approach at this point is some kind of adaptive neural network. Look it up.

This is what continues to get me. You and other theistic types want so desperately for science to appear as rigid and unyielding as your religions that you start making shit up.

Fortunately for you, science is clearly a dynamic, self-correcting, exciting human endeavor with the ability to actually adapt and function in ways that your precious religions coud never hope to even approximate.

Deny it. I dare you. Tell me how adaptable and open to change religion is. Go ahead. Then tell me how (like the idiot in the article) science is stuck with epicycles and such.

Ha!

And please, if you can, share some simple other ways of knowing with us.

Bullshit. You can't just decide to apply the word "religious" to something just because you think it makes a point or something. Science is called science because it's not religion. Just like we call Corn FlakesTM Corn FlakesTM because they're not transistors.
the connection being drawn is that the priesthood/hierarchy and rituals of religion are concomitant factors of a claim to knowledge that is monopolizing - clearly that can also be seen in science



Who "knows" that? No one in modern neuroscience thinks the brain really works like a common computer. The better approach at this point is some kind of adaptive neural network. Look it up.
persons involved in AI have a different perspective ....

This is what continues to get me. You and other theistic types want so desperately for science to appear as rigid and unyielding as your religions that you start making shit up.
if you've never encountered person who firmly believes that the brain is like a computer it must be because you don't mix with persons involved in AI

Fortunately for you, science is clearly a dynamic, self-correcting, exciting human endeavor with the ability to actually adapt and function in ways that your precious religions coud never hope to even approximate.
yes - its all a matter of sticking to the game rules

Deny it. I dare you. Tell me how adaptable and open to change religion is. Go ahead.
seems you are confusing adaption with breaking the game rules

Then tell me how (like the idiot in the article) science is stuck with epicycles and such.
if you read the article you will see that he is talking about patching a theory in the presence of conflicting evidence
epicycles is a good example
perhaps a more contemporary hot potato would be the big bang


Ha!

In 1966, he published a comparatively simple program called ELIZA which demonstrated natural language processing by engaging humans into a conversation resembling that with an empathic psychologist. The program applied pattern matching rules to the human's statements to figure out its replies. (Programs like this are now called chatterbots.) Weizenbaum was shocked that his program was taken seriously by many users, who would open their hearts to it. He started to think philosophically about the implications of Artificial Intelligence and later became one of its leading critics.

actually he has (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weizenbaum) first hand experience with the over active imagination and beliefs of a certain creed of science

And please, if you can, share some simple other ways of knowing with us.
it's not the issue of this thread - if you want to open one (perhaps in the religion or philosophy sub forums) I would be happy to participate
;)

the connection being drawn is that the priesthood/hierarchy and rituals of religion are concomitant factors of a claim to knowledge that is monopolizing - clearly that can also be seen in science

NO. This is wrong.


persons involved in AI have a different perspective ....
No. This is untrue.

if you've never encountered person who firmly believes that the brain is like a computer it must be because you don't mix with persons involved in AI
But I can read. No AI experts think the brain is like a digital computer. Look it up.

if you read the article you will see that he is talking about patching a theory in the presence of conflicting evidence
epicycles is a good example
perhaps a more contemporary hot potato would be the big bang
Err... so? The point here is that theories may get patched, but if the patching is shown to indicate a fatal flaw in the current theory, it will then be modified appropriately or discarded.


In 1966, he published a comparatively simple program called ELIZA which demonstrated natural language processing by engaging humans into a conversation resembling that with an empathic psychologist. The program applied pattern matching rules to the human's statements to figure out its replies. (Programs like this are now called chatterbots.) Weizenbaum was shocked that his program was taken seriously by many users, who would open their hearts to it. He started to think philosophically about the implications of Artificial Intelligence and later became one of its leading critics.
Umm.. so?

actually he has (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weizenbaum) first hand experience with the over active imagination and beliefs of a certain creed of science
Really? Where does it say that?

it's not the issue of this thread - if you want to open one (perhaps in the religion or philosophy sub forums) I would be happy to participate
;)
No way bub. You had what, several billion threads that asked the same questions? And you can only tell us we don't have the proper trainig to access these special ways?

Sorry. No dice.

How did you ever get your ideas that science was this stultified conspiracy of establishment yahoos bent on some religious quest for - whatever it is you think they're questing for?

Supe
“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
the connection being drawn is that the priesthood/hierarchy and rituals of religion are concomitant factors of a claim to knowledge that is monopolizing - clearly that can also be seen in science
”
NO. This is wrong.
well ... that's science
;)


“
persons involved in AI have a different perspective ....
”
No. This is untrue.
you've never encountered a person involved with AI talk about mechanistic models of the brain based on computer science?

“
if you've never encountered person who firmly believes that the brain is like a computer it must be because you don't mix with persons involved in AI
”
But I can read. No AI experts think the brain is like a digital computer. Look it up.
cough cough (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=%22cognitive+science%22+computer&btnG=Google+Search&meta=)

“
if you read the article you will see that he is talking about patching a theory in the presence of conflicting evidence
epicycles is a good example
perhaps a more contemporary hot potato would be the big bang
”
Err... so? The point here is that theories may get patched, but if the patching is shown to indicate a fatal flaw in the current theory, it will then be modified appropriately or discarded.
round and round it spins, where it stops nobody knows folks .... step right up!
:D

“

In 1966, he published a comparatively simple program called ELIZA which demonstrated natural language processing by engaging humans into a conversation resembling that with an empathic psychologist. The program applied pattern matching rules to the human's statements to figure out its replies. (Programs like this are now called chatterbots.) Weizenbaum was shocked that his program was taken seriously by many users, who would open their hearts to it. He started to think philosophically about the implications of Artificial Intelligence and later became one of its leading critics.
”
Umm.. so?

“
actually he has first hand experience with the over active imagination and beliefs of a certain creed of science
”
Really? Where does it say that?
sorry - I forgot that you just stepped out of a cave and are not familiar with contemporary issues that surround AI

How did you ever get your ideas that science was this stultified conspiracy of establishment yahoos bent on some religious quest for - whatever it is you think they're questing for?
probably from the insistence of a certain creed of scientist who promotes the doctrine of the entirety of reality being mechanically reduced in order to be deemed "truthful"

:p

(BTW they are only questing for name fame and adoration - the same as any other loony in the guise of an intelligent person)

No way bub. You had what, several billion threads that asked the same questions? And you can only tell us we don't have the proper trainig to access these special ways?

Sorry. No dice.
yes
discussing the problems of accepting classical empiricism as the monopolizing factor for knowledge is a recurring theme .... especially amongst those who firmly believe it ....

you've never encountered a person involved with AI talk about mechanistic models of the brain based on computer science?

...

sorry - I forgot that you just stepped out of a cave and are not familiar with contemporary issues that surround AI
Umm... none of that - none of your links, none of the verbage, says that anyone thinks the brain works like a digital computer. I guarantee you that none of them (AI experts) think the brain works like a digital computer. You are completely missing the point. You can write programs that simulate or mimic certain human behaviors. That is not AI. One day we may be able to program a digital computer to mimic the functions of a human brain. That may be AI.

I myself can write (and have written) a simulation of a motorcycle fuel consumption and prediction system. Does the motorcycle really work like my sim? Hell no!

None of this has any bearing on how the human brain works, which I thought was the thrust of this discussion.

You should come out of your own cave once in a while and look around.

probably from the insistence of a certain creed of scientist who promotes the doctrine of the entirety of reality being mechanically reduced in order to be deemed "truthful"

:p

(BTW they are only questing for name fame and adoration - the same as any other loony in the guise of an intelligent person)
Who are these "they"??? I must have missed them in my 25 year career of interacting with many scientists and engineers. :confused:

yes
discussing the problems of accepting classical empiricism as the monopolizing factor for knowledge is a recurring theme .... especially amongst those who firmly believe it ....
Then dispel my "belief". Start a thread. I don't care. I think you know that you have nothing of substance to offer us since you hide behind the "you don't have the qualifications to understand" shield.

Why is it that I can explain to any layman what I do for a living or how some basic physics works and have them basically understand, but you can't even give a hint as to your "other ways" for us?

Umm... none of that - none of your links, none of the verbage, says that anyone thinks the brain works like a digital computer. I guarantee you that none of them (AI experts) think the brain works like a digital computer. You are completely missing the point. You can write programs that simulate or mimic certain human behaviors. That is not AI. One day we may be able to program a digital computer to mimic the functions of a human brain. That may be AI.

I myself can write (and have written) a simulation of a motorcycle fuel consumption and prediction system. Does the motorcycle really work like my sim? Hell no!

None of this has any bearing on how the human brain works, which I thought was the thrust of this discussion.

You should come out of your own cave once in a while and look around.
"AI can have two purposes. One is to use the power of computers to augment human thinking, just as we use motors to augment human or horse power. Robotics and expert systems are major branches of that. The other is to use a computer's artificial intelligence to understand how humans think. In a humanoid way. If you test your programs not merely by what they can accomplish, but how they accomplish it, then you're really doing cognitive science; you're using AI to understand the human mind."

Herbert Simon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Simon)

read and ye shall see the light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI)

:D

seems quite clear to me ....
am I missing something?

Then dispel my "belief".


:roflmao:

I wouldn't want to establish a precedent on sciforums

Who are these "they"??? I must have missed them in my 25 year career of interacting with many scientists and engineers. :confused:

I dunno

maybe you spend too much time at the coffee machine or something

:)

seems quite clear to me ....
am I missing something?
*sigh*

Yes, you are. I'm trying to help you here. Read the quote you posted and the link. They talk, in general, about using computers to help understand how the brain works. Not one of them is claiming that a computer IS the way the brain works. We know that's not the way the brain works. We've known that for decades.

It's exactly the same as using a computer to model a supernova event. Because we use a computer to help understand supernova events, do we think that supernovae have 1's and 0's computating throughout their innards? Of course not!

It's been known for some time that neurons are weighted input/output devices. Neural nets are modelled directly on this. Look it up. Of course this in itself tell us nothing of how the brain works as a whole, only that some of it's fundamental elements are nothing like a digital computer!

There may be analogous functions, but the mechanisms of how it works are absolutely NOT digital.

I dunno

maybe you spend too much time at the coffee machine or something

:)
Actually I'm just learning to drink coffee. A friend of mine roasts and grinds his own and it's nothing like the crap that turned me off coffee a long time ago. It's freaking delicious!

:roflmao:

I wouldn't want to establish a precedent on sciforums

Ha! :bravo:

*sigh*

Yes, you are. I'm trying to help you here. Read the quote you posted and the link. They talk, in general, about using computers to help understand how the brain works. Not one of them is claiming that a computer IS the way the brain works. We know that's not the way the brain works. We've known that for decades.

It's exactly the same as using a computer to model a supernova event. Because we use a computer to help understand supernova events, do we think that supernovae have 1's and 0's computating throughout their innards? Of course not!

It's been known for some time that neurons are weighted input/output devices. Neural nets are modelled directly on this. Look it up. Of course this in itself tell us nothing of how the brain works as a whole, only that some of it's fundamental elements are nothing like a digital computer!

There may be analogous functions, but the mechanisms of how it works are absolutely NOT digital.

the experts disagree (http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/cogsci.html#simon)

"From its inception, the cognitive revolution was guided by a metaphor: the mind is like a computer. We are a set of software programs running on 3 pounds of neural hardware. And cognitive psychologists were interested in the software. The computer metaphor helped stimulate some crucial scientific breakthroughs. It led to the birth of artificial intelligence and helped make our inner life a subject suitable for science. ... For the first time, cognitive psychologists were able to simulate aspects of human thought. At the seminal MIT symposium, held on Sept. 11, 1956, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell announced that they had invented a 'thinking machine' -- basically a room full of vacuum tubes -- capable of solving difficult logical problems. "


The field of cognitive science overlaps AI. Cognitive scientists study the nature of intelligence from a psychological point of view, mostly building computer models that help elucidate what happens in our brains during problem solving, remembering, perceiving, and other psychological processes. One major contribution of AI and cognitive science to psychology has been the information processing model of human thinking in which the metaphor of brain-as-computer is taken quite literally.

the difference between this and using computers to simulate supernovas is that they declare computers can act like a metaphor for conscious thinking (as opposed to a tool of computation)

the experts disagree (http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/cogsci.html#simon)

"From its inception, the cognitive revolution was guided by a metaphor: the mind is like a computer. We are a set of software programs running on 3 pounds of neural hardware. And cognitive psychologists were interested in the software. The computer metaphor helped stimulate some crucial scientific breakthroughs. It led to the birth of artificial intelligence and helped make our inner life a subject suitable for science. ... For the first time, cognitive psychologists were able to simulate aspects of human thought. At the seminal MIT symposium, held on Sept. 11, 1956, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell announced that they had invented a 'thinking machine' -- basically a room full of vacuum tubes -- capable of solving difficult logical problems. "


The field of cognitive science overlaps AI. Cognitive scientists study the nature of intelligence from a psychological point of view, mostly building computer models that help elucidate what happens in our brains during problem solving, remembering, perceiving, and other psychological processes. One major contribution of AI and cognitive science to psychology has been the information processing model of human thinking in which the metaphor of brain-as-computer is taken quite literally.

the difference between this and using computers to simulate supernovas is that they declare computers can act like a metaphor for conscious thinking (as opposed to a tool of computation)

I agree with your post. It's a metaphor. Your post supports exactly what I've been saying. Thank you. The brain in no way functions in a digital fashion but can be modelled on a digital computer, just like a supernova. I completely agree.

LG, do you think there are transistors in your head?

I agree with your post. It's a metaphor. Your post supports exactly what I've been saying. Thank you. The brain in no way functions in a digital fashion but can be modelled on a digital computer, just like a supernova. I completely agree.

unless you have rigged up your motherboard in a really unconventional fashion, its not clear how computers are a metaphor for a supernova
:confused:

LG, do you think there are transistors in your head?
no
but there is a class of scientist who would no doubt try and explain (http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=transistors+neurons&btnG=Search&meta=) to me that just as transistors exist in a computer, I have neurons, and that these enable what we know of as "consciousness"

they may even cite

At the seminal MIT symposium, held on Sept. 11, 1956, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell announced that they had invented a 'thinking machine' -- basically a room full of vacuum tubes -- capable of solving difficult logical problems. "

:shrug:

unless you have rigged up your motherboard in a really unconventional fashion, its not clear how computers are a metaphor for a supernova
:confused:
And why not? Since a digital computer has no more actual physical relation to how a brain works than it does to how a SN works? The software model is the metaphor. Anyone who takes the actual physical internal workings of a digital computer to be a metaphor for a brain is seriously misleading themselves.

no
but there is a class of scientist who would no doubt try and explain to me that just as transistors exist in a computer, I have neurons, and that these enable what we know of as "consciousness"
Just as I could explain to you that just as transistors exist in a computer, so do atoms in a SN?

they may even cite

At the seminal MIT symposium, held on Sept. 11, 1956, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell announced that they had invented a 'thinking machine' -- basically a room full of vacuum tubes -- capable of solving difficult logical problems. "
And again, if we develop a digital computer that can 'think', what does that have to do with how a human brain works? We already know that human brains do not work in binary math.

And why not? Since a digital computer has no more actual physical relation to how a brain works than it does to how a SN works? The software model is the metaphor. Anyone who takes the actual physical internal workings of a digital computer to be a metaphor for a brain is seriously misleading themselves.
it should be obvious - the computer is a tool for understanding supernovas, not a metaphor
the workings of a computer do not illustrate any parallel to a supernova (unless it over heats and blows up or something)
when it comes to cognitive science however, the situation is different (http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/97-10-10-03.all.html)

Among the imaginative uses scientists have suggested for quantum devices are "intelligent" computers -- computers that can learn and reason like humans. They would be built from billions of quantum transistors linked together with reconfigurable interconnections so that each transistor functions like a neuron in the brain. It might even be possible to blend electronics with biological systems by forcing damaged nerves to regenerate through porous quantum computer chips so the human brain can be connected to artificial limbs.

now where do you suppose the author scored that metaphor from?

...now where do you suppose the author scored that metaphor from?
Ok. Let's just say I agree with you on this point of the computer being a metaphor for "thinking" processes. How did we get from "the brain works like a computer" (which I denied and you asserted) to "the computer is a metaphor for the brain"?

Fine. The computer is a metaphor for the brain and in no way works like the brain.

How's that?

Supe

“
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
no
but there is a class of scientist who would no doubt try and explain to me that just as transistors exist in a computer, I have neurons, and that these enable what we know of as "consciousness"
”
Just as I could explain to you that just as transistors exist in a computer, so do atoms in a SN?

:wtf:

are you trying to say that by tenoring a transistor to a neuron, the only thing this metaphor is elaborating on are issues of part to the whole?



“
they may even cite

At the seminal MIT symposium, held on Sept. 11, 1956, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell announced that they had invented a 'thinking machine' -- basically a room full of vacuum tubes -- capable of solving difficult logical problems. "
”
And again, if we develop a digital computer that can 'think', what does that have to do with how a human brain works? We already know that human brains do not work in binary math.

hence the fervor amongst the masses is to develop a computer that also does not work with binary math

;)

Ok. Let's just say I agree with you on this point of the computer being a metaphor for "thinking" processes. How did we get from "the brain works like a computer" (which I denied and you asserted) to "the computer is a metaphor for the brain"?
"the brain works like a computer" is actually an analogy, not a metaphor.
we are only calling it a metaphor due to the misuse of rhetoric by Weizenbaum earlier on.

Fine. The computer is a metaphor for the brain and in no way works like the brain.

How's that?
analogy (or even metaphor) requires that there is some relationship between the two givens

for instance " like a goldfish without a motorbike" would be unusual to draw terms with since there is "no way" that goldfish can be seen to require motorbikes

if the computer was in no way like a brain, passing that remark would seem equally surreal

needless to say, the surreality of it is lost on adamant AI'ers
:D

Whatever dude. I surrender.

Whatever dude. I surrender.

Yikes.. you surrender ?
You must feel like your avatar right now ;)

Yikes.. you surrender ?
You must feel like your avatar right now ;)
Yes. Yes I do. My semantic quibbling processor is overloaded.

Yes. Yes I do. My semantic quibbling processor is overloaded.

Hehe ;)

Yikes.. you surrender ?
You must feel like your avatar right now ;)

I had a picture of motorbike that looks like a goldfish on standby

:p

I had a picture of motorbike that looks like a goldfish on standby

:p

LOL Post it anyway.. ;)

I had a picture of motorbike that looks like a goldfish on standby

:p
Lets see it!

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p42/lightgigantic/--mksw2k3fps01-JLewis-MyPictures-83.jpg

Awesome!

Yes. Yes I do. My semantic quibbling processor is overloaded.

BTW - notice the implications of the analogy you spontaneously reached for

;)

BTW - notice the implications of the analogy you spontaneously reached for

;)
BTW, notice the implications for the obvious choice of an analogy for someone as smart-assed and ironic as me.

BTW, notice the implications for the obvious choice of an analogy for someone as smart-assed and ironic as me.
I guess we are processing along similar lines of software
:p

I knew there was a reason I liked you...

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p42/lightgigantic/--mksw2k3fps01-JLewis-MyPictures-83.jpg

LOL neat ! :p

What does identifying with a scientific viewpoint or intellect have to do with art or literature? Or what we "see" in Nature (when we go and look at it), as opposed to what we see of it on a TV, or anything else inside some room in a house?
What's the difference in meaning between standing in a lounge, or a kitchen, and standing on a beach or in a forest?

“None of us can stand and stare for long at a brilliant night sky, and not begin to wonder by what mighty hand it was wrought, and to what purpose. This amazing light show that parades across the heavens we know to be distant stars, rather than holes in some celestial curtain, and the iridescent river, a section of one of the arms of our galaxy, in fact, a river of stars. This knowledge doesn't seem to detract from the view in the least.
We have front row seats in the Amphitheatre of the Cosmic Dance, a contemplative view of the creation all around us.”

What is it about being in a forest, or standing on a shore, or on a mountain, or seeing the heavens, that elicits some deep, almost transcendental feeling of “something” within us? Some primeval emotion that compels us to consume the scene before us, to drink it in, to savour its experience.
What is the “experience”? What is it about seeing the ocean, its vastness, the power and noise of its waves, the “presence”, of something that we recognise, but can't identify?

Anyone?

"...where am I?"

Light is information we get from the quantum world, with a "colour" message for our eyes, and a "warmth" message for "us" (neural cells in our epidermis), which we convert into information "in" our brains; it gets "mapped functionally" to a more stable form.
Brain information is tricky stuff. We understand discrete systems: heat engines, cycles and heat transfer, and momentum and mass, but what sort of momentum do thoughts have?
Symbols can be external, real things (stone markers, logos, marks on a "measuring" stick, these words), or internal representations.
The recursive bit is that we are "information" assigning meaning -a kind of representation- to "new" information. How does this occur?

Our conception, or apprehension, of our individuality "appears" unitary: a whole. But we aren't a single thing: we're made up of lots of different "bits", and our brain -arguably the place where "we" are- is a very evolved piece of equipment.
The mammalian brain is a multiple-level (processing) system, with deep and fine structure (compartmentalisation) that "runs" on relatively inefficient thermodynamics.

Most of us perceive "me" as centred somewhere between both ears, and behind both eyes. We are (perceiving ourselves and looking at the world from) somewhere in the "middle" of our brains (in terms of where the "Fukawe bird" is).
But we aren't. We're "all over the place", in terms of the extent of our (mesomorphic) selves. Our bodies are pervaded by our brains, neurons have extensions (axons) that carry signals around, these are sheathed, like cabling, to help conserve the charge (potential), and to prevent it dissipating (dispersing).

So we perceive ourselves, in a locative sense, as inhabiting a (physical) body, and "centred" in the middle of our head, in a vague, dual kind of way. We're centred, like the pineal gland is, or the limbic system, say, but also extended throughout our "selves".

Where's a clean shirt when you need one?
Our Newtonian view of the behaviour of things in the world assumes regularity and predictability everywhere, but any close-up view of the reality of the situation appears to contradict this: the world appears this way for no good reason that we can discern, despite centuries of science, a revolution in scientific thinking that saw the overthrow of religious dogma as a central reference in our lives, and philosophers (Kant, Popper, etc) who have spent much thinking about our paradoxical point of view.

Here's something from such a thinker about our "place" amongst all the chaos:

"No man willingly wears a dirty shirt. Yet, at some stage between early morning, when a man dons a clean shirt, and late evening, when he removes a dirty shirt, and tosses it contemptuously into the laundry basket, he is knowingly wearing a dirty shirt... He perceives the shirt to have been clean all day but somehow instantaneously dirty only at the moment of removal.
Such a perception deceives us all, and there are millions of men world wide who spend a good part of every day wearing dirty shirts. That this occurs does not represent a failure of hygiene, but the failure of Newtonian science, which posits an imperturbably linear dimensionality to the world in which we stake out our lives, largely oblivious to the terrifying chasm of metaphysical uncertainty that threatens our certain certainties.

Let me explain. A dirty shirt when it is removed at 6 pm is no more embarrassing and uncomfortable than a dirty shirt at, say, 3 pm. Yet few men that I know take along a spare clean shirt to work to change into at the precise moment when their previously clean shirt becomes dirty.
There is a very good reason for this that has nothing to do with convention or convenience, and everything to do with metaphysical uncertainty.
For exactly when does a clean shirt become dirty? If we knew, we would be able to change it at the appropriate time. We can certainly define what constitutes a dirty shirt, and – having defined it – we can submit any shirt we wear to a dirty shirt test.
But at what point does this happen…? Oh Euclid, Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, Richard Dawkins, and all you writers of bumper stickers whereso’er you may be! This is not a question; this is an exclamation of despair! When does a clean shirt become dirty? When does the sun set? When do I enter the room? When does any event take place?
...
A moment’s reflection will tell us that this is and must perforce always be a puzzle beyond the solution of the science we currently master. This is for the very good reason that as prosaic and practical as the question “when does an event happen?” may ostensibly be, it is of course a metaphysical question.
How astonishing it is to realise this. You may counter with the assertion: the sun went down at 6.30 pm. But “6.30 pm” is a construction of knowledge that has meaning only as a vague analogue of what really happens when the sun goes down. No measurement in time can ever define the moment of transition between being and non-being. For when the Sun is still in the sky it is not down, and however infinitesimally brief its existence as a not-yet-set Sun may be, it is always capable of being briefer. At any given moment, it is either visible or invisible; therefore the transition from visibility to invisibility takes place in a moment out of time."
--Colin Bower (Dec. 2006)

Do we understand time? We know about distance, and how it takes time to get from one part of the world to another, because there's this distance between them.
We seem to be able to understand a difference (in real distance, or in "time distance") easily enough, but we can never see a moment or a point of it, the start and end have no existence...?:shrug:

Next up: duality. Observation is always a dual role. Whoever or whatever we end up with in our heads as some pattern, nothing can have an ontic, or ontologic nature--can have no nature--without these two actors appearing.

Because we use a computer to help understand supernova events, do we think that supernovae have 1's and 0's computating throughout their innards? Of course not!Hm. Actually, supernovae, black holes etc, do have physical bits (1s and 0s) computating, from an IT perspective.:bugeye:
...neurons are weighted input/output devices. Neural nets are modelled directly on this. ...Of course this in itself tells us nothing of how the brain works as a whole, only that some of it's fundamental elements are nothing like a digital computer!Models of neurons on a computer, are a simulation. That is: something like the way neurons communicate and learn. But what the model is made of, isn't the model, as you say.

Or a model is something that's built out of parts, and the parts aren't as useful by themselves, or aren't a specific configuration that's "something like the way neurons communicate and learn".
However, brains do process information and apply algorithms that appear to work like the mathematical ones used in real computers: filtering, compression/expansion, FFT and other transforms, encoding,...

Again, it isn't much like a PC, or a network of computers, but machines can behave (something) like real neurons. Also an informaticist will tell you that there are bits in a brain, too.:eek:

A single quantum event, like an electron changing its momentum in a single atom, is an indeterminate state.

If there is no source of light, but only an expectation of seeing a single photon, then there can only be a probability assigned, depending on what might be known. Assume there is no other radiation from any direction, and an observer is bounded by complete darkness, or lack of radiation (it's close to absolute zero).

So a photon's arrival, out of the void, literally, is a Schrodinger's cat state.

Entanglement is a kind of action that occurs at a distance. Photons of light can be entangled via down-conversion, where a special kind of refracting medium ( a mirror-prism) splits photons in two. This process can be repeated to get four photons, from the original copy. Photons are their own antiparticle, and their own superposition. This property is additive and subtractive.

Photons ignore time, and travel at a constant velocity. Their entanglement (an entrainment), ignores distance. Both are a kind of connection with plenty of mathematical ideas about what they are and how they "work". But entangled states aren't information, they're a connection with no transfer of energy.

Wave collapse is what we think waves do, maybe because ocean waves do this when they "run out of water". But the wave doesn't vanish, it's a wave of momentum--it gets transferred to the beach. You get some of it if you stand within a certain horizon, and your body vibrates as the wave transfers momentum to the sand in front of you. Collapse is transfer.

Communication, from an information-theoretic perspective, involves the transfer of information, without meaning. No pattern is more or less meaningful, and all possible patterns (given a "pattern space") are equally likely.

In human terms, communication is about ideas, meaning and belief.
We talk to, and with each other. Language has been around probably since we started to organise ourselves in activities that simply work better, more efficiently, with good communication--ways of co-ordinating the actions of a group. This sort of organised activity doesn't work as well without communication. All groups of animals communicate, especially with other members of their species.

Now for a bit of poetry, actually, some lyrics--words set to music, by a well-known symphonic rock group, who've been around for a while.
This is about talking, or trying to:

"...Something happened, which unleashed the power of our imagination: we learned to talk." --Stephen Hawking

The silence surrounding me
I can't seem to think straight.
I'll sit in the corner
Where no-one will bother me.

I think I can speak now...
"Why won't you talk to me?"
I can't seem to speak now...
"You never talk to me..."
My words won't come out right...
"What are you thinking?"
I feel like I'm drowning...
"What are you feeling?"
I'm feeling weak now...
"Why won't you talk to me?"
I can't show my weakness...
"You never talk to me..."
I sometimes wonder...
"What are you thinking?"
Where do we go from here?
"What are you feeling?"

--Keep Talking, Pink Floyd

These guys get a bit dark, you have to say. :m:

Imagine you are aware of yourself: you're floating in space, or a space (it doesn't look much like you remember space is supposed to--there aren't any stars; there's a vague grey background--it's certainly not inky black).

You can discern a distant, very tiny black dot, you can see it because the background is a lighter (vaguely so) shade, than this dark speck.

Your attention is drawn to it. It wavers and appears to be slightly larger, is it moving in your direction? It's definitely starting to grow in size, you can see it happen. Or are you moving in its direction?

It gets slowly bigger, or is it increasing in size more quickly suddenly? It's difficult to tell the passage of time, floating in this vague, colourless space, with a black dot somewhere in front of you. The growing black shape is round, like a small fullstop, or maybe a little bigger.

After some time, it grows to the size of a small sphere, like a toy planet, but still shrouded in dark and mysterious meaning, or expectation.

Now you can see it has things on its surface, small groups of trees can be discerned, even from this far (though they look out of proportion, as if the planet really is a toy, with toy trees stuck on it). You can see green everywhere, and white clouds hovering around this "world" suspended in front of your telescopic (or microscopic) vision.

The toy planet gets bigger. Now you can see more, there are buildings, people walking around. You are still a long way away, but can make all this out quite clearly, as if a god peering down from the heavens.

You approach this thing hanging in its indeterminate, grey-black space. You can see it really is a planet. It has blue skies, rivers, and seas, and land. Buildings, trees (whole forests of them), and people. You descend through the clouds and are standing, some hundreds of meters from a bridge, which crosses a small river into a city...

The scenery is lush: large trees and copses everywhere, also stands of large bamboo, and other flora; clouds float in an azure sky. The sounds are muted, somehow, and the experience seems almost completely visual, you don't consider this any problem, however, and walk towards the bridge.

You can see that it's made out of large sections of bamboo, dressed and bound together, like a big interlocking puzzle; a cleverly constructed and very solid artifice, with a substantial portcullis and tower at the city end, and two piers standing in the river, upon which the span rests. As you walk across it, you notice the surface of the walkway is paved with smaller slats of slightly rounded bamboo lengths, with a repeating pattern of crossed and interlaced bindings, of either cane or bamboo; the surface gives slightly as you walk on it.

You cross the bridge and walk through the portcullis. There is no sign of any guards, or any other people. You can see large buildings stretching along streets and avenues in all directions. The architecture is familiar, but eclectic. Large Edwardian brick and mortar fin-de-siecle styles sit ponderously next to Japanese pagodas and Buddhist temples. Large and impressive, but not sky-scraping, modern glass and steel geometrical buildings in parklike surrounds, Roman villas, Morroccan and Turkish, European medieval monastic-style, and an Egyptian statuary in front of a large, impressive Dynastic-style outcrop of carved stone. Everything looms, yet is set in a background. It all looks purposeful, but none of the edifices appears to have a definite purpose: there are no lines of chanting priests, or acolytes, or followers to be seen anywhere.

You walk along through the city, taking a left-handed kind of route.
Eventually you see others. They seem like ordinary people, but you don't recognise any faces...

There are quite a few others that you can see standing around, or strolling in no particular direction.
There are women and men, all youthful looking, but somehow indeterminate, or timeless. Not angelic or cherubic-looking, but simply representative.

You are standing in a square, with the usual stands of large trees, and buildings all around. The people you can see in your vicinity are not collected in little groups, you can see they are not talking, or conversing with each other. They are all standing slightly apart, and some are moving away, but you're aware of a number who appear to be interested in your presence, or what you might have to say, perhaps.

You speak to a young man, about something important. You both, as you converse seem aware that there is no real need to say the words. You are speaking in a language that conveys much to this person, and his replies bring further responses from your thoughts on the matter.

You have never heard this language before, nor seen this young, earnest and sincere young man, and you recognise no building, or street, or park, nor any face that looks calmly in your direction, and listens to you speak. The words are not meaningless, but they are not needed. You know who these people are, and why you are amongst them, and why you had to come here.