Your mind is performing a function when it conceives of something but the concept itself is independent of you conceiving of it. Concepts are independent of us, a concept does not need to ever be conceived and yet it is still a concept. A concept is a concept before someone conceives of it, the physical act of constructing a brain state which involves that concept doesn't have any bearing on the validity of the concept. Your line of argument, so much as I can discern, is that since a concept is conceived when we have use of it then all concepts thus serve a purpose and thus have a function. This is false, as there are concepts which no one ever or anywhere conceives of and thus cannot have given them a purpose or utility and yet they are still concepts. 'Concepts', as a set, is much broader than the set 'concepts which will be conceived by a mind at some point in the universe'. Concepts which are conceived of have function/utility which is dependent upon the reason we conceive of them. As a result their utility is not absolute, thus the concepts which no one ever conceives of have no measure of utility or function. This illustrates what I just outlined. Every single word in any language has a purpose, to convey something. As a result every word has a purpose/utility/function. In the case of 'hard' it is an adjective which relates to difficulty or physical toughness. Thus the concept 'hard' has usefulness to us and we have a word for it. Does this mean all concepts have utility? All concepts which have words associated to them have utility, else we'd not bother having words for them. However this is only a subset of all possible concepts. Some concepts cannot be verbalised. Some concepts are so complicated and elaborate they are beyond our ability to conceive of them. Its possible some concepts are so utterly alien to us our brains are not capable of understanding them, since we interpret everything in terms of everyday experiences and the world we've evolved to live in. Thus not all concepts have utility/function. And besides, there is a difference between 'having a function' and 'being a function'. Your claim was that all concepts are functions, not that they have function. Its not semantics or splitting hairs, the distinction is a big one. You really do need to nail down your grammar and terminology a lot more. A great deal of this 'discussion' has come from the fact you either fail to grasp terminology or you're lacking in basic understanding of logic. All concepts thus far conceived by people have a function but this doesn't mean all concepts have a function. Nor does it mean all concepts are functions. God, if it/he/she/whatever exists, would be neither physical nor conceptual. I can recommend the discussion on precisely this stuff here. It covers a lot of the points I've been making about concepts too. I've been 'discussing' your claims about functions, not algorithmic what-not. I've stated that several times. You randomly brought it up again, it would seem, to change topic and move away from your mistakes. It would have been about your claims in general if you'd been open to accept corrections here and there. After all, why start a thread discussing information, entropy etc if you're going to ignore any and all comments from people who actually know a little about it? Particularly if you consider this forum an ocean of idiots. 'Continuous' has nothing to do with it but thank you, that wasn't too hard was it? I said it was irrelevant to your claim that position is a function of velocity. Its not irrelevant to physics.
Well. instead of discussing computer algorithms, here we are discussing what a concept is. I'm sorry, but I can't put together the concept of a concept that hasn't been conceived yet. You mean, god can be conceived as something which isn't physical? Then god is conceptual, by that argument. You can't say "I can conceive of A as being B, and so A is not a concept", that's just contradictory by any application of logic. Don't you mean "why start a thread about information, entropy etc if all the comments from people indicate they know very little about it"? I've responded to comments made by others; I believe I've demonstrated that I do know what communication and transmission are, and what entropy of information is. . You haven't, and nor have any of the other people demonstrated yet, that I don't know, although you and others have made a bit of irrelevant noise about it, you haven't corrected me. I corrected your misinterpretation of what I meant with "communication preserves information", you appeared to think I meant "transmission," but that isn't communication, although it is a function of communication.
Yes, because you didn't know what a function was, then you claimed all concepts are functions and thus I've had to explain how concepts are not necessarily functions or have functions. If you'd said "Fair enough, I didn't know the meaning of function" about half a dozen pages ago we have had a decent discussions on algorithms. Though saying that if you're not sure about what 'function' means it calls into question whether you know much about algorithms. God, if it existed, would be neither physical nor conceptual. From my point of view I don't believe in gods therefore gods are just concepts to me. However, if you're say Christian then you believe in an existing god. Concepts are not 'real', they are somewhat metaphysical. God, to a Christian, is real but he isn't physical either. Thus he wouldn't fall into either category. It just so happens that this is precisely why the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of god doesn't work. It opens with "Everything is either physical or conceptual" but concludes with "God is neither", its self contradictory. You called this place an ocean of idiots and stated you 'hates it'. Why start a thread here then inviting discussion and comment? If you think the level of discussion has been a little low then by all means raise it up a bit. I tried to talk about Shannon entropy but you couldn't understand the details. The issue here is that you don't know what basic common words used in information theory mean. As a result the majority of this thread has involved walking you through basic terminology. If you grasped it we'd be able to talk about more advanced stuff. This is a common problem with cranks. A crank will get basic stuff wrong and I'll correct it. They then complain I'm just spewing out stuff found in high school books, as if its my fault they didn't understand it. The old poster Kaneda was particularly bad at that. Everyone here who has formal education or work experience in those areas has disagreed. Every single one of us. Do you think if you simply lie enough times it'll become true. Someone only needs to reread the thread to see you fall flat on your face numerous times. Not 1 post ago I quoted you saying "My original claim. that position is a continuous function of velocity was wrong, I openly and honestly admit that. Ok, now?" You admitted you were mistaken and I'd corrected you. This is precisely what I mean, do you think no one is reading the thread and can't see you contradict yourself time and again?! You didn't correct any understanding of mine in regards to information theory, you clarified what you meant. You needed to do this because you explain yourself extremely poorly. Several times in this thread I've had to ask you to define your terms because your usage of common terminology suggests you don't know what they mean. So the fact you can't communicate your thought processes properly is somehow my fault? Hmmm.... quite.
This is what I said initially about communications and where you picked up my "communication preserves information" comment. You point out that there is a bandwidth and that channels are noisy, but as I said later on, if information is communicated it isn't lost. Transmission, which is what you're talking about, is another matter, but the receiver can only receive. That is my viewpoint, and you haven;t changed it.
Look, you guys have your heads up yoir asses. A channel transmits information from a sender to a receiver. (blatant troll!) If information is lost, the sender "loses" it, not the receiver. If the receiver receives anything, it isn't lost. Please disagree with this, one of you and explain what's wrong with it, methinks you protest too much. Put up or shut up. And also, please quote my mistakes about entropy, don't just say it's wrong, prove it is. Or prove a concept isn't a function, go on, you know you can do it.
Not very good at logic today, are we? A concept is something that occurs in someone's mind. You're saying we have ideas before they're ideas. When does a concept that no one has conceived become an actual concept? ?? An idea cannot exist if no one ever has it. Who made that rules up? Who said a concept has to be "useful" and why is there a distinction? All concepts are functions which means all concepts have a function, because functions have a function. How did you conceive something that isn't conceptual, then post a sentence about it? How did you figure out that you can think about something that you can't think about? Yeesh.
ah hell crap, Firefox just ate a reply!! You're the guy who said this forum is an 'ocean of idiots'. You're hardly innocent of delusions of competency. You demand I do things yet when I've asked you do answer simple direct questions, some of them a simple 'yes or no' or to explain yourself you refuse or ignore me. You said all concepts are functions. Since they aren't all functions in the mathematical sense I took it to mean 'utility', in that the function of a stomach is to break down food. This was in line with some things you said. I disagreed with the claim in each case. Since you agree that not all concepts have functions, in the sense of utility, you are agreeing with my point. Therefore you still have yet to demonstrate all concepts are functions. You have yet to even define how you're interpreting 'functions' in this context, something I've repeatedly asked you to do but you've failed to respond. Look up circular reasoning. This is a point I've responded to in length. I've given numerous lengthy posts, responding to things you've said. You've failed to reply on topic to few, if any, of them. You've ignored all direct questions and most, if not all, requests you explain what some of your comments meant (due to your inaccurate or dubious use of terminology). You're doing a typical crank thing, something I call a 'Kaneda' (after the crank from this forum who used to do it all the time). You request someone explain/demonstrate something and someone does. Rather than accept it you waffle and try to change the subject for a number of posts. Then once you consider enough time has passed you repeat the original challenge/question/request as if no one has responded to it. It's dishonest. The lengthy responses I gave you ignored in large part the first time around, why should I think you'll do any better the second time around? This thread is almost 10 pages in length now and that's enough time to see you're either unwilling or unable to engage in honest discussion. You've refused to answer too many simple questions, you've ignored too many responses, you've lied too many times. Now you're just doing a 'Kaneda', which just seals the deal. You're not engaging in honest discussion, you've shown you're unwilling to answer simple questions even when I show some good faith and answer yours. Until you can demonstrate your attitude/behaviour has changed consider the 'discussion' concluded. Feel free to make all the usual "OMG you're running away!!" comments I'm sure you're not mature enough to be above doing. I've given lengthy responses, you haven't. I've answered questions, you haven't. Anyone reading the thread can see your dishonesty. If someone else wants to start an honest informed discussion on information theory, thermodynamics or anything in between I'll be happy to join it but you have demonstrated, repeatedly, you neither want nor have the capacity to understand this stuff.
These questions are the ones I could find, looking back through this thread which you have asked me directly (not in any particular order): Which ones do you want me to still answer, or find the answer I gave for? I admit I did ignore some of them, I don't know, they didn't seem to be relevant to the topic.
Fuck it, says I (after changing the tinfoil liner in my hat). Arrogant bullshit. How do you know this? A function in programming returns a value, and it may or may not take a variable. I learned that in my first year, along with hundreds of other students. But The second statement contradicts the first, anyone who knows how logic works can see that. Your diatribes against me are full of shit like this. All concepts ARE functions, including the ones with no 'utility'. All functions can have one or more arguments, in that case the concept "argument" is taken to be an object which exists axiomatically. I am NOT agreeing with you that not all concepts have a function. The function all concepts have, is that they are functions, even if they return garbage. No, you. You haven't engaged in honest discussion, you've engaged in a polemical diatribe, which is full of logical errors and assumptions about what my posts mean. What they mean to you really is there is an excuse to go ballistic. But you look like a complete twat. An internet nazi. A troll.
AN knows this because you have repeatedly claimed that position is a function of velocity, when it manifestly is not. It is completely, blindingly obvious that you are not even passingly familiar with the mathematical definition of a function. Besides the ambiguity in this statement, who cares what you think a function is in programming, when you don't know what it is in maths?
You guys are still going at it? This is fun? Hey Arf, where did you receive your formal education? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
If it helps you with your delusion, believe what you like. I said that position is a continuous function of velocity exactly once--the repeats are all in your mind. And your mind is fucked. Who cares what you think I think? In the contect of Maxwell's demon, there is a function; the demon can observe molecules as objects--the demon can receive information from molecules. The positions change in a particular direction--two position measurements as arguments return a direction. To predictt the future position of a molecule, the demon has to assume that motion is continuous--molecules don't jump from place to place randomly. Although generally a claim that position is a continuous function of anything is not true (except continuous measurement), the demon doesn't care. I don't care either. Actually I posted that particular indication of my ignorance with a purpose--to see what kind of reaction ir would get. I thought it did a really good job, I'm quite proud of that little "mistake". Of course, you can think my statement is true without the world coming to an end, and in Maxwell's case, he thought about a hypothetical creatire--his little mistake took a while to be "corrected". And, I don't care at all what you say abouit your education; you don't care what I say about mine. You think you're intelligent, but I haven't seen much evidence. p.s. Hey RJ, where did you learn to play the piano?
Completely fair question, especially after I made the following comments... Wait a minute, was that me or not? Anyway, my answer to your question is that I've never learned to play the piano much beyond chopsticks; are you implying that your Physics "education" is analogous to my piano "education"? If that's the case, I commend you on your integrity for coming out and admitting that you had been previously misrepresenting yourself. :bravo:
Still not seeing it, are we? I had very little expectation of the topic of this thread being discussed here. There was some faint glimmer in the first say, page and a half of posts, then as I did expect, it all started getting quite predictable. That my "mistakes" managed to push someone's buttons and get them to demonstrate their discussion "abilitles" over several pages, is all the result I need. Like I said, it's actually more rewarding to not accept what you get told here by the "experts", and find out by yourself that believing people who insist they know the "answers" isn't recommended. I approach such people with caution, having seen a few experts in action. And, yes I'm twelve.
