So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

[ghi...@gmail.com]

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

 

15046Synchronized oscillators may allow for computing that works like the brain

• richard ruquist

  May 15 2:09 PM

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  Synchronized oscillators may allow for computing that works like the brain

  May 15, 2014

  

  This is a cartoon of an oscillating switch, the basis of a new type of low-power analog computing (credit: Credit: Nikhil Shukla, Penn State)

  Computing is currently based on binary (Boolean) logic, but a new type of computing architecture created by electrical engineers at Penn State stores information in the frequencies and phases of periodic signals and could work more like the human brain.

  It would use a fraction of the energy necessary for today’s computers, according to the engineers.

  To achieve the new architecture, they used a thin film of vanadium oxide on a titanium dioxide substrate to create an oscillating switch. Vanadium dioxide is called a “wacky oxide” because it transitions from a conducting metal to an insulating semiconductor and vice versa with the addition of a small amount of heat or electrical current.

  Biological synchronization for associative processing

  Using a standard electrical engineering trick, Nikhil Shukla, graduate student in electrical engineering, added a series resistor to the oxide device to stabilize oscillations. When he added a second similar oscillating system, he discovered that, over time, the two devices began to oscillate in unison, or synchronize.

  This coupled system could provide the basis for non-Boolean computing. Shukla worked with Suman Datta, professor of electrical engineering, and co-advisor Roman Engel-Herbert, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State. They reported their results May 14 in Scientific Reports (open access).

  “It’s called a small-world network,” explained Shukla. “You see it in lots of biological systems, such as certain species of fireflies. The males will flash randomly, but then for some unknown reason the flashes synchronize over time.” The brain is also a small-world network of closely clustered nodes that evolved for more efficient information processing.

  “Biological synchronization is everywhere,” added Datta. “We wanted to use it for a different kind of computing called associative processing, which is an analog rather than digital way to compute.”

  An array of oscillators can store patterns — for instance, the color of someone’s hair, their height and skin texture. If a second area of oscillators has the same pattern, they will begin to synchronize, and the degree of match can be read out, without consuming a lot of energy and requiring a lot of transistors, as in Boolean computing.

  A neuromorphic computer chip

  Datta is collaborating with Vijay Narayanan, professor of computer science and engineering, Penn State, in exploring the use of these coupled oscillations to solve visual recognition problems more efficiently than existing embedded vision processors.

  Shukla and Datta called on the expertise of Cornell University materials scientist Darrell Schlom to make the vanadium dioxide thin film, which has extremely high quality similar to single crystal silicon. Arijit Raychowdhury, computer engineer, and Abhinav Parihar graduate student, both of Georgia Tech, mathematically simulated the nonlinear dynamics of coupled phase transitions in the vanadium dioxide devices.

  Parihar created a short video simulation of the transitions, which occur at a rate close to a million times per second, to show the way the oscillations synchronize. Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State, used the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to visually characterize the structural changes occurring in the oxide thin film in the midst of the oscillations.

  Datta believes it will take seven to 10 years to scale up from their current network of two-three coupled oscillators to the 100 million or so closely packed oscillators required to make a neuromorphic computer chip.

  One of the benefits of the novel device is that it will use only about one percent of the energy of digital computing, allowing for new ways to design computers. Much work remains to determine if vanadium dioxide can be integrated into current silicon wafer technology.

  The Office of Naval Research primarily supported this work. The National Science Foundation’s Expeditions in Computing Award also supported this work.

  ---

  Abstract of Scientific Reports paper

  Strongly correlated phases exhibit collective carrier dynamics that if properly harnessed can enable novel functionalities and applications. In this article, we investigate the phenomenon of electrical oscillations in a prototypical MIT system, vanadium dioxide (VO₂). We show that the key to such oscillatory behaviour is the ability to induce and stabilize a non-hysteretic and spontaneously reversible phase transition using a negative feedback mechanism. Further, we investigate the synchronization and coupling dynamics of such VO₂ based relaxation oscillators and show, via experiment and simulation, that this coupled oscillator system exhibits rich non-linear dynamics including charge oscillations that are synchronized in both frequency and phase. Our approach of harnessing a non-hysteretic reversible phase transition region is applicable to other correlated systems exhibiting metal-insulator transitions and can be a potential candidate for oscillator based non-Boolean computing.

  references:

  • Nikhil Shukla et al., Synchronized charge oscillations in correlated electron systems, Scientific Reports, 2014, DOI: 10.1038/srep04964 (open access)

[LizR]

On 19 May 2014 07:16, <ghi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

I don't know, but I would think not, because comp allows reality to be digitised at any level (e.g. sub atomic) which wouldn't contradict the use of oscillators.

This sounds a bit like what someone once told me about early computer storage being done as sound waves that kept bouncing back and forth inside some medium. (A large spring, I think.)

[Bruno Marchal]

On 18 May 2014, at 21:16, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

No. Elementary arithmetic emulates n-synchronized oscillators for all n, even infinite enumerable set of oscillators. You would need a continuum of oscillators, with an explicit special non computable hamiltonian. Today, there is nothing in nature which would threat comp, except the collapse of the wave packet in theories where this is a physical phenomenon. Even in that case, it would be a computation with oracle, and not change much of the consequences. Anyway, I am not sure I can make sense of the wave collapse being a physical phenomenon, and even less that this play a role in the brain computation.

Bruno

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Telmo Menezes]

I don't know about the spring, but that was eventually done with mercury. Alan Turing proposed a cheaper alternative -- booze. More specifically, gin:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/28/wilkes_centenary_mercury_memory/

About this computer architecture being non-comp, I agree with you and Bruno, of course. I would say that the important distinction here is that it's not a Von Neumann arquitecture. I don't think this makes any difference at the level of abstraction that Bruno works, but might be quite relevant when it comes to the practical engineering effort of building advanced AIs.

I am pessimistic about an asynchronous connectionist machine being sufficient, though. This idea resurfaces periodically, and has been tried a number of times. It appear quite likely that the brain has very complex neuro-plasticity mechanisms that depend on the whole shebang: gene expression, molecular diffusion gradients, the interaction of these things with the environment and so on. Of course we don't have to copy the brain implementation, in the same way we don't need to flapping wings to build flying machines. But we might be interested in extracting the abstractions. The brain appears to be a system of self-modifying programs within programs within programs. And it comes from a seed generative program that is evolutionary tuned to a certain environment.

Best,

Telmo.

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Monday, May 19, 2014 7:26:40 AM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 May 2014, at 21:16, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

No. Elementary arithmetic emulates n-synchronized oscillators for all n, even infinite enumerable set of oscillators. You would need a continuum of oscillators, with an explicit special non computable hamiltonian. Today, there is nothing in nature which would threat comp, except the collapse of the wave packet in theories where this is a physical phenomenon. Even in that case, it would be a computation with oracle, and not change much of the consequences. Anyway, I am not sure I can make sense of the wave collapse being a physical phenomenon, and even less that this play a role in the brain computation.

 

Food for thought there, on the positive side. On the not-negative side, from my perspective I would probably class comp - or as it can be used - as an 'infinity theory', which whether correct or not, as I do see it that way, one major prediction blanketing the whole class would be that it's actually impossible for any development or surprise to amount to a major problem for theories in that class, or be influential. Purely as one of the properties of infinity...there's always a bit more infinity for whatever comes along.

 

So on the side in which I'm secretly interested and entertaining this infinity paradigm it's food for thought. On the other not-not-entertaining side, nothing new has been said about comp at all. So dwelling on that side as I am wont to do, for a chance of new value Bruno, I need to formulate a question that bridges the divide allowing possibility of value both sides. So here it is.

 

If this new architecture indeed happens to be sub-class for mimicking the brain...and maybe something like, ok comp will probably so no anything can be simulated on anything,. But within that there's a realistic open question, say to do with our local apparent physically, which obviously would include apparently physical materials out of which we build things, which feasibly being non-fundamental may be informationally or other such constrained within this apparently real dimensions, such that - feasibly - yes anything can be simulated on anything, but somethings in the multiverse are that complex that simulating them on our local physicality, requires large amounts of it,.

 

So maybe - and let's say the doctor asks the question before anyone discovers the above architiecture - and it so happens the digital brain is materially in terms of atoms insufficient in terms of weight to do the job, but by very unlucky mischance, it so happens it's exactly enough to do everything just like the brain is conscious but sadly would require a boulder sized object to generate the consciousness, or maybe a planet size.

 

So, unless there's a good reason why this is absolutely not a possible situation ever in the multiverse, why would you say yes to the doctor, not knowing absent hard theory for consciousness, whether the particular materials and computer architecture was right?

[Bruno Marchal]

On 19 May 2014, at 20:14, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, May 19, 2014 7:26:40 AM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 May 2014, at 21:16, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

No. Elementary arithmetic emulates n-synchronized oscillators for all n, even infinite enumerable set of oscillators. You would need a continuum of oscillators, with an explicit special non computable hamiltonian. Today, there is nothing in nature which would threat comp, except the collapse of the wave packet in theories where this is a physical phenomenon. Even in that case, it would be a computation with oracle, and not change much of the consequences. Anyway, I am not sure I can make sense of the wave collapse being a physical phenomenon, and even less that this play a role in the brain computation.

 

Food for thought there, on the positive side. On the not-negative side, from my perspective I would probably class comp - or as it can be used - as an 'infinity theory', which whether correct or not, as I do see it that way, one major prediction blanketing the whole class would be that it's actually impossible for any development or surprise to amount to a major problem for theories in that class, or be influential. Purely as one of the properties of infinity...there's always a bit more infinity for whatever comes along.

You are right, and wrong.

Mechanism is usually presented as a form of finitism. Indeed only finite entities needs to exist. We need only 0, s(0), s(s(s0))), etc. But we need all of them, if only to explain Church thesis and define what are universal machines (even if those are finite beings, but to explain their possible behaviors, which are infinite).

Then, when taking into account the personal views, the many infinities arise, but we can locate them somehow in the mind of the machines, as the basic ontology remains enumerable. 

Yet, what is assumed here is still much less that what is assumed in particles theory, quantum field theory, etc.

 

So on the side in which I'm secretly interested and entertaining this infinity paradigm it's food for thought. On the other not-not-entertaining side, nothing new has been said about comp at all.

?

Well, I don't want to brag on the newness, but usually people consider as new the following things:

- the existence of the first person indeterminacy

- the incompatiçbility between mechanism and materialism

- the idea that physics is derivable by machine's introspection, and thus that physicalism has to be replaced, for those wanting comp to be true, by a form of arithmeticalism (classified as finitism, see for example the book by judson Webb : "mentalism, finitism and metamathematics").

It is not ultrafinitism, which denies that "infinite" makes any sense (but is self-defeating, as it needs to give some sense to infinity to deny it). That is a bit like John Mike said once  for "atheism".

So dwelling on that side as I am wont to do, for a chance of new value Bruno, I need to formulate a question that bridges the divide allowing possibility of value both sides. So here it is.

 

If this new architecture indeed happens to be sub-class for mimicking the brain...and maybe something like, ok comp will probably so no anything can be simulated on anything,.

I do have some problem to parse that sentence.

But within that there's a realistic open question, say to do with our local apparent physically, which obviously would include apparently physical materials out of which we build things, which feasibly being non-fundamental may be informationally or other such constrained within this apparently real dimensions, such that - feasibly - yes anything can be simulated on anything,

?

The arithmetical reality, which does plays a role in comp, is full of things which are not Turing emulable. Only a tiny part opf arithmetic is Turing emulable. Most of it is not, and comp predicts that the physical reality has to inherit at least one non computable aspects.

The apparent Turing emulability of the physical laws is a threat for comp, a priori.

but somethings in the multiverse are that complex that simulating them on our local physicality, requires large amounts of it,.

Yes. 

 

So maybe - and let's say the doctor asks the question before anyone discovers the above architiecture - and it so happens the digital brain is materially in terms of atoms insufficient in terms of weight to do the job, but by very unlucky mischance, it so happens it's exactly enough to do everything just like the brain is conscious but sadly would require a boulder sized object to generate the consciousness, or maybe a planet size.

Then we got zombie. But the consequences of the reasoning remains, unless you need an infinity amount of material things to do the job, in which case non-comp is true, and we are out of the scope of this theory.

 

So, unless there's a good reason why this is absolutely not a possible situation ever in the multiverse, why would you say yes to the doctor, not knowing absent hard theory for consciousness, whether the particular materials and computer architecture was right?

The reason to say "yes" or "no" to the doctor are private. Some will say "yes" because the alternative is just dying, and they want to see their grandchildren growing.

I am publicly agnostic on the truth of comp, and if you want a confession, I am not sure at all that comp is true. I don't care as I am not defending any idea, except the logical point that IF comp is true, then the theology of Plato and the mystics is right and the theology of Aristotle and the naturalists are wrong (to be short). 

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, May 20, 2014 3:04:18 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 May 2014, at 20:14, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, May 19, 2014 7:26:40 AM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 May 2014, at 21:16, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

No. Elementary arithmetic emulates n-synchronized oscillators for all n, even infinite enumerable set of oscillators. You would need a continuum of oscillators, with an explicit special non computable hamiltonian. Today, there is nothing in nature which would threat comp, except the collapse of the wave packet in theories where this is a physical phenomenon. Even in that case, it would be a computation with oracle, and not change much of the consequences. Anyway, I am not sure I can make sense of the wave collapse being a physical phenomenon, and even less that this play a role in the brain computation.

 

Food for thought there, on the positive side. On the not-negative side, from my perspective I would probably class comp - or as it can be used - as an 'infinity theory', which whether correct or not, as I do see it that way, one major prediction blanketing the whole class would be that it's actually impossible for any development or surprise to amount to a major problem for theories in that class, or be influential. Purely as one of the properties of infinity...there's always a bit more infinity for whatever comes along.

You are right, and wrong.

Mechanism is usually presented as a form of finitism. Indeed only finite entities needs to exist. We need only 0, s(0), s(s(s0))), etc. But we need all of them, if only to explain Church thesis and define what are universal machines (even if those are finite beings, but to explain their possible behaviors, which are infinite).

Then, when taking into account the personal views, the many infinities arise, but we can locate them somehow in the mind of the machines, as the basic ontology remains enumerable. 

Yet, what is assumed here is still much less that what is assumed in particles theory, quantum field theory, etc.

 

I think I mostly get what you've said here....as I've read yours and a few other peoples take on each point over time. I think it's reasonable to regard as 'infinity based' thinking, theorizing etc, as one or more of:

 

- believes nature has infinite resources it can bring to a converged dimensionality (I.e. the MWI thinks multiple worlds can be in the same converged place)

 

- solves a problem with a hypothesis involving the anthropic principle if part of that solutution implies an effectively infinite space

 

- believes a theory absent verified predictions : the reason this one qualifies in my view is because in this day and age, anyone that does this ends up with infinity thinking, because that the major problem and threat facing the future of science.

 

- OR a theory that IMPLIES and SUPPORTS a infinity theory. Because if that is the case, it is now with 'consequences' an infinity theory.

 

So on the side in which I'm secretly interested and entertaining this infinity paradigm it's food for thought. On the other not-not-entertaining side, nothing new has been said about comp at all.

?

Well, I don't want to brag on the newness, but usually people consider as new the following things:

- the existence of the first person indeterminacy

- the incompatiçbility between mechanism and materialism

- the idea that physics is derivable by machine's introspection, and thus that physicalism has to be replaced, for those wanting comp to be true, by a form of arithmeticalism (classified as finitism, see for example the book by judson Webb : "mentalism, finitism and metamathematics").

 

If you listen to nothing else I ever say, please please listen to this: it's really bad that you've wrapped yourself in this modesty thing. I can obviously appreciate the sentiment underneath..I'm sure it kicked off virtuous. But it sort of psychologically encourages behaviours that a lot of people - particularly very sceptical people - will find suspicious. For example, I think there's a link somewhere between not being clear and repetitive what you think your big accomplishments are, and - possibly - getting into habits that probably start with trying to find lots of different metaphors or arguments to represent your ideas (because that would be one way to avoid appearing to repeat key accomplishments)...which can lead to situations where a sceptical person is challenging you about something you've said in the past, which you may not even remember that well, because it was a metaphor...a kind experimental statement. In that situation on your side it will seem natural and reasonable to simply reformulate the same underlying and represent it. But to the person that has challenged the earlier thing..,,.that will start to look intellectually dishonest.

 

There are other behaviours, that can come. I think this thing about being logician and not believing in the theory. Again, it might have been true at some point., It might be true now. But that's something that has to reviewed by you on a regular basis. Because you frequently also so you believe your theory is true. You've recently said this a thread in your last 20 or 30 posts. Also your behaviour is absolutely identical to someone that totally commits and invests in an idea and is very protective and single-minded about it. And a sceptical person will judge the behaviour and the words together, and if there is a conflict, the behaviour will be taken as true.

 

But IMHO there's an even worse thing about this logician/doesn't-belive gig. Bruno......you are marvellous the way you are. Apart from the falsification thing. I'm interested in history, and I've studied a few of the geniuses...though more circumstances around them. They were LUNATICS Bruno..obsessed maniacs willing to do ANYTHING to get that next insight.  These aren't people that were willing doubt their beliefs on the basis of a rhetorical argument, convention, populist standing, grant availaibility. Conjecture and Refutation? Get the hell out of here! When has Deutsch ever done the C&R thing with anyone resulting in Deutsch changing a view? Never that I can find.

 

But there's a reason and it's because it's amazing hard because reality is so freaky. That's what it takes. I'm interested in your because you're a lunatic. I don't know if you're going the right way. I think and hope you will convert your work to predictive course...which would require stripping back a lot of things...for now. But maybe I'm wrong...maybe you can see a prediction in the future....in which case keep going I guess. But it's definitely people like you really are, than these cool logician types that don't believe anything, that change the world,.

 

It is not ultrafinitism, which denies that "infinite" makes any sense (but is self-defeating, as it needs to give some sense to infinity to deny it). That is a bit like John Mike said once  for "atheism".

So dwelling on that side as I am wont to do, for a chance of new value Bruno, I need to formulate a question that bridges the divide allowing possibility of value both sides. So here it is.

 

If this new architecture indeed happens to be sub-class for mimicking the brain...and maybe something like, ok comp will probably so no anything can be simulated on anything,.

I do have some problem to parse that sentence.

But within that there's a realistic open question, say to do with our local apparent physically, which obviously would include apparently physical materials out of which we build things, which feasibly being non-fundamental may be informationally or other such constrained within this apparently real dimensions, such that - feasibly - yes anything can be simulated on anything,

?

The arithmetical reality, which does plays a role in comp, is full of things which are not Turing emulable. Only a tiny part opf arithmetic is Turing emulable. Most of it is not, and comp predicts that the physical reality has to inherit at least one non computable aspects.

 

Just as a random sampling can you provide the over-view  tsoning and published reference for what you say above?

The apparent Turing emulability of the physical laws is a threat for comp, a priori.

but somethings in the multiverse are that complex that simulating them on our local physicality, requires large amounts of it,.

Yes. 

 

So maybe - and let's say the doctor asks the question before anyone discovers the above architiecture - and it so happens the digital brain is materially in terms of atoms insufficient in terms of weight to do the job, but by very unlucky mischance, it so happens it's exactly enough to do everything just like the brain is conscious but sadly would require a boulder sized object to generate the consciousness, or maybe a planet size.

 

Then we got zombie. But the consequences of the reasoning remains, unless you need an infinity amount of material things to do the job, in which case non-comp is true, and we are out of the scope of this theory.

 

 

I think it is very relevant Bruno. It reveals, I think, how irrational and wreckless it would be for anyone to say yes to the doctor. Because We...and You...Don't know...how consciousness comes about, and have no answer as to whether that digital is conscious at all.

 

 

So, unless there's a good reason why this is absolutely not a possible situation ever in the multiverse, why would you say yes to the doctor, not knowing absent hard theory for consciousness, whether the particular materials and computer architecture was right?

The reason to say "yes" or "no" to the doctor are private. Some will say "yes" because the alternative is just dying, and they want to see their grandchildren growing.

 

You're saying I can say yes to the doctor at the point of my death? What has that proven then...I thought this is supposed to be a statement of commitment to an idea. Haven't you noticed how no one gives a shit about the future. A lot of people will say yes to the doctor for a totally implausible shot at eternal life if it doesn't cost them anything. A lot of people will be happy to do that if it costs 3M lives in 50 years and will sign on the dotted line. Because that's exactly what we are doing in a lot of other ways, and for a lot less than a shot at eternal life...we'll do it for more luxiourious brand of soap mate.

I am publicly agnostic on the truth of comp, and if you want a confession, I am not sure at all that comp is true. I don't care as I am not defending any idea, except the logical point that IF comp is true, then the theology of Plato and the mystics is right and the theology of Aristotle and the naturalists are wrong (to be short). 

 

On the grounds of behaviour and your many other public statements, I don't accept it.....not in any meaningful sense.....and thank god you're not.

[ghi...@gmail.com]

AND that's one of the problems with relying on popular...convential...history for assessing things.

 

Like the way you all reference Galieo  verbatim from popular history for example. He wasn't very significant in reality. The telescope was invented for a while, and thousands of people in the protestan north, were already looking at the sky and already noting these issues. I'm not saying he wasn't a genius but rthere's this notion of individuals rejecting authority as the basis of science. By definition, no one challenges POWER. In the north, POWER was with the aristocracy by 1600, and in the SOUTH power was with the Vatican. No one in the north challenged the aristocracy...they didn't have to...because the aristocracy recognized the emerging science as a great way to fuck up the power base in the south. They had no problem with science and what went round what in the sky.

 

Power doesn't tell you what to do about everything.,..but only some red lines you can't cross. You can't ever speak of power that it is powerful. Because power polices this...and will punish it, and will reward those that do not. Do you think it was ok for someone in 1600 to talk about rulers as if they were simply powerful? No...because that wasn't the narrative and power controls narrative. The narrative was that their position was NATURAL, earned, and god given. The worst thing a courtier could do, was speak to a superior about the lower status of the ordinary folk. Because, the superior would regard that, as suggesting the difference between the two of them was based on superficial social standing. You'd get head cut off within weeks.

 

No one dares question power. If they do...all it means is that power is on the wane, and a new power is on the rise.

 

 

 

[Bruno Marchal]

On 21 May 2014, at 15:28, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Tuesday, May 20, 2014 3:04:18 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 19 May 2014, at 20:14, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Monday, May 19, 2014 7:26:40 AM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 May 2014, at 21:16, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

No. Elementary arithmetic emulates n-synchronized oscillators for all n, even infinite enumerable set of oscillators. You would need a continuum of oscillators, with an explicit special non computable hamiltonian. Today, there is nothing in nature which would threat comp, except the collapse of the wave packet in theories where this is a physical phenomenon. Even in that case, it would be a computation with oracle, and not change much of the consequences. Anyway, I am not sure I can make sense of the wave collapse being a physical phenomenon, and even less that this play a role in the brain computation.

 

Food for thought there, on the positive side. On the not-negative side, from my perspective I would probably class comp - or as it can be used - as an 'infinity theory', which whether correct or not, as I do see it that way, one major prediction blanketing the whole class would be that it's actually impossible for any development or surprise to amount to a major problem for theories in that class, or be influential. Purely as one of the properties of infinity...there's always a bit more infinity for whatever comes along.

You are right, and wrong.

Mechanism is usually presented as a form of finitism. Indeed only finite entities needs to exist. We need only 0, s(0), s(s(s0))), etc. But we need all of them, if only to explain Church thesis and define what are universal machines (even if those are finite beings, but to explain their possible behaviors, which are infinite).

Then, when taking into account the personal views, the many infinities arise, but we can locate them somehow in the mind of the machines, as the basic ontology remains enumerable. 

Yet, what is assumed here is still much less that what is assumed in particles theory, quantum field theory, etc.

 

I think I mostly get what you've said here....as I've read yours and a few other peoples take on each point over time. I think it's reasonable to regard as 'infinity based' thinking, theorizing etc, as one or more of:

 

- believes nature has infinite resources it can bring to a converged dimensionality (I.e. the MWI thinks multiple worlds can be in the same converged place)

Well, not this one. For comp we need to assume a Turing universal reality, to sustain digital brains, but we don't need, in the assumption of comp, that nature has infinite resource. Indeed, we need it provisionally at step 7, but eliminate it at step 8. 

Of course we assume some understanding of what is meant by the sequence i, ii, iii, iiii, ... or 0, s(0), s(s(0)), etc.

 

- solves a problem with a hypothesis involving the anthropic principle if part of that solutution implies an effectively infinite space

Not solve a problem, but formulating it (and solving the propositional part, if you want). 

And not anthropic, but Turing-Tropic, universal-number tropic. A notion definable in arithmetic.

 

- believes a theory absent verified predictions : the reason this one qualifies in my view is because in this day and age, anyone that does this ends up with infinity thinking, because that the major problem and threat facing the future of science.

You don't believe that each natural numbers has a successor? 

 

- OR a theory that IMPLIES and SUPPORTS a infinity theory.

Comp is a finitism, and thus share this concerns to some point but after Gödel and Turing, we know we can't prevent the numbers to organize themselves in infinitely many ways. You need to be an ultrafinitists if you want get rid of all infinities, but then you should have stand up in high school and leave the class when they explained to you calculus. 

I doubt that you are an ultrafinitist. Again, by step 8, you will still to add magic to get consciousness related to physical events.

Because if that is the case, it is now with 'consequences' an infinity theory.

Well, to understand the definition of comp, you need to have an idea of what is meant by 0, s(0), s(s(0)) ...

 

So on the side in which I'm secretly interested and entertaining this infinity paradigm it's food for thought. On the other not-not-entertaining side, nothing new has been said about comp at all.

?

Well, I don't want to brag on the newness, but usually people consider as new the following things:

- the existence of the first person indeterminacy

- the incompatiçbility between mechanism and materialism

- the idea that physics is derivable by machine's introspection, and thus that physicalism has to be replaced, for those wanting comp to be true, by a form of arithmeticalism (classified as finitism, see for example the book by judson Webb : "mentalism, finitism and metamathematics").

 

If you listen to nothing else I ever say, please please listen to this: it's really bad that you've wrapped yourself in this modesty thing.

?

I thought that just above, I was no so modest. 

I think my work is simple. My chance was the overlap of amoebas and cantor, then Gödel use of the diagonalization. And then that we fail on the mind-body problem since a long time, and that we can expect a solution coming from a change of perspective. 

I can obviously appreciate the sentiment underneath..I'm sure it kicked off virtuous.

It is werid, I just was'nt. 

Let us focus on the point.

But it sort of psychologically encourages behaviours that a lot of people - particularly very sceptical people - will find suspicious.

If you get into that type of meta-thinking, you can lost yourself. It is simpler to just focus on the point.

Very skeptical people can read the text and think by themselves, and see that I am too very skeptical (on *all* the aristotelian gods). 

For example, I think there's a link somewhere between not being clear

On what. If anything is not clear, please ask a clarification.

and repetitive what you think your big accomplishments are, and - possibly - getting into habits that probably start with trying to find lots of different metaphors or arguments to represent your ideas (because that would be one way to avoid appearing to repeat key accomplishments)...which can lead to situations where a sceptical person is challenging you about something you've said in the past, which you may not even remember that well, because it was a metaphor...a kind experimental statement.

Could you abandon the ad hominem remarks, the meta-meta-statements and focus on the point which might not been clear to you. 

I have no clue at all what you don't understand in the UDA.

In AUDA, I know you are not at ease with the math. But any patient person can understand the main lines, and verify at least that the theorem I used are proved in the literature, or in my longer text.

In that situation on your side it will seem natural and reasonable to simply reformulate the same underlying and represent it. But to the person that has challenged the earlier thing..,,.that will start to look intellectually dishonest.

?

Please focus on the points, not on the pedagogy.

 

There are other behaviours, that can come. I think this thing about being logician and not believing in the theory. Again, it might have been true at some point., It might be true now. But that's something that has to reviewed by you on a regular basis.

When I talk to someone who persists in attributing beliefs that I have not. I have to repeat, for example, that I do not believe in comp, and that I do not believe in not-comp. I am agnostic, and in all case, that is private and should interest no one.

Because you frequently also so you believe your theory is true.

?

No. I believe my reasoning is very plausibly valid, as it has passed successfully many peer reviews. 

You just cannot assert that I believe comp, or in its consequences. Of course, from what I know about biology and quantum physics, comp seems plausible. 

This approach has a weakness, which is that it leads to math and computer science, which most people don't know (but with comp, that was expected).

You've recently said this a thread in your last 20 or 30 posts.

I don't believe you. 

Also your behaviour is absolutely identical to someone that totally commits and invests in an idea and is very protective and single-minded about it. And a sceptical person will judge the behaviour and the words together, and if there is a conflict, the behaviour will be taken as true.

Please, come back on the point, and not on me. 

 

But IMHO there's an even worse thing about this logician/doesn't-belive gig. Bruno......you are marvellous the way you are. Apart from the falsification thing.

Please explain me why you think that comp (+the theaetetus definition) are no falsifiable. I tried to explain you, but of course that is technical.

You cannot say both: your theory is not falsifiable and I have not the skill to follow where you show that is falsifiable. Unless you repeat a rumor, because that falsifiability point is the main result of the thesis.

At first comp looks falsified, as it leads to the white rabbit inflations. 

I am not sure you get the UDA point. You seem to not see that I am submitting a problem, and partially solving them.

I'm interested in history, and I've studied a few of the geniuses...though more circumstances around them. They were LUNATICS Bruno..obsessed maniacs willing to do ANYTHING to get that next insight.  These aren't people that were willing doubt their beliefs on the basis of a rhetorical argument, convention, populist standing, grant availaibility. Conjecture and Refutation? Get the hell out of here! When has Deutsch ever done the C&R thing with anyone resulting in Deutsch changing a view? Never that I can find.

 

But there's a reason and it's because it's amazing hard because reality is so freaky. That's what it takes. I'm interested in your because you're a lunatic. I don't know if you're going the right way. I think and hope you will convert your work to predictive course...which would require stripping back a lot of things...for now. But maybe I'm wrong...maybe you can see a prediction in the future....in which case keep going I guess. But it's definitely people like you really are, than these cool logician types that don't believe anything, that change the world,.

I have no interest in Bruno Marchal. But I have a passion for the löbian machine and the arithmetical dream, and a passion to share it with people interested.  Nothing else.

But you, Alberto, you seem to appreciate beating around the bush, ad infinitum.

 

It is not ultrafinitism, which denies that "infinite" makes any sense (but is self-defeating, as it needs to give some sense to infinity to deny it). That is a bit like John Mike said once  for "atheism".

So dwelling on that side as I am wont to do, for a chance of new value Bruno, I need to formulate a question that bridges the divide allowing possibility of value both sides. So here it is.

 

If this new architecture indeed happens to be sub-class for mimicking the brain...and maybe something like, ok comp will probably so no anything can be simulated on anything,.

I do have some problem to parse that sentence.

But within that there's a realistic open question, say to do with our local apparent physically, which obviously would include apparently physical materials out of which we build things, which feasibly being non-fundamental may be informationally or other such constrained within this apparently real dimensions, such that - feasibly - yes anything can be simulated on anything,

?

The arithmetical reality, which does plays a role in comp, is full of things which are not Turing emulable. Only a tiny part opf arithmetic is Turing emulable. Most of it is not, and comp predicts that the physical reality has to inherit at least one non computable aspects.

 

Just as a random sampling can you provide the over-view  tsoning and published reference for what you say above?

I have already prove many of this, in this list. For example, the notion of "totality" Being a machine, or a descriotion of a machine, computing a total function, is not something algorithmically solvable. This follows in one (double) diagonalization from Church thesis.

The semantic equality is no computable either. That is the fact that phi_x and phi_y, with x ≠ y, compute the same function (and this in any base phi_i). recursion theory studies the degrees of insolubility of the arithmetical relation, notably. 

A very good book is:

ROGERS H.,1967, Theory of Recursive Functions and Effective Computability, McGraw- 

Hill, 1967. (2ed, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1987). 

A more introductory book is:

CUTLAND N. J., 1980, Computability An introduction to recursive function theory, 

Cambridge University Press.

But Cutland does not study the arithmetical hierarchy, only the beginnings. 

The apparent Turing emulability of the physical laws is a threat for comp, a priori.

but somethings in the multiverse are that complex that simulating them on our local physicality, requires large amounts of it,.

Yes. 

 

So maybe - and let's say the doctor asks the question before anyone discovers the above architiecture - and it so happens the digital brain is materially in terms of atoms insufficient in terms of weight to do the job, but by very unlucky mischance, it so happens it's exactly enough to do everything just like the brain is conscious but sadly would require a boulder sized object to generate the consciousness, or maybe a planet size.

 

Then we got zombie. But the consequences of the reasoning remains, unless you need an infinity amount of material things to do the job, in which case non-comp is true, and we are out of the scope of this theory.

 

 

I think it is very relevant Bruno. It reveals, I think, how irrational and wreckless it would be for anyone to say yes to the doctor.

Aaaaaaaahhh. 

You believe in non-comp! 

You stop at step zero. 

But I have no problem with that. You did not prove that comp is false, and you can still appreciate the validity of the reasoning, which is the only thing I try to share.

Because We...and You...Don't know...how consciousness comes about, and have no answer as to whether that digital is conscious at all.

That is the point of making an axiom, like the invariance of consciousness for a digital transplant done at some level.

We cannot know if that is true or false (nor can we really know that for any transplants, or even taking a plane, or drinking orange juice). 

But we can study the consequences of the axioms/postulates/hypothesis/theory.

That *is* being scientific, and I have played, successfully, the academical duties for that effect.

I hope you are not influenced by rumors I have been reported. I am aware that some academicians pretend having a problem, but when I succeed to communicate with them, it is a chimera. They thought I said something, but they are not able to find the place I said it, and eventually recognized they were just misreading me, which is normal in a difficult subject.

I don't think there is anything controversial in what I say. 

Shocking? Possible. But no more than QM.

 

 

So, unless there's a good reason why this is absolutely not a possible situation ever in the multiverse, why would you say yes to the doctor, not knowing absent hard theory for consciousness, whether the particular materials and computer architecture was right?

The reason to say "yes" or "no" to the doctor are private. Some will say "yes" because the alternative is just dying, and they want to see their grandchildren growing.

 

You're saying I can say yes to the doctor at the point of my death?

You can do that. Comp asks nothing, it assumes that we can survive through a digital emulation of the brain. In case of doubt, it is reasonable to resist at the point of your death (not easy to determine). I was just enumerating reason to say "yes" to the doctor. 

What has that proven then...I thought this is supposed to be a statement of commitment to an idea. Haven't you noticed how no one gives a shit about the future. A lot of people will say yes to the doctor for a totally implausible shot at eternal life if it doesn't cost them anything. A lot of people will be happy to do that if it costs 3M lives in 50 years and will sign on the dotted line. Because that's exactly what we are doing in a lot of other ways, and for a lot less than a shot at eternal life...we'll do it for more luxiourious brand of soap mate.

You lost me. Are you saying that comp should be illegal?

I am publicly agnostic on the truth of comp, and if you want a confession, I am not sure at all that comp is true. I don't care as I am not defending any idea, except the logical point that IF comp is true, then the theology of Plato and the mystics is right and the theology of Aristotle and the naturalists are wrong (to be short). 

 

On the grounds of behaviour and your many other public statements, I don't accept it.....not in any meaningful sense.....and thank god you're not.

You did not prove that comp is false, nor did you mention an invalid step in the UDA reasoning.

And you confess having not the skill to understand the AUDA falsification part.

But now that you tell us that you believe that comp is false, I am not so astonished.  You still miss a real opportunity to refute comp, at the same time.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[ghi...@gmail.com]

No. I don't have to say comp is false. I'm saying that the assumption is not carrying much knowledge. It would be like in 1700 someone proposing the universe was made of the same matter. It'd be true, we know that now. So small and large theories came out that started with that assumption alone, and came up with streams of logic...leading to dreams and gods and whatever. And there'd be guys in your role and guys in my role, and in my role they'd be saying "I don't think it's wrong, I just think the initial assumption is not carrying much knowledge. And the guy in your role would be saying "ah...so you do assume not-matter"

[Bruno Marchal]

But if you believe this, then you have to believe that something is wrong in the UD Argument, as it shows that comp is a very strong hypothesis, leading to the reversal physics/machine's psychology, or machine's theology. What step is wrong? Are you OK with step 3 (where John Clark miss the use of the 1p/3p distinction if you have follow the thread), or is it step 8?

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[ghi...@gmail.com]

Why Bruno? I'm talking about your seed assumption.

 

How about do the other way around. Read my post on the 'end to end structure associated wit (sic) falsification' , tell me where you disagree, or....present your falsifiability carefully in those terms.

 

Because there's two areas here. One is issue about your initial assumption. We spent ages on that, in which I was trying to put the case for UNREALIZED assumptions. Drew a blank there.

 

Then there's matter of your claim to falsifiability. On that one I've actually thrown down the gauntlet. The challenge is that you actually present your falsifiability in the terms I laid out. Or, you disagree with those terms in which case we can start looking for third party resolution of who is right.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 22 May 2014, at 14:15, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Thursday, May 22, 2014 8:06:52 AM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 May 2014, at 21:50, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Wednesday, May 21, 2014 7:20:27 PM UTC+1, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 21 May 2014, at 15:28, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

But now that you tell us that you believe that comp is false, I am not so astonished.  You still miss a real opportunity to refute comp, at the same time.

 

No. I don't have to say comp is false. I'm saying that the assumption is not carrying much knowledge. It would be like in 1700 someone proposing the universe was made of the same matter. It'd be true, we know that now. So small and large theories came out that started with that assumption alone, and came up with streams of logic...leading to dreams and gods and whatever. And there'd be guys in your role and guys in my role, and in my role they'd be saying "I don't think it's wrong, I just think the initial assumption is not carrying much knowledge. And the guy in your role would be saying "ah...so you do assume not-matter"

But if you believe this, then you have to believe that something is wrong in the UD Argument, as it shows that comp is a very strong hypothesis, leading to the reversal physics/machine's psychology, or machine's theology. What step is wrong? Are you OK with step 3 (where John Clark miss the use of the 1p/3p distinction if you have follow the thread), or is it step 8?

 

Why Bruno? I'm talking about your seed assumption.

You think you have a refutation of comp? Like Craig? I have not seen it.

 

How about do the other way around.

Because what I present has been submitted, defend as a thesis, published, and it seems you have a philosophical opinion that comp is false, but you have not present. I look at your posts and don't find it.

Read my post on the 'end to end structure associated wit (sic) falsification' , tell me where you disagree, or....present your falsifiability carefully in those terms.

I see only meta-remarks. Can you at least confirm that you pretend to have a refutation of comp. You are quite unclear.

 

Because there's two areas here. One is issue about your initial assumption.

Well, it is no mine. It is a very old assumption, made clear in the digital frame by Church thesis.

We spent ages on that, in which I was trying to put the case for UNREALIZED assumptions. Drew a blank there.

What do you mean by unrealized assumption? Do you mean an implicit assumption? Which one?

 

Then there's matter of your claim to falsifiability. On that one I've actually thrown down the gauntlet. The challenge is that you actually present your falsifiability in the terms I laid out.

Why? For scientists it is enough to be falsifiable in the common sense of the term. I offer an infinity of ways to refute comp (classical comp). I am not sure they are not in the terms you lay down.

Even with only UDA, you can understand that the comp physics is falsifiable. AUDA shows that the actual quantum physics does not yet refute it (although comp already refutes newton physics, etc.).

Or, you disagree with those terms in which case we can start looking for third party resolution of who is right.

It is just I have no clue how you can both say you have not the skill to understand AUDA, and claim you have refute the statement that comp is refutable. This is already a contradiction. I doubt we can proceed if you don't invest a bit more in the technicalities. 

Let me ask you this. Do you agree that quantum logic is falsifiable? Putnam did go so far on this that he suggests that logic is empirical, and I would say that quantum logic is like that. Without inferring QM from observation, we would not have discovered QL before comp. If you agree that quantum logic is empirical, then we are done, as the test for classical comp consists in comparing the QL extracted from comp, and the QL inferred from the observation. OK?

Bruno

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Kim Jones]

> On 22 May 2014, at 11:57 pm, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> Can you at least confirm that you pretend to have a refutation of comp

The word 'pretend' here is a "false friend". Bruno is assuming that this word works the same in English as in French. It doesn't.

He means only modestly "Can you at least confirm that you CLAIM to have a refutation of comp?"

From fr. <<pretender>> = eng. "to claim"

....I only mention this to clarify that Bruno is not breaking out in some snide sarcastic comment which would be totally atypical of him.

In English "to pretend" means "to make a bullshit claim"

Kim

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Friday, May 23, 2014 9:03:00 AM UTC+1, Kim Jones wrote:

> On 22 May 2014, at 11:57 pm, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> Can you at least confirm that you pretend to have a refutation of comp

The word 'pretend' here is a "false friend". Bruno is assuming that this word works the same in English as in French. It doesn't.

He means only modestly  "Can you at least confirm that you CLAIM to have a refutation of comp?"

thanks for this Kim....I didn't know the difference. But at the same time, I wasn't too bothered about the meaning, but more that here things were again exactly where they were right at the start. I meant right at the very first post I made on this matter.

 

I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?

 

[ghi...@gmail.com]

I think the confusion between views may hard to straighten out. I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with making a conjecture that is short on knowledge. The issue is about what can reasonably be done with any conclusions. If everyone is reasonable, it can be a fruitful contribution over time.

 

The rise, as I mentioned before, is that people won't be reasonable. And so small and large theories show up that build over the top of that low knowledge conjecture. And they are exciting theories, of course, because they appear to be in the scientific stream but are no longer constrained the way science has been to date, to mass hard knowledge at the base before building over the top. So they are free to go anywhere, and they typically do.

 

And no one is looking too hard at that original conjecture, because now it looks like a hard historical link built into a major arterial thread of hard science. And later on - down the line - predictions, new technology and major advances dry up.

 

[ghi...@gmail.com]

the 'rise' = 'risk' 

[ghi...@gmail.com]

one further point about the long running argument itself. I can remember a long time ago, after Russell mentioned his approach to building on nothingness at the root of his thinking (i.e. a first beginning in nothingness). I responsed with my personal opinion that he was doing it wrong. I didn't sneakily try to flatter him into a discussion intending to ambush him later on. I said what I thought. He either missed it, or decided it wasn't a useful/knowledgeable position. Whatever. He ignored it. And I didn't badger him..I've not mentioned it since.

 

But Bruno, and others, have chosen to argue the point. If people think it's bullshit (as opposed to pretending French sense), or whatever....they shouldn't encourage the discussion. I'm not badger people...if they aren't interested in what I have to say, I'll move on and say something thing sometime.

 

But just as I don't expect anyone to back down other than when they see the point, no one should expect me to. All I've had back from Bruno....99% of the time, is blanket dismissal that he's no clue what I'm talking about. That's just going to make me take him at his word, and look for a better way to say it.  

 

[ghi...@gmail.com]

But just as I don't expect anyone to back down other than when they see the point, no one should expect me to. All I've had back from Bruno....99% of the time, is blanket dismissal that he's no clue what I'm talking about. That's just going to make me take him at his word, and look for a better way to say it.o

 

and I'm not like this guy I hope, because I work at my own theory a long time that involves 'computation', and 'nothingness' though nothing like those words used here. But I'm not ready...and I don't want to do a John Ross or Edgar Owen

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkZdTHmX0TQ

 

 

 

 

[ghi...@gmail.com]

but would have to hold me hands up to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuM_iSwMof8 

 

 

 

 

[Bruno Marchal]

Kim,

On 23 May 2014, at 10:02, Kim Jones wrote:

>
>> On 22 May 2014, at 11:57 pm, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>>
>> Can you at least confirm that you pretend to have a refutation of
>> comp
>
> The word 'pretend' here is a "false friend". Bruno is assuming that
> this word works the same in English as in French. It doesn't.

I know Kim. You gently told me this already. It is very kind to remind
me about this, but I am afraid that I might still forget. I have to
force my motor hands neural pathway to unlearn the bad habit.

>
> He means only modestly "Can you at least confirm that you CLAIM to
> have a refutation of comp?"

Yes, that was what I meant.

>
> From fr. <<pretender>> = eng. "to claim"
>
> ....I only mention this to clarify that Bruno is not breaking out in
> some snide sarcastic comment which would be totally atypical of him.

Thanks.

>
> In English "to pretend" means "to make a bullshit claim"

Claim, claim, claim, ... I must remember. Sometimes you have the
knowledge, but not really the procedural knowledge. We can know
things, and still not act accordingly.

Best,

Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

On 23 May 2014, at 14:00, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, May 23, 2014 9:03:00 AM UTC+1, Kim Jones wrote:

> On 22 May 2014, at 11:57 pm, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> Can you at least confirm that you pretend to have a refutation of comp

The word 'pretend' here is a "false friend". Bruno is assuming that this word works the same in English as in French. It doesn't.

He means only modestly  "Can you at least confirm that you CLAIM to have a refutation of comp?"

thanks for this Kim....I didn't know the difference. But at the same time, I wasn't too bothered about the meaning, but more that here things were again exactly where they were right at the start. I meant right at the very first post I made on this matter.

 

I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim.

If only you make specific point that I can relate with my saying. May be it is the "english", but I fail to see what you meant.

Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far.

But the term "computation" admit a mathematical definition thanks to the discovery of the universal machines, and thanks to Church Thesis, which makes them genuinely universal.

Then computationalism relates consciousness to the working of a computer, and allow to reason on consciousness (without the need to define it, as we can use semi-axiomatic definitions, like a form of non justifiable knowledge that we suppose invariant for a set of digital transformations).

It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along.

That is what the greek did, and this is what has led to science. Also, the theory of matter that I recovered is the theory of Aristotle, reshaped in the Platonist realm by Plotinus.

I find plausible that if the academy of Plato did not close in 523, we would have discovered Church thesis and quantum mechanics 10 centuries before. (But I will not try to argue on this, it is just my feeling coming from my reading of Plato and Aristotle, and some others). 

What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?

I still miss what it is that is your problem. You make remarks which I am unable to relate to what I explain.

Hmm... rereading your post, I see that you never answer my specific question. You go on the tangent, and make side remarks which I think are distracting from the point discussed.

I intend to make a post (to Liz, Brent, and people interested) summarizing the main representation theorems used in the derivation of physics from elementary arithmetic (with comp at the meta level). May be it will be helpful for you too.

You might answer the question: are you OK with the fact that quantum logic is empirical, and can be tested. Are you are that Bell's theorem shows the existence of a refutation of a boolean tautology. If PA (or any Löbian machine) proves that tautology or any other of that kind, when using the definition of observation provided, then the classical comp thesis is falsified. That can happen in different ways, some of which can be fatal, and others would suggests a refinement of the theory of knowledge.

Bruno

 

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Bruno Marchal]

On 23 May 2014, at 14:22, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, May 23, 2014 1:00:26 PM UTC+1, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

On Friday, May 23, 2014 9:03:00 AM UTC+1, Kim Jones wrote:

> On 22 May 2014, at 11:57 pm, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
> Can you at least confirm that you pretend to have a refutation of comp

The word 'pretend' here is a "false friend". Bruno is assuming that this word works the same in English as in French. It doesn't.

He means only modestly  "Can you at least confirm that you CLAIM to have a refutation of comp?"

thanks for this Kim....I didn't know the difference. But at the same time, I wasn't too bothered about the meaning, but more that here things were again exactly where they were right at the start. I meant right at the very first post I made on this matter.

 

I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?

 

I think the confusion between views may hard to straighten out. I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with making a conjecture that is short on knowledge. The issue is about what can reasonably be done with any conclusions. If everyone is reasonable, it can be a fruitful contribution over time.

 

The risk, as I mentioned before, is that people won't be reasonable. And so small and large theories show up that build over the top of that low knowledge conjecture. And they are exciting theories, of course, because they appear to be in the scientific stream but are no longer constrained the way science has been to date, to mass hard knowledge at the base before building over the top. So they are free to go anywhere, and they typically do.

 

And no one is looking too hard at that original conjecture, because now it looks like a hard historical link built into a major arterial thread of hard science. And later on - down the line - predictions, new technology and major advances dry up.

I cannot relate this with anything in our conversation. Sorry. It looks you are not aware of the hard science known as mathematical logic, theoretical computer science, and even of the use of physics for the confirmation/refutation of computationalism.

But Bruno, and others, have chosen to argue the point. If people think it's bullshit (as opposed to pretending French sense), or whatever....they shouldn't encourage the discussion. I'm not badger people...if they aren't interested in what I have to say, I'll move on and say something thing sometime.

 

But just as I don't expect anyone to back down other than when they see the point, no one should expect me to. All I've had back from Bruno....99% of the time, is blanket dismissal that he's no clue what I'm talking about. That's just going to make me take him at his word, and look for a better way to say it. 

If you want communicate something, please fell free. But in our conversation, sometimes you talk like if you were dismissing results from the literature, and when asked specific question, you don't answer.

May be what you want to say has no overlap with what I say. You put yourself in the corner if you try to dismiss results (that anybody patient enough can verify) by staying at a vague meta-socio-logical level. 

I do have a feeling that you are a bit negative, together with a feeling that you might not have understood what I have done. In a sense what I have done is negative itself. You can see it as a remind that we have not yet solved, nor really try to formulate, the mind-body problem, and that the easily assumed one-one relation between mind and body is not really sustainable when we assume consciousness invariant for some transformation, (or even just QM). And there is that testable consequence, which is that the physical laws get themselves invariant for the choice of the universal base (in which we define the computable functions phi_i, and can defined the computations). This comes in part from the invariance of many theoretical computer science truth, the so-called "machine independent" results, which are true for all universal systems (like the closure for the diagonal procedure, the non solvability of the halting problem, the higher unsolvability of the "totalness" problem, etc.

What is your opinion on physicalism? Are you able to doubt it? 

I try hard to see the problem. 

Oh, I see you continue:

and I'm not like this guy I hope, because I work at my own theory a long time that involves 'computation', and 'nothingness' though nothing like those words used here. But I'm not ready...and I don't want to do a John Ross or Edgar Owen

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkZdTHmX0TQ

and

and I'm not like this guy I hope, because I work at my own theory a long time that involves 'computation', and 'nothingness' though nothing like those words used here. But I'm not ready...and I don't want to do a John Ross or Edgar Owen

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkZdTHmX0TQ

 

but would have to hold me hands up to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuM_iSwMof8 

Lol.

Harry Enfield and Chums, Nice!  :)

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Kim Jones]

> On 23 May 2014, at 10:00 pm, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?
>

This is very interesting. Are you saying that if we somehow get our assumptions right - in whatever period and under whatever framework, theory etc. - and this, quite apart from the level of our knowledge, then it might be possible to circumvent the need for the endless search for the knowledge that would eventually get us closer to the truth?

This would mean that a lot of science might be the "try hard" view of achieving cultural goals if all we must do is to assume the correct things at the outset and then build our knowledge downstream of these foundational assumptions.

I think in this context of extra-terrestrial technology, supposed to be more or less undeniably real and evident, if you believe the supposed evidence for it these days. Perhaps aliens have not bothered with all the streams of learning in science, computing, mathematics etc. and have gone straight to the cultural goals they envisaged however inconceivable this thought to us might appear. I mean, it is said to be quasi-impossible for beings to cross the vast inter-galactic distances and this is the main argument used in answer to Fermi's Paradox, yet are we not almost certainly - to take a leaf out of GHibbsa's manual momentarily - unconsciously assuming that all sentient, intelligent beings, wherever they arise in the universe, will do the try-hard human thing of slowly and painstakingly amassing their knowledge in painfully slow and logical steps? Why do we assume this? What about Lateral Thinking, where the trick is to bypass logical correctness at every step of the way and to use some very novel and highly illogical procedures to forge previously unseen connections in information that were hidden to our logical mindset? What if the aliens are masters of Lateral Thinking? Then we would ipso facto have no way of understanding how they arrived at their technological level, yet we might emulate in some way the spirit of their enterprise which has self-accelerated in a way we can only dream of? Why do we have to spend forever working things out? Surely this is a plodding homo sapiens thing...

Kim

[Kim Jones]

Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno.

Kim

[meekerdb]

On 5/23/2014 9:45 PM, Kim Jones wrote:

I mean, it is said to be quasi-impossible for beings to cross the vast inter-galactic distances and this is the main argument used in answer to Fermi's Paradox, yet are we not almost certainly - to take a leaf out of GHibbsa's manual momentarily - unconsciously assuming that all sentient, intelligent beings, wherever they arise in the universe, will do the try-hard human thing of slowly and painstakingly amassing their knowledge in painfully slow and logical steps? Why do we assume this?

Because that's the way evolution works.

Brent

[Bruno Marchal]

On 24 May 2014, at 06:47, Kim Jones wrote:

Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno.

(OK, just to be clear the quote was from Hibbsa).

On 23 May 2014, at 10:00 pm, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?

This is very interesting. Are you saying that if we somehow get our assumptions right - in whatever period and under whatever  framework, theory etc. - and this, quite apart from the level of our knowledge, then it might be possible to circumvent the need for the endless search for the knowledge that would eventually get us closer to the truth?

This would mean that a lot of science might be the "try hard" view of achieving cultural goals if all we must do is to assume the correct things at the outset and then build our knowledge downstream of these foundational assumptions.

I think in this context of extra-terrestrial technology, supposed to be more or less undeniably real and evident, if you believe the supposed evidence for it these days. Perhaps aliens have not bothered with all the streams of learning in science, computing, mathematics etc. and have gone straight to the cultural goals they envisaged however inconceivable this thought to us might appear. I mean, it is said to be quasi-impossible for beings to cross the vast inter-galactic distances and this is the main argument used in answer to Fermi's Paradox, yet are we not almost certainly - to take a leaf out of GHibbsa's manual momentarily - unconsciously assuming that all sentient, intelligent beings, wherever they arise in the universe, will do the try-hard human thing of slowly and painstakingly amassing their knowledge in painfully slow and logical steps? Why do we assume this? What about Lateral Thinking, where the trick is to bypass logical correctness at every step of the way and to use some very novel and highly illogical procedures to forge previously unseen connections in information that were hidden to our logical mindset? What if the aliens are masters of Lateral Thinking?

The connection are the choice of the axioms. They can't be logical. They are the product of creative insight and bet. 

Then we would ipso facto have no way of understanding how they arrived at their technological level, yet we might emulate in some way the spirit of their enterprise which has self-accelerated in a way we can only dream of? Why do we have to spend forever working things out? Surely this is a plodding homo sapiens thing...

Concerning what can be suggested in the third person way, I think the shortcut is provided by abstraction, and hypothetical generalization. Like with embryogenesis, there are pedagogical shortcuts, but it is always more easy for the kids, which have less prejudices. But those leads to creative things, which can just perpetuate the samsara, so that it does not lead per se to truth, but it can provide less and less inappropriate pictures.

Concerning what you can discover from the first person point on view, I think shortcut exists.

It might always be a remind of what you already know, but just don't really focus on. Sleep, drugs, art, science, religion, trauma and death might provide shortcuts (as far as we know assuming comp).

About aliens I don't know. Not bothering to learn just means that you can copy others. You don't need to understand relativity and quantum mechanics to make an atomic bomb, although you need the understanding to discover it by yourself, or to figure out its working. Nor do you need to understand how work a brain to copy it, nor does the amoeba needs to understand Kleene's theorem to reproduce itself, but again, that kind of things does not per se lead to being closer to the truth.

So if aliens (relatively to us) did exist, and would be more clever than us, it would be impossible for us to judge if they are really clever, or if they are just barbarians copying still other aliens. Eventually cleverness needs to be evaluated not from their technology but from the way they show respect to us.  Technology is not a criteria of intelligence (but of some competence only). The "real" criteria of intelligence is more about what you do with the technology. If they are good, we might indeed learn something.

About the evidences for aliens, my admittedly meager look at this tended me to think that there are evidences  that some people wanted us to believe in aliens, at least at some period. A war against aliens might benefit those who search to control people, like in case the war on drug and/or the war on terror was not enough. Yet, I would not bet on that theory either.

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Kim Jones]

On 25 May 2014, at 4:23 am, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 24 May 2014, at 06:47, Kim Jones wrote:

Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno.

(OK, just to be clear the quote was from Hibbsa).

Woooops! OK - some of these monster threads become a bit confusing as to who has their mouth open and in whose direction

On 23 May 2014, at 10:00 pm, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?

This is very interesting. Are you saying that if we somehow get our assumptions right - in whatever period and under whatever  framework, theory etc. - and this, quite apart from the level of our knowledge, then it might be possible to circumvent the need for the endless search for the knowledge that would eventually get us closer to the truth?

This would mean that a lot of science might be the "try hard" view of achieving cultural goals if all we must do is to assume the correct things at the outset and then build our knowledge downstream of these foundational assumptions.

I think in this context of extra-terrestrial technology, supposed to be more or less undeniably real and evident, if you believe the supposed evidence for it these days. Perhaps aliens have not bothered with all the streams of learning in science, computing, mathematics etc. and have gone straight to the cultural goals they envisaged however inconceivable this thought to us might appear. I mean, it is said to be quasi-impossible for beings to cross the vast inter-galactic distances and this is the main argument used in answer to Fermi's Paradox, yet are we not almost certainly - to take a leaf out of GHibbsa's manual momentarily - unconsciously assuming that all sentient, intelligent beings, wherever they arise in the universe, will do the try-hard human thing of slowly and painstakingly amassing their knowledge in painfully slow and logical steps? Why do we assume this? What about Lateral Thinking, where the trick is to bypass logical correctness at every step of the way and to use some very novel and highly illogical procedures to forge previously unseen connections in information that were hidden to our logical mindset? What if the aliens are masters of Lateral Thinking?

The connection are the choice of the axioms. They can't be logical. They are the product of creative insight and bet. 

Exactly! The choice of the starting axioms is always "arbitrary" at some level. This is surely because what motivates our freedom of decision is something we rarely admit drives our human enterprises - our creativity (lateral thinking) - which reaches out ahead of our logical vertical thinking, which we prefer to think is always in the driving seat. This is at once the great virtue and the great failing of the human mind. Virtuous because a creative insight or bet CAN leapfrog over decades of plodding step by step vertical, logical thinking and laser-in on a goal (cf de Bono-think) and a failing because unless we realise we really are governed by some deeply illogical, desire-laden set of values we wish to promote, our actions in the world often reek of unconscious motivation that we then  seek to justify or "sell" by logical argument. Any travesty at all can be justified by logical argument. John Ross is demonstrating this right now. He is convinced that there is a place on his mantel-piece that is reserved for a little gold statue and everything he writes is motivated by his egoic desire to realise that prize that he believes he was always destined for but will never admit to publicly.

A "person" is not a logical being. Smullyan explores this terrain regularly. I am standing on top of this hill because I am standing on top of this hill and that is no reason at all.

Then we would ipso facto have no way of understanding how they arrived at their technological level, yet we might emulate in some way the spirit of their enterprise which has self-accelerated in a way we can only dream of? Why do we have to spend forever working things out? Surely this is a plodding homo sapiens thing...

Concerning what can be suggested in the third person way, I think the shortcut is provided by abstraction, and hypothetical generalization. Like with embryogenesis, there are pedagogical shortcuts, but it is always more easy for the kids, which have less prejudices.

What if we are born complete and whole and perfect, brimful of creative illogicality? I would call such a being a "child". Life would then would be a process of degeneration into cynicism, prejudice and conformity. We should die young and move to our next instantiation via FPI. Nature does not care if we live beyond 40...

But those leads to creative things, which can just perpetuate the samsara, so that it does not lead per se to truth, but it can provide less and less inappropriate pictures.

You have just said what I said above, but from a slightly different perspective.

Concerning what you can discover from the first person point on view, I think shortcut exists.

I feel this is true. Dreams, visions, psychedelic experiences, revelations etc. - these things happen and produce results. 

It might always be a remind of what you already know, but just don't really focus on. Sleep, drugs, art, science, religion, trauma and death might provide shortcuts (as far as we know assuming comp).

Ditto

About aliens I don't know. Not bothering to learn just means that you can copy others.

But if they are natural-born lateral thinkers with childlike inquisitiveness, perhaps they copy no one and invent, innovate continually. Life would be a constant voyage from what doesn't work to what works. "Suck it and see" would be their eternal motto.

You don't need to understand relativity and quantum mechanics to make an atomic bomb, although you need the understanding to discover it by yourself, or to figure out its working. Nor do you need to understand how work a brain to copy it, nor does the amoeba needs to understand Kleene's theorem to reproduce itself, but again, that kind of things does not per se lead to being closer to the truth.

Maybe the truth is the end of the line - in which case best not head in that direction. Life is about fun. Play. I think the aliens want to get laid by humans so they can perpetuate themselves in a new part of the galaxy by mixing their genetics with ours. Aliens just wanna have fun. I think...

So if aliens (relatively to us) did exist, and would be more clever than us, it would be impossible for us to judge if they are really clever, or if they are just barbarians copying still other aliens.

Why barbarians though? Isn't the essence of "smart" to copy what works as opposed to what doesn't? Isn't this how humans managed to swing down from the treetops to the savannah in the first place?

Eventually cleverness needs to be evaluated not from their technology but from the way they show respect to us.

But surely they witness regularly how humans lack respect for one another. We cannot underestimate how our own barbarism may blow back onto them. If they turn out to be barbarians, perhaps they have decided that this is the only language the human knows how to speak?

 Technology is not a criteria of intelligence (but of some competence only). The "real" criteria of intelligence is more about what you do with the technology. If they are good, we might indeed learn something.

Well - something tells me that this has already happened but you would have to crack open the Black Ops going on behind many closed doors of government...

About the evidences for aliens, my admittedly meager look at this tended me to think that there are evidences  that some people wanted us to believe in aliens, at least at some period. A war against aliens might benefit those who search to control people, like in case the war on drug and/or the war on terror was not enough. Yet, I would not bet on that theory either.

Indeed. There are now two classes of UFO: ours and theirs. We can no longer distinguish between them. This is very scary because whatever we have learnt from "them" is not knowledge that is being shared with you and me.

K

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[LizR]

On 25 May 2014 12:43, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

Woooops! OK - some of these monster threads become a bit confusing as to who has their mouth open and in whose direction

I always try to cut out all the unrelated parts when I reply.

For example:

[Kim Jones]

On 25 May 2014, at 10:43 am, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

I think the aliens want to get laid by humans so they can perpetuate themselves in a new part of the galaxy by mixing their genetics with ours. Aliens just wanna have fun. I think...

Curiously, and quite coincidentally, someone has just released a top-billing sci-fi about precisely this.  Amongst other things it involves Scarlet Johannsen as a female alien in human disguise driving around Scotland picking up men for sex. The filmakers disguised cameras in the vehicle and filmed actual passersby hopping into the vehicle and....well you have to see it to know the rest. Apparently nobody actually recognised Johannsen so the whole thing was filmed in a perfectly clandestine way...

Trailer link:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=kp&v=NoSWbyvdhHw

Kim

[LizR]

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Odd that this is such a persistent meme, though. Someone (James Tiptree?) wrote an SF short story satirising this trope in the 70s I think.

[Telmo Menezes]

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

 

Odd that this is such a persistent meme, though. Someone (James Tiptree?) wrote an SF short story satirising this trope in the 70s I think.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 25 May 2014, at 13:15, LizR wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Yeah...  but we might be more gifted for sex. Well, slugs might even be more creative, and actually, they do sex in a quite extraterrestrial manner:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdxbx_david-attenborough-slugs-mating_animals

Odd that this is such a persistent meme, though.

Love has no boundaries :)

Bruno

Someone (James Tiptree?) wrote an SF short story satirising this trope in the 70s I think.

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[Bruno Marchal]

On 25 May 2014, at 02:43, Kim Jones wrote:

On 25 May 2014, at 4:23 am, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 24 May 2014, at 06:47, Kim Jones wrote:

Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno.

(OK, just to be clear the quote was from Hibbsa).

Woooops! OK - some of these monster threads become a bit confusing as to who has their mouth open and in whose direction

On 23 May 2014, at 10:00 pm, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?

This is very interesting. Are you saying that if we somehow get our assumptions right - in whatever period and under whatever  framework, theory etc. - and this, quite apart from the level of our knowledge, then it might be possible to circumvent the need for the endless search for the knowledge that would eventually get us closer to the truth?

This would mean that a lot of science might be the "try hard" view of achieving cultural goals if all we must do is to assume the correct things at the outset and then build our knowledge downstream of these foundational assumptions.

I think in this context of extra-terrestrial technology, supposed to be more or less undeniably real and evident, if you believe the supposed evidence for it these days. Perhaps aliens have not bothered with all the streams of learning in science, computing, mathematics etc. and have gone straight to the cultural goals they envisaged however inconceivable this thought to us might appear. I mean, it is said to be quasi-impossible for beings to cross the vast inter-galactic distances and this is the main argument used in answer to Fermi's Paradox, yet are we not almost certainly - to take a leaf out of GHibbsa's manual momentarily - unconsciously assuming that all sentient, intelligent beings, wherever they arise in the universe, will do the try-hard human thing of slowly and painstakingly amassing their knowledge in painfully slow and logical steps? Why do we assume this? What about Lateral Thinking, where the trick is to bypass logical correctness at every step of the way and to use some very novel and highly illogical procedures to forge previously unseen connections in information that were hidden to our logical mindset? What if the aliens are masters of Lateral Thinking?

The connection are the choice of the axioms. They can't be logical. They are the product of creative insight and bet. 

Exactly! The choice of the starting axioms is always "arbitrary" at some level. This is surely because what motivates our freedom of decision is something we rarely admit drives our human enterprises - our creativity (lateral thinking) - which reaches out ahead of our logical vertical thinking, which we prefer to think is always in the driving seat. This is at once the great virtue and the great failing of the human mind. Virtuous because a creative insight or bet CAN leapfrog over decades of plodding step by step vertical, logical thinking and laser-in on a goal (cf de Bono-think) and a failing because unless we realise we really are governed by some deeply illogical, desire-laden set of values we wish to promote, our actions in the world often reek of unconscious motivation that we then  seek to justify or "sell" by logical argument. Any travesty at all can be justified by logical argument. John Ross is demonstrating this right now. He is convinced that there is a place on his mantel-piece that is reserved for a little gold statue and everything he writes is motivated by his egoic desire to realise that prize that he believes he was always destined for but will never admit to publicly.

A "person" is not a logical being. Smullyan explores this terrain regularly. I am standing on top of this hill because I am standing on top of this hill and that is no reason at all.

I am not sure what you mean by "logical being". I agree that arithmetic and universal machine are already not logical being. I guess also you think about the unique classical logic, but there is an infinity of logic, and some are quite "illogical" compared to others.

Then we would ipso facto have no way of understanding how they arrived at their technological level, yet we might emulate in some way the spirit of their enterprise which has self-accelerated in a way we can only dream of? Why do we have to spend forever working things out? Surely this is a plodding homo sapiens thing...

Concerning what can be suggested in the third person way, I think the shortcut is provided by abstraction, and hypothetical generalization. Like with embryogenesis, there are pedagogical shortcuts, but it is always more easy for the kids, which have less prejudices.

What if we are born complete and whole and perfect, brimful of creative illogicality?

I am currently open to the idea that all universal machine/numbers are creative (they are so in the sense of Emil Post, which has been proved equivalent with "universal"). 

I would call such a being a "child".

OK. Virgin computer are baby gods, but once programmed, they "fall", and they get stupid and forget their "divine" origin.

Life would then would be a process of degeneration into cynicism, prejudice and conformity.

That seems to happen, after puberty. But thanks to neotony, this seems to take more and more time. 

We should die young

I would not go that far, and sometimes, with age, we can come back to the baby state.

and move to our next instantiation via FPI. Nature does not care if we live beyond 40...

But who care on nature? Ah yes! the greens. "Caring" is only relative. usually people beyond 40 cares a little bit about this.

But those leads to creative things, which can just perpetuate the samsara, so that it does not lead per se to truth, but it can provide less and less inappropriate pictures.

You have just said what I said above, but from a slightly different perspective.

Concerning what you can discover from the first person point on view, I think shortcut exists.

I feel this is true. Dreams, visions, psychedelic experiences, revelations etc. - these things happen and produce results. 

It might always be a remind of what you already know, but just don't really focus on. Sleep, drugs, art, science, religion, trauma and death might provide shortcuts (as far as we know assuming comp).

Ditto

About aliens I don't know. Not bothering to learn just means that you can copy others.

But if they are natural-born lateral thinkers with childlike inquisitiveness, perhaps they copy no one and invent, innovate continually. Life would be a constant voyage from what doesn't work to what works. "Suck it and see" would be their eternal motto.

OK.

You don't need to understand relativity and quantum mechanics to make an atomic bomb, although you need the understanding to discover it by yourself, or to figure out its working. Nor do you need to understand how work a brain to copy it, nor does the amoeba needs to understand Kleene's theorem to reproduce itself, but again, that kind of things does not per se lead to being closer to the truth.

Maybe the truth is the end of the line - in which case best not head in that direction. Life is about fun. Play. I think the aliens want to get laid by humans so they can perpetuate themselves in a new part of the galaxy by mixing their genetics with ours. Aliens just wanna have fun. I think...

May be. Hard to say. It might depend of which aliens. Like Calvin, I am not sure Aliens find the humans attractive:

http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/calvin-on-intelligent-life.jpg

So if aliens (relatively to us) did exist, and would be more clever than us, it would be impossible for us to judge if they are really clever, or if they are just barbarians copying still other aliens.

Why barbarians though? Isn't the essence of "smart" to copy what works as opposed to what doesn't? Isn't this how humans managed to swing down from the treetops to the savannah in the first place?

Yes, "copy" is smart when you copy smart things, but not when you copy horrible and destructive things, and intend to use it on those who invented/discovered the thing.

Eventually cleverness needs to be evaluated not from their technology but from the way they show respect to us.

But surely they witness regularly how humans lack respect for one another. We cannot underestimate how our own barbarism may blow back onto them. If they turn out to be barbarians, perhaps they have decided that this is the only language the human knows how to speak?

We can speculate a lot on this. 

 Technology is not a criteria of intelligence (but of some competence only). The "real" criteria of intelligence is more about what you do with the technology. If they are good, we might indeed learn something.

Well - something tells me that this has already happened but you would have to crack open the Black Ops going on behind many closed doors of government...

I am quite agnostic on this. To be honest, I am not so interested. The fact that we have evidence that some bacteria might survive long travel in space is interesting, as it opens the possibility of a common origin for different lives on different planets, but it is a bit like a contingent historico-geographical facts. I prefer to concentrate myself with the "aliens" which are in arithmetic, because they are not speculation (at least in the 3p way), and they are many. 

If not, it looks hoping the solution to our problem will come from the sky, where I think we should concentrate on the inward research. 

With salvia, many people met quite alien entities, for example. Salvia seems to go quite farer than all known fiction, but perhaps not farer than logic + arithmetic.

About the evidences for aliens, my admittedly meager look at this tended me to think that there are evidences  that some people wanted us to believe in aliens, at least at some period. A war against aliens might benefit those who search to control people, like in case the war on drug and/or the war on terror was not enough. Yet, I would not bet on that theory either.

Indeed. There are now two classes of UFO: ours and theirs. We can no longer distinguish between them. This is very scary because whatever we have learnt from "them" is not knowledge that is being shared with you and me.

A reason more to trust only yourself and the solid things you can find in your head, perhaps.

I am not criticizing the search for extra-terrestrial life, nor the study of exo-planets,  but I find the evidences for ETI weak and frustrating, and the fact itself not that much astonishing compared to the genuine magic that we can prove in arithmetic, or more simply observe on this planets.  The rest are contingent histories. Of course, that's why I am a mathematician. Arithmetic generalizes biology.

As I said,  we need all interests and opinion to have a world. But there are so many interesting things that we have to make choice, in the course of a probable connected life.

Of course if Aliens are really like Scarlett Johansson, I might need to revise my interest on Aliens! 

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

Looking inward is difficult to communicate  because of so many possible levels we could be referring to. When we look outward, we look inward perhaps for reference... when we look inward, we try to find "corresponding outside" in our memories perhaps too.

But there is a difference in compositional practice: results are better, when writing for guitar say, when I dream of a line/sequence without my hands on the instrument; and then pick up the wood resonance box with steel oscillators, trying to find the line. Often, putting the instrument down is what helps advance, while keeping hands on, keeps you locked in some experiential belief trap, that I would not waste my time with, if I had a more 3p view on the situation.

This results mostly in better music than if I am just trying to force finding a line with my hands on the instrument, referring to experience... which is almost always a limiting factor (á la "my hands are used to this or experienced at that, so for such a line, possible this or that") when compared to a line that I had dreamt "sonic architecture abstract as mental image" and can keep in some active memory b4 it slips away.

The trouble with that however is, that sometimes my hands are just physically incapable of physically realizing the demands of the line dreamt. It's a dialog in some sense; but I would not dare to utter finally that I know when I'm looking out or in, especially when the guitar offers so many other branches that are just as compelling. It's best when I don't try or push even, but that is not simple in a world where everybody believes in pushing. PGC

 

With salvia, many people met quite alien entities, for example. Salvia seems to go quite farer than all known fiction, but perhaps not farer than logic + arithmetic.

About the evidences for aliens, my admittedly meager look at this tended me to think that there are evidences  that some people wanted us to believe in aliens, at least at some period. A war against aliens might benefit those who search to control people, like in case the war on drug and/or the war on terror was not enough. Yet, I would not bet on that theory either.

Indeed. There are now two classes of UFO: ours and theirs. We can no longer distinguish between them. This is very scary because whatever we have learnt from "them" is not knowledge that is being shared with you and me.

A reason more to trust only yourself and the solid things you can find in your head, perhaps.

I am not criticizing the search for extra-terrestrial life, nor the study of exo-planets,  but I find the evidences for ETI weak and frustrating, and the fact itself not that much astonishing compared to the genuine magic that we can prove in arithmetic, or more simply observe on this planets.  The rest are contingent histories. Of course, that's why I am a mathematician. Arithmetic generalizes biology.

As I said,  we need all interests and opinion to have a world. But there are so many interesting things that we have to make choice, in the course of a probable connected life.

Of course if Aliens are really like Scarlett Johansson, I might need to revise my interest on Aliens! 

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, May 24, 2014 5:47:47 AM UTC+1, Kim Jones wrote:

Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno.

 

Hi Kim - you might have been responding to me there actually. Either way though...I will certainly reply to your post in the next few days and hope you'll not mind me doing so. Because you said some things that touch on things that I spend a lot of time thinking about. Not to mean any more value for 'lot of time' because that's obviously not how it goes. But that I'm interested...so will respond. Currently in a busy moment though. Cheers.

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Sunday, May 25, 2014 1:43:49 AM UTC+1, Kim Jones wrote:

On 25 May 2014, at 4:23 am, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 24 May 2014, at 06:47, Kim Jones wrote:

Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno.

(OK, just to be clear the quote was from Hibbsa).

Woooops! OK - some of these monster threads become a bit confusing as to who has their mouth open and in whose direction

On 23 May 2014, at 10:00 pm, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here?

This is very interesting. Are you saying that if we somehow get our assumptions right - in whatever period and under whatever  framework, theory etc. - and this, quite apart from the level of our knowledge, then it might be possible to circumvent the need for the endless search for the knowledge that would eventually get us closer to the truth?

This would mean that a lot of science might be the "try hard" view of achieving cultural goals if all we must do is to assume the correct things at the outset and then build our knowledge downstream of these foundational assumptions.

I think in this context of extra-terrestrial technology, supposed to be more or less undeniably real and evident, if you believe the supposed evidence for it these days. Perhaps aliens have not bothered with all the streams of learning in science, computing, mathematics etc. and have gone straight to the cultural goals they envisaged however inconceivable this thought to us might appear. I mean, it is said to be quasi-impossible for beings to cross the vast inter-galactic distances and this is the main argument used in answer to Fermi's Paradox, yet are we not almost certainly - to take a leaf out of GHibbsa's manual momentarily - unconsciously assuming that all sentient, intelligent beings, wherever they arise in the universe, will do the try-hard human thing of slowly and painstakingly amassing their knowledge in painfully slow and logical steps? Why do we assume this? What about Lateral Thinking, where the trick is to bypass logical correctness at every step of the way and to use some very novel and highly illogical procedures to forge previously unseen connections in information that were hidden to our logical mindset? What if the aliens are masters of Lateral Thinking?

The connection are the choice of the axioms. They can't be logical. They are the product of creative insight and bet. 

Exactly! The choice of the starting axioms is always "arbitrary" at some level. This is surely because what motivates our freedom of decision is something we rarely admit drives our human enterprises - our creativity (lateral thinking) - which reaches out ahead of our logical vertical thinking, which we prefer to think is always in the driving seat. This is at once the great virtue and the great failing of the human mind. Virtuous because a creative insight or bet CAN leapfrog over decades of plodding step by step vertical, logical thinking and laser-in on a goal (cf de Bono-think) and a failing because unless we realise we really are governed by some deeply illogical, desire-laden set of values we wish to promote, our actions in the world often reek of unconscious motivation that we then  seek to justify or "sell" by logical argument. Any travesty at all can be justified by logical argument. John Ross is demonstrating this right now. He is convinced that there is a place on his mantel-piece that is reserved for a little gold statue and everything he writes is motivated by his egoic desire to realise that prize that he believes he was always destined for but will never admit to publicly.

A "person" is not a logical being. Smullyan explores this terrain regularly. I am standing on top of this hill because I am standing on top of this hill and that is no reason at all.

Then we would ipso facto have no way of understanding how they arrived at their technological level, yet we might emulate in some way the spirit of their enterprise which has self-accelerated in a way we can only dream of? Why do we have to spend forever working things out? Surely this is a plodding homo sapiens thing...

Concerning what can be suggested in the third person way, I think the shortcut is provided by abstraction, and hypothetical generalization. Like with embryogenesis, there are pedagogical shortcuts, but it is always more easy for the kids, which have less prejudices.

What if we are born complete and whole and perfect, brimful of creative illogicality? I would call such a being a "child". Life would then would be a process of degeneration into cynicism, prejudice and conformity. We should die young and move to our next instantiation via FPI. Nature does not care if we live beyond 40...

But those leads to creative things, which can just perpetuate the samsara, so that it does not lead per se to truth, but it can provide less and less inappropriate pictures.

You have just said what I said above, but from a slightly different perspective.

Concerning what you can discover from the first person point on view, I think shortcut exists.

I feel this is true. Dreams, visions, psychedelic experiences, revelations etc. - these things happen and produce results. 

 

LSD saves a lot of 'underclass' kids...maybe. Cannabis...well I won't mention that one due to high emotions on this list. The rest is mostly shit probably wouldn't be too controversial even here.

 

LSD saved me I reckon. It was a terrible trip the first time....all I remember is seeing how filthy everything was and watching my teenage acne rage across my face. But in the morning.......none of that mattered....all that did, was that......that trip....all of it...had come from inside of me. Who knows...the personal mythology is all I have. It saved me.

 

 

 

[ghi...@gmail.com]

Musical gift is that one thing I've always wished I'd had. My mum was very gifted I understand...my siblings inherited that but it passed me by. I'm utterly without it...cannot sing, cannot dance, cannot play, have no physical rhythm. Doesn't stop me trying mind you, to the irritation of others. The other interesting feature of my family is the resemblance to English royalty. My birth mum looks like the freakin' queen. My youngest-but-one brother looks like Prince William. The family dirty  secret is my grandmother was a servant in one of the Devonshire royal buildings and apparently one of Edward VIII's sluts before the war and had a little bastard she did, or so it goes. So how about that for a little status me old darlin'.....you could be talking right 'ere to 2434trh in line for throne :O)

[meekerdb]

On 5/25/2014 6:02 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
> On 25 May 2014, at 13:15, LizR wrote:
>
>> I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex
>> with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we
>> are to aliens...
>
> Yeah... but we might be more gifted for sex. Well, slugs might even be more creative,
> and actually, they do sex in a quite extraterrestrial manner:
>
> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdxbx_david-attenborough-slugs-mating_animals

That's why the students at University of California at Santa Cruz selected the banana slug
as the school mascot.

Brent

[LizR]

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

It is however fascinating that we're so fascinated by this idea. From "I married a monster from outer space" via Mr Spock to "Mars needs women!".

[LizR]

On 26 May 2014 01:02, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

On 25 May 2014, at 13:15, LizR wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Yeah...  but we might be more gifted for sex. Well, slugs might even be more creative, and actually, they do sex in a quite extraterrestrial manner:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdxbx_david-attenborough-slugs-mating_animals

Odd that this is such a persistent meme, though.

Love has no boundaries :)

True, although this didn't do Gene Wilder's character much good in "Everything you wanted to know about sex".

[Russell Standish]

I agree with Liz. Anyone who thinks otherwise has no feeling for just
how ginormous the number 4^1 billion is. That is the size of the
solution space using Terrestrial DNA (4 base pairs, around a billion
base pairs makes up human DNA).

For comparison, the number of protons in the visible universe is a
mere 4^132 or so.

Cheers
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au

Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret
(http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Kim Jones]

Yes, but what if we are already the product of alien genetic tinkering? That would certainly reduce the odds. The leap from homo erectus to homo sapiens remains unresolved in the fossil record. I don't think you can just wipe the floor with the "ancient aliens" hypothesis just yet. Some evidence is halfway convincing. The interesting assumption we appear to be making here is that humans are solely the product of evolution. If we aren't, and we are a somewhat tricked-up genetic experiment by ETs then it's less likely that your average grey alien with almond-shaped eyes looks similar to us as we do to them.

Are you going to dismiss every single alien abduction claim? When Whitley Streiber got "the anal probe" after being levitated on board a flying saucer in the middle of the night he was pronounced as having undergone a rape by his doctor. OK - have a good giggle a la The Simpsons and South Park but the guy was diagnosed with PTSD as have been many so-called abductees. Explain away the persistent cattle mutilations. Explain away the implants in people that have been surgically removed and shown to be made of unfamiliar materials. What if human history was already linked to the history of other races in the galaxy?

To say that things are the way Evolution has arranged them to be is a bit glib. It's a bit like saying "it's the way it is because the Bible says so." Evolution is of course real - only a complete nutter would dispute it - nevertheless, the processes of Evolution can be tinkered with and even circumvented by artifice; humans do it all the time with animals in cages so why wouldn't ET do it to us? What if they tinkered with us at a relative stage of our ignorance and primitivity and produced an entity: homo sapiens, that was an experiment they always wanted to carry out and monitor at various stages of its subsequent evolution?

Excuse me, the doctor has sent me an email to remind me it's time to take my pill.

Kim

>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Principal, High Performance Coders
> Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
> University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>
> Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret
> (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

[meekerdb]

And giant gorillas are always fond of beautiful women.

Brent
Australia: Where men are men and sheep are nervous.

[Kim Jones]

On 26 May 2014, at 4:42 pm, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

Brent
Australia: Where men are men and sheep are nervous.

Sorry Brent. You mean New Zealand. Liz can now get on her high horse.

Kim

============================

Kim Jones B.Mus.GDTL

Email:     kimj...@ozemail.com.au
Mobile:   0450 963 719
Landline: 02 9389 4239
Web:       http://www.eportfolio.kmjcommp.com

"Never let your schooling get in the way of your education" - Mark Twain

[Kim Jones]

On 26 May 2014, at 4:42 pm, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

If aliens tinkered with our genes then there is a non-null possibility that we are more closely related to them genetically than we are to chimps, sea slugs or grass. That would appear to be the purpose of their intereference with evolution. Perhaps evolution is just a little bit too slow for them. 

[LizR]

I can think of loads of science fiction scenarios which will cover any specific speculation. For example, it's possible grey aliens are our descendants, time-travelling from an ecologically devastated future. They need to obtain samples of present day humanity as organ donors, or slaves, or to inspire them, or for revenge, or whatever happens to fit with the SF novel you're trying to write.

However, when I made my comment I was just sticking to boring old known facts. I'd say that on the basis of current knowledge there's a 99.999...% chance that humans evolved on this planet (the DNA evidence certainly indicates that we did). But anyway... if you want to move into wild speculation I can do that too. Like I said, I hate to be pedantic.

Yeah, poor old Whitley Streiber was once one of my favourite writers, but he seems to have gone a wee bit overboard a decade or two ago and I'm afraid I've kind of given up reading his stuff (after the second one about alien abductions). Shame cos he was a brilliant horror writer - "The Night Church" in particular, if I recall (long time sine I read them now).

Who said evolution arranged things? I do hate straw man arguments, they indicate a lack of imagination. Saying we evolved is NOTHING at all like saying the "Bible says X". Anyway yes the aliens of course tinkered with us - I've seen 2001. And computers will take over the world (could never happen...)

[LizR]

On 26 May 2014 19:07, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 26 May 2014, at 4:42 pm, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

Brent
Australia: Where men are men and sheep are nervous.

Sorry Brent. You mean New Zealand. Liz can now get on her high horse.

New Zealand diversified into dairy farming a few years ago and now you can't find a sheep for love nor money. (So to speak.)

[LizR]

On 26 May 2014 19:11, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 26 May 2014, at 4:42 pm, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

If aliens tinkered with our genes then there is a non-null possibility that we are more closely related to them genetically than we are to chimps, sea slugs or grass. That would appear to be the purpose of their intereference with evolution. Perhaps evolution is just a little bit too slow for them. 

If aliens tinkered with our genes, they did a damn poor job. I can think of a dozen things they could have improved. I want to hear like a bat, see infra red like a snake, regrow limbs like a salamander, run like a cheetah, have night vision like a owl, be able to hold my breath like a whale, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

(And I have a few suggestions for how the male sex could be improved, but I'll keep those to myself.)

[Kim Jones]

“If God created the world then it’s easy to see he’s something of an underachiever” - Woody Allen

K

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[Telmo Menezes]

Sure, but the representation is very brittle. How many of those 4^1 billion leads to viable organisms? This is why, when exposed to radiation, we get cancer instead of super-powers...

Then, the space of solutions may be further restricted by the evolutionary process itself. Just because some solution is valid, that doesn't mean that it is likely that it can be discovered through iterative improvement.

Best,

Telmo.

 

Cheers
--

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
Principal, High Performance Coders
Visiting Professor of Mathematics      hpc...@hpcoders.com.au
University of New South Wales          http://www.hpcoders.com.au

 Latest project: The Amoeba's Secret
         (http://www.hpcoders.com.au/AmoebasSecret.html)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Telmo Menezes]

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in "sheep are nervous". :)

 

It is however fascinating that we're so fascinated by this idea. From "I married a monster from outer space" via Mr Spock to "Mars needs women!".

--

[meekerdb]

On 5/26/2014 12:45 AM, LizR wrote:

On 26 May 2014 19:07, Kim Jones <kimj...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

On 26 May 2014, at 4:42 pm, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

Brent
Australia: Where men are men and sheep are nervous.

Sorry Brent. You mean New Zealand. Liz can now get on her high horse.

Thanks, Kim, but I don't need any help with my jibes. :-)

New Zealand diversified into dairy farming a few years ago and now you can't find a sheep for love nor money. (So to speak.)

Brent

[Stephen Paul King]

Hi,

  This phrase in the article makes me doubt that the writer thereof did his homework:

"for some unknown reason the flashes synchronize over time.”" The synchronization of weakly coupled oscillators is a well known phenomena! It should be pointed out that in the human brain, global synchronization is harmful. It is the cause of epilepsy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epilepsy#Mechanism.

On Monday, May 19, 2014 2:26:40 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 18 May 2014, at 21:16, ghi...@gmail.com wrote:

Does this computer architecture assume not-comp?

No. Elementary arithmetic emulates n-synchronized oscillators for all n, even infinite enumerable set of oscillators. You would need a continuum of oscillators, with an explicit special non computable hamiltonian. Today, there is nothing in nature which would threat comp, except the collapse of the wave packet in theories where this is a physical phenomenon. Even in that case, it would be a computation with oracle, and not change much of the consequences. Anyway, I am not sure I can make sense of the wave collapse being a physical phenomenon, and even less that this play a role in the brain computation.

Bruno

 

15046Synchronized oscillators may allow for computing that works like the brain

Expand Messages

• richard ruquist

  May 15 2:09 PM

  View Source

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  Synchronized oscillators may allow for computing that works like the brain

  May 15, 2014

  

  This is a cartoon of an oscillating switch, the basis of a new type of low-power analog computing (credit: Credit: Nikhil Shukla, Penn State)

  Computing is currently based on binary (Boolean) logic, but a new type of computing architecture created by electrical engineers at Penn State stores information in the frequencies and phases of periodic signals and could work more like the human brain.

  It would use a fraction of the energy necessary for today’s computers, according to the engineers.

  To achieve the new architecture, they used a thin film of vanadium oxide on a titanium dioxide substrate to create an oscillating switch. Vanadium dioxide is called a “wacky oxide” because it transitions from a conducting metal to an insulating semiconductor and vice versa with the addition of a small amount of heat or electrical current.

  Biological synchronization for associative processing

  Using a standard electrical engineering trick, Nikhil Shukla, graduate student in electrical engineering, added a series resistor to the oxide device to stabilize oscillations. When he added a second similar oscillating system, he discovered that, over time, the two devices began to oscillate in unison, or synchronize.

  This coupled system could provide the basis for non-Boolean computing. Shukla worked with Suman Datta, professor of electrical engineering, and co-advisor Roman Engel-Herbert, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State. They reported their results May 14 in Scientific Reports (open access).

  “It’s called a small-world network,” explained Shukla. “You see it in lots of biological systems, such as certain species of fireflies. The males will flash randomly, but then for some unknown reason the flashes synchronize over time.” The brain is also a small-world network of closely clustered nodes that evolved for more efficient information processing.

  “Biological synchronization is everywhere,” added Datta. “We wanted to use it for a different kind of computing called associative processing, which is an analog rather than digital way to compute.”

  An array of oscillators can store patterns — for instance, the color of someone’s hair, their height and skin texture. If a second area of oscillators has the same pattern, they will begin to synchronize, and the degree of match can be read out, without consuming a lot of energy and requiring a lot of transistors, as in Boolean computing.

  A neuromorphic computer chip

  Datta is collaborating with Vijay Narayanan, professor of computer science and engineering, Penn State, in exploring the use of these coupled oscillations to solve visual recognition problems more efficiently than existing embedded vision processors.

  Shukla and Datta called on the expertise of Cornell University materials scientist Darrell Schlom to make the vanadium dioxide thin film, which has extremely high quality similar to single crystal silicon. Arijit Raychowdhury, computer engineer, and Abhinav Parihar graduate student, both of Georgia Tech, mathematically simulated the nonlinear dynamics of coupled phase transitions in the vanadium dioxide devices.

  Parihar created a short video simulation of the transitions, which occur at a rate close to a million times per second, to show the way the oscillations synchronize. Venkatraman Gopalan, professor of materials science and engineering, Penn State, used the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to visually characterize the structural changes occurring in the oxide thin film in the midst of the oscillations.

  Datta believes it will take seven to 10 years to scale up from their current network of two-three coupled oscillators to the 100 million or so closely packed oscillators required to make a neuromorphic computer chip.

  One of the benefits of the novel device is that it will use only about one percent of the energy of digital computing, allowing for new ways to design computers. Much work remains to determine if vanadium dioxide can be integrated into current silicon wafer technology.

  The Office of Naval Research primarily supported this work. The National Science Foundation’s Expeditions in Computing Award also supported this work.

  ---

  Abstract of Scientific Reports paper

  Strongly correlated phases exhibit collective carrier dynamics that if properly harnessed can enable novel functionalities and applications. In this article, we investigate the phenomenon of electrical oscillations in a prototypical MIT system, vanadium dioxide (VO₂). We show that the key to such oscillatory behaviour is the ability to induce and stabilize a non-hysteretic and spontaneously reversible phase transition using a negative feedback mechanism. Further, we investigate the synchronization and coupling dynamics of such VO₂ based relaxation oscillators and show, via experiment and simulation, that this coupled oscillator system exhibits rich non-linear dynamics including charge oscillations that are synchronized in both frequency and phase. Our approach of harnessing a non-hysteretic reversible phase transition region is applicable to other correlated systems exhibiting metal-insulator transitions and can be a potential candidate for oscillator based non-Boolean computing.

  references:

  • Nikhil Shukla et al., Synchronized charge oscillations in correlated electron systems, Scientific Reports, 2014, DOI: 10.1038/srep04964 (open access)

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[LizR]

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in "sheep are nervous". :)

Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See "A melon for ecstasy" and "The unrepentant necrophile" for some suggestions for things one can "have sex with" in this sense, should one be so inclined).

However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are "the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get their kicks from anally probing members of other species" ?)

But anyway .... OK, aliens may want to have sex with humans, just as a human may want to have sex with orangutans - but generally they won't, because sexual attraction is fairly fine tuned, both by evolution and social norms (indeed it's so fine tuned that species that could in theory interbreed often don't) - and, at least in my experience, most humans don't even want to have sex with most other humans ..... never mind fancying members of a different species who will almost certainly give out all the wrong visual, behavioural, and chemical cues.

[Chris de Morsella]

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life. A plausible hypothesis – actually saw it a few nights ago on the Cosmos reboot is that when stars transit through interstellar gas clouds (the nurseries of new stars and planets) their attendant comet clouds become gravitationally perturbed, initiating an era of cometary bombardment. If a planet orbiting a star that is transiting one of these immense clouds get a good whack some of its life bearing rock can be hurled from the system and every once in a great while find its way to another water bearing planet orbiting some other star. This actually sounds plausible to me… that interstellar nurseries are also the cosmic engines for spreading advanced microbial life forms from planets of one star to other planets orbiting other stars…. Over the eons. Perhaps star systems have been exchanging DNA and microbial life since life first began somewhere in our galaxy and that this kind of emergent process is occurring in every galaxy in every universe with laws consonant with stable wet organic chemistry.

Chris

 

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

 

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in "sheep are nervous". :)

 

Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See "A melon for ecstasy" and "The unrepentant necrophile" for some suggestions for things one can "have sex with" in this sense, should one be so inclined).

However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are "the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get their kicks from anally probing members of other species" ?)

 

But anyway .... OK, aliens may want to have sex with humans, just as a human may want to have sex with orangutans - but generally they won't, because sexual attraction is fairly fine tuned, both by evolution and social norms (indeed it's so fine tuned that species that could in theory interbreed often don't) - and, at least in my experience, most humans don't even want to have sex with most other humans ..... never mind fancying members of a different species who will almost certainly give out all the wrong visual, behavioural, and chemical cues.

--

[LizR]

On 27 May 2014 10:53, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

 

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life.

Which would put us on a par with, say, slime mould as far as our ability to reproduce with aliens went. That is, we might have the same genetic code, as I think everything on Earth does - but everything on Earth can't interbreed.

[Chris de Morsella]

Unless, sexual reproduction is also widespread throughout the galaxy… and that species after species on planet after planet reproduce with sperm and eggs. Now that does not mean viable offspring – but the sexual act and the sex drive may be quite common and function in essentially the same way. Pure conjecture on my part of course J

Naturally in order for a viable offspring to be produced the species must share most of their DNA, with even relatively closely related species, mostly being unable to reproduce with each other (or producing infertile hybrids)

Life on earth has long been exchanging DNA with other life on earth through other means besides sexual reproduction, virus vectors for example. I would argue that life on Earth has exchanged a lot of DNA over the eons and that our own species has probably long ago picked up DNA from very different species by these means and that this DNA becomes incorporated into our hereditary lineage.

I suspect that life is not nearly as isolated each within its own silo as we tend to assume; rather it is more like a sponge soaking in the soup of our dynamic living environment… cohabitating and sharing (even our own internal spaces) with a host of other organisms.

Chris

 

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 12:53 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

 

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life. A plausible hypothesis – actually saw it a few nights ago on the Cosmos reboot is that when stars transit through interstellar gas clouds (the nurseries of new stars and planets) their attendant comet clouds become gravitationally perturbed, initiating an era of cometary bombardment.

I think they're doing a fine job with that reboot, although probably not up to Bruno's standards, lol.

Recently found a video where the host chats for 3 minutes on his take regarding "atheism and agnosticism":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos

PGC

[LizR]

On 27 May 2014 11:24, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life.

 

Which would put us on a par with, say, slime mould as far as our ability to reproduce with aliens went. That is, we might have the same genetic code, as I think everything on Earth does - but everything on Earth can't interbreed.

 

Unless, sexual reproduction is also widespread throughout the galaxy… and that species after species on planet after planet reproduce with sperm and eggs. Now that does not mean viable offspring – but the sexual act and the sex drive may be quite common and function in essentially the same way. Pure conjecture on my part of course J

But so what? Generally speaking, we don't want to have sex with all the species on Earth that uses the same method of reproduction as us. Why would you expect aliens to want to have sex with us, any more than we want to have sex with, say, dogs?

I can conjecture SF-y scenarios in which this might be likely, but nothing that seems reasonable under what seem remotely likely assumptions. For an example of something like this, see James Tiptree's story “And I Awoke and Found me Here” - in which humans have a pathological desire for sex with aliens (which the aliens don't reciprocate).

But assuming some aliens do have a pathological desire for sex with other species due to some evolutionary kink, then obviously if they have suitable genitalia and can get the other species to agree, they can. However, generally humans don't have a desire for sex with other species, or even with the majority of members of their own species, and most other species on Earth are similarly disinclined, for obvious evolutionary reasons. So I don't see that this is at all likely.

Or is this all some blokeish thing?

[Chris de Morsella]

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 5:41 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

On 27 May 2014 11:24, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life.

 

Which would put us on a par with, say, slime mould as far as our ability to reproduce with aliens went. That is, we might have the same genetic code, as I think everything on Earth does - but everything on Earth can't interbreed.

 

Unless, sexual reproduction is also widespread throughout the galaxy… and that species after species on planet after planet reproduce with sperm and eggs. Now that does not mean viable offspring – but the sexual act and the sex drive may be quite common and function in essentially the same way. Pure conjecture on my part of course J

 

But so what? Generally speaking, we don't want to have sex with all the species on Earth that uses the same method of reproduction as us. Why would you expect aliens to want to have sex with us, any more than we want to have sex with, say, dogs?

Perhaps… but an alien species may want to inject its code into our species DNA – If it could travel across the gulf of interstellar space I assume it would also have sophisticated abilities to directly edit our DNA without the need for sex. If DNA life forms are in fact widespread and common throughout the galaxy then presumably this hypothetical alien species would already have vast knowledge from a diversity of planetary systems and reading and then editing our code would not present much of an issue.

Chris

I can conjecture SF-y scenarios in which this might be likely, but nothing that seems reasonable under what seem remotely likely assumptions. For an example of something like this, see James Tiptree's story “And I Awoke and Found me Here” - in which humans have a pathological desire for sex with aliens (which the aliens don't reciprocate).

But assuming some aliens do have a pathological desire for sex with other species due to some evolutionary kink, then obviously if they have suitable genitalia and can get the other species to agree, they can. However, generally humans don't have a desire for sex with other species, or even with the majority of members of their own species, and most other species on Earth are similarly disinclined, for obvious evolutionary reasons. So I don't see that this is at all likely.

Or is this all some blokeish thing?

--

[meekerdb]

On 5/26/2014 4:24 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 4:00 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

 

 

On 27 May 2014 10:53, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

 

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life.

 

Which would put us on a par with, say, slime mould as far as our ability to reproduce with aliens went. That is, we might have the same genetic code, as I think everything on Earth does - but everything on Earth can't interbreed.

 

Unless, sexual reproduction is also widespread throughout the galaxy… and that species after species on planet after planet reproduce with sperm and eggs. Now that does not mean viable offspring – but the sexual act and the sex drive may be quite common and function in essentially the same way. Pure conjecture on my part of course J

Naturally in order for a viable offspring to be produced the species must share most of their DNA, with even relatively closely related species, mostly being unable to reproduce with each other (or producing infertile hybrids)

Life on earth has long been exchanging DNA with other life on earth through other means besides sexual reproduction, virus vectors for example. I would argue that life on Earth has exchanged a lot of DNA over the eons and that our own species has probably long ago picked up DNA from very different species by these means and that this DNA becomes incorporated into our hereditary lineage.

I suspect that life is not nearly as isolated each within its own silo as we tend to assume; rather it is more like a sponge soaking in the soup of our dynamic living environment… cohabitating and sharing (even our own internal spaces) with a host of other organisms.

Yeah, I already have some genes shared with a sponge.  That doesn't mean I can mate with one.  In fact I can't even mate with Cameron Diaz.

Brent

[LizR]

On 27 May 2014 13:31, meekerdb <meek...@verizon.net> wrote:

Yeah, I already have some genes shared with a sponge.  That doesn't mean I can mate with one.  In fact I can't even mate with Cameron Diaz.

Thanks for summing up what I've been trying to say ever so much more succinctly!

[Chris de Morsella]

Yes… nor would I advise trying to mate with a sponge… or an alien J

On the other hand we became who we are, also through the  exchange of DNA cross-species. Life is a soup and we are in it and less distinct from it than we like to believe. Over time beneficial mutations (and to some extent parasitic selfish DNA) will jump from species to species through means other than sexual reproduction.

 

Chris

Brent

[LizR]

On 27 May 2014 19:02, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Yeah, I already have some genes shared with a sponge.  That doesn't mean I can mate with one.  In fact I can't even mate with Cameron Diaz.

 

Yes… nor would I advise trying to mate with a sponge… or an alien J

On the other hand we became who we are, also through the  exchange of DNA cross-species. Life is a soup and we are in it and less distinct from it than we like to believe. Over time beneficial mutations (and to some extent parasitic selfish DNA) will jump from species to species through means other than sexual reproduction.

Retroviruses, for example. I believe are responsible for a lot of beneficial stuff. There was an article in New Scientist recently that I seem to recall said as much.

(None of this makes it more likely that we'd want to mate with aliens or vice versa, however.)

[Kim Jones]

http://youtu.be/p6nGwg0jCcA

This is an interview with the director of an award winning documentary about alien incursion on Earth called "The Hidden Hand." I have seen the full documentary and I would rate it as one of the best around. Anyone who has already made up their mind that this is a non-issue will of course not bother. Yet there is plenty of eyewitness testimony and plenty of evidence to support the hypothesis that extraterrestrials have a hidden hand in our civilisation. The testimony of many of high ranking individuals is included such as The Honourable Paul Hellyer, the ex-Canadian Minister for Defence, decorated air force pilots who were sent on "hot" (i.e. fully armed and instructed to fire) missions to engage UFOs and a range of whistleblowers in connection with United States black ops. Quite a few female abductees are interviewed who provide credible evidence of their experiences of being impregnated by aliens for the stated purpose of producing human/alien hybrid offspring and doctors who removed the implants and other foreign objects from the bodies of the abductees are interviewed. This is a complex and multifaceted subject and if it sounds like science fiction to you then rest assured it does to me also. But we have a duty as thinkers to examine all evidence however distasteful it may seem. I have myself been the subject of a UFO experience, so yes, I guess I would be interested in this now wouldn't I. 

Kim

 

[Kim Jones]

And here is the link to the full doco. Its a syndicated link to a newsstand site so the content may not play in all regions which is pretty damn annoying, I know. Anyway, you may be able to pull it up on YT or iTunes for a couple of bucks.

http://www.smh.com.au/tv/Investigation/The-Hidden-Hand-5000237.html

K

[LizR]

I'm downloading it for possible future viewing, although I suspect my other half will find the Danish thriller "Forbrydelsen" (The Killing) more enticing...

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, May 27, 2014 2:27:24 AM UTC+1, cdemorsella wrote:

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 5:41 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

On 27 May 2014 11:24, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life.

 

Which would put us on a par with, say, slime mould as far as our ability to reproduce with aliens went. That is, we might have the same genetic code, as I think everything on Earth does - but everything on Earth can't interbreed.

 

Unless, sexual reproduction is also widespread throughout the galaxy… and that species after species on planet after planet reproduce with sperm and eggs. Now that does not mean viable offspring – but the sexual act and the sex drive may be quite common and function in essentially the same way. Pure conjecture on my part of course J

 

But so what? Generally speaking, we don't want to have sex with all the species on Earth that uses the same method of reproduction as us. Why would you expect aliens to want to have sex with us, any more than we want to have sex with, say, dogs?

Perhaps… but an alien species may want to inject its code into our species DNA – If it could travel across the gulf of interstellar space I assume it would also have sophisticated abilities to directly edit our DNA without the need for sex. If DNA life forms are in fact widespread and common throughout the galaxy then presumably this hypothetical alien species would already have vast knowledge from a diversity of planetary systems and reading and then editing our code would not present much of an issue.

Chris

I can conjecture SF-y scenarios in which this might be likely, but nothing that seems reasonable under what seem remotely likely assumptions. For an example of something like this, see James Tiptree's story “And I Awoke and Found me Here” - in which humans have a pathological desire for sex with aliens (which the aliens don't reciprocate).

But assuming some aliens do have a pathological desire for sex with other species due to some evolutionary kink, then obviously if they have suitable genitalia and can get the other species to agree, they can. However, generally humans don't have a desire for sex with other species, or even with the majority of members of their own species, and most other species on Earth are similarly disinclined, for obvious evolutionary reasons. So I don't see that this is at all likely.

Or is this all some blokeish thing?

 

technological beings probably look quite similar. It's just that a lot of people still have the carl sagan hangover. Anyway, I'm up for screwing nice looking aliens if anyone's got a flying saucer

 

[ghi...@gmail.com]

the sponge point seems fair, but hybridization is misconstrued in popular knowledge. In scientific terms the best theory of human origins by a mile, is a hyrbidization event involving apes and pigs. The only reason it's ignored is because a lot of people have spent a long time barking up another tree that has never even explained how humans stood by gradual evoluation. We still looking at the same daft illustration of a sequence, where the intermediate stage has the fella sort of hunched over with knuckles not touching the ground any more. That's not a viable posture...it wouldn't happen

[LizR]

On 28 May 2014 11:55, <ghi...@gmail.com> wrote:

the sponge point seems fair, but hybridization is misconstrued in popular knowledge. In scientific terms the best theory of human origins by a mile, is a hyrbidization event involving apes and pigs. The only reason it's ignored is because a lot of people have spent a long time barking up another tree that has never even explained how humans stood by gradual evoluation. We still looking at the same daft illustration of a sequence, where the intermediate stage has the fella sort of hunched over with knuckles not touching the ground any more. That's not a viable posture...it wouldn't happen

Yes I've heard the pig idea. It's supported by the fact that our immune systems are apparently very similar to pigs', which I assume is why we use bits of pig to repair our faulty heart valves, and quite a few religions have taboos against eating pigs, presumably because we're similar enough to catch their parasites...
 

This idea goes back a long way. In fact, it may even go back to this guy...

[Russell Standish]

On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 12:04:32PM +1200, LizR wrote:
> Yes I've heard the pig idea. It's supported by the fact that our immune
> systems are apparently very similar to pigs', which I assume is why we use
> bits of pig to repair our faulty heart valves, and quite a few religions
> have taboos against eating pigs, presumably because we're similar enough to
> catch their parasites...
>
> This idea goes back a long way. In fact, it may even go back to this

> guy.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon>
> ..
>

Very punny - or maybe I should say hammy!

[LizR]

On 28 May 2014 12:56, Russell Standish <li...@hpcoders.com.au> wrote:

On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 12:04:32PM +1200, LizR wrote:
> Yes I've heard the pig idea. It's supported by the fact that our immune
> systems are apparently very similar to pigs', which I assume is why we use
> bits of pig to repair our faulty heart valves, and quite a few religions
> have taboos against eating pigs, presumably because we're similar enough to
> catch their parasites...
>
> This idea goes back a long way. In fact, it may even go back to this

> guy.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bacon>
> ..
>

Very punny - or maybe I should say hammy!

I just get rasher and rasher...

[ghi...@gmail.com]

there's an awful lot more evidence...most of it a lot harder than this. It's effectively a knock down case, certainly in comparison with what is treated as the leading theory. I strongly suggest you have a read of his short few pages long overview. for example, every the isn't ape, whther bones or noses or lips or feet or skin and multicomplex subcutes veins and underflesh. It's a straight explanation of standing up...half way between ape and pig can't go on all fours. 

this isn't a the quality of similarities, he's put the bones under a microscope. People argue against it that all those half way to pig traits is convergent evolution. But humans and pigs don't just share high level featues in bones. they share t cosmall scale bumps and crevices, that are impossible to acquire by convergent evolution, because all they are, are acquired little random changes ater evolutionary time. You have to share parentage for that. 

It's worth the read just to see the difference a true scientist brings to evolutionary theory, where what is currently there, says nothing of distinctive value that I can recall. Not compared to what that guy puts over. He did his legwork

does go back to francis bacon actually...that gets reviewed same site macroevolution.net

[LizR]

I'm pretty sure I already read a very long article on this subject... I can't recall all the evidence though.

[meekerdb]

On 5/27/2014 6:26 PM, LizR wrote:
> I'm pretty sure I already read a very long article on this subject... I can't recall all
> the evidence though.

Sometimes I read your posts and wonder what they are referring too?

Brent

[meekerdb]

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs
treat us as equals."
      --- Winston Churchill

[ghi...@gmail.com]

not to say he's little miss perfect. case in point: 

sequence differences are not necessary for anatomical differences to be present.s 

--> of course they bloody are. what he's probably saying is genetic sequences. Noncoding dna is probably as or more important and different traits will need the dna to say that trait is like that, and get built like this, when, where.

 An obvious example of this phenomenon is Down's syndrome. Individuals affected by Down's regularly exhibit certain distinctive anatomical features, and yet in terms of their nucleotide sequences they do not differ in any way from other humans. To detect someone with Down's syndrome, sequence data is completely useless. 

--> he does this a fair bit over the site...which is a mistake really because he's on the outside and overlooking down's people are missing a whole freaking chromosome is a shame. It's just a case of he's really busy and thorough for his theory but draws on general knowledge for some of his argument. But he'll be judged for that similarly.

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 2:26:32 AM UTC+1, Liz R wrote:

I'm pretty sure I already read a very long article on this subject... I can't recall all the evidence though.

well it's not good enough liz.. you must love and worship the ape/pig theory as I do. come, let us kneel together and oink

[LizR]

Sorry, that is the price of not leaving a huge tail of stuff at the end, which I try to avoid as I personally find that rather confusing. Or of trimming the tail but not leaving just the most recent part (on the assumption it will be visible in the post above).

Anyway, in this case the matter at hand was the idea that human beings might be the result of hybridisation between apes and pigs.

[LizR]

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs

treat us as equals."
      --- Winston Churchill

Indeed. Some animals are more equal than others.

[LizR]

 OK, I'm game. Let me just take this apple out of my mouth first.

[Stephen Paul King]

"To detect someone with Down's syndrome, sequence data is completely useless. "  Please elaborate! I do know of other ways that data can be organized...

--
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[Telmo Menezes]

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 11:50 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in "sheep are nervous". :)

Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See "A melon for ecstasy" and "The unrepentant necrophile" for some suggestions for things one can "have sex with" in this sense, should one be so inclined).

Interesting stuff. When I was a teenager, me and some friends would pretend that we ran a necrophilia fanzine. We would have conversations about it, just to disturb people in hearing range. The title of this fictitious publication was "Formaldehyde". Life can get excruciatingly boring in small towns...

 

However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are "the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get their kicks from anally probing members of other species" ?)

Ok, I wasn't so clear. My speculation was somewhere in the middle: that species can exist that may not necessarily interbreed but are sufficiently similar to be sexually attractive to each other -- or, more precisely, to elements of each other's species with common sexual tastes.

So the reason why I find this sort of speculation interesting is that we assume a hypothetical diversity in the tree of possible organisms of human-level intelligence or above. It is compelling to assume high diversity, given the combinatorial explosion of possibilities afforded by DNA encoding and the biological diversity we can observe on earth. But we don't really know.

A counter-hypothesis is that, as complexity increases, the space of viable solutions gets smaller. In an extreme case, it could be that human-level intelligence always requires humanoids. Even taking our friends the orangutans and bonobos. Suppose they keep evolving until they reach human-level intelligence. They are quite close now. Maybe they will lose their fur and develop more and more human-like features until they become sexually attractive to regular humans.

I am not saying that this is the case, or even that I have any evidence for it. What I do know, from experimenting with evolutionary computation, is that we should be suspicious of our intuitions when it comes to such highly complex systems.

Best,

Telmo.

 

But anyway .... OK, aliens may want to have sex with humans, just as a human may want to have sex with orangutans - but generally they won't, because sexual attraction is fairly fine tuned, both by evolution and social norms (indeed it's so fine tuned that species that could in theory interbreed often don't) - and, at least in my experience, most humans don't even want to have sex with most other humans ..... never mind fancying members of a different species who will almost certainly give out all the wrong visual, behavioural, and chemical cues.

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[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 1:48:25 PM UTC+1, telmo_menezes wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 11:50 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in "sheep are nervous". :)

Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See "A melon for ecstasy" and "The unrepentant necrophile" for some suggestions for things one can "have sex with" in this sense, should one be so inclined).

Interesting stuff. When I was a teenager, me and some friends would pretend that we ran a necrophilia fanzine. We would have conversations about it, just to disturb people in hearing range. The title of this fictitious publication was "Formaldehyde". Life can get excruciatingly boring in small towns...

 

However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are "the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get their kicks from anally probing members of other species" ?)

Ok, I wasn't so clear. My speculation was somewhere in the middle: that species can exist that may not necessarily interbreed but are sufficiently similar to be sexually attractive to each other -- or, more precisely, to elements of each other's species with common sexual tastes.

So the reason why I find this sort of speculation interesting is that we assume a hypothetical diversity in the tree of possible organisms of human-level intelligence or above. It is compelling to assume high diversity, given the combinatorial explosion of possibilities afforded by DNA encoding and the biological diversity we can observe on earth. But we don't really know.

A counter-hypothesis is that, as complexity increases, the space of viable solutions gets smaller. In an extreme case, it could be that human-level intelligence always requires humanoids. Even taking our friends the orangutans and bonobos. Suppose they keep evolving until they reach human-level intelligence. They are quite close now. Maybe they will lose their fur and develop more and more human-like features until they become sexually attractive to regular humans.

oink - I think the hypothesis makes a lot of sense. An even more constrained version would that the evolutionary paths to that converged space of viable solutions, are themselves extremely improbable  the possibility space of evolutionary histories. which may itself be constrained by the possibility space of worlds and behind that solar system evolutions. This bitch could be constrained all the way back man,. forget turtles; constraints.

[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 3:13:44 AM UTC+1, Stephen Paul King wrote:

"To detect someone with Down's syndrome, sequence data is completely useless. "  Please elaborate! I do know of other ways that data can be organized...all

I was actually quoting someone else the. But the confusion is my fault as I failed to format things properly. Gene McCarthy - chap I was quoting was talking specifically about dna sequence data. Part of what I was commenting on, was that while he's right about the data that is there, he overlooks that a whole chromosome is missing for that condition, and a missing bunch of sequence is the same as difference sequence.”

[Quentin Anciaux]

2014-05-28 17:45 GMT+02:00 <ghi...@gmail.com>:

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 3:13:44 AM UTC+1, Stephen Paul King wrote:

"To detect someone with Down's syndrome, sequence data is completely useless. "  Please elaborate! I do know of other ways that data can be organized...all

I was actually quoting someone else the. But the confusion is my fault as I failed to format things properly. Gene McCarthy - chap I was quoting was talking specifically about dna sequence data. Part of what I was commenting on, was that while he's right about the data that is there, he overlooks that a whole chromosome is missing

No chromosomes are missing, there is on the contrary a supernumerary chromosome 21 hence also the name "trisomy 21".  So I don't understand how sequencing data could be useless because those datas contains that fact...

Quentin

 

for that condition, and a missing bunch of sequence is the same as difference sequence.”

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[ghi...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 4:53:27 PM UTC+1, Quentin Anciaux wrote:

2014-05-28 17:45 GMT+02:00 <ghi...@gmail.com>:

On Wednesday, May 28, 2014 3:13:44 AM UTC+1, Stephen Paul King wrote:

"To detect someone with Down's syndrome, sequence data is completely useless. "  Please elaborate! I do know of other ways that data can be organized...all

I was actually quoting someone else the. But the confusion is my fault as I failed to format things properly. Gene McCarthy - chap I was quoting was talking specifically about dna sequence data. Part of what I was commenting on, was that while he's right about the data that is there, he overlooks that a whole chromosome is missing

No chromosomes are missing, there is on the contrary a supernumerary chromosome 21 hence also the name "trisomy 21".  So I don't understand how sequencing data could be useless because those datas contains that fact...

I'm sorry to have repeated wrong information...clearly I didn't check my own facts from background knowledge which was what I was pointing the finger at the other guy for doing. Still, the main objection - that dramatically different phenotype does require difference in dna sequence - still stands and it appears we agree on that one. thanks for sorting me out on the down's. 

[LizR]

On 29 May 2014 00:48, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

Interesting stuff. When I was a teenager, me and some friends would pretend that we ran a necrophilia fanzine. We would have conversations about it, just to disturb people in hearing range. The title of this fictitious publication was "Formaldehyde". Life can get excruciatingly boring in small towns...

A living death, indeed.

[Bruno Marchal]

On 27 May 2014, at 01:37, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 12:53 AM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

 

 

From: everyth...@googlegroups.com [mailto:everyth...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of LizR
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2014 2:51 PM
To: everyth...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: So, a new kind of non-boolean, non-digital, computer architecture

 

On 26 May 2014 23:31, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 1:12 AM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 25 May 2014 23:32, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 1:15 PM, LizR <liz...@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess it would be pedantic to point out the silliness of aliens wanting to have sex with humans. I mean, we're more closely related to grass, jellyfish and slugs than we are to aliens...

 

Unless, of course life had already spread throughout our galaxy billions of years before our star was born and we are just the local Sol branch off the same galactic (or who knows perhaps even larger scale) tree of life. A plausible hypothesis – actually saw it a few nights ago on the Cosmos reboot is that when stars transit through interstellar gas clouds (the nurseries of new stars and planets) their attendant comet clouds become gravitationally perturbed, initiating an era of cometary bombardment.

I think they're doing a fine job with that reboot, although probably not up to Bruno's standards, lol.

Recently found a video where the host chats for 3 minutes on his take regarding "atheism and agnosticism":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos

Very nice. I am not astonished that Tyson is systematically renamed "atheist" on the wiki page on him (that he did not create, but try to correct, unsuccessfully!). 

In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion.

Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to "Conscience & Mécanisme" I make clear what I mean by agnostic  (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference.

Bruno

PGC

 

If a planet orbiting a star that is transiting one of these immense clouds get a good whack some of its life bearing rock can be hurled from the system and every once in a great while find its way to another water bearing planet orbiting some other star. This actually sounds plausible to me… that interstellar nurseries are also the cosmic engines for spreading advanced microbial life forms from planets of one star to other planets orbiting other stars…. Over the eons. Perhaps star systems have been exchanging DNA and microbial life since life first began somewhere in our galaxy and that this kind of emergent process is occurring in every galaxy in every universe with laws consonant with stable wet organic chemistry.

Chris

 

Makes sense, of course, but I'm not so sure. I don't think we know enough at this point to estimate the diversity of the solution space for biologically evolved entities with human-level intelligence or above. It could be that something very similar to us is the only viable solution, or the most likely solution.

 

Functionally similar (perhaps), but certainly not genetically similar. We aren't even gentically similar enough to interbreed with any other species that evolved on the same planet under very similar conditions to us - for example, we are very closely related to chimps, but we still can't interbreed with them.

Ok, but now you're making the requirements more stringent. We were talking about outer-space fetishists, not necessarily interbreeding. So functional similarity might be enough, as alluded in "sheep are nervous". :)

 

Well if you're just talking about something you can put your dick in (or an alien can put their proboscis in), that's a (ahem) broad range of items, depending on your tastes (See "A melon for ecstasy" and "The unrepentant necrophile" for some suggestions for things one can "have sex with" in this sense, should one be so inclined).

However your original reply (in blue above) certainly appeared to be talking about interbreeding. (Or did you mean humanoid forms are "the only viable solution for fetishists who happen to get their kicks from anally probing members of other species" ?)

 

But anyway .... OK, aliens may want to have sex with humans, just as a human may want to have sex with orangutans - but generally they won't, because sexual attraction is fairly fine tuned, both by evolution and social norms (indeed it's so fine tuned that species that could in theory interbreed often don't) - and, at least in my experience, most humans don't even want to have sex with most other humans ..... never mind fancying members of a different species who will almost certainly give out all the wrong visual, behavioural, and chemical cues.

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

[spudb...@aol.com]

Dr. Marchal, do you ever get in conversations with your fellow academician, Clement Vidal? He's a philosopher at your University? Do you ever get into the Evo-Devo view? 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> In Brussels, the atheists claims that agnostics are atheists, but this can only create a confusion.

Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Technically I guess I'd have to say I'm a teapot agnostic but in this case the difference between the 2 words is so small it's not worth talking about. And I found another short video by Tyson that I like better:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5dSyT50Cs8

  John K Clark

 

[meekerdb]

On 6/25/2014 7:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

Some claim that my problem in Brussels was that in the introduction to "Conscience & Mécanisme" I make clear what I mean by agnostic  (~[] g) and atheists ([]~g). Natural language confuse easily ~[] and []~. Modal logic is useful if only to explain that difference.

It's more complicated than that.  It depends on what you mean by "g".  Is it the god of theism, who is a person who created the world, answers prayers, and judges humans in an afterlife.  Or is it the god of deism who created the world but doesn't act in it.  Or is it one of the "gods" of mystics who is a principle or "nature" or an unnameable and unknowable something.  Literally "atheist" is one who is not a theist, one who fails to believe in the god of theism.   Thomas Jefferson was called an atheist because he believed in the god of deism.

Brent

[spudb...@aol.com]

For me, your analogy (which has been heard before of course) is simple to satisfy. The Peoples Republic of China, upon hearing John Clark's philosophical challenge, and diverts its lunar rover to the planet Uranus. All this to the chagrin of Mr. Clark, who yell's "Not fair!" Never the less, the space probe deposits a Ming dynasty teapot into lagrangian orbit. Clark's screams, and condition satisfied. 

Here's another way looking at things, to Mr. Aquinas's displeasure. There are many minds in the Hubble Volume, one of them is God, and it is the smartest and oldest mind. In fact this mind, developed the universe into a place that is occasionally fit for types of life, one of them carbon-water life. Say hello to God, Mr. Clark. Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, "Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe."  Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three. 

"Keaton always said, "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him." Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze".

-Verbal Kint

Concerning the existence of a china teapot in orbit around the planet Uranus, are you a teapot atheist or agnostic? Technically I guess I'd have to say I'm a teapot agnostic but in this case the difference between the 2 words is so small it's not worth talking about. And I found another short video by Tyson that I like better:  

-----Original Message-----
From: John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com>
To: everything-list <everyth...@googlegroups.com>

[LizR]

On 26 June 2014 07:05, spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> Or to quote, Richard Dawkins, "Yes, I can imagine there are god-like intelligences in the universe."  Atheist, Agnostic, Believer? Sure. All three.

(Or in other universes, or branches of the level 1 or level 3 mulitverse, or...)

I don't know if god-like intelligences are possible in our universe, it's possible the laws of physics don't allow it. There are a lot of known / suspected limitations on computation for example, and a god that couldn't at least perform hypercomputations isn't really godlike IMHO.

[Platonist Guitar Cowboy]

This use with Jefferson as example is particular. Atheism in most contexts is more broad, roughly the sense "belief in non-existence of god/deities"; where the kind of god matters less.

Unless of course, this is some kind of US linguistic use/habbit or domain bound jargon. But if this is how you've always understood the term, then this explains why we've disagreed here before. ~[]g and []~g is independent of the kind of "g". PGC

 

Brent

[LizR]

I think the term has broadened out since it was first introduced. Nowadays it appears to mean believing there are no supernatural forces of any kind. It also seems to (often implicitly) mean believing that the "primitive materialist" view of the physical world is correct, too.

[Kim Jones]

Kim Jones B. Mus. GDTL

Email:   kimj...@ozemail.com.au

             kmjc...@icloud.com

Mobile: 0450 963 719

Phone:  02 93894239

Web:     http://www.eportfolio.kmjcommp.com

"Never let your schooling get in the way of your education" - Mark Twain

 

[Kim Jones]

> On 26 Jun 2014, at 5:05 am, spudboy100 via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> "Keaton always said, "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him." Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze".

When Richard Dawkins briefly had me convinced that I was atheist I ordered from his foundation one of those lovely black T-shirts with the red letter 'A' on the front which I proudly wore whenever I went out in public. Since discovering 'comp' I am not so arrogant in my belief in the non-existence of God.

I now only wear it as a pyjama when I go to bed. I do this in the case that where there is a god, I still want him to know that I occasionally no longer believe in him.

Atheist? Agnostic? Demented?

Kim

[LizR]

You could paint a circle round it, in which case it would mean "Anarchy".