• The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    The brain is not a digital computerDaemon

    That's what I wrote many times alresdy. There is no computation done. Only connections between neurons are strengthened. Neurotransmitters and hormones are involved in the propagation of ion currents, which are no os or 1s. They're not information. Rather, the coherent currents run like processes in the world run.
  • Material Numbers
    Is someone rushing to judgment about boundary ontology?ucarr

    What judgement is there to be made?

    Where's the argument, supported by evidence (Hadron Super-Collider), that the boundary ontology of, say, elementary particles, must be exact & discreet in order to be extant?ucarr

    What's the boundary ontology of elementary particles? They are only supposed to be asymptotically free.

    Action-at-a-distance of elementary particles raises questions about existing boundary ontology being simple, exact & discreet.ucarr

    Which questions?

    Likewise the event horizon of black holes>likewise the holographic theory of the universe.

    Likewise dark matter.

    Likewise the 2nd law of thermodynamics being preserved within black holes.
    ucarr

    Likewise in being simple, exact, and discrete?
  • Last Thursdayism
    For me, this is just not adequate proof.
    I have never found 'operatic choral music' intimidating or theistically threatening.
    universeness

    How would adequate proof look like? Gods litterally showing themselves? Not sure if operatic choral music is meant to threat or intimidate. You seem to identify religion with powerful gods threatening people. Why should they be like that? Maybe they created the universe accidentally. And just moved on after the accident, without caring for the ones involved in the accident.
  • Last Thursdayism
    So why /doesn't it/don't they? Perhaps you or the pope or the archbishop of anywhere or the recent member of TPF and ardent theist, Joe Mello could ask it/them.universeness

    The universe itself is proof. Dunno why they don't show themselves. Maybe they do but we don't see.

  • Last Thursdayism


    How does one know there is no god behind a lightning strike? Im not saying there is, but who says that's so? They could interact by an unknown physical mechanism.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness


    The only thing happening in the brain is ion currents running parallel on the network, from birth to dead (the brain can't be turned off). Connection strengths involved in learning and memory (which are actually the same) direct the patterns. The 10exp(10exp20) possible pathways are actualized by these strengths. They are already there at birth, as a result of, for example retina induced stimulations of the network (concentric circle patterns moving over the retina structure, stimulating the embryonic network, so the newly born sees and recognizes round shapes).
  • Last Thursdayism
    What is a human head, if not a vessel? If we replicate every system inside the head and body that supports the brain then I don't see why not, given enough time and scientists.
    You also might find the concept of the Boltzmann brain interesting if you don't already know about it.
    have a wee look at:
    universeness

    I mean an artificial vessel. The Bolzmann universe encompasses infinite regression, which solves nothing.. It was invented by Bolzmann in relation to entropy. If the whole universe could exist as a fluctuation then in that fluctuation a thermal equilibrium would evolve which could result in a fluctuation of a universe, etcetera. Brains just involve a process leading to them and any attempt to create them must involve the whole universe.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    it's just a gap in knowledgeGarrett Travers

    What gap? There is no gap. Well, a gap being crossed easier. Between neurons, enhancing their connectivity.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    It isn't a problem. As I explained, it's just a gap in knowledge, most of which is accounted for in 2022. But, I can't literally explain the same thing over and over again to someone.Garrett Travers

    Indeed. It's not a problem at all. The connections between neurons explain the problem.
  • Last Thursdayism


    Isn't it always better to bet they exist? What you gotta loose?
  • Last Thursdayism


    Hope nobody heard or saw this. Did Pascal gamble with his life regarding the existence of gods? How can you wager your life on that? If they don't exist, I will drop dead? If they do exist then the other might drop dead? How can you know who wins the wage?
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    The brain doesn't process information, nor compute on it. The only thing that happens is resonating with incoming structures. Or vibrating on its own. I can see a real ball and I can imagine one.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness


    I can't find it at the moment, but it was found that the strengthened connections in memory formation are formed by gaps widening so currents flow easier, so the connections seem stronger. I try to find it.
  • Last Thursdayism
    You continue to play with Pascal's wager. Bet On...Bet Off...Bet On...Bet Off. The Karate Theistic Kid (Only kidding!)universeness

    :lol:

    Haha! The quark kid strikes again. What is Pascal's wager?
  • Last Thursdayism
    Very serious! I don't get carried away, I might get intrigued and become hopeful however. Out of little acorns, big oak trees grow! Any scientific/technological/chemical/biological idea that forms in a human mind should be heard, just like your ideas as to the structure and workings of the Universe. How would you respond to someone who said 'are you serious?' after you explained your ideas in detail.universeness

    The "are you serious?" attitude I have encountered a lot. You are the first exception. Mostly these are underbelly reactions to the attack on the status quo and uttered by people who feel threatened wrt their view on reality. They dont try to understand and their reaction is irrational because if they react that fast they havent made any attempt to understand. Banning is the result.

    Im not speculating about the application of science though. But I know a brain can't be contained in a vessel, no matter what SF fantasies show. It's nice to fantasize about the application of science and its application. But you should keep in mind that not everything is possible with science. It is claimed that robots and AI are the next step in evolution. I think this is not so.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    We feel what our brains are doing because we are the fields that constitute and unify it.
    2h
    bert1

    What kind of field do you mean?
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness
    The existence of binding is not a problem, it's a good thing. Accounting for it, explaining how it happens is the problem.bert1

    It exists because there are bindings in the real world. Flowers have shapes and looking at them shapes a similar shape in the brain in the back of your head (visual cortex, V-regions). Various aspects of the flower are projected onto the neurons and their connections. For example, the shape of the flower is engraved by connection strengths between neurons, which is physically accomplished by widening the synapses.
  • A Question for Physicalists
    Are thoughts energy?Agent Smith

    No. They are the contents of living beings. Their placeholders run around as patterned currents on the lightning shaped paths that neurons provide for. Because they are the content of these currents, you can't touch or weigh them. Neurons and currents have weight. Thoughts have not. You can calculate the weight/mass though of the placeholders involved. Or the equivalent energy.
  • Last Thursdayism
    A human brain in a sustaining cybernetic body, a human consciousness that can be stored and transmitted from one location to another at light speed or greater.universeness

    These are just fantasies, like gods are. Difference being that gods are real while these fantasies stay fantasies.
  • Last Thursdayism


    Are you serious? Don't get carried away by those ideas. The next step in evolution is not how we engineer it.

    If two ideas fail, people conceive new ideas.universeness

    These are the only two ideas to survey. Maybe God will show up to transport us instantaneously...
  • The start of everything
    The wavefunction collapse is a real local collapse. Only a universal wavefunction of non-interacting particles will never collapse. Collapse is interaction.
  • Last Thursdayism
    That is something I would like to discuss with him when the time comes.Cuthbert

    :lol:


    Like last Thursday, it's questionable if that coming time exists.
  • Last Thursdayism


    A transhuman? Our follow up in evolution?
  • Last Thursdayism


    Alcubierre's drive and wormholes don't work, even in theory. The fact that not one Thursday has passed for you and 50 on Earth proves that Thursday has passed. Of course you can say that the whole trip is a memory, but then we can just as well ask if this question was really asked. The question wasn't asked. "Questionism"...
  • Last Thursdayism
    Aaaaarrggggh! I mean 7,745,966
    A bloomin, flippin comma was required instead of a bloomin, flippin dot
    universeness

    The road to destruction... :wink:
  • Last Thursdayism


    It's very simple. Say a particle accelerates to just below c. If the particle travels for 1 day and returns to Earth then because of the asymmetry the clocks on particles on Earth show, say, 2 years, a considerable difference. The particle hasn't experienced thursday, but Earth a lot of thursdays have passed. Because of the asymmetry. So, has thursday passed or not? Yes it has. 104 times.
  • The Unequivocal Triumph Of Neuroscience - On Consciousness


    Why is the binding problem a problem? Wouldn't it be a problem if there wasn't binding?
  • Last Thursdayism
    If last Thursday didn't happen then this yesterday didn't happen. If yesterday didn't this morning didn't happen. If this morning didn't happen, last minute didn't happen. If last minute didn't happen last second didn't happen. If last second didn't happen, my eye winking didn't happen. If the past hasn't happened the present can't happen. The present happens. So history happened.

    If God created the universe 6000 years ago, what was his reason to include fossils?
  • The start of everything
    Every non-interacting system will get spread over space. So their spatial properties depend on other particles. So their properties are relational. Measuring is a two-way process.
  • Material Numbers


    The fact that God hasn't showed himself only means he hasn't showed himself yet...
  • Material Numbers


    The fact that it can't be described exactly just means there isn't an exact structure. If the exact structure is the approximation then what is the exact structures? And what it approximates? There are many possible approximations.
  • Last Thursdayism
    If Thursday didn't exist, so didn't one second ago. Time wouldn't exist at all..
  • Last Thursdayism
    Just video record a message made last Thursday, telling certain stuff. Yes. God could have created that. Like all geological data. But why should he? He's no lier. The devil's work! Of course.
  • Last Thursdayism
    I have no idea what age they would be in relation to you at their point of return.universeness

    If you travel at lightspeed through the galaxy for 8.673 years around the planetary system at near the speed of light and return on Earth, you will have aged about one week. So many passed Thursdays vs. one.
  • Material Numbers


    If an exact structure can't be described exactly, it doesn't exist. Otherwise you could describe it exactly.
  • The start of everything
    You seem to envision poking the cat with a stick, but measurement of the moon does not seem to involve virtual photons, so collapse does not necessarily involve such a virtual interaction.noAxioms

    Even the Moon is measured with virtual photons. Though they are almost real.
  • Non-Physical Reality


    Yes, so it seems. But their energy is their momentum. A virtual photon can have independent values of both though. That's why it's called virtual.
  • Non-Physical Reality


    Virtual photons can transfer momentum and energy. Independently (not on mass shell).
  • Reductionism and the Hierarchy of Scale
    If preon particle fields are a thing, then they are only a vacuum expectation until some kind of constraining horizon is imposed on their observables. A "concrete" excitation that might be claimed as a particle is only a virtual possibility until some kind of classical frame has been imposed on the situationapokrisis

    Exactly. The pre-inflationary Planck volume contained virtual preons only, fluctuating in time. The surrounding space is the constraint. If this constrained crosses a critical value, the virtuality is inflated into reality and conditions are set to evolution into increasingly complex structures. This evolution backfires on the Planck volume and delivers the new constraint. And again the critical value will be crossed... So it's all fundamental.
  • Reductionism and the Hierarchy of Scale


    The basic level is more appropriate.