Can you enlighten me? — Gnomon

No. The paper is too far over my head to grasp, without reading a lot more than the paper itself, and life is short.

Or you're just immune to science. — flannel jesus

MU has as much as said that his mind is closed to the extent that he can keep it so:

I, am an impenetrable fortress. Nothing, I repeat nothing, from that "external world" can infiltrate my defenses, and move me. All which exists within my mind comes from the inside. Thus is my reality.

There is however, a sense in which ideas come to my mind from somewhere other than my mind. Since they cannot penetrate through my fortress, and enter from the external, and "ghostly phenomena" is silly talk, I conclude that they enter my mind through "inner space". And since the ideas which enter my mind through inner space seem to be very similar to the ideas which enter your mind through inner space, I can conclude that we are very well connected through inner space. — Metaphysician Undercover

And, a misleading map gets people lost. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ah, the irony.

There are none so blind...

You posted your opinion implying that the common Yin Yang symbol was used as input... — Gnomon

Have you looked at the original paper? (Which T Clark linked early in the thread.)

I just took a look and the caption under the only picture of the Yin-Yang symbol says:

a, Coincidence image of interference between a reference SPDC state and a state obtained by a pump beam with the shape of a Ying and Yang symbol (shown in the inset). The inset scale is the same as in the main plot. b, Reconstructed amplitude and phase structure of the image imprinted on the unknown pump.

Ok, can you explain it to me ? My amazement is that this all rather predates solid state transistors. — unenlightened

It doesn't predate computers built from relays as the 'bug link' I posted shows. I would think Spencer-Brown would have been well aware of this, and wouldn't have believed himself to be presenting anything particularly novel in pointing out the possibility of memory implemented in switches.

As far as explaining... I'm not sure what you are asking me to explain. I haven't been reading along.(although I am curious about Spencer-Brown's thoughts on implementing complex math in Boolean logic) So I'm not in a position to explain much about what Spencer-Brown has to say. I could explain the workings of the flip-flop in the image I posted, but I don't have a good sense of how much background knowledge I'd need to provide, in order for you to find my explanation comprehensible.

Yeah, tempting but stupid. Computer memory is not made of switches. But kudos for bothering to read the thread at all. — unenlightened

Well computer memory is implemented in a variety of ways these days, but any modern computer is going to have some memory elements implemented as flip-flops. A simple schematic of a flip-flop is illustrated below.



Note that the symbols labeled TR1 and TR2 represent transistors, which for practical purposes are switches.

Older (pre-solid-state) computers used electromagnetically controlled switches with contacts that opened and closed. (relays) This allowed a literal bug to crash a computer. Solid-state switches (transistors) are a big improvement.

Did you interpret the symbolic image as an error of judgment, or a deliberate hoax? — Gnomon

Isn't that a false dichotomy?
Maybe a stunt to get a lot of attention to their paper? Maybe one of the researchers is into Taoism? Maybe a target that was handy and interesting enough?

This is extraordinary! A circuit made entirely of switches that has a memory! — unenlightened

Wow, if someone implemented something like that we could have computers and an internet!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Humans can move the plants that they want to move. This solves the problem for plants that can't move themselves. All of our food crops etc will be easy to shift. — Agree-to-Disagree

Things are not that simple.

The Canadian Shield (French: Bouclier canadien [buklje kanadjɛ̃]), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the ancient geologic core of the North American continent. Glaciation has left the area with only a thin layer of soil, through which exposures of igneous bedrock resulting from its long volcanic history are frequently visible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield

And life goes on, and on, and on. For million, billion of years, etc etc etc. — niki wonoto

Hoping for that gives purpose to some of us.

Anyone who benefits better have a nuclear arsenal ready to defend themselves from invasion. :grin: — frank

O Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land, glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee;
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee

:up:

What math? It's a philosophical problem, one which mathematics has not resolved. Look, there's a point in time, when a body at rest becomes a body accelerating. The body changes from being at rest, to being in motion at some point in time. Since the rate of increase of velocity (acceleration) is expressed as over a period of time, at this point in time, when the body changes from being at rest to being in motion, the rate of increase must be infinite because it's a number expressed over zero, x/0. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's what I'm asking you, "What math?"

You keep bringing up mathematical issues, such as infinity and division by zero, as if they are magic words meant to distract from your inability to explain why they are of relevance.

It's starting to appear as if you don't know how to apply math to the situation. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

Re your version of [1]: Can processes per se account for anything? I agree with Hume that causation is essentially epistemic. We can have a useful account (ie a symbolic representation) positing that A causes B. But causation is a not necessary concept. In a block universe where time is represented, A and B are part of a single spatio-temporal 'thread'. — Christopher Burke

I agree. There is much we can't be certain about regarding the nature of reality. Still, we are talking about the way a physicalist sees things.

Re your version of [2]:
'Practical purposes' do indicate something important about how we interact with extramental reality. I don't think they can be dismissed so easily as irrelevant to our understanding. You say "we need to resort to simplistic non-physical psychical representations", but most psychologists would dispute that pejorative classification as simplistic ... as would I. — Christopher Burke

It wasn't meant as a pejorative. Just a statement about what the situation is. Hopefully scientific psychologists would recognize, along with Einstein:

The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says "Yes" to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says "Maybe", and in the great majority of cases simply "No". If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter "Maybe", and if it does not agree it means "No". Probably every theory will someday experience its "No"—most theories, soon after conception.

Psychologists are considering what is going on, in systems much more complex than Einstein considered. Simplistic psychological theories are the most we can reasonably hope for at this point in human history. I'm not saying that psychologists are not doing a great job at improving our understanding of our minds. It's just the nature of the situation humanity is in.

Even if we had a complete model based on all possible data from observation, would we know what it is like to be that bit of reality? — Christopher Burke

Not comprehensively. We aren't capable of fully knowing what it is like to be each other. But that's a limitation that comes with having a physical mind.

“The last dollop in the theory [of Physicalism] – that it subjectively feels like something to be such [neural] circuitry – may have to be stipulated as a fact about reality where explanation stops.”
Steven Pinker, 2018, Enlightenment Now: the Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress — Christopher Burke

I think Pinker is overly pessimistic. There is much understanding to be gained beyond where Pinker suggests explanation might stop.

I fear you've built up this very narrow idea of what materialists think, that isn't actually what materialists think. — flannel jesus

:up:

[1] Physicalism claims that physical representations can account for everything.
[2] We need non-physical psychical representations to account for some things.
[3] Ergo physicalism is a false claim.
...
Where is my error? — Christopher Burke

I would correct your first two premises as follows:

[1]Physicalism claims that physical representations processes occuring in nature can account for everything.
[2]For practical purposes we need to resort to simplistic non-physical psychical representations to account for some things, because we don't have detailed data about what is going on in our brains, nor do we have brains capable of processing such a mountain of data in an expeditious way.

So you would at least need to add some additional premises to reach your conclusion.

These ideas are very definitely testable. To state otherwise would be to say that every mystic who has ever claimed to know the truth is or was a liar. — FrancisRay

Not a liar, just naive, and in too many cases grandiose.
— wonderer1

Oh boy,.. You're calling the Buddha and Lao Tu naive and grandiose? But not yourself? — FrancisRay

Apparently, knowing "the truth" doesn't involve having very good reading comprehension. I didn't say anything about the Buddha or Lao Tzu.

Let's talk about your grandiosity instead. Why would anyone take seriously your claim to know "the truth". Lots of people know all sorts of truths that you don't know. So other than as a naive grandiose claim, how is your claim to know "the truth" to be interpreted?

To make things more concrete... There is an object sitting on the computer case on the right side of my desk. What is "the truth" about the nature of that object. Give as much detail as you can.

These ideas are very definitely testable. To state otherwise would be to say that every mystic who has ever claimed to know the truth is or was a liar. — FrancisRay

Not a liar, just naive, and in too many cases grandiose.

Scientists are not infallible, they are human like everyone else. And the human urge to go along with the popular trend is quite strong, especially when doing so would help in furthering one's career. Hence, to think that scientists at large would orient their scientific labor in support of an official narrative is not at all unreasonable to consider. — Merkwurdichliebe

Not ureasonable I suppose, for someone with a lack of experience with science and scientists. However, regardless of how reasonably understood it might be, that you hold that view (being as ignorant as you demonstrate yourself to be) ignorant conspiracy theory rationalization is what it is.

The concept of "acceleration" involves a fundamental philosophical problem. Acceleration is the rate of increase of velocity. So if an object goes from being at rest, to moving, there is a brief period of time where its "acceleration" is necessarily infinite. — Metaphysician Undercover

Show your math.

NYTimes article:

The university lab which did the testing “disassociates itself from any use, interpretation, or subsequent misrepresentation of the results it provides,” the institute said. “In no case do we draw conclusions about the origin of these samples.”

Similarly, Antígona Segura, one of Mexico’s top astrobiologists, questioned Mr. Maussan’s contentions. “These conclusions are simply not backed up by evidence,” said Dr. Segura, who collaborates with the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, a NASA initiative to search for life on distant worlds. “The whole thing is very shameful.”

What does "sec**2" even mean? — Metaphysician Undercover

https://www.quora.com/What-does-per-second-squared-mean

In addition, what's interesting about the genes of life on earth is that a lot of it is junk. A lot of it doesn't do anything. It's vestigial. If we share 70% of DNA with this alien, that means we share a hell of a lot of vestigal DNA - that's actually a pretty big problem. — flannel jesus

Good point, although I'm assuming that if there was DNA testing, it wasn't a whole genome sequencing of whatever DNA there was to test. A test that only looked for 100 genes might find 70 matches, while ignoring non-coding DNA.

I'm guessing the 'researchers' won't be releasing any details of any DNA testing.

Do you think the genes for wings in bats is similar to those for birds, is similar to those for flying insects?

They're not. — flannel jesus

That's a bit simplistic. True, insects are quite distant and the genetic distance is going to be relatively large for them. However the four animals in Frank's picture are all tetrapods:

Tetrapods (/ˈtɛtrəˌpɒdz/;[5] from Ancient Greek τετρα- (tetra-) 'four', and πούς (poús) 'foot') are four-limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (/tɛˈtræpədə/).[6] It includes all extant and extinct amphibians, and the amniotes which in turn evolved into the sauropsids (reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids (extinct pelycosaurs, therapsids and all extant mammals). Some tetrapods such as snakes, legless lizards and caecilians had evolved to become limbless via mutations of the Hox gene,[7] although some do still have a pair of vestigial spurs that are remnants of the hindlimbs.

Note the mention of Hox genes. All of the tetrapod species in Frank's picture have Hox genes playing a strong role in determing much about the body plan, and constraining the course that tetrapod evolution could take.

I do wonder why it is that it has taken so long for the process view to take over. Is it necessarily less intuitive, or is the problem that we drill a sort of naive corpuscularism, a substance metaphysics, into kids for the first 14-18 years of their education? It certainly seems less intuitive. I sort of buy into Donald Hoffman's argument that we evolved to want to focus on concrete objects (thus excluding the "nothing"). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Off the top of my head I can't think of many easily observable examples of feedback outside of social interactions, so I think it is pretty natural that people don't tend to have intuitions that are informed by observing feedback systems. (I suppose the notion of karma suggests somewhat the idea of a feedback sysyem.) I don't see it as so much a matter of our educational systems, as a matter of our lacking the perceptual and cognitive systems to see the feedback occurring in things around us.

I look into some types of feedback systems routinely, and have intuitions conducive to understanding feedback systems to a greater degree than most, but it takes expensive instrumentation for me to be able to observe the relevant processes. I'd have to think about how better intuitions about feedback systems could be cost effectively instilled during K-12 education.

Relativity theory was created for pragmatic purposes, and is fundamentally not truth-apt. — Metaphysician Undercover

Black holes, gravitational lensing, and gravitational waves have all been observed and were predicted on GR. What do you mean by relativity theory not being truth-apt?

:up:

If we can easily recreate the conditions that gave rise to the militaristic, hyper-nationalist Nazis, doesn't that say something about the power of duty to country and leader? — ToothyMaw

Perhaps it says something about how comfortable humans find it, to feel like we have a role in our social primate band?

Perhaps duty is a reification humanity came up with for discussing the strong impulse to take care of the family?

Perhaps one's notion of duty might be a simplistic mythical ideal that doesn't correspond very well with the way things happen in human societies?

This thinking resembles what authors do when they produce fictitious narratives, borrow from their real life experience and make up fantasy tales with no intention of claiming that they are talking about real life events. This type of philosophical thinking is doing the same, but with the delusional attempt in trying to potentially say something of the world we live in. — Richard B

Perhaps I see more value in considering thought experiments than you do? Einstein's thought experiments played an important role in human understanding of relativity theory. Suppose we consider the merits of thought experiments, as a technology for stimulating human minds to look at things from a different perspective?

Anyway, as far as my best guess regarding the world we live in. I don't see any reason to think that it is physically impossible for a BIV to exist. I don't have any reason for confidence that it will ever be technologically possible for humans to maintain a human BIV capable of philosophical conversations 'in a vat'. Furthermore, if in the future the scientific knowledge and technology necessary to maintain a human brain in a vat is available, I'd expect those with the scientific know how and access to the technology would consider creating a BIV to be a silly (and possibly immoral) thing to do.

If we want to talk in more realistic terms, about what sort of technological minds humans might create, we might look at using a technology like spintronic memristors used to instantiate artificial neural networks.

Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" said it best, "505. It is always by favor of Nature that one knows something." — Richard B

Well, I'd quibble over whether using the word "favor" is saying it best. I'm inclined to say something more like, "It is always as a consequence of interactions occurring in Nature that one knows something."

That's why I, not Nagel, suggested that animals probably share the human ability to create analogies & metaphors
— Gnomon

That is a very big claim. It obviously can't be proved, but what aspects of animal behaviour make you think that is plausible? I believe that analogical thinking is uniquely human, because no other species produces symbolic artefacts or behaves in ways indicating such abstraction. Am I wrong here? I'd be interested to know. — Christopher Burke

Our thinking about analogies tends to be strongly associated with language and I don't find it plausible that analogy in a linguistic sense plays much of a role in the behavior of non-human animals. However the 1a definition of "analogy from Merriam-Webster says:

1a: a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect

If we consider analogical thinking more broadly, such as in terms of noverbal pattern recognition, perhaps this youtube cat video provides behavioral evidence suggesting analogical thinking in cats?

...Threatening a public official is a felony... — NOS4A2

...and should be prosecuted. Right?

:100:

I don't think they're paying attention to me. — T Clark

Am I among "they"?

Simply, if the scientist showed that it is physically impossible to have a functional BIV, BIV is not possible. — Richard B

What scientist are you referring to? Under this scenario your belief in scientists would be a function of what the mad scientist (god to you) is feeding you in the way of perceptions, so any beliefs about brains that you have would be a function of the virtual reality presented by the mad scientist tending your vat.

The mad scientist might have fed you sensations that resulted in you having a notion of a brain that is utterly unlike what is in the vat. You don't have knowledge of what is in the vat or even the physics of vat world, so you can't have a scientific proof of the impossibility of the thing in the vat in vat world.

You are saying that a BiV brain is different than a real brain, I think. But then tell me this, is BiV perception the same as real perception? — NotAristotle

Yeah might as well be flexible and say we can't know what a BIV actually is, but under the scenario what you think of as real perception would necessarily be the same as BIV perception.

All right then, do you understand that a "wave" consists of an interaction of the particles which make up the substance which is the medium? — Metaphysician Undercover

I've already said that I have a broader perspective on using "wave" than you seem to. So no. I don't see any value in restricting the usage of "wave" to such a narrow definition.

Do you disagree that space waves in the case of gravitational waves?

I've studied enough physics to know that a wave is an activity of a substance. That's simply what a wave is, and all waves are understood through modeling the movement of the particles within that substance. That's what a wave is, a specific type of activity of a substance which involves an interaction of its particles. Therefore a wave in empty space is simply impossible because there would be no particles there to make the wave. Yet we know from observation, rainbows, and other refractions, that light must consist of waves, therefore there must be a substance there which is waving. — Metaphysician Undercover

Ok, suppose space is the "substance there which is waving". After all, the gravitational wave observations in recent years, (combined with electromagnetic observations of the source of detected gravitational wave observations) provide some pretty good evidence for space waving.

Since there is no ether identified as the medium within which the waves exist, the only substance which this concept is grounded in is the body which the field is a property of. Establishing the correct relationship between body and field is problematic in current conceptualizations. If the ether which is logically required to support the real existence of waves, was identified such that its real properties could be tested, this would allow us to conceptualize independent existence of the waves, enabling us to properly conceive of the waves as prior in time to the body, and therefore the appearance of a body (particles, atoms, molecules, etc.) as property of the waves. But this implies a conception of the waves which would be completely distinct from the current "field". — Metaphysician Undercover

I find it strange, the way you seem to get hung up on words being used in ways you disapprove of. Analogies play an important role in the way humans communicate things with each other and the use of "wave" to convey somewhat analogical things about electromagnetic fields has been going on for longer than either of us have been alive. It looks to me like you are fighting a losing battle.

What do you see as a problem, with having a notion of "wave" that needs nothing more than space to propagate through?

I disagree. When one demonstrates that BIV is physically impossible, scenarios 2 or 4 were never a logical possibility. What was conceptualize from actual functional brains was demonstrated to be false.

Just because one can say or imagine something does not make it possible.

But as a fictitious narrative, one does not need to worry about the support of empirical evidence. — Richard B

The thing is, if the fact is that you are a brain in a vat, who has been fed all of your perceptions by a mad scientist, then your belief that a brain in a vat is physically impossible is a result of the way your beliefs developed in response to what the mad scientist has been feeding you. So under this scenario you believe what the mad scientist caused you to believe, and so your belief that a BIV is physically impossible doesn't have an informed basis, and would in fact be false.

This is not to say that it is metaphysically possible that you are a BIV , but how could you justify the proposition that it is epistemically impossible?

I was not meaning to imply that the evidence against one's intuitions must come from beyond oneself; as I agree that one should be actively trying to "attack" their own intuitions. — Bob Ross

I'd say the best evidence against one's intuitions necessarily comes from beyond oneself. There is an external reality to learn from.