I dunno. Just a vague idea regarding that but it's probably nothing. Muddled-thinking at best.

Well, take it up then... — Cartuna

:ok: whatever you mean.

Keep what up? I haven't done anything that's worth...keeping up. :chin:

I don't think what I say matters anymore.

The Rittenhouse case is a one-of-kind/unique/special case. One white boy guns down three white guys, one lives to tell the tale and it's about racism against blacks. With all due respect for the fallen and wounded (RIP Joseph Rosenbaum, RIP Anthony Huber, and RIP Jacob Blake. :flower: for Gaige Grosskreutz)I have to admit I like where this is going. Abraham Lincoln would've approved.

There is no sensible reply. How would that look like? Untill now, hidden variables are just an assumption. But more "satisfying" than the orthodoxy ruling — Cartuna

Sometimes truth is not all that matters, plus most truths are, well, boooooring! Isn't that why the fantasy genre is doing so well in the video game market? Between truth and fun, no one in his right mind will choose the former. Truth! Bah!

Alas, I'm too uneducated to compose a sensible reply.

I mentioned this before but I'll do so again.

Right - Truth Paradox.

The desire to be right bespeaks a respect and admiration for truth. To be annoyed when you're contradicted/dismissed implies that you don't care about the truth.

Everyone wants to be right and everyone goes off the deep end when they're told they're wrong.

We both value truth and don't value it.

LK is rather narrow-minded. If reproducibility were the norm, a lot of science wouldn't exist. Stuff being reproducable is a methodological imperative narrowing scientific knowledge. Adhering strictly to it inhibits scientific progress. "But it has to be reproducable". The big bang would be a miracle. And it is a miracle! — Cartuna

A point well made. However, I'm led to believe that there are other ways - scientifically valid ones - to verify that the Big Bang actually happened. Miracles, like the Big Bang CMBR, should leave a trail of bread crumbs we can use to reconstruct it. Such is lacking or so I'm told.

God can interfere by means of hidden variables constituting the wavefunction. He could make wavefunctions in the atmosphere collapse in a controlled way to make a lighting flash strike you. I don't think he does though. He probably just leaves us alone.Turning water in wine is more complicated. The watery wavefunction is not fit. He just can't make winey atoms appear next to water ones. — Cartuna

I thought that was a open-and-shut case: the hidden variables question i.e. there are none and QM is complete in its probabilistic qualities.

I’ve said that it is only a “problem” premised on a fundamental misunderstanding of Friston’s Bayesian approach.

Banno is trying to do his usual thing of causing mischief and standing innocently on the sidelines. — apokrisis

:ok: Good to know. Thanks.

Hi. Do you see any metaphysical errors in the dark room problem?

I think it's a question of the reliability of the evidence. One of the key features of miracles is that they're not reproducible. The Stern-Gerlach experiment is. They were both mysterious at some time, but the latter was reproducible, and therefore credible. — Kenosha Kid

Aye! Aye! The alleged miracle must be, as scientists say, reproducible and before that vetted carefully for reliability.

It's just that miracles, the religious kind, bespeak two human tendencies:

1. A rather scientific bent of mind. Lawrence Krauss (physicist) remarks in an interview that scientist's go to their workplaces with one and only one aim - prove their colleagues wrong. This I read to mean that scientists are on the lookout for disproving counterexamples to existing, universally endorsed theories (scientific miracles) like Einstein's relativity for example.

2. Attributing any such counterexamples to existing theories, scientific and otherwise, to the divine. This is the point of contention between science and religion. Scientists would consider any modified hypothesis that has god(s) in it to be inordinate/inappropriate, preferring rather to modify/replace the theory that's been disproved with another that fits the new data but still minus god(s). I guess science is in the business of answering how? questions rather than why? questions and saying a miracle is god's doing doesn't tell us anything at all as to how god did it?

I digress I suppose but the human proclivity for miracles, something that has, as far as I can tell, a high surprisal quotient, seems to contradict the dark room problem's predictions. That's itself a shocking revelation, right?

The free energy minimization theory is incorrect then, no?

I wonder what this has to do with a theory of everything vis-à-vis psychology.

There's no need to reply to my post. I feel it's a tangent to the main issue.

There's nothing sweeter than an observation that doesn't fit the model. — Kenosha Kid

That's why, in my humble opinion, (religious) miracles are a scientific obsession and yet if you look at what Hume says - a miracle should only be believed if its falsity is even more miraculous - it would seem that scientists are extremely reluctant, even openly hostile, to give due consideration to miracles (basically counterexamples to the laws of nature). I just don't get it.

You have told me that something which I have said is 'silly' but I need you to specify what, before I can think about it — Jack Cummins

Beyond logic, Jack, there maybe something but it would be incomprehensible nonsense to our minds.

This :point: He = masculine pronoun OR Helium.

He took the pen. There was He in the tank.

The information has changed (man to gas) but nothing physical has (He is still He). Clearly this is in violation of some physical law IF information is physical?

I dunno why I wrote what I wrote. It felt like the most reasonable standpoint given how the dark room problem is set up.

faith in humanity — baker

Globally, I see tremendous strides made in the moral sphere. Local conditions may vary. So yeah, I'm gonna wait a little longer before I cast my vote lest I have to eat my own words, adding insult to injury. :grin:

Maybe think globally, act locally! :lol:

I have no idea what you're trying to say Cartuna.

That's just silly Jack. :grin:

I'm sure there is some dark room in which burgers are smellingly inviting you. — Cartuna

Why do you care?

Have you heard of Protagoras?

I was hungry, for real. I had 0 burgers, 0 hotdogs, 0 eggs, and 0 liters of milk. I'm, for some strange and unfathomable reason, still hungry.

Agreed. But what is also key is that the map of the territory is one that is a map of the territory with oneself in it as well. So it isn’t a map with the whole world represented, it is a map of the route you want to take to complete your self-defining life mission. It is a map of yourself as much as a map of the world you must inhabit.

This is the difference between a Cartesian representational model of what the brain does - the computer science model - and an enactive or embodied view of cognition. Our neural models of the world are maps which embody a personal point of view. — apokrisis

:up:

The theory here is sort of like that. You need to destroy surprise in order to be surprised. You have to create a baseline where the world is made as predictable and unsurprising as possible. That then allows you to experience the counterfactuality of events which are actually surprising - events that have personalised meaning or information because they must force you to revise your beliefs about the world.

Surprise can’t exist in the usual sense if everything that happens counts as something out of the blue. That becomes just randomness.

The brain desires salience. It has to discover the signal by first eliminating the noise. — apokrisis

Someone mentioned children - fresh minds, tabula rasa. To younglings, the world is full of surprises because they haven't had time or are in the process of constructing a faithful model of the world, one which would help them to anticipate events, prepare for them, etc. and then they mature into adults. As adults, growing older is just another name for accumulation of empirical data to refine said model which is an asymptote for actual/true reality. My guesstimate is the model any person develops should be a good map of the territory by the 25th year of life if it's to be of any use at all.

tuning into the minds of people who made the music — Jack Cummins

Some music genres don't do anything for me. I have no clue why? Perhaps it doesn't resonate with me at any level for a good reason. This might be relevant to psychology as in it reveals something about a person; for one, his/her mindset.

I would love it if I enjoyed the whole spectrum that modern and classical music affords. I think fine appreciation of music comes with years of actualy study which I haven't done. Too bad. Can't have it all I guess.

Perhaps the probability of being surprised in conditions where a creature is unable to use its senses overrides the probability of being surprised where in conditions where it can. — NOS4A2

:ok: To stay in the dark is to level the playing field. Yes, I can't see (you) but neither can you (see me)! Plus, I could be a predator for all you know, vice versa of course :grin: The darkness is brimming with possibilities - food/as food.

It appears that the idea/point is not to reduce surprise but to increase it. :chin:

It's kind of a paradox.

An insect crawls to a dark spot in a room or outdoors for the reason that it'll escape notice and thus no nasty surprises (predators)! The insect does have an accurate model of reality - predators, quite literally, everywhere. The AI solution, "surprisingly", is a good one. Silly humans!

Where's the paradox?, you ask.

Well, the darkness in which an insect hides is, from the vantage point of another living organism, full of surprises. Juxtapose that with the concealed insect's state of fewer surprises.

Some insects and even animals prefer the dark...they scurry along until they're in the shadows. The dark room problem = Insect logic! = AI logic :chin:

Love, I learned the hard way, doesn't pay the bills.

But at first sight this principle seems bizarre. Animals do not simply find a dark corner and stay there. — Linked Article

This is typical of AI logic. Very much like antinatalism which, as per @180 Proof amounts to, paraphrasing, "destroying the village to save the village". Another instance is that of negative utilitarianism's riddle of whether we should kill everybody to reduce suffering. AI "thinks" exactly like this but the problem is:

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. — H. L. Mencken

There seems to be two ways of minimizing surprises:

1. To reduce possibilities. This is the dark room problem. AI (false)"solution".

or

2. Anticipate (correctly) which possibilities will actualize. One needs a good model of reality to do this. Human (non-AI) (real) solution.

So whoever thought of the dark room problem is basically switching between AI logic and human logic - the dark room is a valid solution for an AI but not so for a human and other animals too I suppose.

:chin:

Cicada mating calls. Annoying as hell to us but very sexy to female cicadas. Go figure!

Youtube has the info you seek.

third ear — Jack Cummins

:cool:

If you ask me, the worst possible sound is silence. Predators have evolved stealth technology - they're, among other things, acoustically "invisible".

I guess that I am really asking about the nature of metaphysical realities which may be underlying our appreciation of music. — Jack Cummins

String Theory! You might've already guessed. Unfortunately or not, all I know about it is that we have a Theory of Everything when we consider nature as made up of tiny vibrating strings. This would be music to Pythagoras' ears. The universe is a grand symphony.

Sound may have such power at a subliminal level. I have even come across the idea that sound can kill. Hopefully, it does not go that far, but I stopped going to metal and punk live events because I did begin to think that it was affecting my hearing, and I think that I do have some difficulty hearing higher pitch sounds. — Jack Cummins

The tongue like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood. — Fake Buddha quote

When a bomb detonates, it's the blast wave (sound) that blows things & people to bits.

Yep, sonic killings do occur and are well-documented.

dope — Jack Cummins

Shiva is most pleased. He would very much like to grant you a boon. :smile:

Thank you, you are so right! Americans are not voting sensibly and the change in education is why they are not.

Mad Fool, I don't think you are getting the nuances of my post? — Athena

Like I said, my IQ is on the wrong side of 69.

Education, education, education! Chant it like a mantra and everything will be ok! The demographic most active in re the small matter of global warming is children - the least educated members of society. Climate scientists - some of the most educated lot - are simply looking to score career points, they aren't really interested in saving the earth. So much for education. Bah!

I don't know what else to say except this: Record all the sounds humans make, that includes sounds made by machines, and see if they they form a melody or a harmony. If they do, we're good - nothing that musical could have anything wrong with it - and if they don't we might have to brace ourselves for rough times ahead - nothing that discordant could bode well for us. The ears may tell us more about ourselves and nature, their combined future, than the eyes. In fact I've seen & heard a few videos doing just that - it looks like we're in good shape. F**k global warming and nuclear winters and AI takeovers. Nature is fine! Just listen to the music playing all around you!

Chalmers' argument needs a name. I call it The Burqa Argument. Chalmers is saying that because we can't see the woman in a burqa (science can't directly observe consciousness), the woman (consciousness) isn't physical. If he's not saying that, I have no bone to pick with him.

Smoking is the best good idea of all time! :grin:

And if religions put away their holy books and began teaching math and science, they would be as weak as our democracy is now. Autocracy does not require an educated mass. Democracy does require preparing citizens to be responsible adults who live by shared principles and will defend those principles. Our liberty is impossible without that. Knowing the principles of democracy is as important to a democracy as a Christian knowing the 10 commandments is important to Christianity. Knowing the history and philosophy of democracy is as important to democracy, as Bible stories are important to being an indoctrinated Christian. Without that education, we have anarchy, not democracy. — Athena

Do the math. Are Americans voting sensibly? Does the ballot demonstrate/indicate that education makes a difference? I dunno, just askin'. Edify me, pleeaaase.