Sounds a lot like Nagarjuna's theory of dependent origination.
Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
21–30 of 61 posts
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#22Way back in 1781 Immanuel Kant discussed this (without considering quantum implications, obviously) in "Critique of Pure Reason". He coined the term "noumenon" to describe a thing as it is, not as it is perceived.
And Plato before him had his cave. For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by the possibility of literally unthinkable thoughts; something that is outside the capacity of human neural architecture in the way that HTML is outside [0] the capacity of RegEx? [0] https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454
I can think of two ways a thought could be unthinkable:
1. It could be uncomputable, since it seems likely to me that we can't think uncomputable thoughts. (Not a rigorous scientific hypothesis, but it seems more likely than not to me.)
2. It could be uncomputable in a human lifetime. I think these already exist today: can anyone really be said to thoroughly understand a proof generated by an exhaustive computational search?
One can play around with the semantics of what we mean by "unthinkable" and "thought," but I think "computable" at least provides one interesting start to an exploration of this concept.
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#23this is like paywalled blogspam.
Also my impression just as I reached the end of the free bit.
I’ve not been particularly impressed with New Scientist ever since they put the EM Drive on the front cover.
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#24I'm pretty sure the pop culture depiction of quantum physics doesn't accurately depict the real science. Since this is paywalled we can't estimate how off the article is though.
That's 100% true, exhibit "ant man". But felt like he was leading to the actual math before paywall. Comes down to a probabilistic existence, and exhibiting characteristics based on other particles being present or not present. All of which makes no sense to human life.
Checkout "hawking radiation" for a real concrete example
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#25The title makes it sound like it's going to be on functional programming.
Maybe we're living in a simulation and that really is the root cause.
We should look for signs that we're optimized for efficient computation. Like maybe a minimum temperature or a maximum speed or a rule that position and momentum are only knowable to certain tolerances.
(joke stolen from SMBC comics)
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
or physics is broken.
so we should be more willing to hold onto materialism than science? Or are you suggesting that quantum mechanics is a bad model?
Quantum mechanics might be a bad model, but over the last century it’s become less controversial and more accepted in the scientific community. The last century has produced more scientists and mathematicians than any other century. I can see a few possible situations.
1. Quantum Mechanics is a fairly accurate representation of the world, or at least about as good as we can come up with given our current state of technology.
2. Quantum Mechanics is a fairly inaccurate representation of the world.
2a. Incorrect theories dominating for centuries is a natural consequence of the scientific method and trying to determine the nature of the universe.
2b. Incorrect theories dominating for centuries is a result of an imperfect implementation of the scientific method in our modern society.
2c. The scientific method is incapable of providing humans with a true and accurate understanding of the world.Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#27Way back in 1781 Immanuel Kant discussed this (without considering quantum implications, obviously) in "Critique of Pure Reason". He coined the term "noumenon" to describe a thing as it is, not as it is perceived.
And Plato before him had his cave. For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by the possibility of literally unthinkable thoughts; something that is outside the capacity of human neural architecture in the way that HTML is outside [0] the capacity of RegEx? [0] https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454
There are also "impossible" colors. There was an article on HN frontpage several weeks ago about it, I think.
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#28Way back in 1781 Immanuel Kant discussed this (without considering quantum implications, obviously) in "Critique of Pure Reason". He coined the term "noumenon" to describe a thing as it is, not as it is perceived.
And Plato before him had his cave. For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by the possibility of literally unthinkable thoughts; something that is outside the capacity of human neural architecture in the way that HTML is outside [0] the capacity of RegEx? [0] https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454
There are, and they begin with a brainfu*k esolang dialect called Hofstadter that represents instructions as different camelCase capitalizations of the name Hofstadter. If neither of these are familiar to you, sorry about your afternoon!
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#29I can only see the introduction, but it already shows some confused thinking. Whether something exists, and whether you call it X only because there are humans who call it X, those are two different things. On a planet without humans, stones exists, but no one is there to call them "stones". So they don't really exist, is that what the article is trying to tell me? Also, the stones do not exist, because only atoms ex…
> So they don't really exist
> because only atoms exist
but don't only exist because humans call them atoms?
Re: Quantum weirdness isn’t weird – if we accept objects don’t exist
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
And Plato before him had his cave. For a while now, I’ve been intrigued by the possibility of literally unthinkable thoughts; something that is outside the capacity of human neural architecture in the way that HTML is outside [0] the capacity of RegEx? [0] https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454
I can think of two ways a thought could be unthinkable: 1. It could be uncomputable, since it seems likely to me that we can't think uncomputable thoughts. (Not a rigorous scientific hypothesis, but it seems more likely than not to me.) 2. It could be uncomputable in a human lifetime. I think these already exist today: can anyone really be said to thoroughly understand a proof generated by an exhaustive computational…
Another possibility is thoughts which just don’t fit into the shape of structure within a human mind.
Can an octopus mind, for a body with eight limbs but no bones, ever be accurately emulated by a human mind?
Are there truths we can only reach with an exocortex (pen and paper included)?
Are there thoughts whose time or space requirements grow exponentially with respect to some measure in a human brain anatomy, but which could be linear in some other anatomy (existing or hypothetical)?