Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death • Hacker News Board

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#121

Post by madaxe_again » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 8:36 AM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #110

madaxe_again wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Belief is grounded in nothing - hence it is belief. One could believe in moon Nazis, or Bigfoot, or god - without a shred of evidence for any of them. Knowledge is based upon rationale and testable hypotheses.

Belief that you exist, belief that free will exists, belief that others have consciousness, belief in human rights.

I think, therefore I am.

Free will is entirely debatable.

In the same vein, the consciousness of others is also not certain, but I err on the side of caution.

I don’t “believe” in human rights, however they probably create a better living environment for all, therefore I would say they are a good thing.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#122

Post by madaxe_again » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 8:37 AM UTC

aliasxneo wrote: post #98

madaxe_again wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Belief is grounded in nothing - hence it is belief. One could believe in moon Nazis, or Bigfoot, or god - without a shred of evidence for any of them. Knowledge is based upon rationale and testable hypotheses.

Maybe this is just semantics, but the statement, "I believe my wife loves me," would necessarily be grounded in nothing? Or is that not belief?

That’s not belief. Either your wife loves you (good for you) or she does not (hooray for me). She’ll let you know, either way, so there’s no need for belief here.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#123

Post by nprateem » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 8:48 AM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #74

nprateem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means there's a meditation that is supposed to provide direct spiritual realisation. As this involved a transformation of consciousness, it was known as alchemy - change. However, historically the instructions were kept secret and shared using coded language. All that philosophers stone business, changing lead into gold etc. But they were just symbols which basically refer to sexual energy and consciousness. Here'…

I read the Wikipedia article on this and it seems to suggest meditation can lead miracles like telekinesis: "Hearing this, I mentally repeated the mantra, I noticed that my breathing was getting heavier. Suddenly, I felt a great impact of a rising force within me. The intensity of this rising kundalini force was so tremendous that my body lifted up a little and fell flat into the aisle; my eyeglasses flew off. As I l…

I think the only way to know is to have the experience. I'm with you - it sounds too farfetched. It can't possibly be true... on the other hand, almost every single book I've read on the subject, including by people I've met, talk about such things.

In Indian yoga these abilities are known as siddhis. But as they seem impossible the only way I could be convinced is if they happened to me.

Healthy scepticism is the point though. If we were content just with belief, we'd never need these practices.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#124

Post by nprateem » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 8:59 AM UTC

pseudoscienc3 wrote: post #91

nprateem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means there's a meditation that is supposed to provide direct spiritual realisation. As this involved a transformation of consciousness, it was known as alchemy - change. However, historically the instructions were kept secret and shared using coded language. All that philosophers stone business, changing lead into gold etc. But they were just symbols which basically refer to sexual energy and consciousness. Here'…

> Gopi Krishna is the canonical case illustrating the dangers, which is likely one reason the meditation was kept secret. Curious to learn more, kept secret by who? And why was he the lucky one to receive that information? Just spent the last hour reading his work here: https://www.ecomall.com/gopikrishna/ . Sounds like any other charlatan and guru. From his last interview, seems like a lot of his foundation comes fr…

Ah sorry I was referring to his experiences in his book [1]. He awoke kundalini without proper preparation and it nearly killed him.

I don't care for anyone's beliefs tbh since it's direct experience that matters. But in aggregate there are sufficient similar reports to convince me kundalini is a real, universally accessible experience (and now my own experiences are enough to keep me moving forward).

And I meant the techniques to awaken it were kept secret. Possible reasons were that it was viewed as too powerful for the masses, but also that without proper preparation it can make people think they're going mad (hallucinations, etc).

BTW if you do want to learn more, the best resources I've found are [2] (lessons) and [3] (for anatomical locations).

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kundalini-Evolutionary-Energy-Gopi-...

[2] https://aypsite.org/MainDirectory.html

[3] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kundalini-Tantra-Swami-Satyananda-S...

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#125

Post by nprateem » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 9:04 AM UTC

ziddoap wrote: post #69

nprateem wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means there's a meditation that is supposed to provide direct spiritual realisation. As this involved a transformation of consciousness, it was known as alchemy - change. However, historically the instructions were kept secret and shared using coded language. All that philosophers stone business, changing lead into gold etc. But they were just symbols which basically refer to sexual energy and consciousness. Here'…

> A simple look on reddit should convince you this is a very real phenomenon [1] Interesting, for sure, but some reddit wiki is not convincing in any shape or form.

Yeah I realised after I posted that that I'm biased from studying and practicing this for several decades.

The warnings section about possible death chimes with Krishna's experience, but also browsing the posts is interesting. People talk of intense heat, strange sensitivities etc, but I can see how someone new to this would probably just write them off as a load of weirdos.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#126

Post by nprateem » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 10:08 AM UTC

namaria wrote: post #119

ChainOfFools wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this really just kicks the can down the road doesn't it? It's still an attempt to resolve a "why" question with a "how" answer. a fancier way of saying it's turtles all the way down.

Yes, multiverse, big bang, creationism, are all just a "beyond this point we're not sure but I like to extend the lines thusly" claim.

It doesn't explain why, but does explain how.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#127

Post by namaria » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 10:50 AM UTC

nprateem wrote: post #126

namaria wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, multiverse, big bang, creationism, are all just a "beyond this point we're not sure but I like to extend the lines thusly" claim.

It doesn't explain why, but does explain how.

I think it explains more about one's world view than anything else.

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#128

Post by ben_w » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:33 AM UTC

namaria wrote: post #118

kevindamm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what Gödel would think about modern AI. As we have found, learning is not a special ability of humans, and can, in fact, be simulated. That on its own doesn't grant eternal life, though AI certainly has more chances of survival, not being bound by our fleshy meat sacks and all. Instead bound by substrate and power grid that are both inefficient and minimally redundant. I'd wager more on the meat sacks.

Systems that can reproduce themselves are way more likely to endure than systems that need to be held together from the outside. In 5000 years I think it's more likely that there will be people than that there will be machines.

While the only currently known Von Neumann replicator is organic life, my bet is that a robotic one will be made at the latest by the end of century unless some major global catastrophe happens first.

Might turn out that organic life is pretty optimal already and we still dominate in numbers, or not, that kind of specific is really difficult to guess at even once the first example gets made (look at all the people looking at each version of GenAI, or even video game graphics 30 years before GenAI, and arguing that no further improvements are possible; or in the other direction, Concorde was both the first and the last supersonic passenger liner).

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#129

Post by namaria » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 11:43 AM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #128

namaria wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systems that can reproduce themselves are way more likely to endure than systems that need to be held together from the outside. In 5000 years I think it's more likely that there will be people than that there will be machines.

While the only currently known Von Neumann replicator is organic life, my bet is that a robotic one will be made at the latest by the end of century unless some major global catastrophe happens first. Might turn out that organic life is pretty optimal already and we still dominate in numbers, or not, that kind of specific is really difficult to guess at even once the first example gets made (look at all the people lo…

You got me thinking, could we distinguish engineered vs emergent life? I mean, I at look those animations of proteins in the cell and... it looks pretty robotic to me. Maybe it's projection in terms of how we interpret the data.

But I really like that the answer to a most ancient question such as "what is life" is building up to something like "it's all nanobots controlled by molecular computers"...

Re: Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death

#130

Post by ben_w » Sat, Jan 06, 2024, 12:31 PM UTC

namaria wrote: post #129

ben_w wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the only currently known Von Neumann replicator is organic life, my bet is that a robotic one will be made at the latest by the end of century unless some major global catastrophe happens first. Might turn out that organic life is pretty optimal already and we still dominate in numbers, or not, that kind of specific is really difficult to guess at even once the first example gets made (look at all the people lo…

You got me thinking, could we distinguish engineered vs emergent life? I mean, I at look those animations of proteins in the cell and... it looks pretty robotic to me. Maybe it's projection in terms of how we interpret the data. But I really like that the answer to a most ancient question such as "what is life" is building up to something like "it's all nanobots controlled by molecular computers"...

> could we distinguish engineered vs emergent life?

I think we can tell the difference between engineered and evolved (but note that simulated evolution is still evolution) — oddities like the path of the recurrent laryngeal nerve are cited as evidence against an intelligent designer, and I expect it isn't the only such oddity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve

> But I really like that the answer to a most ancient question such as "what is life" is building up to something like "it's all nanobots controlled by molecular computers"...

If you've not already watched it, I recommend this video by A Capella Science: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObvxPSQNMGc&t=198s