351–360 of 408 posts
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Do you want the results of the research be open and available to all, or should it become IP of nvidia or apple?
Why wouldn't it be open to all? The person I replied to just said how great it is for open information to trickle down to everyone.
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I don't think any of this is particularly nightmarish. Just because we don't yet know how this complex system arises from another lower level one doesn't make it new physics. There's no evidence of it being new or orthogonal physics. Imagine trying to figure out what is happening on someone's computer screen with only physical access to their hardware minus the screen, and an MRI scanner. And that's a system we built…
Knowing how to build a brain is different from knowing whether that brain has consciousness in the sense that you or I do. The question of consciousness appears to demand new/orthogonal physics because according to our existing physics, there's no sense in which you or should "feel" any differently than a rock does, or a computer does, or Searle's room does, or a Chinese brain does, or the universe as a whole does, e…
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you can correctly predict reality whilst having absolutely know idea how it works (ie the path of a photon in the double slit experiment).
Sometimes nature tells us that the questions we are inclined to ask, are flawed questions. The “What path did the photon take?” question is one of those times. The answer to the question is Mu. Similar to the questions “How much phlogiston is there in iron?” or “Does sulphur have more earth than air, or more air than earth?”.
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This is not as good a refusal as you think it is. To me (and I imagine, the parent poster) there is no extra logical step needed. The problem IS solved in this sense. If it’s completely impossible to even imagine what the answer to a question is, as is the case here, it’s probably the wrong question to pose. Is there any answer you’d be satisfied by? To me the hard problem is more or less akin to looking for the true…
> If it’s completely impossible to even imagine what the answer to a question is, as is the case here, it’s probably the wrong question to pose. Is there any answer you’d be satisfied by? I would be very satisfied to have an answer, or even just convincing heuristic arguments, for the following: (1) What systems experience consciousness? For example, is a computer as conscious as a rock, as conscious as a human, or s…
(1) is perhaps more of a question requiring a strict definition of consciousness in the first place, making it mostly circular. (2) and especially (3) are the most interesting, but they seem part of the easy problem instead. And I’d say we already have indications that the latter option of (4) is true, given your examples from (5) and things like sleep (the most common reason for humans to be unconscious) being in distinct phases with different wake up speed (pun partially intended). And if you assume animals to be conscious, then some sleep with only one hemisphere at a time. Are they equally as conscious during that?
My imaginary timeline of the future has scientific advancements would lead to us noticing what’s different between a person’s brain in their conscious and unconscious states, then somehow generalize it to a more abstract model of cognition decoupled from our biological implementation, and then eventually tackle all your questions from there. But I suspect the person I originally replied to would dismiss them as part of the easy problem instead, i.e. completely useless for tackling the hard problem! As far as I’m concerned, it’s the hard problem that I take issue with, and the one that I claim isn’t real.
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This depends very much on what "practical purposes" are. For almost all conceivable technology, relativistic quantum mechanics for electrons and light, ie QED, is sufficient fundamental theory. This is unlike before quantum mechanics, when we basically didn't have fundamental laws for chemistry and solid-state physics.
The vast majority of useful things cannot be computed with QED from fundamental principles. You cannot compute even simple atomic energy spectra. The fundamental laws of chemistry have not been changed much by quantum physics, they just became better understood and less mysterious. Quantum mechanics has explained various cases of unusual chemical bonds that appeared to contradict the simpler rules that were believed…
The way we construct Hamiltonians is indeed somewhat ad hoc sometimes, but that’s not because of lack of fundamental knowledge. In fact, the only things you need are the mass of the electron/proton and the quantum of charge. Everything else is fully derived and justified, as far as I can think of. There’s really nothing other than the extremely low energy limit of QED in solid state devices, then it’s about scaling it up to many body systems which are computationally intractable but fully justified.
We don’t even use relativistic QM 95% of the time. Spin-orbit terms require it, but once you’ve derived the right coefficients (only needed once) you can drop the Dirac equation and go back to Schrödinger. The need for empirical models has nothing to do with fundamental physics, and all to do with the exorbitant complexity of many-body systems. We don’t use QFT and the standard model just because, as far as I can tell, the computation would never scale. Not really a fault of the standard model.
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Or, the mind is in spectator mode?
From a physics point of view should be as every effect is caused by previous state. And next tick is always next tick, except quantum bacause has some randomness, but let’s assume it’s a seeded randomness. I think every tick is predictable from previous state. Inevitable. Therefore I really like how you put it: mind is just spectating.
If a rock starts moving in one tick, it affects other things in the next tick. Despite being deterministic, that rock is not a spectator.
So if the mind is a spectator, it's not for that reason, it's some other reason.
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What are you talking about? The spectra of hydrogen is very well understood and a text book example for students to calculate. We use spectra to test QED calculations to something like 14 digits.
The hydrogenoid atoms and ions, with a single electron, are the exception that proves the rule, because anything more complex cannot be computed accurately. The spectrum of hydrogen (ignoring the fine structure) could be computed with the empirical rules of Rydberg before the existence of quantum physics. Quantum physics has just explained it in terms of simpler assumptions. Quantum physics explains a great number of…
Rather: there is no known closed-form solution (and there likely won't be any).
Here is one fact that seems, to me, pretty convincing that there is another layer underneath what we know. The charge of electrons is -1 and protons +1. It has been experimentally measured out to 12 digits or so to be the same magnitude, just opposite charge. However, there are no theories why this is -- they are simply measured and that is it. It beggars belief that these just happen to be exactly (as far as we can…
I'm convinced there are some semi-classical explanations that just haven't been figured out. Electrons are helically moving photons: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281322004_The_elect... That's some interesting/wacky stuff, but there has been more research to improve those calculations - like deriving the electron charge and magnetic moment. Personally I like the idea that a proton is somehow literally an e…
How do you explain that electrons have a rest mass, but photons don't (otherwise photons couldn't move with the speed of light according to special relativity)?
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>No, your opinions bias toward negativity, and we can see it in this comment by the way you shift the goalposts for every achievement until you can poo-poo it. Oh, except for the ones you just omitted from your quote, maybe because even you can't rationalize why CRISPR isn't a step change. Not true at all. CRISPR isn't a step change because it only made genetic engineering more efficient and it didn't effect the live…
CRISPR "only made genetic engineering more efficient" which is no big deal. Smartphones don't count though, despite both requiring scientific breakthroughs in multiple fields and turning society upside down, because... reasons. Your standards are incoherent. BTW, for someone who claims not to poo-poo AI, I find it hilarious that you still don't think we're due for another breakthrough or two in that area in the next…
Smartphones required zero breakthroughs. It’s just existing technology made smaller and more efficient. What changed is how we used technology. Under your reasoning dating apps would be a breakthrough.
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Gödel’s incompleteness says almost nothing about this. I wish people wouldn’t try to apply it in ways that it very clearly is not applicable to. An environment living in Conway’s Game of Life could be quite capable of hypothesizing that it is implemented in Conway’s Game of Life.
That's not what they were saying. Systems can hypothesize about themselves but they cannot determine why the rules they can learn exist in the first place. Prior states are no longer observable so there is always incomplete history. Conway's Game of Life can't explain its own origins just itself. Because the origins are no longer observable after they occur. What are the origins of our universe? We can only guess wit…