Thank you for the discussion. This is the kind of stuff that I enjoy thinking about! Just to make myself clear, I'm not saying that the universe *is* a computer, I'm just saying that it may be useful to represent it as a computer - just as it is often useful to represent it as a mathematical model.
Regarding the "brain" and the "experiencer", the connection that I didn't point out is that the experiencer is defined by the brain. In the DVD analogy, the viewer is not watching the DVD - the viewer is *in* the DVD. The DVD is the universe, and the viewer is data on the disc. When an external viewer "plays" the disc and watches it, it is analagous to running the program in my example. The data on the disc, however, cannot tell whether it is being played or it is just sitting on the shelf. To make the analogy match my example, you also have to assume that every frame of the DVD is complete (not just a delta) and can be rendered independently of all other frames.
Of course, the way that our conscious perception arises from the our physical brains is far from being understood - but if the brain were put into a particular state, then the experiencer would experience that state - regardless of what the brain's previous state was. The brain has gone through a change, but the change itself is not what determines the current experience - it is the state.
If the entire universe were suddenly created from nothing in its current state, then you would remember a past that never existed. It would only exist in the state of your brain.
You are absolutely right. No part of an individual's brain exists independently of the laws of physics. All of the matter in my brain, and therefore every thought that I have and every action that I take, is the way it is because of the way the universe works. You hear people argue free will based on the uncertainty of quantum mechanics, but making my actions unpredictable doesn't give me any control over them.:)
When you get down to it, the only way to explain free will is to involve something metaphysical, which defeats the purpose of analyzing the physical universe.
Think about it without thinking about time. If there is no change, then there is only one state. It doesn't "stay the same over time," it is merely the only state that exists. If there exists another state, then the difference between the two states can be attributed to something called time.
Think of it like this: You represent the universe as a state machine - to make it more tangible let's represent it as a computer program.
So, this computer program has a large array of variables that represent the current state of the program. A small set of these variables represents the physical brain of some self-conscious individual.
The program starts out with an initial state, and at each iteration of the program it changes one variable based on a set of rules. Now you run the program, and after each step you store the entire array of variables. Run the program until the program "ends," i.e. the end of the simulated universe (let's just arbitrarily choose the end to simplify the experiment. The program runs for a finite number of "steps" for instance.).
OK, so now the program is done running, and you have a bunch of data that represents everything that ever happened in the universe, including everything that ever happened in the brain of the simulated individual. The question is: which represents OUR universe - the program when it's running, or the static data? You're saying that the static data cannot represent the universe, because the simulated individual would not percieve change - but what is the difference? If the individual's brain is represented by finite variables, then the brain cannot *really* tell what it's previous state was. The brain in any one "slice" of the universe contains information that "remembers" the previous states, but that "slice" exists independently, also. When the program is running, the brain has no connection with its "past" other than its own internal state. The state of the brain stored in the block of data is *identical* to the state of the brain when the program is running. What is the difference to the brain?
Of course, this is all assuming that a computer program is a good representation of the universe. Is our physical universe a state machine? Is it "running," or is it a merely a bunch of data? Is there even a way to tell the difference?
In my opinion, theories in physics are getting closer to representing the universe as a set of discrete data that's being acted upon by a set of rules. Check out loop quantum gravity for example. Pretty interesting.
Do dumb TV viewers want bad TV, or does bad TV make us dumb?
I would say that both are true. I think that there's a great parallel between mental exercise and physical exercise. Most people are capable of being educated thinkers, just as most people are capable of being in great physical shape. Unfortunately, people are just as lazy about thinking as they are about working out.
Sounds like the most elegant solution would be to bandwidth throttle everyone. Piracy issues aside, if the problem is that everyone wants to use 100% of the bandwidth, then what do you do? Boot everyone? Make everyone's connection useless? Seems like all you can reasonably do is limit the % of the bandwidth that they can use.
Limiting users to particular ports/protocols seems pointless, too. What do you do when everyone tries to use 100% of their bandwith to upload over http?
Good point. Bleeding edge PC hardware is pretty powerful, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can put it to use. Good reason to stay behind the curve a bit!
I personally have been playing PC games less and less lately. I suppose when HL2 finally comes out I'll have to pick up a new video card, but until then I've got plenty of Nofriendo to keep me busy.
I think the point is that all humans are equally valued from the point of view of the legal system. To you, however, your life is more valuable than the intruder's. If you kill that intruder in defense of your own life, then how can anyone blame you?
However, you *would* be wrong in killing someone to prevent them from stealing your car/stereo/etc. Your property is not more important than someone's life.
Re:W will crush Kerry; get over it you fucking LOS
on
USB Swiss Army Knife
·
· Score: 1
What's worse, a limousine liberal or a limousine redneck? Time to throw that poser out of office.
Seriously, I'm not going to say that Bush supporters are inhuman, or even that they're stupid. I do, however, think that most of them are seriously misguided. A small percentage of them are actually well served by his administration (to the detriment of everyone else, and indeed our very nation), but most of them are not. Why they think the Bush administration is somehow good for us, I don't know. I expect they just don't (or won't) think about it. I like the recent news about how hunting organizations are finally realizing that our current trajectory is going to leave them with nothing to shoot pretty soon. Doh!
This is outrageous! We should egg Georgie into invading that country to liberate the populace from their oppressive government. I bet their leader wasn't even properly elected!
I use my pocketknife more often than any other tool that I own. I suppose I could just carry around a box full of awls, needles, chisels, fingernail clippers, etc., but then what would I do when I needed to cut a rope?
The knife is arguably one of the most important and useful tools ever used by humans. I think that it's reasonable to outlaw (in cities) certain kinds of knives (long blades, switchblades, etc) which are designed for fighting or which are not practical in such places (machetes, for example - not many vines to chop through on the street). Outlawing simple pocket knives is ridiculous, though. If I was going to kill someone, I could more easily do it with a rock than with my pocketknife.
I don't think you should fault anyone for knocking it just because it's a Microsoft product. If I disagree with a company's business practices, then it's very sensible to boycott their products. No, it's not right to distort facts - I agree that the XBox is technically more powerful than the cube (it supports 1080i, for example) but I would also contend that cube games tend to be more interesting and innovative. As a bonus, I'm not supporting Microsoft.
Grow up? As an adult, I feel that it's my responsibility to keep my money out of Microsoft's hands, and to encourage others to do so.
Ah, but the cube does have more horsepower than the PS2, and there are realistic games on the gamecube. I'm currently playing Prince of Persia, and the graphics are beautiful. Not PC level graphics, but none of the consoles can match an up to date PC.
The xbox does have more processing power than the gamecube, but what is it worth? Would you rather have "game quality and innovation," or a few more polys and effects? What's the good of looking at slightly better graphics if the game isn't fun?
At any rate, regardless of technical details and opinions about the current generation of console hardware, I think we can all agree that it's pretty stupid to try and call a winner in the next generation of consoles. Predicting 2010? Give me a break.
I found that when I was reading the Harry Potter books, I couldn't help imagining how all of the "magic" could really be nothing but "sufficiently advanced technology." A lot of cool stuff in those books could be not too far off - the "living" paintings, for example.
Ah, but only if everyone ignores them. Telemarketers would go away if everyone ignored them, but unfortunately that is not the case.
I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of advertising, as it becomes more and more prevalent. I wonder if anyone else feels this way. The only radio stations that I can stay on for more than a couple of minutes are the listener funded ones (like KEXP), and there's no way I can stand to watch TV anymore. I can tolerate banner ads as long as they're not animated, but anything on the web that delays me from the actual content gets closed and forgotten.
I hope I'm not the only one who would be extremely pissed to have audio advertisements bombarding me on the street corner. If they can't be avoided, then they will have to be destroyed; and society should not consider those who do so to be vandals.
Before you draw a parallel between these 'audio ads' and billboards (which also cannot be avoided) note that human vision is much more focused and selective than hearing - I can't just point my ears in a different direction.
I'm not sure why I bother, you've bought the lie and I don't imagine that you are going to be really interested in hearing conflicting views.
Well, I'm glad you bothered, because if no one bothered to explain their point of view then no one else would ever be enlightened. Perhaps my bothering to respond will be worth something to someone. As for "buying the lie," I personally never "buy" into anything such that I can't change my perspective.
Right and wrong being equivalent to pleasure and pain makes no sense, of course, but that doesn't imply the existence of absolute right and wrong. Right and wrong are human concepts, defined by us, and only we can decide what is right and what is wrong.
I don't know what you're calling the "current postmodern viewpoint," but if it denies absolutes then it's not very current. To deny an absolute is just as arrogant and wrong as to declare an absolute. Absolutes are beyond reasoning - they can only be taken on faith, and are therefore useless for explanatory purposes. The only things we have to work with are our best assumptions. That is the most current viewpoint that I'm aware of, whatever you want to call it.
Yes, it too will die as all viewpoints eventually do (it would be folly to say that such a viewpoint is absolutely correct) - it will be replaced by something that better fits the universe we see around us. I'm betting we don't go back to believing in absolute truths, though.
Uh, the grandparent post is referring to how the administration can get scientists and American citizens to take them seriously. The ball is in Bush's court, not the other way around. Of course, he can always just toss it out of bounds and wave his hands around, proclaiming that there never was a ball to begin with. What's sad is that this strategy just might work, with the ignorance and general laziness of the average citizen of the USA.
Further, are we really in the area of science, any more? Aren't these scientists actually criticizing policy? "The science says this, and so the policy should say that!"
You read the article wrong - they're saying: "The science says this, so the science should say this!" Instead, the "science" being presented by the Bush administration says something else. Most likely on purpose.
This "science" is being used to justify policy, which is the point at which politics comes in.
The fact that Bush is overspending may be an obvious fact, but that is NOT the issue here.
Leadership is NOT science, but in this case our leadership is abusing science in order to screw citizens for the benefit of corporations and for the benefit of the administration itself.
You can't make political decisions based on science alone, but an understanding of the world does come in very handy in making political decisions. When the government tries to distort our view of the world, who better to call them on it than scientists? And who better to run the bastards out of office than us - the free thinking citizens of our great nation?
More to the point, nothing can ever be proven . If I see a ball fall to the ground, I can't prove that it is under the influence of gravity - I can't even prove that the ball exists. All I can do is apply the best theories that we have (several theories would be involved, in order to explain everything from the relationship between the ball in my mind and the "real" ball, to the reason why the ball appears to be moving) and assume that the theories are close enough to reality for my purposes. If I suspect that a theory is not close to reality, then I have to come up with a better theory, or work with the current best.
The theory of evolution is not a "fact," because it is not a piece of data. It is a theory, i.e. the best explanation we have. In fact, I think it is the only theory we have as of today that explains the origins of biological organisms. There are lots of hypotheses out there, but none of them even come close to being theories.
Slashdot Mirror
Regarding the "brain" and the "experiencer", the connection that I didn't point out is that the experiencer is defined by the brain. In the DVD analogy, the viewer is not watching the DVD - the viewer is *in* the DVD. The DVD is the universe, and the viewer is data on the disc. When an external viewer "plays" the disc and watches it, it is analagous to running the program in my example. The data on the disc, however, cannot tell whether it is being played or it is just sitting on the shelf. To make the analogy match my example, you also have to assume that every frame of the DVD is complete (not just a delta) and can be rendered independently of all other frames.
Of course, the way that our conscious perception arises from the our physical brains is far from being understood - but if the brain were put into a particular state, then the experiencer would experience that state - regardless of what the brain's previous state was. The brain has gone through a change, but the change itself is not what determines the current experience - it is the state.
If the entire universe were suddenly created from nothing in its current state, then you would remember a past that never existed. It would only exist in the state of your brain.
When you get down to it, the only way to explain free will is to involve something metaphysical, which defeats the purpose of analyzing the physical universe.
So, this computer program has a large array of variables that represent the current state of the program. A small set of these variables represents the physical brain of some self-conscious individual.
The program starts out with an initial state, and at each iteration of the program it changes one variable based on a set of rules. Now you run the program, and after each step you store the entire array of variables. Run the program until the program "ends," i.e. the end of the simulated universe (let's just arbitrarily choose the end to simplify the experiment. The program runs for a finite number of "steps" for instance.).
OK, so now the program is done running, and you have a bunch of data that represents everything that ever happened in the universe, including everything that ever happened in the brain of the simulated individual. The question is: which represents OUR universe - the program when it's running, or the static data? You're saying that the static data cannot represent the universe, because the simulated individual would not percieve change - but what is the difference? If the individual's brain is represented by finite variables, then the brain cannot *really* tell what it's previous state was. The brain in any one "slice" of the universe contains information that "remembers" the previous states, but that "slice" exists independently, also. When the program is running, the brain has no connection with its "past" other than its own internal state. The state of the brain stored in the block of data is *identical* to the state of the brain when the program is running. What is the difference to the brain?
Of course, this is all assuming that a computer program is a good representation of the universe. Is our physical universe a state machine? Is it "running," or is it a merely a bunch of data? Is there even a way to tell the difference?
In my opinion, theories in physics are getting closer to representing the universe as a set of discrete data that's being acted upon by a set of rules. Check out loop quantum gravity for example. Pretty interesting.
I would say that both are true. I think that there's a great parallel between mental exercise and physical exercise. Most people are capable of being educated thinkers, just as most people are capable of being in great physical shape. Unfortunately, people are just as lazy about thinking as they are about working out.
Limiting users to particular ports/protocols seems pointless, too. What do you do when everyone tries to use 100% of their bandwith to upload over http?
"David R, this is Bob. David R., come in please"
"Yo, this is Dave. What's up?"
"Hey David R. - did you just reboot the server?"
I personally have been playing PC games less and less lately. I suppose when HL2 finally comes out I'll have to pick up a new video card, but until then I've got plenty of Nofriendo to keep me busy.
However, you *would* be wrong in killing someone to prevent them from stealing your car/stereo/etc. Your property is not more important than someone's life.
Seriously, I'm not going to say that Bush supporters are inhuman, or even that they're stupid. I do, however, think that most of them are seriously misguided. A small percentage of them are actually well served by his administration (to the detriment of everyone else, and indeed our very nation), but most of them are not. Why they think the Bush administration is somehow good for us, I don't know. I expect they just don't (or won't) think about it. I like the recent news about how hunting organizations are finally realizing that our current trajectory is going to leave them with nothing to shoot pretty soon. Doh!
Time to realize what you're taking for granted.
The knife is arguably one of the most important and useful tools ever used by humans. I think that it's reasonable to outlaw (in cities) certain kinds of knives (long blades, switchblades, etc) which are designed for fighting or which are not practical in such places (machetes, for example - not many vines to chop through on the street). Outlawing simple pocket knives is ridiculous, though. If I was going to kill someone, I could more easily do it with a rock than with my pocketknife.
Grow up? As an adult, I feel that it's my responsibility to keep my money out of Microsoft's hands, and to encourage others to do so.
The xbox does have more processing power than the gamecube, but what is it worth? Would you rather have "game quality and innovation," or a few more polys and effects? What's the good of looking at slightly better graphics if the game isn't fun?
At any rate, regardless of technical details and opinions about the current generation of console hardware, I think we can all agree that it's pretty stupid to try and call a winner in the next generation of consoles. Predicting 2010? Give me a break.
I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of advertising, as it becomes more and more prevalent. I wonder if anyone else feels this way. The only radio stations that I can stay on for more than a couple of minutes are the listener funded ones (like KEXP), and there's no way I can stand to watch TV anymore. I can tolerate banner ads as long as they're not animated, but anything on the web that delays me from the actual content gets closed and forgotten.
I hope I'm not the only one who would be extremely pissed to have audio advertisements bombarding me on the street corner. If they can't be avoided, then they will have to be destroyed; and society should not consider those who do so to be vandals.
Before you draw a parallel between these 'audio ads' and billboards (which also cannot be avoided) note that human vision is much more focused and selective than hearing - I can't just point my ears in a different direction.
Right and wrong being equivalent to pleasure and pain makes no sense, of course, but that doesn't imply the existence of absolute right and wrong. Right and wrong are human concepts, defined by us, and only we can decide what is right and what is wrong.
I don't know what you're calling the "current postmodern viewpoint," but if it denies absolutes then it's not very current. To deny an absolute is just as arrogant and wrong as to declare an absolute. Absolutes are beyond reasoning - they can only be taken on faith, and are therefore useless for explanatory purposes. The only things we have to work with are our best assumptions. That is the most current viewpoint that I'm aware of, whatever you want to call it.
Yes, it too will die as all viewpoints eventually do (it would be folly to say that such a viewpoint is absolutely correct) - it will be replaced by something that better fits the universe we see around us. I'm betting we don't go back to believing in absolute truths, though.
Instead, the "science" being presented by the Bush administration says something else. Most likely on purpose.
This "science" is being used to justify policy, which is the point at which politics comes in.
Leadership is NOT science, but in this case our leadership is abusing science in order to screw citizens for the benefit of corporations and for the benefit of the administration itself.
You can't make political decisions based on science alone, but an understanding of the world does come in very handy in making political decisions. When the government tries to distort our view of the world, who better to call them on it than scientists? And who better to run the bastards out of office than us - the free thinking citizens of our great nation?
The theory of evolution is not a "fact," because it is not a piece of data. It is a theory, i.e. the best explanation we have. In fact, I think it is the only theory we have as of today that explains the origins of biological organisms. There are lots of hypotheses out there, but none of them even come close to being theories.