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originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
originally posted by: chr0naut
originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
originally posted by: TzarChasm
originally posted by: chr0naut
originally posted by: Phage
everything is being computed down to you putting on your socks in the morning to driving home from work at night.
Ok.
Now what? Have you started working on modifying the code? How does one go about doing so?
Is this notion fundamentally different from the ancient idea of predestination?
Surely such deep code, governing such an intricate complexity, is self modifying and (compared to us, its constructs,) hyper-intelligent.
Perhaps we have just to 'appeal to it' and it will do as we ask?
It does seem to favor our conscious attention when we test physics at a low level.
Or maybe it doesn't care about anything at all and it simply...functions.
I never understood why people think the universe cares about humans or human existence. Humans and the Earth are infinitesimally small pieces of near nothingness when compared to the size of the universe. Compared to the time of our universe, human existence is a mere fleeting moment; we've existed for a tiny tiny tiny fraction of time.
If humans and Earth instantly ceased to exist, the universe would not even notice. In fact, the universe was doing its thing long before Earth existed.
Why do they exist at all?
First matter was created out of the energy of the universe, once the universe cooled a bit...but that's another story.
That matter fused into larger elements, those larger elements bonded to make chains of elements, which eventually became mixtures of simple organic molecules, multiplied through catalyzed reactions and an external source of energy, and eventually those molecules by chance began to bond in such a way that replicated other organic compounds, then self replicate...
and, voilà, life!
If that life had a nice home, it could have the time that it would by chance mutate in such a way that it would have an advantage over its immediate competitors and/or predators so it would reproduce more of its own kind that by chance mutated in such a way that it, too would have a biological advantage, and so on until one branch of that life found that intelligence gave it an advantage over its immediate competitors and/or predators until that advantage turned into humans.
more than your concern for a single cell expiring in your toe, or its concern for you.
originally posted by: chr0naut
originally posted by: TzarChasm
originally posted by: chr0naut
originally posted by: Phage
everything is being computed down to you putting on your socks in the morning to driving home from work at night.
Ok.
Now what? Have you started working on modifying the code? How does one go about doing so?
Is this notion fundamentally different from the ancient idea of predestination?
Surely such deep code, governing such an intricate complexity, is self modifying and (compared to us, its constructs,) hyper-intelligent.
Perhaps we have just to 'appeal to it' and it will do as we ask?
It does seem to favor our conscious attention when we test physics at a low level.
Or maybe it doesn't care about anything at all and it simply...functions.
It is possible, but not likely.
Consider your own personal computation and simulation device, your brain. Does it simply function or does it care about its environment?
We are talking about something that simulates your (and billions of others) brain.
How might it just be a calculator without higher function? Is that likely? Where did its program come from? Who pushes its buttons?
originally posted by: zGrimReapah
Free will, does anybody really have free will?
I mean, our decisions effect the lives of those around us right?
This is a scary thought if the universe/multi-verse was governed by a quantum computer and we were heading on a pre-destined path, and what we believe is free will isn't, and that no matter what decision we make, another person makes the opposite decision and heads us onto the same path because we all balance each-other out, like light and darkness kinda thing, so technically there is no possibility of an alternate timeline because it's all been decided for us.
originally posted by: neoholographic
So the DVD player and how you play a DVD would be governed or computed by the laws of physics but if you choose to watch Wedding Crashers or The Godfather it's a choice made by free will.
originally posted by: neoholographic
So I think it's similar to a video game. The game designer controls what can occur in the gaming environment but the individuals make choices as to who to fight, which way to go and which weapons to use.
originally posted by: neoholographic
So the laws the govern the environment control how potato chips are made but they don't control whether you buy Barb-Q or Sour Cream chips.
In Quantum Theory, there is a thing called the "Uncertainty Principle" that MAY add a little randomness to the universe. I say "may" because maybe there is no randomness, but we just haven't yet pinned down the underlying mechanism of QM that makes some things just appear random. In actuality, there might be a yet-to-be discovered predictable principle behind that apparent randomness.
Only last year the world of physics celebrated the 50th anniversary of Bell's theorem, a mathematical proof that certain predictions of quantum mechanics are incompatible with local causality. Local causality is a very natural scientific assumption and it holds in all modern scientific theories, except quantum mechanics.
Local causality is underpinned by two assumptions. The first is Albert Einstein's principle of relativistic causality, that no causal influences travels faster than the speed of light. This is related to the "local" bit of local causality.
Now, the long wait for a loophole-free Bell test is over. In a paper published today in Nature, a consortium of European physicists has confirmed the predictions required for Bell's theorem, with an experimental set-up without the imperfections that have marred all previous experiments.
The universe really is weird, and a landmark quantum experiment proves it
As Professor Seth Lloyd said, the universe may compute when you pour a glass of orange juice but there's no evidence that says the universe computes when you decide to pour that glass of orange juice. So the act is being computed but there's no evidence that say the choice to pour a glass of orange jusice is being computed.
If it's a quantum computer then it could be programmed in such a way that humans have truly unpredictable behavior, you can't just say it's all non-computable magic.
In his paper, "Non-computability of Consciousness," Daegene Song proves human consciousness cannot be computed. Song arrived at his conclusion through quantum computer research in which he showed there is a unique mechanism in human consciousness that no computing device can simulate.
"Among conscious activities, the unique characteristic of self-observation cannot exist in any type of machine," Song explained. "Human thought has a mechanism that computers cannot compute or be programmed to do."
Song's work also shows consciousness is not like other physical systems like neurons, atoms or galaxies. "If consciousness cannot be represented in the same way all other physical systems are represented, it may not be something that arises out of a physical system like the brain," said Song. "The brain and consciousness are linked together, but the brain does not produce consciousness. Consciousness is something altogether different and separate. The math doesn't lie."
Miguel Nicolelis, a top neuroscientist at Duke University, says computers will never replicate the human brain.
“The brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it,” says Nicolelis, author of several pioneering papers on brain-machine interfaces.
originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People
I'm not sure why so many people still cling to this idea when it's been disproven robustly thanks to Bells Theorem...
....The only "classical" mechanism which can work is one in which every particle in the universe can communicate instantaneously with every other particle, although I'm not sure it would be correct to call such a system classical.