The Great Paradox

[Fist and Faith]

I haven't had time to post much lately. I finally have the chance to disagree with everyone.

Z: Language, written language, recordings, digital storage, working together, using computers... Huge advantages. Increased memory, faster thinking, greater accuracy in ways, and others.

But even with all that, I don't think our reach is infinite. We are still limited by what peter is talking about. Those things are not what make us superior to the rhesus monkey. Those things are the result of what makes us superior to the rhesus. And if there are levels of thought above is, it seems to me they are out of our reach. We can't even speculate on what they might be, any more than the rhesus can speculate on what we're talking about. We can't program our computers to look for specific things that we can't think of in the first place. And if the Singularity hits, and our computers make smarter and smarter computers, we'll stare at them wondering what they're doing, the way the rhesus stares at us.


Wos: I don't usually know what the heck you're talking about. What are you talking about, regarding the observer? In what way is our understanding of reality unable to explain me looking at things? And how is it we know that an explanation will never be possible?


wf: I do not accept it as fact that there are aspects of the universe that we will never be able to approach with science. I don't think scientific methods can prove negatives as easily as positives. How many things that science said were not possible have been accomplished? Now knowing the origin of the universe is supposed to be impossible. As you say, if next year someone explains the origin of the universe in unassailable detail, this doesn't prove that your reasoned opinion is wrong. But it surely doesn't prove your reasoned opinion is right. And my opinion, based on an uncountable number of successes, against tremendous obstacles, is also fairly reasoned. I don't know it to be a fact, but it's a reasoned opinion

[Zarathustra]

I haven't had time to post much lately. I finally have the chance to disagree with everyone.

Z: Language, written language, recordings, digital storage, working together, using computers... Huge advantages. Increased memory, faster thinking, greater accuracy in ways, and others.

But even with all that, I don't think our reach is infinite. We are still limited by what peter is talking about. Those things are not what make us superior to the rhesus monkey. Those things are the result of what makes us superior to the rhesus. And if there are levels of thought above is, it seems to me they are out of our reach. We can't even speculate on what they might be, any more than the rhesus can speculate on what we're talking about. We can't program our computers to look for specific things that we can't think of in the first place. And if the Singularity hits, and our computers make smarter and smarter computers, we'll stare at them wondering what they're doing, the way the rhesus stares at us.

The difference is that we have discovered how to create and confirm explanations. It's the explanations themselves that have infinite reach. We've found how to reach reality. Reality is infinite. Therefore, our reach is infinite.

It's like finding out how to build a universal Turing machine (aka "computer") which can process any algorithm. The mathematical reach is infinite (given enough time, processing power, etc.). Sure, there are some true theorems we can't prove, but that doesn't stop our mathematical reach from being infinite. All the odd numbers are still infinite, even if they skip all the even ones. Saying our reach is infinite isn't the same as saying we'll ever know everything. There will always be things beyond our reach. That's why the book I keep referencing is called The Beginning of Infinity. We're always at the beginning, even though our reach is in principle infinite, and we learn more.

[Fist and Faith]

OK, I gotcha. Nice.

[peter]

Fist, don't we have a logical tautology here? Science does not (to the best of my knowledge) describe anything as being impossible .......in fact I'd go so far as saying it actually describes pretty much everything as being possible! (I saw a program on quantum the other day telling me that if I try often enough, one day I'll succeed in walking through a wall.). Short of travelling at the speed of light (and there are indications that even this shibboleth may fall, given the apparently instantaneous transfer of knowledge between tidely sepparaed sub-atomic particles) pretty much anything goes, so it can't be shown to be deficient in its explanatory power in any area of existence by the measure of this argument.

[Fist and Faith]

Sounds good to me.

And good luck with that wall thing!

[Zarathustra]

Mother did it have to be so high?

[peter]

Quote NeilTuroc, From Quantum to Cosmos, p70:

"Legend has it that the morning after he made the discovery (that the atom is mostly composed of empty space) Rutherford was scared to get out of bed for fear he would fall through the floor."

Well, according to quantum theory he was right to be!

[SerScot]

I haven't had time to post much lately. I finally have the chance to disagree with everyone.

Z: Language, written language, recordings, digital storage, working together, using computers... Huge advantages. Increased memory, faster thinking, greater accuracy in ways, and others.

But even with all that, I don't think our reach is infinite. We are still limited by what peter is talking about. Those things are not what make us superior to the rhesus monkey. Those things are the result of what makes us superior to the rhesus. And if there are levels of thought above is, it seems to me they are out of our reach. We can't even speculate on what they might be, any more than the rhesus can speculate on what we're talking about. We can't program our computers to look for specific things that we can't think of in the first place. And if the Singularity hits, and our computers make smarter and smarter computers, we'll stare at them wondering what they're doing, the way the rhesus stares at us.

The difference is that we have discovered how to create and confirm explanations. It's the explanations themselves that have infinite reach. We've found how to reach reality. Reality is infinite. Therefore, our reach is infinite.

It's like finding out how to build a universal Turing machine (aka "computer") which can process any algorithm. The mathematical reach is infinite (given enough time, processing power, etc.). Sure, there are some true theorems we can't prove, but that doesn't stop our mathematical reach from being infinite. All the odd numbers are still infinite, even if they skip all the even ones. Saying our reach is infinite isn't the same as saying we'll ever know everything. There will always be things beyond our reach. That's why the book I keep referencing is called The Beginning of Infinity. We're always at the beginning, even though our reach is in principle infinite, and we learn more.

Zarathustra,

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Turing create the "computablity therom" that show that some mathmatical ideas will always remain "uncomputable" within the lifetime of the Universe?

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Wos: I don't usually know what the heck you're talking about. What are you talking about, regarding the observer? In what way is our understanding of reality unable to explain me looking at things? And how is it we know that an explanation will never be possible?

As WF said, he and SerScot and I were all pretty much hitting on the same thing.

Basically, the Observer, since he is the Origin or Zero-Point of the Scientific quest, can never explain-away himself. Dissolve himself into his own equations, disappearing in a puff of logic, so to speak.

The Observer is the indissoluble residue that escapes his own abstract world-building. And if he were to put his hand through the Arch, he'd only break it.

[peter]

But doesn't quantum mechanics put the observer at the very heart of things - even in his own 'abstract world building'. God cannot put his hand into the machine: God is the machine.

[Zarathustra]

The 'observer' is more a philosophical problem than scientific. As Pete points out, QM puts the observer into the theory. Rather than 'disappearing in a puff of logic,' the observer is part of the reference frame.

Why is science never going to be able to explain it? What's that based on? It sounds like a raw assertion, nothing more.


SS, I don't know. How could Godel know the lifetime of the universe? We only recently learned that its expansion is accelerating, rather than slowing down or collapsing. The 'lifetime of the universe' might be infinite.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

But doesn't quantum mechanics put the observer at the very heart of things - even in his own 'abstract world building'. God cannot put his hand into the machine: God is the machine.

I would say that one should avoid the extremes either of mysticizing or of rationalizing the Quantum abstraction (i.e. avoid the Reification/Concretization fallacy). Failure to do so risks making of the abstraction a sort of fascinating, hypnotic snake that distracts from the Real (the world of the Zero-Point).

Gingerly sidestepping such landmines, I'd say that the abstract "particles" only "exist" in order to be incorporated into Real, everyday things (i.e. in returning to the realm of the Zero-Point from which the Scientific quest began). which, in the case of the Quantum experiments, would be the recording apparatus. This is why Real beings, such as a cat, is never both dead and alive or is never in two places at once, whereas the abstract, such as the particle, is suspended in an indeterminacy which awaits man's free choice.

I'd say that man can create an abstract world and link/join/correspond that world to the Real world, the Zero-Point. But that's a much different thing than creating the world of the Zero-Point, the world of Real beings.

[Zarathustra]

Wos, you're speaking with certainty over issues which are still up for debate. On a many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, there can indeed be both dead and alive versions of the same cat. As Deutsche pointed out, there is experimental evidence for the many-worlds interpretation. Also, there is no certainty (yet) whether the measurement problem in quantum mechanics can be resolved at the recording apparatus or in the consciousness of the observer. This is another point of long standing debate.

What is Zero-Point?
Why is "Scientific" capitalized?
Why can't science explain observers?

You're not explaining or debating, you're just asserting. Obscurity is no refuge for lack of argument.

[SerScot]

Zarathustra,

Here's an article that talks about non-computable numbers:

igoro.com/archive/numbers-that-cannot-be-computed/