Over the last century science has barely scratched the surface of understanding, but we have scratched it. We are getting deeper in our understanding of everything, that is a wonderful thing.
And the idea Brett forwards re the capability to explain = understanding means, by definition, that we are not there yet. However, he always adds “in principle,” which is vital.
Imagine what it would be like to have ultimate knowledge. To understand the intricacies of the universe in full. What a sad day that would be… The vastness of an almost infinite expanse written down in a book, stuck on a shelf in a library.
Would it lessen the human experience? Would we strive for new worlds and exploration? Or would we look inwards… Or just cease to exist in a very short period of time.
Does having ultimate knowledge of the functions of matter explain the functions of the mind, I wonder?
If we’d explained everything scientifically - would we be able to predict the trajectory of a child’s life, the decisions they make, the art and poetry they might create… Would we be able to foretell the exact location of the knot on a carved wooden chair they made, and trace that back to the tree and its life and subsequently back to the beginning of time?
I seem to remember Alan Watts describing the functions of waves and space, theoretically being able to know the exact state of the universe from the relationship of how one thing ‘jiggled’ and how that influenced the next, and the next.
I quite like the idea of an ever more complex universe…
“Modern science is based on the principle: ‘Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.’”
I did not spend enough time to understand Turing’s argument & Deutsch’s proof. Intuitively it seems correct to me but perhaps you can dig deep into that point specifically with Brett or somebody else?
For anyone who believes humans will hit a wall with our abilities, must remember these two dates: October 9, 1903 and December 17, 1903. On the first date, the New York Times published an opinion piece which summed up the views of most contemporary engineers and scientific experts of the day, saying it will take one to ten million years before man will be able to build a machine that can fly. The second date is when the article was proved wrong, just 69 days later.
There may indeed be things that we will never know with 100% certainty. But I’m willing to bet that given enough time, that humans can know enough to do what seems impossible now, whatever that may be.
AI is a good example… I’ve read that many experts have claimed we do not understand the principles of AGI well enough to know why it would work. But yet if we create it (and that’s a big if) and don’t understand it, would it invalidate Brett’s position?
I don’t know that I would classify AI as on the same level as the mysteries of the universe. Unless you believe AI exists on its own outside of human creation? Which could be possible I suppose…
Giddy would be entirely appropriate! I'll always remember the first manned landing on the moon. It left none other than Walter Cronkite speechless on the air, I'm sure for the only time in his long, distinguished career. The CBS recording of the broadcast is on YouTube. As the LM made its decent with one of the astronauts announcing the distance from the surface, there's a long silence with just meters to go, then finally, the message, "The Eagle has landed." You can hear Cronkite exhale and softly say, "Jesus". Cronkite, remember, had gotten through the entire weekend of the JFK funeral without once losing his composure.
The problem with Dawkins (and Materialists) is he can't explain How. How it came to be Why there is Something rather than Nothing as many have asked.
"It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science. It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence."
Allan Sandage
Maybe someday science will find a reason that doesn't need God. Until then Genesis 1:1 is a good place to start.
Given the prevalence and depth of WOKE ideology--particularly LGBTQ sh*t, I am not surprised that the universe considers itself to not only be queer, but to be even queerer than we thought. It's bad enough that the stars are so narcissistic (have you noticed how many wear boas). I mean, that is what drives stars! But the queer thing I was not expecting. However, none of us should be surprised.
Galaxies, super novas, nebulas, and the like sure seem queer (and fabulous). But black holes? I'd have figured that most of them would identify as straight. And phallic asteroids also, generally, should be straight. I'm going by statistical probability in these two latter cases. Cosmology never stops surprising us, however.
If aliens ever do visit us, I think it's a safe bet that they will be asexual or perhaps sexually multi-morphic. If they are Klingons identifying as Vulcans, I will know at that point that I am moving to Mars. At least the Martians know what they are. Hell, they even watch Fox News.
Some years ago, while the experiments at CERN to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson were still short of the goal, a friend of mine who was an astrophysicist retired from the Space Telescope Lab at Johns Hopkins said he hoped in a way that the efforts would fail, that the theoretical Higgs could not be confirmed, at least not with the theories and instruments then available. As he put it, "Then we would have to do some really hard science." From the grin on his face, I took it as an expression that the fun of science was in working out explanations of progressively deeper mysteries.
"From the grin on his face, I took it as an expression that the fun of science was in working out explanations of progressively deeper mysteries."
From what I have seen very often they are like Children. I recall watching when the 1st images from JWST those watching were..Giddy is the only word that woks.
Over the last century science has barely scratched the surface of understanding, but we have scratched it. We are getting deeper in our understanding of everything, that is a wonderful thing.
And the idea Brett forwards re the capability to explain = understanding means, by definition, that we are not there yet. However, he always adds “in principle,” which is vital.
Imagine what it would be like to have ultimate knowledge. To understand the intricacies of the universe in full. What a sad day that would be… The vastness of an almost infinite expanse written down in a book, stuck on a shelf in a library.
Would it lessen the human experience? Would we strive for new worlds and exploration? Or would we look inwards… Or just cease to exist in a very short period of time.
Does having ultimate knowledge of the functions of matter explain the functions of the mind, I wonder?
If we’d explained everything scientifically - would we be able to predict the trajectory of a child’s life, the decisions they make, the art and poetry they might create… Would we be able to foretell the exact location of the knot on a carved wooden chair they made, and trace that back to the tree and its life and subsequently back to the beginning of time?
I seem to remember Alan Watts describing the functions of waves and space, theoretically being able to know the exact state of the universe from the relationship of how one thing ‘jiggled’ and how that influenced the next, and the next.
I quite like the idea of an ever more complex universe…
“Modern science is based on the principle: ‘Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.’”
Terence McKenna
The universality of computation & brain as hardware + mind as software does a lot of work in Brett’s argumentation.
Indeed. But is it false or wrong or misguided?
I did not spend enough time to understand Turing’s argument & Deutsch’s proof. Intuitively it seems correct to me but perhaps you can dig deep into that point specifically with Brett or somebody else?
For anyone who believes humans will hit a wall with our abilities, must remember these two dates: October 9, 1903 and December 17, 1903. On the first date, the New York Times published an opinion piece which summed up the views of most contemporary engineers and scientific experts of the day, saying it will take one to ten million years before man will be able to build a machine that can fly. The second date is when the article was proved wrong, just 69 days later.
There may indeed be things that we will never know with 100% certainty. But I’m willing to bet that given enough time, that humans can know enough to do what seems impossible now, whatever that may be.
AI is a good example… I’ve read that many experts have claimed we do not understand the principles of AGI well enough to know why it would work. But yet if we create it (and that’s a big if) and don’t understand it, would it invalidate Brett’s position?
I don’t know that I would classify AI as on the same level as the mysteries of the universe. Unless you believe AI exists on its own outside of human creation? Which could be possible I suppose…
Giddy would be entirely appropriate! I'll always remember the first manned landing on the moon. It left none other than Walter Cronkite speechless on the air, I'm sure for the only time in his long, distinguished career. The CBS recording of the broadcast is on YouTube. As the LM made its decent with one of the astronauts announcing the distance from the surface, there's a long silence with just meters to go, then finally, the message, "The Eagle has landed." You can hear Cronkite exhale and softly say, "Jesus". Cronkite, remember, had gotten through the entire weekend of the JFK funeral without once losing his composure.
Is the Universe Queerer Than We Can Suppose?
Yes.
That’s also my thinking. Watch Dawkins’ TED talk.
The problem with Dawkins (and Materialists) is he can't explain How. How it came to be Why there is Something rather than Nothing as many have asked.
"It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science. It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence."
Allan Sandage
Maybe someday science will find a reason that doesn't need God. Until then Genesis 1:1 is a good place to start.
Given the prevalence and depth of WOKE ideology--particularly LGBTQ sh*t, I am not surprised that the universe considers itself to not only be queer, but to be even queerer than we thought. It's bad enough that the stars are so narcissistic (have you noticed how many wear boas). I mean, that is what drives stars! But the queer thing I was not expecting. However, none of us should be surprised.
Galaxies, super novas, nebulas, and the like sure seem queer (and fabulous). But black holes? I'd have figured that most of them would identify as straight. And phallic asteroids also, generally, should be straight. I'm going by statistical probability in these two latter cases. Cosmology never stops surprising us, however.
If aliens ever do visit us, I think it's a safe bet that they will be asexual or perhaps sexually multi-morphic. If they are Klingons identifying as Vulcans, I will know at that point that I am moving to Mars. At least the Martians know what they are. Hell, they even watch Fox News.
This really is exhausting.
Some years ago, while the experiments at CERN to confirm the existence of the Higgs boson were still short of the goal, a friend of mine who was an astrophysicist retired from the Space Telescope Lab at Johns Hopkins said he hoped in a way that the efforts would fail, that the theoretical Higgs could not be confirmed, at least not with the theories and instruments then available. As he put it, "Then we would have to do some really hard science." From the grin on his face, I took it as an expression that the fun of science was in working out explanations of progressively deeper mysteries.
"From the grin on his face, I took it as an expression that the fun of science was in working out explanations of progressively deeper mysteries."
From what I have seen very often they are like Children. I recall watching when the 1st images from JWST those watching were..Giddy is the only word that woks.