On 2/23/2017 12:34 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 20 Feb 2017, at 16:33, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 1:19 AM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com>
wrote:
On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote:
Dark Matter and Dark Energy remain complete mysteries.
As far as I can tell, what we have is a falsification of current
theories. They appear to be good enough approximations for many
things, but then they fail at predicting the expansion rate of the
universe right? Maybe it's dark matter, maybe it's something else,
They are 2 separate mysteries. Dark Matter is a mysterious something
that
makes up 28% of the universe and holds galaxies and clusters of
galaxies
together. Dark Energy is a even more mysterious something that makes
up 69%
of everything and causes the expansion of the entire universe to
accelerate.
And about 4% of the universe is made of the sort of normal matter
and energy
that until about 20 years ago was the only type we thought existed.
There is a straightforward extension of General Relativity and Quantum
Mechanics that explains Dark Energy, however it gives a figure that is
10^120 too large, it's been called the worse mismatch between theory
and
observation in the entire history of science. I think it's fair to
say we
really don't have a clue about Dark Energy, and Dark Matter is
almost as
confusing.
If science failed so far at explaining something, then it doesn't
matter?
Science has an explanation for consciousness that works beautifully,
consciousness is the way information feels when it is being processed
intelligently.
I know that your position is that information processing is
nonsensical without matter. Many times you invited Bruno to compete
with Intel, etc. So what you are saying is that "consciousness is the
way matter feels when it participates in an intelligent computation".
This "explanation" begs the question already.
Then there's the issue of defining "processed intelligently". What
does that even mean? Where do you draw the line between intelligent
and non-intelligent processing? Let me guess: intelligent processing
is the kind that generates consciousness.
Nobody ever came up with a way to test for the presence of
consciousness (probably because it's the wrong way to think about it),
so there is no scientific theory about it. Zero. You make it worse by
introducing ill-defined concepts.
What science doesn't yet have is a complete theory explaining
how to produce intelligence, but enormous progress has been made in
just the
last few years.
Not really. What is happening is that the artificial neural network
models from the 80s are finally paying off, because of the orders of
magnitude more computational power and training data that we have now.
Progress is being made, but it has been very slow. It's a hard problem.
I've worked in this field both in academia and industry, for what
it's worth.
The study of intelligence, now that's important!
That is a statement of faith. Gizmo worshiping.
At least 3 times a week for the last 5 years somebody on this list has
accused me of being religious, apparently in the hope that I'll
burst into
tears and cry myself to sleep. It's not going to happen,
I can't talk for the others, but I have no interest in making you
feel bad.
I'm just pointing out dogmatic thinking.
Yes, it's important in
a sense. I too am interested in having medical breakthroughs, freedom
from labour and all the nice things that AI can bring.
It's important even if you're only interested in philosophical
problems,
such as why did Evolution bother to make conscious animals at all.
Evolution is a theory on the origins of biological complexity. We know
nothing about consciousness.
Do you agree that consciousness is a form of knowledge? That is:
consciousness requires some knowledge, and (genuine) knowledge
requires some conscious person)?
I don't think knowledge requires consciousness, much less a person.
Then do you agree with the S4 theory of rational knowledge, which is that
A theory of "knowable" is not the same as a theory of knowledge. A
theory of knowledge has to include the fact that much less is known than
is knowable.
(knowable x) implies x
(knowable (x implies y)) implies ((knowable x) implies (knowable y))
(knowable x) implies (knowable (knowable x))
With the inference rules:
If I prove x I can deduce (knowable x)
+ modus ponens
Proof is realtive to premises. If you can prove x from true premises,
THEN it's knowable.
Brent
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