Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno. Kim
> >> On 23 May 2014, at 10:00 pm, [email protected] wrote: >> >> I've been saying that it isn't necessary to refute something that contains >> no knowledge about something fundamental to its claim. Consciousness was >> never understood...and it's reasonable to think it is the more important >> mystery of computation, than anything contained in the discovery of >> computers, so far. It would be like, as I said, assuming something vast >> about matter in 1700 before anything about matter had been discovered, and >> building streams of logic from that along. What we'd have missed out on, was >> the discovery of chemistry, the scientific method and eventually atoms and >> QM, if we'd gone a way like that. Why would it be any different here? >> > > This is very interesting. Are you saying that if we somehow get our > assumptions right - in whatever period and under whatever framework, theory > etc. - and this, quite apart from the level of our knowledge, then it might > be possible to circumvent the need for the endless search for the knowledge > that would eventually get us closer to the truth? > > This would mean that a lot of science might be the "try hard" view of > achieving cultural goals if all we must do is to assume the correct things at > the outset and then build our knowledge downstream of these foundational > assumptions. > > I think in this context of extra-terrestrial technology, supposed to be more > or less undeniably real and evident, if you believe the supposed evidence for > it these days. Perhaps aliens have not bothered with all the streams of > learning in science, computing, mathematics etc. and have gone straight to > the cultural goals they envisaged however inconceivable this thought to us > might appear. I mean, it is said to be quasi-impossible for beings to cross > the vast inter-galactic distances and this is the main argument used in > answer to Fermi's Paradox, yet are we not almost certainly - to take a leaf > out of GHibbsa's manual momentarily - unconsciously assuming that all > sentient, intelligent beings, wherever they arise in the universe, will do > the try-hard human thing of slowly and painstakingly amassing their knowledge > in painfully slow and logical steps? Why do we assume this? What about > Lateral Thinking, where the trick is to bypass logical correctness at every > step of the way and to use some very novel and highly illogical procedures to > forge previously unseen connections in information that were hidden to our > logical mindset? What if the aliens are masters of Lateral Thinking? Then we > would ipso facto have no way of understanding how they arrived at their > technological level, yet we might emulate in some way the spirit of their > enterprise which has self-accelerated in a way we can only dream of? Why do > we have to spend forever working things out? Surely this is a plodding homo > sapiens thing... > > Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
