> On 25 May 2014, at 4:23 am, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> On 24 May 2014, at 06:47, Kim Jones wrote: >> >> >> Actually, the below quoted text I was responding to was by Bruno. > > (OK, just to be clear the quote was from Hibbsa).
Woooops! OK - some of these monster threads become a bit confusing as to who has their mouth open and in whose direction > >> >>> >>>> 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? > > The connection are the choice of the axioms. They can't be logical. They are > the product of creative insight and bet. > Exactly! The choice of the starting axioms is always "arbitrary" at some level. This is surely because what motivates our freedom of decision is something we rarely admit drives our human enterprises - our creativity (lateral thinking) - which reaches out ahead of our logical vertical thinking, which we prefer to think is always in the driving seat. This is at once the great virtue and the great failing of the human mind. Virtuous because a creative insight or bet CAN leapfrog over decades of plodding step by step vertical, logical thinking and laser-in on a goal (cf de Bono-think) and a failing because unless we realise we really are governed by some deeply illogical, desire-laden set of values we wish to promote, our actions in the world often reek of unconscious motivation that we then seek to justify or "sell" by logical argument. Any travesty at all can be justified by logical argument. John Ross is demonstrating this right now. He is convinced that there is a place on his mantel-piece that is reserved for a little gold statue and everything he writes is motivated by his egoic desire to realise that prize that he believes he was always destined for but will never admit to publicly. A "person" is not a logical being. Smullyan explores this terrain regularly. I am standing on top of this hill because I am standing on top of this hill and that is no reason at all. > > >>> 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... > > > Concerning what can be suggested in the third person way, I think the > shortcut is provided by abstraction, and hypothetical generalization. Like > with embryogenesis, there are pedagogical shortcuts, but it is always more > easy for the kids, which have less prejudices. What if we are born complete and whole and perfect, brimful of creative illogicality? I would call such a being a "child". Life would then would be a process of degeneration into cynicism, prejudice and conformity. We should die young and move to our next instantiation via FPI. Nature does not care if we live beyond 40... > But those leads to creative things, which can just perpetuate the samsara, so > that it does not lead per se to truth, but it can provide less and less > inappropriate pictures. You have just said what I said above, but from a slightly different perspective. > > Concerning what you can discover from the first person point on view, I think > shortcut exists. I feel this is true. Dreams, visions, psychedelic experiences, revelations etc. - these things happen and produce results. > It might always be a remind of what you already know, but just don't really > focus on. Sleep, drugs, art, science, religion, trauma and death might > provide shortcuts (as far as we know assuming comp). Ditto > > About aliens I don't know. Not bothering to learn just means that you can > copy others. But if they are natural-born lateral thinkers with childlike inquisitiveness, perhaps they copy no one and invent, innovate continually. Life would be a constant voyage from what doesn't work to what works. "Suck it and see" would be their eternal motto. > You don't need to understand relativity and quantum mechanics to make an > atomic bomb, although you need the understanding to discover it by yourself, > or to figure out its working. Nor do you need to understand how work a brain > to copy it, nor does the amoeba needs to understand Kleene's theorem to > reproduce itself, but again, that kind of things does not per se lead to > being closer to the truth. Maybe the truth is the end of the line - in which case best not head in that direction. Life is about fun. Play. I think the aliens want to get laid by humans so they can perpetuate themselves in a new part of the galaxy by mixing their genetics with ours. Aliens just wanna have fun. I think... > > So if aliens (relatively to us) did exist, and would be more clever than us, > it would be impossible for us to judge if they are really clever, or if they > are just barbarians copying still other aliens. Why barbarians though? Isn't the essence of "smart" to copy what works as opposed to what doesn't? Isn't this how humans managed to swing down from the treetops to the savannah in the first place? > Eventually cleverness needs to be evaluated not from their technology but > from the way they show respect to us. But surely they witness regularly how humans lack respect for one another. We cannot underestimate how our own barbarism may blow back onto them. If they turn out to be barbarians, perhaps they have decided that this is the only language the human knows how to speak? > Technology is not a criteria of intelligence (but of some competence only). > The "real" criteria of intelligence is more about what you do with the > technology. If they are good, we might indeed learn something. Well - something tells me that this has already happened but you would have to crack open the Black Ops going on behind many closed doors of government... > > About the evidences for aliens, my admittedly meager look at this tended me > to think that there are evidences that some people wanted us to believe in > aliens, at least at some period. A war against aliens might benefit those who > search to control people, like in case the war on drug and/or the war on > terror was not enough. Yet, I would not bet on that theory either. > Indeed. There are now two classes of UFO: ours and theirs. We can no longer distinguish between them. This is very scary because whatever we have learnt from "them" is not knowledge that is being shared with you and me. K > Bruno > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > 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. -- 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.
