Mmm....are you recommending that...I'm almost scared to ask. Let me see how big it is.
No, I'm not! I don't think you'd like it, unless you're interested in computer science way more than I think you are. It is one of the better books on the subject though.
But if they are complex enough, how are they any worse off than us with any of that?
It may be better off. I guess it would understand a lot of things about itself much faster than we can about ourselves. My point is it will never understand everything about itself--including basic and relevant concepts, like "what is consciousness?"
Yea I know what you're talking about, or I used to. I even understood it for a nanosecond once.
The basic idea is that you can't have a (beyond a very basic complexity) logical system that is both "complete" and "consistent."
In other words, you are either missing some facts, or some of the facts are contradictory.
All computer programs are logical systems.
If the computer's "brain" is a program (which is always the case with
purely electronic computers, to partly answer another reply below) it is therefore also a logical system, and either can not produce all facts, or must produce contradictory facts.
Are you saying that something can't understand something as complex as itself, because it would need to be more complex to do that?
Intuition is just some process of the brain that we are not consciously aware of, or an instinct, or whatever; it doesn't seem like something that would have to be there for a mind to be able to function.
Complexity isn't the issue, exactly.
What do we mean by "understanding?" If it means being able to deduce any relevant answer, it can't be done for even "simple" things, like say, natural numbers. (1, 2, 3, ...) (Number theory.) Yet
we can devise different systems so that some answer questions the others can not. The problem is "putting it all together." This can't be done in a formal, logical way--this is what I mean by intuition, more like what mathematicians mean by it--"kind of" putting it together.
Why does it matter what it's made out of?
Maybe it doesn't--maybe
any way is the same. Electronic, digital computers are stuck to the logical level. But maybe there's some other way to build computers, using new principles, so that they function in a fundamentally different way.
Not at all; I don't usually think about stuff like this so it's interesting. (I read "Godel, Escher, Bach" when it first came out, but that's been quite a while.)
Did you read the whole thing?! That's a very, very involved book. I started reading it last year, but got caught up in other books. I plan to start from the beginning again "soon."
I think I could understand more if I read some stuff about it, but then again I may not. It's the kind of thing I have to think about too much as I'm reading, then I forget when I'm done. (I just needed a few more IQ points, or a little less brain damage. Oh well. I'm waiting for the smart drugs to be prefected.)
I told you, you have to kill those useless braincells, leaving only the high-quality ones! I recommend any type of drugs. The only problem is it affects recall.
Damn it, you just said that. See, it works! I understand logic!
Oh yeah, be careful about losing recall..
That was in MO; yea now that you mention it there were a lot around the last place I lived. Even little newborn ones (one thing I always wonder about box turtles is--where are the babies? They always seem to be about the same size.) But they live up here in WI too; I guess there's more room for them cuz I don't see them on the roads nearly as much.
Oh yea, I could totally do what Crocodile Hunter did (
). But only with non-poison snakes, and small turtles and lizards. Hmm, that would be a boring show, I think.
Maybe they live in water until they're big enough? I have no idea. Damn it, I've never seen a
RL baby turtle either..
Yeah, I bet less room = more sightings.. Seems to be the case with deer around here, with the development.
Me too. Miss him.
I would watch it!
I'm thinking about that--if something has no effect, it might as well not exist. But what if it's some basic property of the universe, on which other things that do effect us are based? Things that not knowing about leave big gaps of understanding, yet we would never be able to figure it out. Maybe we could figure out what percentage the subjective is to the objective, but maybe not.
Again, I know what you mean. It's very strange.. I could be smart and say "well, then it
does have an effect," but that's not the right answer..
Think about it this way--if there is some "basic property of the universe," so basic that it affects everything, without revealing its own presence--it's as if it affects everything in the
same way then. Otherwise we would notice it, if only indirectly--some things affected, others not.
If everything were so affected, it would be impossible to imagine the effect
not being there, because we would not even see it as an effect, much less what it does. It would seem like "the nature" of what we do know about.
Does this sound familiar? We can reduce things to particles, laws, etc. but the idea of just what and how they are, why they behave that way--it's all completely inexplicable--and it seems that it must be for them to have any "nature" (i.e., qualities) at all.
It's like when I argue with people about god and they say something like, well, how did the universe start then (or whatever thing we don't know the answer to pops into their mind)? And I say, how the hell do I know? As if that proves something, the fact that I can't explain to them how the universe started.
First cause argument..
To quote Bertrand Russell:
"If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument."
We need one of them there smart singularity computers to explain it to us.
Or a profound
DC!
Arrghh, I wish it was that easy for me! If I don't move, I go to straight to sleep, do not pass SP, do not collect lucid dream. It's very, very rare for me to be aware of it.
Try thinking of, for example, discussions like this? You know, keep your brain from drifting off.
Post-Apocalypse Fragment
That's it. All night long.
Why do our dreams like apocalypses so much?!
Maybe the singularity computer is already in our minds, trying to make us destroy ourselves!
Fragment within the Fragment
We're trying to fish, without any luck. I bend over and dangle my necklace in the water. The water is clear and I can see the fish instantly attracted to it. They come, big ones, and I stand back up, scared of the giant fish.
Can't just be a non-zero amount of little fish, right?
Right Before Waking Up Lucid Fragment
I'm looking at a huge document with charts and graphs etc. trying to figure out what's going on. I realize I'm able to pan around and zoom in and out using my eyes like a camera. I do this for a bit, not trying to understand the meaningless document, just thinking about the zoom ability.
That sounds like a useful ability! Maybe the practice will pay off.
My recall is soooooo baaaaad.....sigh....
Seems like it came back a little while you were typing?
New House Fragment
A
regular house?!
The Green Volkswagen (the fragment may have been the beginning of this dream)
Lots of grass-related elements.
I get in my VW to go home. It has become very tiny, much smaller than a regular car, and I don't even feel like I should be driving around the streets in such a tiny car. The intersection outside work makes no sense; I know I'm close to somewhere that I know, but it looks totally unfamiliar. I start driving the wrong way, knowing I'm going the wrong way, but going that way anyhow. I figure I'll turn and go back on another street. I find a half a joint in the car and light it and smoke it. I think, I really should smoke more.
Driving dreams are so weird. At least it ended well.
The Goat Parable
A woman is riding on a train. She gets hungry and sees a goat in a field. She tells one of the conductors to kill the goat so they can eat it, which they do. Later, the woman sees a conductor taking care of a baby lamb. Why is he doing that, she asks? Because you ate its mother, is the response.
But
he killed her!
Lol, yea, proverb generator. (Actually, I had been looking at
Brick Testament before bed; that's probably where that came from. (I didn't see that movie...or else it was too long ago to remember..)
Whoa, that's awesome!
Did you look at Revelations?! I'm gonna go get some inspiration! Sooo cool..
