Are You Conscious?

[Ichneumonwasp]

If everything is information, could you tell me what information is? That would be very helpful.

I ask because I have always learned that information was, in some sense, a relation between stuff, a perspective on stuff, or some such definition. Doesn't information, for instance, defined as message imply both sender and receiver?

If so, then does this not simply mean what most of the folks here who are identified as 'materialists' have been saying all along -- we can't know the ur-substance, only describe the relations of the bits of whatever is out there?

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Some might call that faith.

Not me, I'd call it trust.

1. We have enough scientific understanding of the universe and its immensity to expect that many forms of intelligent life have evolved in it at one time or another.

2. I see no evidence that evolution led to the creation of sentient beings that somehow required external agency to become sentient and conscious, There is no evidence that some external plane of reality somehow intersects with our physical brains to generate our minds or consciousness in any way and to postulate one begs more questions than it answers. So Occam's Razor kicks in too. It's safer to assume that our brains are totally ontologically responsible for our consciousness even if the brains cannot be used as a epistemological basis to describe experience.

3. Human already possess suffiicient ability to generate virtual worlds and I see no reason why this ability should not increase, perhaps exponentially, for some time to come.

4. That leaves AI. No, we haven't figured out how to create sentient or conscious AI beings yet. But I think the burden of proof of explaining why mankind cannot create such entities lies with the deniers at this point. The only way to really deny this possibility (probability in my view unless mankind destroys itself first) is to insist that there is some mystical magic that can only be invested in human beings via means for which there is absolutely no evidence - as per 2. And given that, if evolution could lead to sentient conscious mind I see no reason why a sufficiently advanced sentient being could not create same or better via intelligent design.

5. Therefore, in light of all of the above, I find it likely that some form of advanced intelligence in our universe has created it's own virtual universes with its own sentient beings in it.

Maybe there is better evidence for "sort of woo like telepathy" than there is for "advanced beings in our universe [who] decided to play god and created their own computed universes to observe and/or interact with."

I see no such evidence and no winners of Randi's million bucks. More importantly, other than to posit an informational substrate for the universe which, in theory, could support seemingly supernatural processes, I see no plausible mechanism postulated, analogous to the one I've postulated above for Alien-generated universes, whereby such woo should reasonably be expected to occur and why it is so hard to confirm.

My mind remains open to both possibilties but the former has been subject to repeated falisfications whereas the later is admittedly hard to falsify. If evidence should arise that makes the occurrence of life, especially intelligent life, appear too remotely possible than I would revise my doubts accordingly.

 

[Limbo]

Not me, I'd call it trust.

Well there is a connection between faith and trust.

1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>

I'm not trying to belittle your 'faith', there are things I 'trust' in too. I just find it odd in light of your moniker.

Do you see a potential or actual connection between these advanced beings you have 'trust' in, and the UFO phenomenon?

...and no winners of Randi's million bucks.

Not to derail but that is exaclty what we should expect if psi is real. The sheep-goat effect and all (which there is evidence for). I suggest you look into it, with an open mind.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

If everything is information, could you tell me what information is? That would be very helpful.

I ask because I have always learned that information was, in some sense, a relation between stuff, a perspective on stuff, or some such definition. Doesn't information, for instance, defined as message imply both sender and receiver?

If so, then does this not simply mean what most of the folks here who are identified as 'materialists' have been saying all along -- we can't know the ur-substance, only describe the relations of the bits of whatever is out there?

There are many ways to define information and in the sense I've been using it I often wonder if there is some more fundamental way to represent it than the one I'm about to give you. Basically information is a non-random data message. You are correct in assuming that information implies a sender and receiver but it does not require cognition. In the digital physics approach, at least that espoused by Zuse, Fredkin and Wolfram and others, information is simply exchanged in computing space between forms of cellular automata which give rise to complex phenomenon - eventually physical laws much like the complexities that emerge in The Game of Life - if you've ever seen that.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

There are many ways to define information and in the sense I've been using it I often wonder if there is some more fundamental way to represent it than the one I'm about to give you. Basically information is a non-random data message. You are correct in assuming that information implies a sender and receiver but it does not require cognition. In the digital physics approach, at least that espoused by Zuse, Fredkin and Wolfram and others, information is simply exchanged in computing space between forms of cellular automata which give rise to complex phenomenon - eventually physical laws much like the complexities that emerge in The Game of Life - if you've ever seen that.

So, instead of elephants, it's relationships all the way down?

 

[Malerin]

Not me, I'd call it trust.

1. We have enough scientific understanding of the universe and its immensity to expect that many forms of intelligent life have evolved in it at one time or another.

The Drake Equation thread is thataway---------> http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162928

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Well there is a connection between faith and trust.

1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>

I'm not trying to belittle your 'faith', there are things I 'trust' in too. I just find it odd in light of your moniker.

I don't know what dictionary you're using but for me at least "trust" has always implied belief based on evidence more than "faith". In any case, I think I've already made myself clear what I mean and I find it tiresome when the religious, the new-agers, and woo-lovers insist on equating their "faith" in stuff for which there is little or no evidence or reason and a rationalist's belief in the scientific method. One is based on hope and wishful thinking and the other isn't. I have no vested interests in believing in sentient aliens but I know you do in the mystical

Do you see a potential or actual connection between these advanced beings you have 'trust' in, and the UFO phenomenon?

Potential - yes, but unlikely. I'm aware of no credible evidence for UFO's as much as i would love to believe we've been visited.

Not to derail but that is exaclty what we should expect if psi is real. The sheep-goat effect and all (which there is evidence for). I suggest you look into it, with an open mind.

I'm already aware of it. If psi is true it is not a sufficiently powerful effect to account for the suppression of the truth you believe in for so long - in my view. Many scientific ideas like QM were viewed almost as, if not more, crazy (just look at how Einstein attacked QM) than psi yet they prevailed. The foremost scientists looks for ways to test their crazy hypotheses while it seems the foremost woo-believers look for excuses to rationalize why the stuff they believe in is so elusive or can't be tested.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

So, instead of elephants, it's relationships all the way down?

Yes, pretty much though I don't really think their has to be infinite regression. It could all start from what could be one amazingly simple computing space.

For elephants, the question is begged, as for the universe, where did the elephants come from? In this case, I find the cellular automata/Tegmark MUH (Mathematical Universe Hypothesis) far more appealing because at some most or more fundamental level math and information can be viewed Platonically in the sense that +, -, 0, 1, 1+1=2 etc. are immutable and don't have a beginning or an end. In computing space, asking where 0, 1, etc comes from is unnecessary. It's how they all came to interact that seems the huge mystery. That's another reason I find Tegmark's work compelling in that it supports the postulate that all forms of mathematical entities beg their own potential form of multiverse generation and this is entropically the least complex case - though most would become dead ends.

 

[Limbo]

I don't know what dictionary you're using but for me at least "trust" has always implied belief based on evidence more than "faith".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

In any case, I think I've already made myself clear what I mean...

Oh I understand where you're coming from RWT your 'advanced beings'...better than you realize.

Potential - yes, but unlikely. I'm aware of no credible evidence for UFO's as much as i would love to believe we've been visited.

Credible is such an arbitrary word. Are you relying on mainstream science consensus to tell you what's credible and what isn't? It looks ot me like you are, WRT psi and the UFO phenomenon...things we shouldn't really expect mainstream science to be able to get a grip on in the first place, at least for now. You are already on the fringe in some respect, perhaps you aren't consciously aware of the degree to which your personal likes and dislikes guide you to or from mainstream science when it strikes your fancy.

You seem to be letting your likes and dislikes dictate what you are aware of - IOW your prejudices.

"Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” – William James

If psi is true it is not a sufficiently powerful effect to account for the suppression of the truth you believe in for so long - in my view.

I'm not sure what you mean by suppression...if there is 'suppression' it is unconscious. "Psi effects occur against a background of supporting and opposing motivation and psi influence due to the extreme polarization of attitudes toward psi in the population." http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_67/ai_104657309/

Many scientific ideas like QM were viewed almost as, if not more, crazy (just look at how Einstein attacked QM) than psi yet they prevailed.

That's because QM is based on mathematics and some of its simpler predictions can be easily demonstrated. QM has given rise to a significant proportion of the world's economy, so no one can deny its predictive power, even if it is crazy.

By contrast, so far there is no widely accepted mathematical framework for psi, so the best parapsychology can do is advance the state of empirical knowledge while waiting for the rest of science to catch up with the phenomena.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Oh I understand where you're coming from RWT your 'advanced beings'...better than you realize.

LOL - yes, I believe that! I'm increasingly convinced you know a few intimately.

Credible is such an arbitrary word. Are you relying on mainstream science consensus to tell you what's credible and what isn't? It looks ot me like you are, WRT psi and the UFO phenomenon...things we wouldn't expect science to be able to get a grip on in the first place, at least for now. You are already on the fringe in some respect, perhaps you aren't fully aware of the degree to which you are letting your personal likes and dislikes guide you.
...
You seem to be letting your likes and dislikes dictate what you are aware of.

Yes, I'm on the fringe and I know it. But I've only scratched the surface of discussing the converging lines of scientific and philosophical ideas to enable me to believe this crazy stuff. I'm confident in the decades to come there will be an explosion in evidence for and acceptance of these ideas. I think it may be mathematics more than physics that leads the way this time, e.g., Chaitin. In the 1970's and 80's Fredkin was ostracized for making public views that some expressed privately (including my mentor/graduate supervisor - now a world-famous scientist). Now Wolfram feels free to basically plagarize him without sufficient credit in my view. It's not terribly much on the fringe anymore though it's unlikely to get you tenure for making it your main research area either.

Yet I remain skeptical and critical of all these ideas. You don't know me well enough to know my personal likes and dislikes. I was raised believing in psi. I was convinced growing up that my mother and I shared a psychic connection and one of the reasons I wanted to go into biophysics and neuroscience at a young age was to better understand this phenomena. I can't tell you how disappointed I was as I realized, little by little, and then all at once, that it was probably all BS and that all the evidence I had been shown over the years didn't stand up to scrutiny. Unlike you, at least as I recall from Dawkins, I hadn't built an entire life and worldview around these beliefs so they weren't as hard to relinquish as I assume they would be for you.

... so the best parapsychology can do is advance the state of empirical knowledge while waiting for the rest of science to catch up with the phenomena.

I still read the research and await the results. I've seen a few positive things from time to time (remember my support of Jerome's psychic research references at Dawkins?) but so far they haven't stood up. I'll believe when they do. Why can't you wait too? Have you ever considered that your life depends too much on believing in this stuff.

 

[Limbo]

LOL - yes, I believe that! I'm increasingly convinced you know a few intimately.

Well, maybe I do and maybe I don't. But what I was thinking of was my years of study of comparative mythology, comparative religion, comparative mysticism. You have your own personal modern mythology going on, to some degree. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just wish you would admit it instead of dancing around it with word games.

Yes, I'm on the fringe and I know it. But I've only scratched the surface of discussing the converging lines of scientific and philosophical ideas to enable me to believe this crazy stuff. I'm confident in the decades to come there will be an explosion in evidence for and acceptance of these ideas. I think it may be mathematics more than physics that leads the way this time, e.g., Chaitin. In the 1970's and 80's Fredkin was ostracized for making public views that some expressed privately (including my mentor/graduate supervisor - now a world-famous scientist). Now Wolfram feels free to basically plagarize him without sufficient credit in my view. It's not terribly much on the fringe anymore though it's unlikely to get you tenure for making it your main research area either.

Very interesting, can you recommend a book to introduce me to these ideas?

I can't tell you how disappointed I was as I realized, little by little, and then all at once, that it was probably all BS and that all the evidence I had been shown over the years didn't stand up to scrutiny.

Can you recall anything in particular that led you to that realization? A book or a paper (something you can link me to) or was it perhaps the cumulative effects of opinions of people you respected? Teachers? An example of how you subjected evidence to scrutiny?

Did you study any parapsychology at school? Have you read the parapsychology text-book? Or any parapsychology books for that matter?

Also, can you give me an example of an experience you and your mother shared?

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Well, maybe I do and maybe I don't. But what I was thinking of was my years of study of comparative mythology, comparative religion, comparative mysticism. You have your own personal modern mythology going on, to some degree. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just wish you would admit it instead of dancing around it with word games.

and what is my personal mythology?

Very interesting, can you recommend a book to introduce me to these ideas?

To be honest, I haven't yet read a book that captures the convergence of science and philosophy along the lines I believe and is brave enough to invest in some of the more fringe aspects. But you will find some good piecemeal intros at least in:
Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos by Seth Lloyd
Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife

There is some good stuff on Wikipedia under Digital Physics and Modal Realism and their references.
This Discover article serves as a good layman's intro to Tegmark:
(shoot I can't post links - google it)

Google MUH and ERH to find his more detailed papers.

Also, find Schmidhubers website for great stuff on Zuse and Kolmogorov appraches to this topic.

Watch Gregory Chaitin's Lisbon Lectures on Youtube.
This should give you a good start.

Can you recall anything in particular that led you to that realization? A book or a paper (something you can link me to) or was it perhaps the opinions of people you respected? Teachers?

Did you study any parapsychology at school? Have you read the parapsychology text-book?

Also, can you give me an example of an experience you and your mother shared?

Tell me another thread where to meet you to discuss this. We're derailing this thread too much.

 

[PixyMisa]

If you're somebody like Wheeler, T' Hooft, Fredkin, Tegmark, Wolfram, Lloyd, Schmidhuber, Zuse, Chaitin and an ever growing list of scientists, mathematicians and philosophers you'd say that information at a certain level is physical.

Yes.

Then neutral monism collapses onto information-based materialism rather than simply contradicting matter-energy-based materialism.

Yes. You could even call it informational idealism. Same thing, and it makes the same predictions.

This is where the semantics become 6 of 1 half a dozen of the other in my view. You could call me a physical-information based materialist or a neutral monist who believes information/computation is the monistic essence. But if information (e.g., via the Zuse cellular automata "computing space") is truly physical why do we need to make this distinction? Or is there something about the idea of information being physical you don't get? In the later case I'd have to dig up a lot of references for you to read. You might want to look at t'Hoofts holographic hypothesis for describing black holesor some of Lloyd's descriptions of string theory, i.e., we've broken down what seems to be energy or matter into "stuff" that is really no more than equations. What is a string made of? It is a purely mathematical entity. It seems to me as we continue to break the universe down into smaller and smaller pieces we ironically find out it's made of...nothing. Nothing but math. I find the idea appealing at the Platonic level. I can understand how one needs to ask where matter or energy came from. But 1+1=2 requires no "creation".

Yes.

And welcome.

 

[PixyMisa]

and what is my personal mythology?

Reality, it would seem.

Some of our posters have problems with that.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

Reality, it would seem.

Some of our posters have problems with that.

 

[Limbo]

and what is my personal mythology?

It's up to you to name it, it's yours. For now I dub it 'FedUpWithFaith's personal mythology.'

Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos by Seth Lloyd
Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife

I'll read one ASAP. I wonder if I will find anything incompatible with psi.

Tell me another thread where to meet you to discuss this. We're derailing this thread too much.

In a way we are. But in another wider way, in any thread about consciousness psi is fair game.

There is no other thread I know of off the top of my head.

 

[FedUpWithFaith]

I'll read one ASAP. I wonder if I will find anything incompatible with psi.

Neither book discusses psi at all as i recall. But I have no doubt you'll find much you think supports your convictions.

Basically, the fundamental limitation of the multiverse in this science/philosophy is that it be computable and decideable, everything else is fair game - though not necessarily in this universe which took on it's own unique automata signature as it evolved.

I even read a website awhile back from some guy who was actually quite intelligent who argued that digital physics supports the "Truth" of Christianity. It was actually very well written and even somewhat compelling. I recall he very poetically aligned the Bibles's "In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was God" as the information-basis for the alpha-omega of the Lord. In various technical parlances, a "word" is a form of codified information.

Ironically, I begin discovering and exploring digital physics in depth after somebody at Dawkins sent me a link to Tegmark's articles and they took me from being a Strong Athiest to a Medium one. I used to make arguments similar to Dawkins 747 argument that I felt came as close to proving there could be no God or supernatural as you could expect for a negative assertion. it's still a powerful argument but now I have to grudgingly concede, if digital physics is true, that a plane of information processing that created our universe could conceivably do more, perhaps even generate some form of intelligence. Do I beleive that, at least in this universe? No, I see no evidence of it. But it undercuts one of Atheism's most potent arguments a little - at least if you think you can practically prove gods are impossible.

 

[Hokulele]

<snip>

Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife

<snip>

I second the recommendation of this book.

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Hokulele]

<snip>

I even read a website awhile back from some guy who was actually quite intelligent who argued that digital physics supports the "Truth" of Christianity. It was actually very well written and even somewhat compelling. I recall he very poetically aligned the Bibles's "In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was God" as the information-basis for the alpha-omega of the Lord. In various technical parlances, a "word" is a form of codified information.

<snip>

Heh, speaking of Seife, in his Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, he translates logos as "ratio" and interprets John with this as a starting point.

 

[Limbo]

Basically, the fundamental limitation of the multiverse in this science/philosophy is that it be computable and decideable, everything else is fair game - though not necessarily in this universe which took on it's own unique automata signature as it evolved.

And that would be part of the 'creation myth' aspect of your personal mythology, right? Not that there's anything wrong with that, or that it's "false."

Do you agree with this statement:

"Are we living in a simulated world? MIT Professor Set Lloyd argues that there is no difference between a simulated world in a quantum computer, and the real thing, given enough computational resources. This is simple enough to understand at the basic level given that bits are bits (or qu-bits, in their quantum version) and that a universal computer (such as the universe, or multiverse of universes) can perfectly recreate any computation possible in any other computer (or universe!)"

http://www.starstreamresearch.com/shaking_hands_with_the_future.htm