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31st October 2015, 02:51 AM | #481 |
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At the risk of being accused of 'derailing the discussion by demanding proof', could you quote some of these "knee-jerk" responses. I don't recognise this behaviour in anyone discussing this with you. What I see is a series of valiant attempts to encourage you to stop misrepresenting the scientific method, and clarify what you mean so it can be discussed meaningfully. Attacks like this on your interlocutors don't reflect well on you.
This is something you have repeatedly asserted, but which is not actually based in what people have been saying to you. The idea of consciousness existing outside the body has been tested and rejected. There is no evidence of the existence of ghosts or 'disembodied consciousnesses' or 'interdimensional consciousnesses' or whatever. If beings from other dimensions were interacting with us, we would be able to measure this reaction: there is no reaction, and so we can discount this idea as well (Thanks Pixel42 for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrs-Azp0i3k ). To repeat what has already been said: the emotional response is coming from you. You really want to believe things that have no basis in reality. When asked to back up these beliefs (which you do claim are based on science), you respond with accusations of bias, closed-mindedness and emotion-based "distaste". This is projection. Elaborated on ad nauseam, and ignored or rejected by you every time. That last sentence.....well, for once I'm speechless. Sorry, but that still doesn't answer my question. If what you claim is true, and scientists one day discover and interact with these dimensions, the qualities you claim for them would overturn everything science has discovered about them so far. How is that possible? As you mention these many wrong physicists, perhaps you could provide some (and here I go with that nasty word again) examples of this, and also a discovery that has destroyed decades of research, experiment, predictions and replicable results, in the way you are predicting for this multidimensional consciousness idea of yours? |
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1st November 2015, 10:03 AM | #482 |
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Your claim of what it indicates is as unfounded as your prophetic dream claim, but let's assume you are correct.
What then are we to make of your repeated misplaced accusations of rudeness/lying in other threads? Despite demonstrations of your mistake you stand by them.
Originally Posted by Jodie
Originally Posted by Jodie
Originally Posted by Jodie
Originally Posted by Jodie
Originally Posted by Jodie
Originally Posted by Jodie
Originally Posted by Jodie
Here is my major issue with what you are doing here, and it is extremely common among those who peddle such things, particularly new-agers. When unchallenged you claim it's founded in science. When challenged you claim it's speculation. When answering posts like mine and a few others you claim it is scientific speculation. You are not consistent with your own characterization of your position, and none of your characterizations stand up to scrutiny. It would be one thing to say "I believe my mother came to me in a dream and made a prophecy that was later fulfilled. Further, I believe that science may someday show this, but I am admit I can't show how." That's fine, and you'd probably still get responses showing how current science doesn't lend itself to that, but there would be no attacks on the belief itself. Instead, you are saying "The prophetic dream is fact, and my musings on multi-dimensional science are sufficient to explain it so stop pointing out flaws." It's why I brought up leprechauns before. Your argument can be used to support their existence -- along with pots of gold at rainbows' ends -- as well as it can be used to support your musings.
Originally Posted by Jodie
Originally Posted by Jodie
That's not analytical thinking, deep thinking, scientific thinking, or valid thinking. That's wishing. |
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1st November 2015, 01:06 PM | #483 |
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1st November 2015, 04:10 PM | #484 |
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3rd November 2015, 01:50 AM | #485 |
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3rd November 2015, 06:11 PM | #486 |
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That's kind of typical here, be snide, and then deny by requesting specific posts. If you felt it necessary to respond to any of my posts then most likely you were one of those having the knee jerk reaction. All I'm saying is that kind of response really isn't necessary.
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Not really, we don't have the capacity to test it but the mathematics doesn't lie.
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3rd November 2015, 06:41 PM | #487 |
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I have never lied about anything here. The one time I gathered posts to prove my point, the author agreed that it was what was posted but stated these same posts were taken out of "context". They weren't, and it doesn't stand as an example of any kind of mistake on my part. In these "other threads" I have known some of these posters for several years and feel I have a better handle on their general mind set about certain topics. The only time I get rude is when the insults turn personal, that is uncalled for, period. I've received much more than I ever dished out.
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"Not possible" or You're wrong" with absolutely no demonstration on their part that they know anymore than I do on the topic that I find annoying. I nicknamed those posters THE AMEN CORNER. They are blindly following along without any real understanding of the topic.
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3rd November 2015, 06:55 PM | #488 |
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Your representation of what happened in those posts is completely off the mark. You were wrong reference The Shrike. More recently you are wrong regarding slowvehicle. Your refusal to see it or admit it speaks volumes. Your claim to have a handle on them is arrogant and ludicrous. I chalk none of that up to limitations of the written language as it is not a matter of interpretation but of fact.
One might demonstrate that you hold yourself special in this regard by reading your response to Cosmic Yak. You claim his response is knee jerk simply because he responds. Yet you respond to him. Are your posts knee jerk? And now you say your claim is "based on the mathematical evidence." Hogwash. Unless you can show the math then you are speaking out your backside. The mere fact there is math is insufficient grounds to claim it supports your wild conjecture. |
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3rd November 2015, 07:21 PM | #489 |
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It is your bias, and your fellow posters, that create mountains out of molehills and then deny that what was posted was what was actually meant. It is wrong, and it is your lie.
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3rd November 2015, 07:28 PM | #490 |
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And your guess is meaningless as well as far off the mark as your repeated misrepresentation of what happened with those posts. At this point it is difficult to determine if you are simply blinded by self-righteousness or are being willfully deceitful.
Regarding your links, you presume a lot in thinking I have not looked at them. More importantly you miss the mark again by assuming that they support your claim mathematically. Here is the rub: even if those links are flawless in regard to their own ideas, none of them show math that supports yours. None of them. You are, of course, free to show me wrong by pointing to the math you claim is there. Do not give me links and tell me to read them unless you say specifically what and where in that link supports you. |
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3rd November 2015, 08:03 PM | #491 |
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I'm neither but consider that the source of this disagreement originates in the bigfoot threads and I believe it's self explanatory.
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Thanks to a kind poster in the Hubble Telescope thread, I now understand exactly why they interpret the equations the way they do because I actually read his links that were posted. I don't have the correct keys to type out the math but start with Einstein's theory of relativity. It does a great job describing what happens after the Big Bang but it fails to explain what caused it. Not only that, but everything continues to expand away from each other. Guth came along and proposed a theory that there is some kind of limitless fuel that is responsible for this continuous expansion. Ten years later a Nobel Prize was awarded to Mathers and Smoot for discovering the temperature variations that would be there if Guth's hypothesis was right. Not only was he right, but this eternal source of fuel/energy would, or could, be responsible for producing many other universes, or bubbles within bubbles. So how did the other galaxies affect each other in this universe? Surely they were slowing things down due to the push me/pull me affect of their own gravity. Not so, enter dark matter, it's supposedly causing everything to move outwards, and move faster rather than slower. Yet the math doesn't match the affect, so how to explain the infinite fuel source behind the Big Bang and dark matter? Alternate dimensions. At least that's what I got out of everything I've read over the years. Addendum= I was told that some physicist theorize that the universe is shaped like a banana, so picture a multiverse looking like a cluster of bananas hanging from a banana tree for one version. |
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3rd November 2015, 08:16 PM | #492 |
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Ask others about the bear paw as I was not involved, but I will give it a go:
A wet umbrella is better evidence for rain though I have not seen the rain than a a link to Freud is evidence that you have repressed memories. The rest of your post demonstrates my point perfectly: first, you claim that your dream-mother prophecy is actually supported by the math. When challenged, you retreat to the position that some other weird stuff is supported by math and you can personally conceive how your dream-mother can be shoe-horned into it, and then you act as if they are the same thing. You've got nothing, Jodie. |
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3rd November 2015, 08:21 PM | #493 |
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I did no such thing, I suggested that consciousness exists in multiple dimensions to demonstrate why I believe my dream was real. The premise was based on the research for consciousness related to AI by Tegmark and Song, and the multiverse theory, among other theories related to how psychology defines consciousness. That "weird stuff" is the reality we live in.
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3rd November 2015, 09:31 PM | #494 |
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3rd November 2015, 10:55 PM | #495 |
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4th November 2015, 02:20 AM | #496 |
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As Garrette noted, you have characterised my response as 'knee-jerk', whilst excusing yourself from the same designation by saying you give your responses a lot of thought and pick your words carefully to best express what you want to say.
Are you suggesting that I do not? You acknowledge that I have never insulted you, so why respond with what looks like an insult aimed at me? Moreover, being "snide" could also be construed as an insult. I cannot see that asking you to show what you consider to be knee-jerk responses is snide, so, again, why the insults? No, but it's possible for mathematicians to be mistaken. Especially if they are agenda-driven, evolution-denying Christian fundamentalist ones. Some discussion here of his claims. http://www.skeptiko-forum.com/thread...ver-will.2218/ Did you watch the video I linked to? It answers all of that. Was the Dark Ages a golden age of the scientific method? If not, why do you think this is in any way an apt comparison? The germ theory supplanted the miasma theory. This latter theory was supported by speculation. The germ theory, to quote Wikipedia, " gained widespread credence when substantiated by scientific discoveries of the 17th through the late 19th. century." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease So not only does germ theory not provide an example of the destruction of "decades of research, experiment, predictions and replicable results", as I asked you for, but it in fact provides a great example of why it is unwise to rely on speculation as a reliable guide to, or predictor or, reality. |
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4th November 2015, 07:48 AM | #497 |
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Jodie: it's the math.
Everyone: what math, exactly? Jodie: it's the general picture. Everyone: which is general bull. Jodie: but it's the math! |
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4th November 2015, 08:13 AM | #498 |
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Accurate, but I remain undecided whether it is intentional or not on Jodie's part. I lean toward thinking that she did not realize the muddled nature of her thinking until it was pointed out here, and now she is having difficulty accepting it.
Natheless, I debated whether to post this. Jodie accused me of not reading her links, and I did not respond. I have read most of her links. I even watched the rather silly Rob Bryanton "5th Dimension" youtube video. I admit I did not watch the hour-plus video she linked in the same post. As I read those, I wrote comments intending to post them should it become apparent it might help, but then I never posted my comments. Here they are now, belatedly: === From post 486 Article on summary of Song Newspaper account, not the actual paper, but okay; like you, I am probably incapable of following the actual math. Let’s take Song at his word as quoted in the article. He says “…the brain does not produce consciousness,” but the start of that sentence is “The brain and consciousness are linked together.” (Italics and bolding are mine) There is nothing in there to indicate a consciousness separate from brain that can then (a) invade the dreams of another consciousness and (b) make accurate prophecies. But let’s go one step further and in that way indicate – yet again – how you (a) waffle between positions and (b) do not understand the ideas you tout nearly so well as you think you do. Compare Song’s very direct claim that computers will never be able to model consciousness with the second link about Koch in post 460 below; the two are in direct opposition. === From post 460 Article on Scale Symmetry Please enlighten me on this. I fail to see any math that supports the idea of a consciousness-separate-from-brain capable of invading the dreams of another consciousness and thereby conveying an accurate prophecy. Other than that the idea of scale symmetry indicates the presence of particles which have been whimsically labeled “ghosts,” I see no tie in. I trust you can show me the math, though. Article on Christof Koch (Synchronistic aside: This is the second thread in a few months in which I have been presented with information by Koch; I had not heard of him prior to the other thread. Just as in that thread, the one presenting Koch in this thread is not demonstrating an understanding of what Koch says. Not that I really grasp it; Koch is obviously leagues beyond me, but I can tell when laymen misuse his ideas) But I’ll summarize here what I discussed in that earlier thread: Koch does not view consciousness as something separate from brain. He very clearly views it as an emergent property of systems. His unique take is simply that it is an emergent property of far more systems than generally acknowledged. There is, of course, more to it than that, but any attempt to read Koch as saying consciousness is separate from brain is doomed to fail. The failure is not averted by your word salad regarding “brain functions as a lens” in your post 439. === From post 344 Article on Tegmark and perceptronium Within the rather poor limitations of my ability to follow physics at all, I am somewhat of a Tegmark fan. I am not, however, a fan of those laymen who misrepresent him. Usually I think it is attributable to the limits of language. Distilling the highly esoteric language of advanced quantum wibbly wobbly stuff into terms that can not only be understood by laymen while limiting the misapplication of those terms is a risky business. That is what is happening here. Tegmark, like Koch, does not posit consciousness as something separate from matter, and his perceptronium is not an actual, physical liquid lurking in the dark recesses of your brain, magically giving awareness to your soul. Tegmark is in one sense unchaining the idea of consciousness, but in a larger sense – and this is the important sense that is missed here – he is constraining it. He is saying that if we analyze consciousness in the same manner in which we analyze matter, we can make it mathematically explicable. This is important, so I’ll say it another way: According to Tegmark, consciousness is not a free floating thing wafting between dimensions; rather, it can be explained just like physical matter. === From post 340 Robert Lanza Editorial Seriously? You turn to a medical doctor’s opinion piece without a single bit of research or math as an authority? Lanza is tremendously respectable, but his qualifications in this field are no greater than mine, and the article you link is full of word salad amounting to “Physics doesn’t allow for the soul, and I want it to, plus Observer Effect therefore soul.” I’m not being flippant; that is the sum and substance of this article, with one misleading exception. Lanza mentions the 2011 experiment “Quantum Interference of Large Organic Molecules,” yet he says nothing about how this leads to a conclusion of either (a) soul or (b) consciousness separate from brain. The reason he says nothing about it is because it does not lead to that. The experiment was extremely cool and surprising, but what it did was push the boundary between quantum and classical physics; it did not open the door to “Hah! Quantum means soul!” Durr Obituary I completely fail to see what in this link provides support for your claims. (There are at least three, each of which would require separate support as proving one would not prove the others: (1) consciousness is separate from brain (2) consciousness of a deceased person can invade the dreams of a living person (3) said consciousness of deceased person can make accurate prophecies). In fact, this link completely contradicts you. Read the ending quotation: “When I die, I have no more consciousness, but all that I have thought has been added to the background. As information it has mixed with the world mind, has influenced the whole and become part of it.” If you think that supports your claims, then I respectfully suggest you need to read it more carefully. |
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4th November 2015, 09:06 AM | #499 |
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Your idea comes from your interpretation of what you think the research in various fields says, as filtered through the preconceived result you're looking for. I'm afraid I can't see anything in your posts to suggest you've accurately understood current thinking in psychology, physics or AI, never mind managed to somehow link them all.
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4th November 2015, 10:43 AM | #500 |
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Indeed. "Speculation based on science" is a red herring. Faced with the dichotomy between science and speculation, Jodie seems to have invented some new thing that, I infer from context, has all the favorable properties of science (rigor, trustworthiness, etc.) and all the favorable properties of speculation (flexibility, scope, etc.). Simultaneously it requires none of the pesky obligations of science (proper method, evidence, etc.), and avoids all the pesky shortcomings of speculation (predictive and explanatory impotence).
It just doesn't work that way. First and most obvious, all speculation is "based on" something -- a set of facts, an observable outcome, a body of law. It starts from known properties and observables and imagines what else there could be. But that imagination is the point of departure from the original basis. A speculation based on law, for example, might start with an existing corpus of case law and attempt to apply it informally to some hypothetical or as-yet untried set of facts. Or it may imagine how law will evolve in the future, say, to accommodate polygamous marriage, or autonomous drone flying, or seemingly intelligent machines. Similarly scientific speculation starts with known scientific laws and imagines what other natural laws might exist, yet to be discovered. Touting the strength of one's departure point doesn't obviate the fact that one has departed it in order to speculate. You don't get to carry that strength with you everywhere your imagination might thereafter take you. Second, the scientific method and speculation are inherently, qualitatively, and fundamentally different things. There is no tenable centrist doctrine. Jodie insinuates she can take a red shade of science and a blue shade of speculation and mix them into a lovely violet shade of acceptable sciency-speculation. It's more accurate to say you can't take the dough of speculation and the trumpet of science and smoosh them together, expecting a cookie that plays mariachi music. Speculation does not and cannot have any sort of explanatory or predictive value. Those goals require the rigor that science provides, not the infinitely mutable nebula that defines speculation. And it can provide it only by trying specific, applicable evidence. Starting with a predetermined quod erat demonstrandum and drawing speculative lines between known science and what would need to hold in order to exclaim that QED is a quintessential loading of the dice. It's made only worse by imperfect knowledge of the departure point. None of that is in any way science, or even responsible speculation. |
4th November 2015, 01:39 PM | #501 |
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Indeed it's difficult (and usually pointless) to wonder why people are projecting, backpedaling, or trying to save face. It's usually sufficient to accept that, for whatever reason, those exercises are taking place and that they result in untenable arguments. We can then address the arguments on their face.
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What's important to realize from the contradiction you've identified is that Jodie's body of science, from which she plans to depart into speculation, is not the solid rock from which speculation can launch upon a productive course. Her speculation is not "based on science" but instead based on others' unproven speculation. As eminent as these scholars may be, they have reached opposing opinions on important points because they have proposed incongruent conceptual models and adopted different assumptions within them. The postulate of consciousness as finite closed system, albeit requiring quantum dynamics to describe (cf. Tegmark), would seem to sanction the potential of an automaton to incorporate that description. Song's denial is moot. A description of the behavior of a system is not necessarily a description of its operation. A model of a system, especially through sequential automata, rarely captures the operation; it focuses instead on behavior. An automated model would be no more an operative consciousness than the automaton from the film Hugo is conscious to the meaning of the picture it draws. Modeling something and being something are two qualitatively different things.
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First, I guess, "artificial intelligence" isn't this. Artificial intelligence is a set of reasonably well understood methods for creating automata that mimic to some useful degree the behavior of an intelligent being. It is no more equivalent to machine consciousness than organic intelligence is equivalent to organic consciousness. Specifically, artificial intelligence employs techniques pertinent to the vocabulary of large-scale Turing-style automata, that usually have no structural or procedural analogue in the human brain. For that reason, machine consciousness isn't really a thing. Among people who work with "intelligent" machines, the notion of whether they can have or model consciousness is almost entirely moot. It's relegated to science fiction. We already discussed modeling versus recreating. Tegmark's 2015 paper describes consciousness hypothetically as a finite, probabilistic state of matter. He specifically declines to prove the model. He merely states, based on a set of initial conjectures, what could and could not follow from them according to our current formulations of statistical physics. Notions of independence and autonomy bubble up through that formulation. He does not define the boundary of the system in connection with any of these. He merely discusses what could differentiate conscious matter from nonconscious matter without offering concrete examples. His finding regarding independence allows that a body of conscious matter must exhibit some degree of coherence and a degree of independence from its environment, but does not dictate it must be entirely independent. In fact, he argues that conscious matter cannot be perfectly independent. One might be tempted to map this in concrete terms to hypothetical concepts such as universal consciousness or transcendent consciousness. But that would greatly misrepresent Tegmark's intent. The author insinuates that dependence (or interdependence) in conscious matter is merely "environmental" without elucidation. There is nothing in the abstract principle of consciousness being affected by environmental factors that allows for or directs that those factors must be any sort of supernatural. Overall there is nothing in Tegmark's paper that would justify specific conjectures such as universal consciousness among living beings, consciousness being affected via means we don't presently know, conscious influence through some Hilbert-as-the-universe mumbo-jumbo (or any other multidimensional model of our universe, which he doesn't even touch), or temporal mechanics suggestive of prophecy. None of what Jodie proposes in her interpretation of her dream has the slightest support (or even, for that matter, mention) in Tegmark. |
4th November 2015, 04:13 PM | #502 |
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Thank you. You clearly understand these things to a greater degree than I do, but so far I'm able to follow. The highlighted bit is what I was trying to get at, too. A superficial reading of a non-scientist's restatement of Tegmark or Koch or even Song can easily lead a layman to think otherwise, i.e., to think that consciousness is separate from matter and can traverse dimensions (not trivially including time). But such a reading betrays itself and indicates that the layman's understanding really is one of headlines and chapter headings perhaps sprinkled with catchy new-age internet memes. They are seductive.
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4th November 2015, 04:42 PM | #503 |
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Yes, it bears additional underscoring.
Tegmark's original paper does all its work in Hilbert space. That's not inappropriate, because what can be proven to work for Hilbert space works in all subspaces, by definition, including Euclidean space and the conceptual vector spaces Tegmark invokes to model the various properties he postulates for consciousness. Proofs in Hilbert space are messy, but powerful. But that's just an artifact of the author's approach. The upshot is that the "many dimensions" that create the nastiness of those proofs have absolutely zero to do with "dimensions" in Jodie's speculation. It's just the same word used in different connotations. |
4th November 2015, 04:49 PM | #504 |
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uh.....I completely understand what Hilbert space is. And those conceptual vector spaces, too. No, really. I do.
stop laughing |
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4th November 2015, 05:05 PM | #505 |
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No one laughs when talking about vector calculus. But the point is that it's easy for new-age claimants to point to some impressive-looking agglomeration of complicated mathematics that they themselves do not really understand, and insinuate that something in it allows their beliefs to be a rational possibility. The gambit is that their critics either don't understand it themselves and therefore cannot rebut, or that they cannot explain the rebuttal in unequivocal terms.
You had the right answer the first time. Vague references to complicated math do not automatically vindicate every fringe theory whose proponent makes the reference. |
4th November 2015, 05:39 PM | #506 |
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Agreed.
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5th November 2015, 01:24 AM | #507 |
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Thank you both JayUtah and Garrette. You raise the tone and keep failing courage alive.
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5th November 2015, 02:18 AM | #508 |
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Nah, they're just knee-jerk, emotive responses.
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5th November 2015, 02:19 AM | #509 |
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5th November 2015, 02:26 AM | #510 |
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5th November 2015, 10:04 AM | #511 |
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Very, very well put!
From which the below bears repeating: "... new-age claimants to point to some impressive-looking agglomeration of complicated mathematics that they themselves do not really understand, and insinuate that something in it allows their beliefs to be a rational possibility. ..." |
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5th November 2015, 10:51 AM | #512 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I wanted to expand upon this a bit more. Not that you'll suddenly understand Tegmark. But you may understand why he did it.
This started out in my head as an elementary essay on linear algebra. But as that tends to make people drowsy, I'll just try to provide clarity and a few examples. We tend to teach linear algebra either by introducing Euclidean space as an intuitive example of a vector space (which then limits abstract use) or by relentless use of notation. I've never been a fan of introducing mathematical concepts by first defining the notation and then expecting people to grok the concepts as you scribble the notation out. It's like teaching someone an entirely new language in the morning and then expecting them to appreciate poetry written in it by afternoon. Euclidean space is simply our three-dimensional world. We measure it according to three orthogonal axes corresponding to height, width, and depth. The component measurements along each of those axes constitute a vector in the space. Vectors are to a vector space what plain old numbers are to the number line. (The number line is also a vector space, but we haven't caffeinated enough for that.) Numbers on a line have operations (addition, multiplication, etc.) and an algebra (well-behaved symbolic manipulation of expressions composed of those operators). Those give rise to functions (uniform mappings of some values on the line to other values on the line), and then a calculus (well-behaved symbolic manipulation of the functions). All this creates a powerful set of tools for describing how quantities behave, that we represent with those numbers. Ditto vectors. They have operations, an algebra, and a calculus. By describing our world as a Euclidean vector space, we can use those tools to reason about the geometry of our world -- the actual real-world geometry, such as how much gravel do I need to buy to cover my driveway. But that's only one example of a useful vector space. For most of us it's by far the most useful one. But we can represent with a vector quite a number of things where a data element is composed of two or more related values. We consider these "conceptual" vector spaces because they don't always work in intuitive Euclidean ways. In control system design, we often consider a 2-dimensional vector space where the first coordinate is the "error," or how much the measured variable differs from the desired value. The second coordinate is how fast it's changing. If you then visualize it as a 2-D coordinate system, error is the x-axis and error rate is the y-axis. Every state of the system can be plotted as a point on that graph. The system is stable if its current state is close enough to the origin to make you happy. We then use the mathematics of vectors to reason about the effects of inputs to the system, and to investigate its behavior over time as paths through that 2-D space. Quantum mechanics is one of the sciences whose interesting values are best expressed as vectors. Not literal Euclidean vectors, of course. Not spatial vectors. Purely conceptual vectors. We speak of the multiverse having 11 dimensions. That doesn't mean literally 11 mutually orthogonal spatial dimensions, so put away your copy of Flatland. Like our control system example above, the coordinates are related and congruent but not identical in meaning. A variable and its time derivative are certainly related, but not identical concepts. So most of the investigation and reasoning with respect to quantum mechanics is done in various conceptual vector spaces. Then we can use vector and matrix operations to write expressions that describe how we believe the system behaves that is described by vectors in the space. We do it symbolically (algebraically). I threw out the term "orthogonal" above. In Euclidean terms, it simply means right angles. Height is completely at right angles to width and depth. I can change my height without changing either one of the other two. An example of non-orthogonality would be trying to adjust the shower temperature when you have only the two hot and cold knobs, and your vector space is composed of temperature and flow rate. You turn up the hot knob, and yes you get hotter water but the flow rate also increases. Conceptually, "the hot knob" corresponds to only one of the coordinates in Shower space (temperature). In order to change only of the coordinates in Shower space (either temperature or quantity) while leaving the other alone, we have to manipulate both knobs. That makes it nonorthogonal. Lots of vector spaces we use productively are not orthogonal. Math to determine which coordinates are relatively independent and which aren't help us understand how a system behaves. Specifically, Tegmark uses one of those to determine what a vector-described quantum system would have to look like in order to be considered an independent system (i.e., one of his criteria for consciousness). So who is this guy Hilbert? The vector spaces we have discussed so far have finite dimensionality. The real numbers are a (now boring) 1-dimensional space. Euclidean space has 3 dimensions, and we find the 2-dimensional restricted subspace of it to be highly useful in practice too. Our conventional control system has 2 dimensions. Because there is a limited number of dimensions, most of the operations we do on them exist in closed form: equations where you plug in the values of the vectors and a determined answer emerges via simple arithmetic. At worst, you have a system where you have to repeat the same operation on each coordinate. Hilbert space is the generalization of vector spaces to infinite dimensions, with certain restrictions on the operations you can do in it. It has the very helpful property in that all conceivable vector spaces that apply to a given problem (let's say, oh, quantum mechanics) are contained within the Hilbert space and obey all the same rules regardless of dimensionality. What can be proven for a given Hilbert space must hold for all its subspaces. It has the very annoying property of being infinitely composed and therefore not susceptible to simple closed forms or finite iteration. Once you've been beaten over the head enough by various branches of mathematics, you realize that once you start talking about infinite compositions, you're into calculus. Among other things, calculus lets us convert repeated sequences of discrete operations (e.g., do this for the x-coordinate, then the y-coordinate, then the z-coordinate,...) into one transformed algebraic form. Therefore techniques in vector math that are simple with a finite number of dimensions become more complicated as you introduce the calculus, which requires eigenvectors, eigenvalues, and increasingly more esoteric mathematical credit cards by which you expend simplicity in order to gain power. But that's why Tegmark goes there. He doesn't solve just one incarnation of the quantum mechanics problem in terms of what he wants to know; he solves all possible incarnations of it. In the math world (and also the physics world), solving a problem in its most generalized state is preferred. It means a solution that has maximum value, but you have to know quite a lot about the underlying math to see exactly what it proves and how. |
5th November 2015, 11:10 AM | #513 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Thanks. That did help, though probably not as much as you'd hoped for the effort. Remind me some time to tell you about my advanced math placement experience as an undergrad.
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5th November 2015, 12:59 PM | #514 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Thanks. There's an insidious rhetorical dialogue in a lot of new-age argumentation, some of which has occurred here.
Imagine one of your employees comes to you and asks for a raise. "Why do you think you deserve a raise?" you ask. "Because this teddy bear," says the employee. And he places a stuffed bear on your desk triumphantly. You think for a moment, trying to discover the rational connection between the teddy bear and the request. But of course there isn't any. And you say so. "Sorry, nothing about that teddy bear affirms that you're entitled to a raise." Unsatisfied, the employee retorts, "But nothing about the bear prevents me from having a raise, right?" Irrelevancy is just that. It neither affirms nor denies. But the amphibolistic about-face has the rhetorical effect of shifting the presumptions of relevancy in a way that seems convincing without being at all probative. It's a clevery-disguised complex question. What the employee really says is: "Here is a bear. It is relevant to the question. Specifically, it affirms my right to a raise." If you mistakenly rebut only the conclusion, then the premise still hangs there -- unproven but tacitly accepted ("The bear is relevant, but you are not entitled to a raise."). The proper answer is, "The bear is irrelevant." The justification for a raise must begin anew, with an entirely different set of premises. The proper answer here is that most of the speculative works to which Jodie has alluded are simply irrelevant to her proposition. They neither support nor deny her claim, because that's what it means to be irrelevant. But by her entry of them into evidence, she has floated the axiom that they are relevant. And if they're taken as relevant, then their lack of denial seems somewhat probative. What of those that are relevant, even perhaps marginally so? Let's change the thought experiment. Your employee asks for a raise as before, but instead justifies it with, "I think my work here merits a raise." There you go -- that's a rational connection. But with a tip of the hat to Garrette's observation, let's say this summit followed a lengthy discussion between the employee and his wife, coworkers, and other members of the industry. And let's say that conversation built the employee's esteem to the point of submitting it for more impartial judgment. Emboldened by praise from his peers, he stands before you now with a syllogistically valid argument and a belief about the data. "Well, let's talk about that," you say. You pull up his attendance records and note that he arrives late and leaves early frequently, and takes many days off at short notice. You see that his customer satisfaction rating is about average, and that his work products are susceptible to a high rate of required rework. "Based on what I'm seeing here, you don't merit a raise." Some things just don't mean what we think they mean, and sometimes we just aren't as adept according to some relevant set of metrics as we believe in our hearts subjectively. Things that appear relevant, such as coworker praise or family encouragement, aren't necessarily the standards that really matter. The employee can either respond emotionally, or he can try to understand what the standards are and why. |
6th November 2015, 12:31 AM | #515 |
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Non sequiturs, at base. A shower of shinola, thinly coated in ersatz sci-fi, forms the backdrop to a plea from hidden motives for us to board the fancy train and freewheel.
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"If I hadn't believed it with my own mind, I would never have seen it." - thanks sackett "If you stand on a piece of paper, you are indeed closer to the moon." - MRC_Hans "I was a believer. Until I saw it." - Magrat |
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6th November 2015, 02:53 PM | #516 |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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6th November 2015, 02:58 PM | #517 |
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If you don't understand the science behind the statement then it wouldn't make sense to you. Go back and read what Tegmark and Song had to say about consciousness and what indications we have here in our 4D world that multiple dimensions exist. After that, I think you'll understand where my speculation starts.
You are welcome to believe whatever you want to believe about my dream but it did happen. I have no reason to make up anything. I like my idea but whether or not I have it right remains to be seen. |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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6th November 2015, 03:02 PM | #518 |
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"When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone, I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb. " Pink Floyd |
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6th November 2015, 03:20 PM | #519 |
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6th November 2015, 03:21 PM | #520 |
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