: I think this has to be the longest-running Asylum
: conversation ever, but what the hell, here's to
: spawning a new thread of it...
Heh, here here. I love UBB, but it can get hard to read when stretched out. It's still better than anything else, and this is physically my favorite forum :-).
Oh, btw, I'm back! I have a cable now, and my connection is great! :-) Woo! Look for Archer's Quiver »–)› on bnet :-).
: On the subject of a real, physical world, and the mental
: perception of it, I am of the persuasion that humans
: are rather complex systems of matter and energy, which
: happen to have the unique trait of being able to model
: other systems, existant or non-existant, within
: itself.
I'm following.
: Other, less complex systems - the rest of the animal
: kingdom, and pretty much anything with any kind of
: sensors - can also do this to a limited degree. Humans
: are fairly unique, as far as we can tell, in the
: ability to model non-sensory information within
: ourselves. We can imagine things that don't exist, or
: things which we think may exist but can't directly
: perceive ourselves.
Yeah, that's right. We most likely have come along this line due to that we have gained the time and surplus energy to think about more complex and less mundane things. Having extra food or resources is what allows any civilization to grow and expand quickly, which is one factor which allowed such huge differences between the Occident and the Americas.
: We also use a nifty little modelling process we call math
: to quantify certain aspects of the systems we are
: modelling, and thus more accurately model these other
: systems, or model systems that could not be usefully
: modelled any other way. But most of the time, since we
: are designed to model things in formats akin to the
: information we get from our senses, we ultimately
: translate the results of our models back into a
: "physical" meaning of them. Math or
: "concepts" don't ultimately matter - math is
: just a concept, that we use to model certain systems
: that cannot be effectively modelled otherwise. But
: then math itself is rather difficult for us to render
: in our minds as meaningfull information, so we
: ultimately translate it back to more
: "abstract" concepts.
Agreed on this too. Math is merely a tool of ours to describe and analyze the physical world. It's certainly not more important than what really exists.
: There is a "physical", distinct universe out
: there, but we cannot seeing it. Or rather, we are
: seeing it, and hearing it, and otherwise perceiving
: it, and that's the problem - the nature of existance
: is not a subset of our system, a memory or model in
: our minds, and so we can't simply KNOW what is. The
: only way we could would be if it were a smaller part
: of us, as though we were God.
That's wonderful proof that we're not imagining the universe, more that it's imagining us. We're an aspect of the universe, and the universe is what created us, and therefore we are what tries to explore and understand this nature around us.
: So we must perceive it, or cause other things, scientific
: instruments and such, to perceive it and then
: incorporate that information by observing them.
: The problem is, other things can also effect our models.
: Innacurate math in models where that is being used,
: flawed translation back into "tangible"
: conceptual models, imagination, drug, or other mental
: modelling induced by non-sensory information... or, if
: we want to get sci-fi, someone feeding inaccurate
: information into our senses or directly into our
: brains, ala The Matrix and all its kin.
Yeah, neither math nor our interpretations of it are perfect.
: So for the most part, we CAN try to "perceive"
: the physical universe, if we can rule out bad
: equations, sloppy transliteration of them to the
: perceptable systems in question, people's wild
: imaginations, drug-induced hallucinations, or the
: mind-slavery of a race of malicious artificial
: intelligences.
Nice wording.
: Most of the time, as far as we know, we're not
: hallucinating, dreaming, or having false senses fed to
: us (though you can never actually tell, kinda by
: definition, but then it just comes down to having to
: accept that seeing, within reason, is believing).
Agreed.
: If
: we can control our imaginations, as most professionals
: can, then we can rule out that we "made it
: up". Transliteration to sensory formats of data
: is useful for humans to understand what it is exactly
: that they're predicting, but there is no actual
: "right" or "wrong" model, so long
: as it maps accurately enough to the variables used in
: the equations.
: For most of modern physics, we've got all of the above
: hammered out and straight, occasionally creating new
: perceptual models to fit the new quantitive,
: mathematic models. And now it's mostly just down to
: getting the values right, figuring out how much of x
: is added to attribute y of system z when ABC happens.
Yeah, I feel we happen to be on the edge of something important.
: So, to coin a phrase: "Nobody KNOWS anything. We're
: just getting better and better at guessing."
I suppose…this is also something to realize within reason. To exactitude, no.
: (To Archer, and his dropped-ball experiment: no, you
: don't know what is going to happen to the ball. You
: don't even KNOW what the ball is. You have a model in
: your mind of the ball and other sensory data, and can
: model a 99.99_% accurate simulation of the results
: that will come to be when you perform the action of
: dropping it. I leave that infinitesimal chance that
: your model of the ball falling is wrong because you're
: not modelling the entire universe, and blue-sky
: lightning could come down and destroy your bedroom for
: all you know. Besides, 99.99_% is still giving you a
: lot, because you're not modelling EXACTLY what will
: happen down to the finest level, and when it gets down
: to the quantum level, you couldn't gather enough data
: to get 99.99% accurrate even with the most advanced
: scientific instruments).
Ah, but with that example, I was developing a simple physical model. Based on everything we know, and going to such realistic basics as Newtonian Physics, the ball will hit the floor. I was also demonstrating that, believing that my room is a closed system and everything within it is understood at a macrocosmic level, the ball will be known to hit the floor because the predicts will be right every time. Sili was contradicting this, so I agrued against it.
In reality, however, there are such oddities and anomolies that fall outside of the range of predictability. I am not denying that. That's why there is still much to discover :-).
