Time really began when there was someone to notice it. Was there a universe before there was sentient life? Who knows? I don't.
Intelligent Design and Intelligence Denial
- Thread starter s_lone
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Time really began when there was someone to notice it. Was there a universe before there was sentient life? Who knows? I don't.
That's where I have a hard time wrapping my brain around how life or anything began.
Whom is supposed to be looking for whom?
If/when we start exploring space are we looking for more advanced places or less advanced? If we had a choice that is.
Even at our current limit of knowledge, it is certain that our own star has a finite life-span. Granted any change is a long time coming but we know we are toast if things continue on the present course, in this case the passage of time. So do our future sons and daughters fix the sun or move out of it's way? One choice will be the more intelligent choice as only one choice might be 'do-able'. If everybody leaves it to the 'next generation' and it never gets done could we have ever classified ourselves as being intelligent?
We almost seem to be too delicate to have long expectations of survival as an 'highly advanced' species. A few degrees warmer or colder, some calamity that interferes with our food supply and we are back at square one, survival being much the same as it was back when stone was our very best tool.
So where is the mind? What a fascinating question...
I guess the typical modern scientific view is to see the mind as an emerging property of the brain. No brain=no mind. In that view, mental activity is an extremely complex product of physical interactions of matter and energy... According to my understanding of this materialist view of the mind, I don't see any way how the mind can be free of mechanistic and/or probabilistic determinism. Being a result of matter, then the mind can only be a slave to matter and its laws...
It can be useful to compare the brain to a computer. Does the computer have a mind? As human beings, we are tempted to say ''no'' because we view a computer as a machine that completely obeys what we know of the laws of physics. But what exactly IS the difference between the computer and our brain? Can the differences only be measured in terms of complextity? Is the brain simply an incredibly complex computer made of biological matter? Or does the brain possess or have access to something that the computer does not?
Comparing the brain to a computer can be tricky, especially in a thread about intelligent design... Because we all know a computer was designed by a human mind. Does it follow that the brain is intelligently designed? One could argue that natural selection can totally explain how the brain came to exist in its current form, and that there is and never was any form of 'intelligence' factor behind the process; that it's all just physics at work...
But once again, I find that limiting our understanding of the mind to being something that is merely the result of brain chemistry puts us in a situation where we are forced to say that logically, there is absolutely nothing in our mind that is authentically free. All the decisions we make, the actions we take, they are ALL the result of brain chemistry... In that view aren't we utterly and totally determined by mechanistic and probabilistic principles? If there is a way out of this, someone needs to show it to me!
Now all that being said, I personally tend to see the Universe as something that is more than just its apparent physical manifestation. While I don't have any fixed beliefs on that issue, I tend to contemplate the idea that there might very well be a realm of 'mental' events. The Platonic notion of pure forms and essences is, I guess, a good foundation for this view of the world...
Again, you could ask me ''where is this mental world of ideas, forms and essences? What is it made of?''
I'd have a hard time answering those questions... But I can certainly ask more questions!
What is wisdom made of? How about dignity?
What is justice made of?
What is a poem made of?
What is Beethoven's 9th made of?
There are answers to these questions, but aren't we always confronted to complete and total abstraction? Are we to say that wisdom, dignity and justice are precise brain configurations that are present in all the brains that use those 'terms'... Or are we to say that wisdom, dignity and justice are simply what they are... wisdom, dignity and justice... and that the brain somehow has the capacity to tune into these abstract and wholly mental concepts. One could argue that wisdom, dignity and justice are human creations... that they don't have any existence outside of the human mind... But what about things such as circles, numbers, equations, angles? Are all these concepts merely a sub-creation of brain chemistry? Or are these concepts grounded in a reality that is independant from the reality of the brain.?
I can go even further...
What is information made of?
What is a structure made of?
The concept of 'structure' is very abstract. I'm not talking about 'structure' in the sense of a buildings physical foundation. I'm talking about 'structure' in the sense of a buildings design.
Surely we can't say that 'structure' and 'information' are merely inventions of the human mind! In that case, that would mean that if humanity was to disappear, there would be no more structure and information in the universe!
I'd rather think that 'structure' and 'information' are things that have a concrete existence, despite their wholly abstract nature.
At this point I guess I can reveal my view of all this. It is a view that is not fixed in time but always in transformation of course. I tend to think there is the explicit and the implicit. The explicit is the physical manifestation of the world. The implicit is the mental reality that underlies and supports this physical reality. I don't see these two worlds as being disconnected but rather as being 2 sides of the same coin.
So if you ask me where the mind is and if I am to be coherent with my set of beliefs (which can change), I will tell you that I believe the mind to be everywhere. Because with no mind, there is no reality... MY mind is obviously crystallised in and around my body and brain. But my mind exists in a larger mental 'mindscape'.
You're absolutely right that whatever reality is, the philosophical issue of free will versus determinism always seems to be in the way. I just can't get around it despite all my woo woo speculations!
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Late at night and I've got places to go (like my bed), so I can't give you a long thoughtful reply at the moment s_lone. But I think you're confusing some terminology. It doesn't make sense to talk about deterministic probability, it's an oxymoron. The essential indeterminacy at the heart of quantum theory appears to be uncaused. The theory does limit the possible outcomes, it's not true that anything can happen, just as it's not true that only one thing can happen. Several things can happen, and which one actually happens appears to have no cause. We can, for example, predict statistically that half of a sample of some radioactive substance will decay into something else in a known period of time called the half life, and that prediction is 100% reliable, it always happens, no exceptions have ever been observed. What we can't do is predict which atoms of that substance will decay at a particular moment, and it appears that such prediction is inherently impossible. The best we can say of a particular atom is there's a 50% probability that it will decay within one half life.
An idea that's always caught my fancy is this: physical reality, whatever it is, is not remotely what your unaided senses would tell you it is. We know that both quantum theory and general relativity are incomplete in some sense, because they're fundamentally inconsistent, so there's at least one more layer of reality that subsumes them both that we haven't figured out yet. Personally I'm inclined to think there are many more layers, that reality is fractal, in the sense that it'll display the same degree of complexity no matter what scale we inspect it at.
An idea that's always caught my fancy is this: physical reality, whatever it is, is not remotely what your unaided senses would tell you it is. We know that both quantum theory and general relativity are incomplete in some sense, because they're fundamentally inconsistent, so there's at least one more layer of reality that subsumes them both that we haven't figured out yet. Personally I'm inclined to think there are many more layers, that reality is fractal, in the sense that it'll display the same degree of complexity no matter what scale we inspect it at.
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I understand what you're saying... Actually not quite, because I'd lie if I said I understand quantum physics. But I understand your point that 'deterministic probablity' is an oxymoron...
Late at night indeed and while I do have things to say on that issue, I'm too pooped to do so... I'll try to come back to that later on...
This is what's so fun with virtual discussions... Time is practically not an obstacle.
I'm kind of surprised to read that Dexter because most of the times, our philosphical views are very different and this 'fractal reality' is an idea that I contemplate a lot.
Music being a central part of my life, I often think in musical terms... I tend to see music as a fractal-like expression of time.
Almost all parameters of music are related to frequency because music unfolds through time... tone, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, texture, dynamics... you name it...
Audible tones are between roughly 20 Hz and 20Khz.
If you slow down frequency to a range between roughly 0,5 Hz and 20Hz, it is percieved as rhythm.
What if you slow down even more? Basically you get parameters of music such as dynamics and structure. A musical piece lasting 5 minutes and having a bell-like structure (soft becoming loud and going back to soft) is doing so under a frequency of 0,00333 Hz... A cycle of the frequency is completed in 5 minutes...
Most pieces have structures that are much more complex... What is fascinating is that if you take an audio recording of a musical piece and accelerate greatly and loop it, the musical parameters shift... The structure of the whole piece becomes a textured tone that can very well be used in another musical piece... a larger structure...
In other words... Fractals are very groovy!
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I don't think there is anything wrong with woo-woo speculation insofar as it is carefully guarded against wish thinking. Dexter spoke about the half life of a radioactive substance; it is clearly demonstrated that there are three possibilities: we don't really know what it is or there is more to them than we know or both (the one I favour).
So regarding woo-woo I would quote Albert Einstein, "The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mysterious. It is the power of all true science."
Now, you asked:
What is wisdom made of? How about dignity?
What is justice made of?
What is a poem made of?
What is Beethoven's 9th made of?
What is information made of?
What is a structure made of?
I would like to start by saying that the human mind is a pattern seeking device. We see patterns everywhere and it is always what we first see. It is also what we tend to focus on. The magician knows that if he can avoid making a pattern then he can deceive us and thus create magic, or likewise, he can create a pattern so we don't see what he is really doing. It can not be stressed enough how much we rely on pattern for our thought and perceptions. It is true to say that if there isn't a pattern of a thing then the thing can not be seen by us. Any kind of pattern like a shape or texture is required for us to see it and be able to think about it. In this way the human mind is extremely limited.
What is a pattern though? It is symmetry and that is definitely a mental construct one that we both seek out and one in which we think. So in this way it is very easy for us to assume that because we see symmetry that it is all around us. Also it is easy for us to think mathematics is some innate woo-woo of the universe because it works whenever we apply it to whatever we can see or know, but mathematics is the music of symmetry! It must work on everything we observe. If we can't observe something and find the symmetry then we won't be able to see it. We might see parts and bits but we won't see the whole item. We are not capable of seeing it.
Naturally this can lead someone to speculate that the universe comes from us or even that we are capable of explaining the universe but that simply isn't the case. We are too limited.
So, what I mean specifically is:
What is wisdom made of?
It is the pattern of learned knowledge that works for us, acquired through experience or education that once applied gives symmetry to our lives.
How about dignity?
Dignity is the application of pattern that we ourselves and possibly those around us respect.
What is justice made of?
Justice is the symmetry created by patterns of social order. Often what seems just to one man doesn't to another. A king might think it is just to slay a man that would topple his throne whereas his people might think it justice if it is toppled. Since the population is the larger pattern we naturally think that is justice since placating the larger group brings the greatest symmetry.
What is a poem made of?
It is the symmetry and pattern of words. It really gets our notice as should be expected.
What is Beethoven's 9th made of?
Scales of notes designed with a symmetry that when played in any octave is instantly recognizable. The 9th is a particularly beautiful working of that symmetry into greater and larger patterns of symmetry. Like poetry this tends to really get our notice.
What is information made of?
It is patterns of data (that is, small symmetries) that we can understand and have meaning to us. A TV tuned to a dead channel is information we can't understand and that lacks meaning.
What is a structure made of?
Stuff, but we only see it when it has a discernible pattern. We don't see things unless they have structure.
So my point is that things may exist that we can't see. Actually it is very probable that it does. I will even go on the record and say they absolutely do! Is that woo-woo? Sure, why not?
I'll explain how I discovered this. When I was a teenager I had a cat that whenever I played Def Leopard he would come and place his head right up against the speaker and purr. He would kneed his claws and drool. Now it was pretty obvious he was enjoying the music. If I put on Cindy Lauper, Micheal Jackson or the 9th symphony (speculation on my part as I never tried that) he would look at me and run off. I did this over and over again because it fascinated me and I liked the strange look he would give me (disgust?) but I thought it was funny. When I got older I heard the debate about animal intelligence and scientists claiming that animals had non; some said maybe they did but only a little. Ha! I thought. They never met my cat. He liked music and what better possible measure of intelligence could there be?
So I got to thinking. We are surrounded by all these animals that scientists say aren't very intelligent but why do they think that? It occurred to me that they didn't see that animals aren't interested in the same things they are nor do animals have the same sense of pattern and symmetry. An animal that wakes its master because of a house fire will be called a hero and even "smart little dog" because for a brief instant the dog perceived a threat and conceived of a solution that we were in agreement with. After that he was off to sniff bums (his primary interest). So what makes people think about and do the things they do? Is it because it interests them; that they see patterns and symmetry in a particular way? I think so.
No wonder a group of chimps seem so savage to us. They have different interests and a different sense of symmetry. Dogs seem less so but isn't that just because their sense of justice, order and society (patterns and symmetry) is slightly similar to ours? I think so, but a group of birds look like a flock and a colony of ants look like a hive, though they behave differently as individuals than as a group we still say they are unintelligent! How could an ant judge us, or a dog, or a bird? Wouldn't we just look like a large group of hairless beasts that as groups made some remarkable things but we can't smell when it has made a "mistake" behind the couch (how dumb is that?) and we have a most unsophisticated disinterest in other peoples bums!
For the record: I am not suggesting animals are as smart as us but they are a lot smarter than we know.
So there is an example of something hiding in plain sight that we can't see simply because of who and what we are.
I will even make a prediction. Studies in animal intelligence will make a breakthrough when it is discovered animals have a different sense of symmetry and see patterns differently than we do. I'm not talking about different sense perceptions but the actual way they process pattern and symmetry.
They live in their own little worlds and so do we. There is an awful lot going on around us that we can't see IMO and to anything except us we look pretty damn stupid.
Sorry again for the long post.
BTW, my cat also liked megadeath.
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Thank you Scott Free for your post...
Lots of interesting stuff in there... Your hard core rock lovin' cat example made me think of something I observed on 2 young dogs I used to have...
The dogs were about 5 or 6 months old and I was listening to beat-based electronic music (a lovely band named Boards of Canada)... Unsurprisingly, the dogs were totally indifferent to the music.
Anyway, that band uses a lot of weird samples in their music and at one moment of a particular tune, you distinctively hear the sound of a loon. As soon as that sound was heard, the young dogs both raised their heads, ears straight up, eyes filled with interest. The very first time they heard that particular tune, their reaction was strong, instantaneous and quite impressive. That made me realize these dogs were totally hard-wired to response to that particular type of sound. As you would probably say, they heard in that sound a pattern and some form of symmetry that was very meaningful to them.
What was striking is that being young and having grown in a very urban environment, I just know these dogs had never heard the sound of a loon before.
I certainly agree animals are smarter than we usually give them credit for. It would be absolutely fascinating for humanity to ultimately come into contact with intelligent extra-terrestrials because for once, we might be facing beings smarter than us... It could be scary too... Because they could very well be more technologically advanced then us and percieve us as being as 'stupid' as we find monkeys or dogs... In that case, we could very well become just a useful resource to them...
Coming back closer to the original subject, here is a little thought experiment concerning Beethoven's 9th.
Imagine Beethoven had written his 9th in a complete anonymous position... No one had ever heard any of his musical material except himself... So Beethoven decides to write down a complete score of the symphony and puts it in a safe.
But then one day, a chandelier falls on his head and his brain is damaged forever... he forgets that he ever composed the 9th symphony and he even forgets about the safe where the score is hidden...
So at that point we can ask: ''Where is Beethoven's 9th if it's not in his brain anymore and if nobody ever heard it?'' One could argue the 9th is in the safe, written on paper with ink. But in the end, all that is really in the safe is just paper and ink. Are we to say Beethoven's 9th is paper and ink? I don't think so, because his symphony could as well be stored digitally on a CD-rom locked in a safe, without anybody aware of it... Surely Beethoven's 9th is not a series of 0s and 1s...
What seems to come out of this thought experiment is that in the end, Beethoven's 9th is a relatively abstract set of patterns organized in a very precise way. These patterns can be stored as data in many different ways (on paper, in our brains, on a CD-ROM or an audio CD) but the medium doesn't become Beethoven's 9th... It only shapes itself in a way that the patterns appropriate to the 9th are reproducible through space and time...
This can lead to the not-so-surprising conclusion that Beethoven's 9th can be in many places at once... As it is today...
Heck, if aliens have really been visiting us since 1947, Beethoven's 9th might even be on some distant planet! Could these aliens understand it though? Would the patterns be meaningful to them?
Where I'm getting at is that if information and data can be in more than one place at once, doesn't it show that abstract patterns don't follow the same set of rules as concrete matter? It's probably true that information stored as data through a physical medium can't travel faster than the speed of light, but could it be possible that pure information in the form of pure patterns can? Perhaps patterns can travel instantaneously...???
Lots of interesting stuff in there... Your hard core rock lovin' cat example made me think of something I observed on 2 young dogs I used to have...
The dogs were about 5 or 6 months old and I was listening to beat-based electronic music (a lovely band named Boards of Canada)... Unsurprisingly, the dogs were totally indifferent to the music.
Anyway, that band uses a lot of weird samples in their music and at one moment of a particular tune, you distinctively hear the sound of a loon. As soon as that sound was heard, the young dogs both raised their heads, ears straight up, eyes filled with interest. The very first time they heard that particular tune, their reaction was strong, instantaneous and quite impressive. That made me realize these dogs were totally hard-wired to response to that particular type of sound. As you would probably say, they heard in that sound a pattern and some form of symmetry that was very meaningful to them.
What was striking is that being young and having grown in a very urban environment, I just know these dogs had never heard the sound of a loon before.
I certainly agree animals are smarter than we usually give them credit for. It would be absolutely fascinating for humanity to ultimately come into contact with intelligent extra-terrestrials because for once, we might be facing beings smarter than us... It could be scary too... Because they could very well be more technologically advanced then us and percieve us as being as 'stupid' as we find monkeys or dogs... In that case, we could very well become just a useful resource to them...
Coming back closer to the original subject, here is a little thought experiment concerning Beethoven's 9th.
Imagine Beethoven had written his 9th in a complete anonymous position... No one had ever heard any of his musical material except himself... So Beethoven decides to write down a complete score of the symphony and puts it in a safe.
But then one day, a chandelier falls on his head and his brain is damaged forever... he forgets that he ever composed the 9th symphony and he even forgets about the safe where the score is hidden...
So at that point we can ask: ''Where is Beethoven's 9th if it's not in his brain anymore and if nobody ever heard it?'' One could argue the 9th is in the safe, written on paper with ink. But in the end, all that is really in the safe is just paper and ink. Are we to say Beethoven's 9th is paper and ink? I don't think so, because his symphony could as well be stored digitally on a CD-rom locked in a safe, without anybody aware of it... Surely Beethoven's 9th is not a series of 0s and 1s...
What seems to come out of this thought experiment is that in the end, Beethoven's 9th is a relatively abstract set of patterns organized in a very precise way. These patterns can be stored as data in many different ways (on paper, in our brains, on a CD-ROM or an audio CD) but the medium doesn't become Beethoven's 9th... It only shapes itself in a way that the patterns appropriate to the 9th are reproducible through space and time...
This can lead to the not-so-surprising conclusion that Beethoven's 9th can be in many places at once... As it is today...
Heck, if aliens have really been visiting us since 1947, Beethoven's 9th might even be on some distant planet! Could these aliens understand it though? Would the patterns be meaningful to them?
Where I'm getting at is that if information and data can be in more than one place at once, doesn't it show that abstract patterns don't follow the same set of rules as concrete matter? It's probably true that information stored as data through a physical medium can't travel faster than the speed of light, but could it be possible that pure information in the form of pure patterns can? Perhaps patterns can travel instantaneously...???
My parents have a huge HD projection TV with the proper frames a minute that dogs can see the images. They routinely play nature shows for their dog and she'll sit and watch one for an hour or more. She seems to really enjoy them if they are about dogs and wolves (she regularly watches the Dog Whisperer which my parents record for her). Anyway she is half coyote, I don't know if that is significant. My dog couldn't care less about the TV but does react to the sounds. One documentary the coyote watched was about wolves. In the show they had a group of coyotes that were hunting for mice in the snow. They would hop around listening for mice and when they caught one would throw it in the air and eat it. My parents dog immediately after watching the show started some odd behaviour that she hadn't exhibited before. She would plow her nose through the snow, throw her toys high in the air and started madly pouncing around in that particular coyote way. I'm not saying she learned her behavior from the TV but it sure did seem like it.
The idea that somehow we are less confined by our perceptions, sense of symmetry, pattern seeking and instinctive interests than other animals seems somehow absurd to me. I think we differ only in the amount information we can store in our minds and sort out. I just don't think there is any evidence (non I have seen) that suggests we do. What we do have, though, is a greater capacity for pattern and sorting. That isn't to say we have fewer instincts than animals , I 'm pretty sure we have just as many - maybe more, but that we can do more with them because we can see the interactions of patterns in a way that animals seem to miss.
Beethoven's 9th, IMO, has no intrinsic beauty or value except to humans who can perceive the patterns of it. We can write the patterns down on paper, try and play it and even make corrections to what Beethoven may have meant based on our common instinct for pattern seeking.
Beethoven's 9th must sound very bad to a bird who can sing in frequencies and warble out notes faster than we can hear. What does the 9th sound like to such a creature? Garbage I should think.
I write music and have experimented extensively with the patterns of sound. Most people hate my music immediately but if they give it enough time will come to recognize the patterns I use and so come to like the music. My aunt hated my music and played it to taunt her neighbors but over time she came to like it and now plays it just for herself. I deliberately play with patterns and break the rules because I personally know they are arbitrary. The biggest compliment I was ever given was that every song I write sounds like a new genera.
Brain mapping has demonstrated that people who play a musical instrument grow more neural pathways in the right hemisphere of their brains (Skeptic Magazine). This seems to be a distinctly human ability and I would argue is what gives us the impression of being so much more intelligent and superior to our fellow creatures. Like I said though; I see little evidence that our superiority is anything more than this greater capacity. I see no evidence that we have fewer instincts than animals but probably more, though they are hard for us to see because our actions seem just as logical to us as sniffing bums does to a dog. I don't think in reality our actions are even slightly logical on the whole.
Sure, it is a meme. That is a concept or idea held within the larger organism (the community).
I doubt it. Hypothetically, if aliens did visit us they would need to share a great many common interests with us to recognize our intelligence. Heck, I'm a human and I have trouble seeing it these days. Considering the huge diversity on earth between species and our inability to recognize the intelligence of animals, and we share the same biosphere! How much more difficult must the communication between species from different biospheres be? Great I would suspect.
If your aliens had the 9th I expect they would be analyzing it, trying to figure out if it really is intelligent or not. To an alien mind it wouldn't be empirically obvious just like it wasn't obvious to my cat when I played Cindy Lauper. They would most likely think the 9th was noise or similar to the chirping of birds. They couldn't use tool making as a bench mark either because our history of tool making has been long and arduous. Isn't that the same as an ant hive exhibiting behaviour the individual is unaware off? I think so. We think we're clever as clever but the evidence doesn't IMO support our belief. I don't think aliens would be so easily convinced either.
I'm also not sure we would recognize the intelligence of alien creatures. We seem to have missed the boat on the creatures we inhabit the planet with. If we didn't have certain commonalities with the aliens I think we really wouldn't think they were intelligent.
We very rarely explore abstract patterns IMO. The patterns we see are generally very plain and obvious (to us). Though our patterns can be in many places at once they still need a means of transmission. Remember too that just because we see a pattern doesn't mean one really exists. We are prone to building patterns out of everything around us and giving those patterns significance where non is usually warranted. We apply mathematics to the pattern then claim see it worked! When in reality all we have accomplished is the further deception of ourselves.
I realize these are bold things to argue but I have taken my ideas and put them into practice. I first did this with a system of mathematics where I removed symmetry (it was a variation of set theory) and had to invent my own operators. Much to my surprise it actually worked and I was able to explain things that normal pattern mathematics couldn't. I read A Brief History Of Time and found many mistakes due to our system of mathematics. Physicists and cosmologists have been running into these problems and is why we have so many theories that rely on dimensions and singularities.
I also applied my ideas to music which I described above with some very odd results. The strangest is that I can make new genera's of music as often as I write a song. This has been a huge confirmation to me. Anyone who writes music will know how absolutely difficult it is to make music like that.
My conclusion has been that we very much live in a universe that proceeds from our perception of it, and that perception has kept us from seeing what it really is.
Could it have simply been the sound was associated with food? Rather than an appreciation certain sounds that were pleasing to their ears. Alice Cooper had a song from 'School's out' that had sounds of a 'pretty angry cat' mixed in, our cat would go hunting for it, not casually either, when it couldn't find one near the speaker it would still hunt the whole room. After that first few times I would make sure he wasn't in the room, thats how badly it affected him.
Only the religious presume to know how life started, how the universe began. More rational people study the universe, observe phenomena, test theories and hypotheses, etc. to better understand our universe. Personally, I have not seen substantiative evidence that says the universe actually started. Can anyone show me definitive evidence that the universe hasn't always been? BTW, time is probably not a human invention. The m,easurement of it may be, but if you look at the theory of relativity, you may understand that time exists with or without us.