Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #90 - September 02, 2010, 06:22 PM

Quote from: Tlaloc on September 02, 2010, 06:10 PM
The "real" example should be: if I were able to run in my mind a simulation of a complete physical human brain in a virtual environment (like a chess master is able to "run" games of chess in his mere imagination), would I be able to "know" what the "virtual brain" feelings are like?

I see what you mean, tialoc, and we always disagree on this point whenever we have this discussion and I'm afraid i'm going to have to disagree again.
It is true that a complete simulation cannot be run in our minds to determine the outcome. However, we do know the parameters involved. We know what the definition of 'physical' is, we know with certainty what this idea involves.
To give a similar example, I can't compute what 3 * 13254353453 is in my head, but I know it is a multiple of 3 no matter what the answer. Similarly, with your simulation example: I may not know exactly what the answer can be, but given the definition of the physical we can make a valid extrapolation.

Though, it is a different matter that I would be fascinated by the results of such a simulation, if it were indeed possible and not just an infinite turing machine.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #91 - September 02, 2010, 06:23 PM

Quote from: Tlaloc on September 02, 2010, 06:18 PM
Indeed.

Or, even: is it actually possible to run a "perfect" simulation of any real object?

We are not even sure if space is discrete or non-discrete.

If space were not discrete then any 3+ particles in a limited space would form an infinite state machine ^_^
Which means they could not be perfectly simulated by a finite state machine such as a computer.

yes i understand this. but the scientific opinion seems to be that the secret sauce of consciousness isn't sub molecular but a lot higher.

so stochastic simulations of the lower levels might also work. after all, the neurons of unconconscious animals fire away within physical laws without generating any consciousness.
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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #92 - September 02, 2010, 06:24 PM

Quote from: Tlaloc on September 02, 2010, 06:19 PM
If space is non-discrete and one could arrange 3 particles in space, he could theoretically be able to encode any infinite amount of information in such a system... cause you could rearrange them so that the ratio of their distances is a particular real number that can be considered as an encoding of any given infinite string of numbers ;P

Correction: it needs to be continuous for that.

If it were simply non-discrete but not continuous it would be able to encode ANY given finite string of numbers.
Which means: infinite possible states, but finite information in each state.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #93 - September 02, 2010, 06:28 PM

@s12345, I'll watch the video later, adios for now guys

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #94 - September 02, 2010, 06:31 PM

@tlaloc : are you at university right now? i've lost my grip on things like boolean circuits, information theory etc within a few years of taking these as coursework. what a loss.
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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #95 - September 02, 2010, 06:35 PM

Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 06:22 PM
I see what you mean, tialoc, and we always disagree on this point whenever we have this discussion and I'm afraid i'm going to have to disagree again.
It is true that a complete simulation cannot be run in our minds to determine the outcome. However, we do know the parameters involved. We know what the definition of 'physical' is, we know with certainty what this idea involves.
To give a similar example, I can't compute what 3 * 13254353453 is in my head, but I know it is a multiple of 3 no matter what the answer. Similarly, with your simulation example: I may not know exactly what the answer can be, but given the definition of the physical we can make a valid extrapolation.

Though, it is a different matter that I would be fascinated by the results of such a simulation, if it were indeed possible and not just an infinite turing machine.

So your example simply means that feelings are EITHER not-emergent from the physical realm OR they are too complex to be easily extrapolated from "the mere rules".

As a counter example, the rules from prime numbers (or factorization) are EXTREMELY simple, even more simple than physics equations.
Yet, try to tell me the first prime number greater than 2^1000000000

So you cannot even claim that "simple emergent properties are easily discovered from simple rules".

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #96 - September 02, 2010, 06:37 PM

Quote from: s12345 on September 02, 2010, 06:31 PM
@tlaloc : are you at university right now? i've lost my grip on things like boolean circuits, information theory etc within a few years of taking these as coursework. what a loss.

Sort of.
I study for my uni degree as a hobby, via online courses + face to face exams.
I am studying "information engineering".

My main activity is pretending to be a programmer and getting paid for it ^_^

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #97 - September 02, 2010, 06:40 PM

Quote from: s12345 on September 02, 2010, 06:23 PM
yes i understand this. but the scientific opinion seems to be that the secret sauce of consciousness isn't sub molecular but a lot higher.

so stochastic simulations of the lower levels might also work. after all, the neurons of unconconscious animals fire away within physical laws without generating any consciousness.

I hope it really is like that, cause I'd like to have my consciousness uploaded somewhere like in the best sci-fi novels

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #98 - September 02, 2010, 06:52 PM

for those interested in the physics of things. this is an hour long but very very interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #99 - September 02, 2010, 07:19 PM

This stuff is right up AbuYs street

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #100 - September 02, 2010, 07:23 PM

Quote from: s12345 on September 02, 2010, 06:18 PM
consciouness is a composite of not sensory pathways (the physical circuits) but of sensory qualia(the experiences through the senses) and a whole lot more. how qualia arise is an open problem in neuroscience.

I see it as a 2 stage process, first the sensory pathways register the sense (chemical), then the brain interprets it (qualia)

So yes, I see it as a composite of all the senses (including the brain/memory/previous experience) working together - it also explains why all qualia are unique to the user and their prior experiences as to how they interpret them.

I really dont understand why others have a problem with this

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #101 - September 02, 2010, 10:47 PM

Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 02:02 PM
do you think the beauty and majesty of the cosmos can be reduced to the locomotive collisions of primal, inert matter? perhaps even, do you think that the human mind can be reduced to being the affect of such random collisions?

Yes.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #102 - September 02, 2010, 10:52 PM

Channel 4 News -- Stephen Hawking: Physics Leaves No Room For God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQvnQD9_l1c

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #103 - September 02, 2010, 10:54 PM

This question reminds me of the 747 fallacy, in that they both ignore time (we're talking millions/billions of years) and natural selection which removes some of the randomness presupposed in the initial question.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #104 - September 02, 2010, 10:56 PM

Quote from: z10 on September 02, 2010, 02:02 PM
do you think the beauty and majesty of the cosmos can be reduced to the locomotive collisions of primal, inert matter? perhaps even, do you think that the human mind can be reduced to being the affect of such random collisions?

this question strangely reminds me of the Boeing 747 fallacy, in that they both ignore time & natural selection, & presuppose it was a completely random set of billions of coincidences with a specific aim in mind.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #105 - September 03, 2010, 12:39 AM

God's has an anatomy just like humans
as he gets older....he gets smaller and smaller...
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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #106 - September 03, 2010, 01:06 AM

Quote from: IsLame on September 02, 2010, 10:56 PM
this question strangely reminds me of the Boeing 747 fallacy, in that they both ignore time & natural selection, & presuppose it was a completely random set of billions of coincidences with a specific aim in mind.

The problem, Islame, is not with the randomness, it is the nature of the physical. Many incredible patterns can be produced naturally so to speak, but what is being questioned here is what actually constitutes the basic building blocks of reality.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #107 - September 03, 2010, 01:12 AM

Quote from: Tlaloc on September 02, 2010, 06:35 PM
So your example simply means that feelings are EITHER not-emergent from the physical realm OR they are too complex to be easily extrapolated from "the mere rules".

As a counter example, the rules from prime numbers (or factorization) are EXTREMELY simple, even more simple than physics equations.
Yet, try to tell me the first prime number greater than 2^1000000000

So you cannot even claim that "simple emergent properties are easily discovered from simple rules".

I think your example is quite similar to the one I provided. Just like there, I can adduce some basic parameters that tell me what the answer will be like:
1. x > 2^1000000000
2. x = odd number

I think this is the point I am trying to make. The definition of what it means to be physical is known and just like the parameters above is enough to tell us what the answer will be like even if we don't know the actual answer. We know that being physical is being able to interact in a causal field, having certain numerically variable properties such as mass/charge/spin etc and finally being able travel and affect each other in a efficient causal manner. I would think, bearing this in mind, if that is what we define physical as then the answer to the question above will have the parameters of being a numerical value of certain properties. I do not see how you can deduce or somehow gain the feel and quality of an experience from numbers alone.
I think panpsychism is the best solution to this problem. The alternative is basically epiphenomenalism or else eliminativism and neither of them I think are viable.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #108 - September 03, 2010, 03:42 PM

Quote from: z10 on September 03, 2010, 01:12 AM
The alternative is basically epiphenomenalism or else eliminativism and neither of them I think are viable.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #109 - September 03, 2010, 04:59 PM

Quote from: ateapotist on September 02, 2010, 10:52 PM
Channel 4 News -- Stephen Hawking: Physics Leaves No Room For God

thanks ateapotist, that was an honest and well balanced discussion

from that video it appears that Hawking is saying that string/M-theory has the potential so that everything in the universe can be described scientifically - and he's probably right. it is the frontrunner in fitting general relativity and quantum mechanics into one theoretical framework - this is absolutely necessary to understand what happened from the moment of the big bang onwards - at present we can only peer back to a fraction of a second after the big bang but before this the current theories we have break down and become useless at describing what was going on. it is the holy grail of physics, but, it certainly wouldn't be any good in describing how the 'universe was created from nothing' - i don't know if this something a co-writer of a book or a science journalist has added onto the news articles.

such a unified theory such as string theory/M theory or quantum loop gravity have the potential to describe everything scientifically within our universe, but the questions of what actually caused the big bang, where the enrgy for the big bang came from, where the laws of science themselves came from may just be out of our reach - at least with current conventional scientific thinking

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #110 - September 03, 2010, 05:15 PM

god did it.
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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #111 - September 03, 2010, 05:17 PM

Britney did it. Again.
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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #112 - September 03, 2010, 05:29 PM

Quote from: burdenofbeing on September 03, 2010, 05:15 PM
god did it.

god damn it.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #113 - September 03, 2010, 05:33 PM

Quote from: Prince Spinoza on September 03, 2010, 05:17 PM
Britney did it. Again.

Oops.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #114 - September 03, 2010, 05:52 PM

ok no need to mock me

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #115 - September 03, 2010, 06:21 PM

Seriously, divinely inspired = god said it or showed it to a person? To me that is not the case.
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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #116 - September 03, 2010, 06:49 PM

Quote from: abuyunus2 on September 03, 2010, 04:59 PM
such a unified theory such as string theory/M theory or quantum loop gravity have the potential to describe everything scientifically within our universe, but the questions of what actually caused the big bang, where the enrgy for the big bang came from, where the laws of science themselves came from may just be out of our reach - at least with current conventional scientific thinking

Its always been around & the net energy in the universe over infinite time is zero.

Why does that not plug in your gaps?

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #117 - September 03, 2010, 07:34 PM

Quote
Its always been around & the net energy in the universe over infinite time is zero.

Why does that not plug in your gaps?

actually the idea that the net energy of the universe is zero is precisely that - just an idea. Matter has postitive energy and it has been proposed that gravity might have negative energy - if this is true then it might be possible that the universe has net zero energy. this idea has been successfully incorporated into inflation cosmology models and may well turn out to be right. It is thought that during inflation, energy flows from the gravitational feild to the inflation feild (a type of Higgs feild that gives matter its mass). But there is certainly no explanation for where the initial energy came from , where the gravitational feild came from or where the many laws of physics that would allow this mechanism to work popped into existence from.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #118 - September 03, 2010, 09:56 PM

Quote from: Ishina on September 02, 2010, 03:58 PM
What do I think? I think we are hurling through space and time, clinging onto this ball of rock, fumbling around in the swarm, pondering our theories and philosophies, trying to find some poetic supposition for chemical imbalances, trying to explain, pursue, or repress innate biologically vectored behaviour, led by the desire for interaction so we can impress our wants and needs upon others, or deny them theirs. We are the sum of our parts, the alchemy of wisdoms and experience, the feelings and gentle urges that form our conscience.

I think humans are a beautiful creature, unique in that they will romanticise hot chemical fever in the blood and call it love, and the stirring in our loins we will call lusts, and all our animal appetites shall be desires, and we will always and forever apply our alphabets of feeling and emotion to the unimaginable, wonderfully unfathomable, vast and unknowable cosmos.

I think we should take all the credit for making this primal and wild world beautiful, because we invented beautiful, we invented the word for it, and we describe it to each other in beautiful ways, and differ over it, and think it to ourselves, and we are it. We are beauty.

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Re: Hawking: God was not needed to create the Universe
Reply #119 - September 03, 2010, 11:06 PM

Quote from: z10 on September 03, 2010, 01:12 AM
I think your example is quite similar to the one I provided. Just like there, I can adduce some basic parameters that tell me what the answer will be like:
1. x > 2^1000000000
2. x = odd number

I think this is the point I am trying to make.

You are being dishonest, because you pick the EASY to infer properties.

You were basically saying:
From easy rules always come easy properties.
And then you go and pick an example of an easy property derived from easy rules.

What I am trying to say here is that "complex to infer" properties can also be derived from extremely simple systems.

For example, can you tell if the "gap" between the previous prime and this prime is lesser or greater than the gap between this prime and the next?

To spare your time: mathematicians have tried for centuries to "discover" a pattern for the occurrence of prime numbers within the natural numbers, with no success yet.
It appears to be either "random" (randomness spawning from very few precise laws) or extremely complex (complex properties spawning from very few precise laws).

So your hypothesis that some property as complex as feelings cannot derive from a collection of simple rules is just made up in order to give more strength to a philosophy that you have decided that is correct before hand.

I.E. your inability to see how "qualitative properties" could come from "quantitative properties" is not a proof of anything.

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