An interesting theory rolled into my head randomly not too long ago. I must say, the theory is simply too interesting not to be true, unless, or course, it’s counterfactual, in which case I’d have to say it’s baloney. Anyway, it’s a theory relating computers, consciousness, and the Buddhist concepts of anatta (no-self) and shunyata (emptyness).
Is there intelligent life out there, sentient life other than humanity? On the surface, it would appear that there isn’t, at least not within a large range of parsecs. But what do we look for when we look for sentient life? Creatures that talk, speak, write? It might be possible that some of the species that we live amongst are as intelligent as we are, but are simply so completely different in their ways of thinking that it doesn’t appear to us to be intelligence at all.
How do we even know that other people are conscious? Why do we believe that others are conscious as are we, rather than resorting to a philosophy of complete solipsism? Induction, obviously. Consciousness is a subjective phenomenon, and since we can’t directly experience the consciousness of others, we assume that they are as self-aware as we are based on other similarities such as physical habits. I think that this inductive knowledge is the strongest form of verification that we can get about consciousness. That is, I hypothesize that one could never physically detect the consciousness of another. It’s an “emergent phenomena” of sorts—you cannot explain consciousness in terms of the biological and chemical processes of the brain.
This idea that our consciousness is somehow an “emergent phenomena”, arising from but not completely reducible to in physical law is rather similar to the Buddhist concept of shunyata—that there is no constant principle or factor that underlies the mind, and that it is simply created as a factor of all surrounding circumstances. To sum this up, consciousness is only consciousness from a subjective point of view, and is assumed from the third person perspective only through induction. Also, I hypothesize that you could never read someone’s mind. Ever. There’s nothing objective to detect, since qualia are only directly detectable from a subjective perspective.
Personally, I think that the inductive inference that other humans are conscious is a good one. But why is it that we assume that termite colonies, or the wind, or forests aren’t conscious? We cannot “detect” the consciousness by viewing it under a microscope, but neither can we detect such consciousness in other humans. The inductive inference from the observation that another human looks and acts physically similar to us may be sufficient grounds to assume that they have consciousness, but it does not follow automatically that all phenomena quite dissimilar to us are not conscious. Could not the wind, in some incomprehensible way, be like a large computer, thinking thoughts so different from ours that they would be unfathomable even if we did know them? I am not, of course, asserting that this is the case, or even likely, but it is interesting to think about nonetheless
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Beyond Death
What lies beyond death? What awaits us in the root of the unknown, past the last brink of our meager knowledge? It is beyond my ken; I stand defeated. And yet I remain defiant, for the final enemy shows prisoners no mercy. But perhaps it is mercy? Was it not Socrates who asked whether death might not yet prove the greatest blessing that can await a mortal? I know not if I shall dissolve like an autumn leaf crumbled to dust by the wind, if I shall endure for eternity in a realm of boundless pain or pleasure, or whether there lies a middle road, something unspoken and unsuspected.
Things are impermanent. We grow old and pass away, laughing children become hardened by the stings of life, and even nations pass in time. Mountain ranges are created and worn away, and even the stars themselves, ancient beyond comprehension, fade away at last. But all moments appear so eternal—the now never fails to be the now. Now will never cease to be, and yet will cease to be the now. How to reconcile with this paradox? The books of ages crumble to dust at its touch.
When I walk beneath the shining Sun and see the unbroken blue sky stretched above me, the sight is so beautiful that it hurts. I feel a soft ache, a gentle sadness. Part of me wants the moment to last, wants to walk beneath the Sun forever, and yet my other, perhaps wiser half, knows that this is folly. For though I were endless, the Sun would still set, and night would come. Neither would the night last—that too is transient. I will have memories of the land of Sun and sky, but these memories will be mere shadows, and they too will fade in time, even the memory of what once was passing away when I leave.
Will I endure? No. Neither shall I vanish. The now, devoid of parts and separations, shall glint sideways into the void, coiling into nothing like a wisp of smoke. And yet there will always be a now. I perish, and yet I won’t be gone. I am not more than myself, but more than myself is me—patterns, traces will bloom and wilt like flowers as the years soar ever onwards. Others will spin their dreams from threads of letters, love their families, and care for friends. And perhaps, in eons hence, a small child will stand beneath the splendor of the arching blue, and know it for what it is—the present.
Things are impermanent. We grow old and pass away, laughing children become hardened by the stings of life, and even nations pass in time. Mountain ranges are created and worn away, and even the stars themselves, ancient beyond comprehension, fade away at last. But all moments appear so eternal—the now never fails to be the now. Now will never cease to be, and yet will cease to be the now. How to reconcile with this paradox? The books of ages crumble to dust at its touch.
When I walk beneath the shining Sun and see the unbroken blue sky stretched above me, the sight is so beautiful that it hurts. I feel a soft ache, a gentle sadness. Part of me wants the moment to last, wants to walk beneath the Sun forever, and yet my other, perhaps wiser half, knows that this is folly. For though I were endless, the Sun would still set, and night would come. Neither would the night last—that too is transient. I will have memories of the land of Sun and sky, but these memories will be mere shadows, and they too will fade in time, even the memory of what once was passing away when I leave.
Will I endure? No. Neither shall I vanish. The now, devoid of parts and separations, shall glint sideways into the void, coiling into nothing like a wisp of smoke. And yet there will always be a now. I perish, and yet I won’t be gone. I am not more than myself, but more than myself is me—patterns, traces will bloom and wilt like flowers as the years soar ever onwards. Others will spin their dreams from threads of letters, love their families, and care for friends. And perhaps, in eons hence, a small child will stand beneath the splendor of the arching blue, and know it for what it is—the present.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
A Deadly Paradox: Death and Induction
I’ve been thinking a lot about paradoxes of induction lately, undoubtedly due, in part, to the Philosophy of Science course that I’m taking. I’ve thought of a peculiar paradox concerning death. There seems nothing unusual about the statement that no one alive today will live for an infinite duration. And yet, how do we know this? Through induction, by the fact that everyone in the past died eventually. But is this a reasonable inference? Because everyone we use as evidence have a common property—they’re all dead, where as the people who we are making the inference about are still alive. It’s interesting, because you can’t say people today will die because “everyone who ever lived has died” because that’s not true; we are among the group of everyone who has ever lived!
I think that I finally see the connection between mathematical induction and scientific induction. Let’s say that we are trying to establish an infinite claim. Let Mx denote “Matter exists at instant x”. We can never look at all of these instants, as there will always be instant that remains in the future. So, in order to establish the universal claim, we must assume that if it holds true for all past instants, it must hold true for all future instances. In mathematics, universal claims can be proven about infinite sets of objects, and in science they can’t be. So for scientific induction, the claim cannot be confirmed in a deductive sense. However, as is often noted, it’s possible in theory (if not always in practice) to disprove a universal statement about an infinite number of objects inductively—just find a counter example. For instance if there is not matter at instant x (excepting, of course, the dubiously assumed observer), then it cannot be true that matter exists at all instants.
But can the universal “All humans die” be disproved, even in theory? We already know that we run into the same difficulty that we did before as far as confirming the universal; in accordance with problem of induction, we must assume that if a statement is true for all humans in the past, it is also true for all humans in the future. But again, it isn’t true that all humans in the past have died—it’s only true that all of the humans in the past that have already died have died.
Over dinner, I thought of a possible connection between Hume’s problem of induction and the Grue paradox. In the case of green vs. grue—let’s temporarily redefine grue as a relational predicate Fx,t where x is the object to be Grue or not Grue, and t is the time that the object must be green before or blue afterwards. We accept green and not grue due to a sort of meta-induction of the like that is found in the paradox of induction. Let’s say t is t=-60 days where 0 is the present. We know that it was true that all emeralds before were green, but no emeralds before t were grue. Thus, we have a sort of “meta-inductive evidence” to favor green.
Again, consider the death scenario. We believe that people will be alive before a time t and dead after a time t because that use of induction worked in the past, only for different values of T. Of course, in both the grue and death scenarios, this solution has a serious complication. I said that we justified induction working in the future on the basis of induction in the past. But there must have been a first case that we observed! Now, how was that first case justified, if there is no initial time to give it credence?
This is interesting! With this view of the problem of induction, the problem isn’t so much that induction begs the question as it is the problem that it can’t be justified ad infinitum.
I think that I finally see the connection between mathematical induction and scientific induction. Let’s say that we are trying to establish an infinite claim. Let Mx denote “Matter exists at instant x”. We can never look at all of these instants, as there will always be instant that remains in the future. So, in order to establish the universal claim, we must assume that if it holds true for all past instants, it must hold true for all future instances. In mathematics, universal claims can be proven about infinite sets of objects, and in science they can’t be. So for scientific induction, the claim cannot be confirmed in a deductive sense. However, as is often noted, it’s possible in theory (if not always in practice) to disprove a universal statement about an infinite number of objects inductively—just find a counter example. For instance if there is not matter at instant x (excepting, of course, the dubiously assumed observer), then it cannot be true that matter exists at all instants.
But can the universal “All humans die” be disproved, even in theory? We already know that we run into the same difficulty that we did before as far as confirming the universal; in accordance with problem of induction, we must assume that if a statement is true for all humans in the past, it is also true for all humans in the future. But again, it isn’t true that all humans in the past have died—it’s only true that all of the humans in the past that have already died have died.
Over dinner, I thought of a possible connection between Hume’s problem of induction and the Grue paradox. In the case of green vs. grue—let’s temporarily redefine grue as a relational predicate Fx,t where x is the object to be Grue or not Grue, and t is the time that the object must be green before or blue afterwards. We accept green and not grue due to a sort of meta-induction of the like that is found in the paradox of induction. Let’s say t is t=-60 days where 0 is the present. We know that it was true that all emeralds before were green, but no emeralds before t were grue. Thus, we have a sort of “meta-inductive evidence” to favor green.
Again, consider the death scenario. We believe that people will be alive before a time t and dead after a time t because that use of induction worked in the past, only for different values of T. Of course, in both the grue and death scenarios, this solution has a serious complication. I said that we justified induction working in the future on the basis of induction in the past. But there must have been a first case that we observed! Now, how was that first case justified, if there is no initial time to give it credence?
This is interesting! With this view of the problem of induction, the problem isn’t so much that induction begs the question as it is the problem that it can’t be justified ad infinitum.
Friday, February 1, 2008
On Misanthropes
In many places, I hear complaints from some about humanity and human nature. I too have been guilty of these complaints times, and have been plagued by the occasional feeling that human society is futile. Thousands upon thousands of years we tread this sphere, and although we have progressed in some ways, we remain apes in others. We still kill, steal, and disagree in a most extraordinarily unproductive manner. We split ourselves into groups and the weak are often harmed by the strong as a result. But must all of this sorrow result in a hatred of humanity?
Although I believe that humans should be responsible for their actions at some level, I honestly believe that a great deal (though certainly not all) violence and cruelty results from confusion and misunderstanding. In the simplest of mathematical systems, peculiarities can arise. Is it so strange to think that something such as evil could would arise systems as complicated as an entire self-aware species, even if that something is not inherent in human behavior? An accident as small as poor communication changes into offense, which turns into rudeness, which morphs into irritation, which results in increased tension that latter snowballs into retaliation. I think that we often have the tendency to blame all the worlds’ ills on individuals, hating others for their ignorant and small minded views. But miscommunication is always between two people, not one. Must individuals hate the masses for a folly in which they themselves partake?
At times, I fail to understand other people, what makes them tick. Some days, I feel that I am surrounded largely by foolish and harmful behavior. But I must realize how limited my vision is! As Sartre said, "What if everyone in the world thought like that?" You see, every individual person separates humanity mentally into two groups—themselves, and everyone else. When I see others hurting each other and themselves, exchanging cruel words, and exaggerating petty differences, my gut reaction is to despise them for their short-sightedness, their self-serving natures. But as I examine myself, I think as thus—I have no reason to think that I am born apart from humanity, an exception to the thoughtlessness that plagues our species. And by definition, if you’re short-sighted, you don’t know it! Who knows what I’ve overlooked, who I’ve hurt, what situations I have failed to react too properly.
Although I believe that humans should be responsible for their actions at some level, I honestly believe that a great deal (though certainly not all) violence and cruelty results from confusion and misunderstanding. In the simplest of mathematical systems, peculiarities can arise. Is it so strange to think that something such as evil could would arise systems as complicated as an entire self-aware species, even if that something is not inherent in human behavior? An accident as small as poor communication changes into offense, which turns into rudeness, which morphs into irritation, which results in increased tension that latter snowballs into retaliation. I think that we often have the tendency to blame all the worlds’ ills on individuals, hating others for their ignorant and small minded views. But miscommunication is always between two people, not one. Must individuals hate the masses for a folly in which they themselves partake?
At times, I fail to understand other people, what makes them tick. Some days, I feel that I am surrounded largely by foolish and harmful behavior. But I must realize how limited my vision is! As Sartre said, "What if everyone in the world thought like that?" You see, every individual person separates humanity mentally into two groups—themselves, and everyone else. When I see others hurting each other and themselves, exchanging cruel words, and exaggerating petty differences, my gut reaction is to despise them for their short-sightedness, their self-serving natures. But as I examine myself, I think as thus—I have no reason to think that I am born apart from humanity, an exception to the thoughtlessness that plagues our species. And by definition, if you’re short-sighted, you don’t know it! Who knows what I’ve overlooked, who I’ve hurt, what situations I have failed to react too properly.
Excess of “Logic”
Something I’ve noticed on philosophy forums is that some people have a tendency to saturate their language as much as possible with logical terms while simultaneously deciding to de-value meaning in things. I believe that they do this in order to make themselves appear more “logical” than others. But I think that it’s an entirely foolhardy practice for a number of reasons. First of all, logic does not produce true views! It does not produce meaningful views! What logic is a set of mathematical tools than can aid you in assessing the validity of complex arguments. Although the use of logic can help one to avoid making silly errors in arguments, it does not add one whit of value to the final conclusion if the premises are flawed.
The tendency to under-emphasize or deny meaning the meaningfulness of the human experience is something that I find even more disturbing. I see it as an extreme reaction against admittedly irrational nonsense. There are some out there who would see meaning where it is not, see immutable signs and symbols in the most trivial of circumstances, and condemn logic as restrictive. In reaction to such nonsense, others think that they can make themselves appear wiser than the former by acting as differently as possible from the first group, and by refusing to consider that anything has an intrinsic meaning. But where are we then? The laws of logic do not forbid one seeing a human life as a mere aggregate of chemical compounds and reactions, but if Humankind is see things as no more than that, who can object to the slaughter of another? Although we cannot build all our knowledge on perfect foundations, we must assume that some things are valuble.
The tendency to under-emphasize or deny meaning the meaningfulness of the human experience is something that I find even more disturbing. I see it as an extreme reaction against admittedly irrational nonsense. There are some out there who would see meaning where it is not, see immutable signs and symbols in the most trivial of circumstances, and condemn logic as restrictive. In reaction to such nonsense, others think that they can make themselves appear wiser than the former by acting as differently as possible from the first group, and by refusing to consider that anything has an intrinsic meaning. But where are we then? The laws of logic do not forbid one seeing a human life as a mere aggregate of chemical compounds and reactions, but if Humankind is see things as no more than that, who can object to the slaughter of another? Although we cannot build all our knowledge on perfect foundations, we must assume that some things are valuble.
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