On Sat, Feb 18, 2017 at 1:19 AM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> wrote: > >>> > >>> > >>> Dark Matter and Dark Energy remain complete mysteries. >> >> >> >> > >> As far as I can tell, what we have is a falsification of current >> theories. They appear to be good enough approximations for many >> things, but then they fail at predicting the expansion rate of the >> universe right? Maybe it's dark matter, maybe it's something else, > > > They are 2 separate mysteries. Dark Matter is a mysterious something that > makes up 28% of the universe and holds galaxies and clusters of galaxies > together. Dark Energy is a even more mysterious something that makes up 69% > of everything and causes the expansion of the entire universe to accelerate. > And about 4% of the universe is made of the sort of normal matter and energy > that until about 20 years ago was the only type we thought existed. > > There is a straightforward extension of General Relativity and Quantum > Mechanics that explains Dark Energy, however it gives a figure that is > 10^120 too large, it's been called the worse mismatch between theory and > observation in the entire history of science. I think it's fair to say we > really don't have a clue about Dark Energy, and Dark Matter is almost as > confusing. > >> > >> If science failed so far at explaining something, then it doesn't >> >> matter? > > > Science has an explanation for consciousness that works beautifully, > consciousness is the way information feels when it is being processed > intelligently.
I know that your position is that information processing is nonsensical without matter. Many times you invited Bruno to compete with Intel, etc. So what you are saying is that "consciousness is the way matter feels when it participates in an intelligent computation". This "explanation" begs the question already. Then there's the issue of defining "processed intelligently". What does that even mean? Where do you draw the line between intelligent and non-intelligent processing? Let me guess: intelligent processing is the kind that generates consciousness. Nobody ever came up with a way to test for the presence of consciousness (probably because it's the wrong way to think about it), so there is no scientific theory about it. Zero. You make it worse by introducing ill-defined concepts. > What science doesn't yet have is a complete theory explaining > how to produce intelligence, but enormous progress has been made in just the > last few years. Not really. What is happening is that the artificial neural network models from the 80s are finally paying off, because of the orders of magnitude more computational power and training data that we have now. Progress is being made, but it has been very slow. It's a hard problem. I've worked in this field both in academia and industry, for what it's worth. >>> The study of intelligence, now that's important! >> >> >> > >> That is a statement of faith. Gizmo worshiping. > > > At least 3 times a week for the last 5 years somebody on this list has > accused me of being religious, apparently in the hope that I'll burst into > tears and cry myself to sleep. It's not going to happen, I can't talk for the others, but I have no interest in making you feel bad. I'm just pointing out dogmatic thinking. >> >> > >> Yes, it's important in >> >> a sense. I too am interested in having medical breakthroughs, freedom >> >> from labour and all the nice things that AI can bring. > > > It's important even if you're only interested in philosophical problems, > such as why did Evolution bother to make conscious animals at all. Evolution is a theory on the origins of biological complexity. We know nothing about consciousness. >> I don't quite understand why an omnipotent being >> >> would "want" anything, He should already have it. Nevertheless the >> >> religious say God does want certain things and they know exactly >> precisely >> >> what they are and they insist on telling us about it; and they also >> insist >> >> God can't get what He wants on His own, we have to help the poor fellow >> >> achieve His aims. >> >> > >> You are describing Abrahamic religions. I don't believe in them either. > > > I don't think the > Hindu religion > is significantly less stupid. There are some forms of Buddhism and Taoism > that aren't stupid but they aren't religions, they don't say anything about > God, don't say faith is a virtue, and don't even claim they are revealing > something new about the world, instead they are doing something much more > modest, they are giving personal advice; they are saying this is a way to be > happy. Not the only way, maybe not the best way, just a way. Ok, so you only recognise something as a religion if you think it's stupid. Not hard to win an argument with that move... >> > >> I think you are not interested in what Bruno has to say. There's >> nothing wrong with that, but it's just a personal preference of yours. > > > Well yes, but how could not being interested in something not be a personal > preference. It could not be "just a personal preference", which is what I wrote. Telmo. > John K Clark > >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
