Hey evenbob, I have a question for you.

Quote: boymimbo

The issue I have with ghosts or any extra-sensory phenomena like a "soul" waiting to enter another body is the fact that they must be bound to the laws of gravity and have mass and therefore would be detectable. And if they have such little mass then they would be subject to air currents and would fail to keep a cohesive mass.

And why don't they simply percolate to the Earth's center of gravity? I mean, they can move through walls, right? Why don't they fall through floors?

Quantum mechanics tells us there is a law of conservation of information, every bit as rigorous and necessary as the other conservation laws (matter, angular momentum, etc). Recently there's been talk on whether information is or isn't lost in a black hole. Apparently it isn't.

This has fueled the reincarnation and after life crowds. After all, a mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, whatever you want to call it, can be thought of as information, right? Like a computer program, or a book.

Well, yes. But consider this:

Imagine you write an original poem on a piece of paper. While the paper exists, the information in the shape of a poem exists. If you were to burn the paper, then mix the ashes with water and then let them dry, could you put the paper back into its original form with a written poem on it?

Yet, the information is still there, only much disorganized (also some paper and ink molecules combined with air during the fire and are now floating around the atmosphere, but we can ignore this). So disorganized that you cannot put the pieces back together as paper and a poem.

When you die, your soul, as part of the brain, will undergo the same kind of disorganized state as the rest of your body (yes, the brain is part of the body). And nothing we know of can put it back together. moreover, life is a process. Chemical reactions take place inside of you continuously. After death these reactions also become disorganized and decay ensues. Nothing can restart this process either.

Quote: pew

The idea of consciousness in a materialistic universe is another problematic concept in the same way "what gets reincarnated" is. Some materialist apologists go so far as to deny that consciousness even exists. When you look at it in humans as opposed to (other) animals it becomes even more difficult to reconcile.

If you create a limited artificial world for a computer to interact with, a sufficient computer with the right equipment can do much of what the human mind can do.

If the natural language of that world is limited, then it can even learn the ambuiguities of meaning because there won't be so many to deal with. If the material it works with is of the nature it can detect and see, it can see everything it needs too in that world with lens and sensors. If it has the ability to manipulate and move about it can move and change the objects, reassemble and recreate basic designs. Given programmed needs, it can search for a simple energy source (electricity), (rest) recharge, it can do open ended tasks such as random assembly trying to create objects like steps it can use, or shelters it can build around itself. If there is another like it in that world, each can transfer discovered information to the other without having to learn by trial and error. You could probably even train it to detect and repair some problems with spare parts as a form of self-preservation, but the processing for that starts to get really complicated. But on the other hand, humans still only have limited ability to repair our damaged selves, so in a way, it's similar.

So, if the artificial Universe is limited enough, it can pretty much act like a complete being within that universe. It doesn't need the mysterious consciousness as we know it. It appears to have the one it needs sufficient for its environment.

Am I wrong?

Quote: rxwine

If you create a limited artificial world for a computer to interact with, a sufficient computer with the right equipment can do much of what the human mind can do.

If the natural language of that world is limited, then it can even learn the ambuiguities of meaning because there won't be so many to deal with. If the material it works with is of the nature it can detect and see, it can see everything it needs too in that world with lens and sensors. If it has the ability to manipulate and move about it can move and change the objects, reassemble and recreate basic designs. Given programmed needs, it can search for a simple energy source (electricity), (rest) recharge, it can do open ended tasks such as random assembly trying to create objects like steps it can use, or shelters it can build around itself. If there is another like it in that world, each can transfer discovered information to the other without having to learn by trial and error. You could probably even train it to detect and repair some problems with spare parts as a form of self-preservation, but the processing for that starts to get really complicated. But on the other hand, humans still only have limited ability to repair our damaged selves, so in a way, it's similar.

So, if the artificial Universe is limited enough, it can pretty much act like a complete being within that universe. It doesn't need the mysterious consciousness as we know it. It appears to have the one it needs sufficient for its environment.
Am I wrong?

I think the difference is that humans "know that they know". Whether a machine can be truly conscious is an interesting question. how would you even know? It's been a great subject for science fiction from Frankenstein to Star Trek. Happy Thanksgiving.

Quote: Nareed

And why don't they simply percolate to the Earth's center of gravity? I mean, they can move through walls, right? Why don't they fall through floors?

Quantum mechanics tells us there is a law of conservation of information, every bit as rigorous and necessary as the other conservation laws (matter, angular momentum, etc). Recently there's been talk on whether information is or isn't lost in a black hole. Apparently it isn't.

This has fueled the reincarnation and after life crowds. After all, a mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, whatever you want to call it, can be thought of as information, right? Like a computer program, or a book.

Well, yes. But consider this:

Imagine you write an original poem on a piece of paper. While the paper exists, the information in the shape of a poem exists. If you were to burn the paper, then mix the ashes with water and then let them dry, could you put the paper back into its original form with a written poem on it?

Yet, the information is still there, only much disorganized (also some paper and ink molecules combined with air during the fire and are now floating around the atmosphere, but we can ignore this). So disorganized that you cannot put the pieces back together as paper and a poem.

When you die, your soul, as part of the brain, will undergo the same kind of disorganized state as the rest of your body (yes, the brain is part of the body). And nothing we know of can put it back together. moreover, life is a process. Chemical reactions take place inside of you continuously. After death these reactions also become disorganized and decay ensues. Nothing can restart this process either.

Information is not contained in letters or paper and ink itself. It must be organized to form concept. when the ink fades or the fire consumes, that information is gone. The only way to put it back together is if it's stored somewhere else like a human brain or a hard drive or another piece of paper.

Quote: pew

Information is not contained in letters or paper and ink itself. It must be organized to form concept. when the ink fades or the fire consumes, that information is gone. The only way to put it back together is if it's stored somewhere else like a human brain or a hard drive or another piece of paper.

At the quantum level the information is still there, but disorganized.

Think of an egg. Once you break the shell and scramble the contents, it's impossible to reconstruct the egg back to its intact shape. But all the pieces of egg-shell, and every last bit of yoke and white are still there. Every proton, neutron and electron remains, as do the quarks and gluons making up the particles in the nucleus. It's not lost, it's just not an intact egg which might hatch one day.

I was a bit misleading using a poem as an example. The poem isn't just information. It's data. That is, it has a meaning which can be grasped and interpreted by a human mind. Quantum mechanics does not deal in the meaning of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" but rather with the states of the particles involved.

Quote: Nareed

At the quantum level the information is still there, but disorganized.

Think of an egg. Once you break the shell and scramble the contents, it's impossible to reconstruct the egg back to its intact shape. But all the pieces of egg-shell, and every last bit of yoke and white are still there. Every proton, neutron and electron remains, as do the quarks and gluons making up the particles in the nucleus. It's not lost, it's just not an intact egg which might hatch one day.

I was a bit misleading using a poem as an example. The poem isn't just information. It's data. That is, it has a meaning which can be grasped and interpreted by a human mind. Quantum mechanics does not deal in the meaning of "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" but rather with the states of the particles involved.

I don't know much about quantum anything so bear with me. I would say that disorganized information is no information. It's an oxymoron. Or, are you saying that quantum something can make a roasted turkey suddenly appear on my kitchen table? Oh I'm gettin' hungry!

Quote: pew

I don't know much about quantum anything so bear with me. I would say that disorganized information is no information.

It's not data.

Quote:

It's an oxymoron.

There! That proves you understand quantum mechanics :)

Quote:

Or, are you saying that quantum something can make a roasted turkey suddenly appear on my kitchen table? Oh I'm gettin' hungry!

The one source which supports this is a joke told by Penny in The Big Bang Theory. I'm not sure she had anything right, except the punch line.

So-called virtual particles come into and out of existence in the vacuum constantly. The only effect they have, to my knowledge, is in Hawking radiation (or is it Hawking's radiation??). Long story short, these cause black holes to lose mass and ultimately evaporate (should the universe last long enough).

The one source which supports this is a joke told by Penny in The Big Bang Theory. I'm not sure she had anything right, except the punch line.

So-called virtual particles come into and out of existence in the vacuum constantly. The only effect they have, to my knowledge, is in Hawking radiation (or is it Hawking's radiation??). Long story short, these cause black holes to lose mass and ultimately evaporate (should the universe last long enough).

Quote: pew

Thats a joke? Now I'm really lost.

No, that was an explanation. Hawking radiation is the reason Stephen Hawking is a world-renowned scientist. He was the first to apply quantum mechanics to a relativistic condition.

The joke is in an early ep called "The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition."

'Do you really know a lot about quantum mechanics, the math involved and so forth? I don't mean you but I think there is a lot of misunderstanding on the subject along with the popularization of some terms that leads to some pretty wild speculation on subjects that some commoners like myself don't fully understand.