Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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Frost
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Frost »

Bem et al.'s response was not a "failed argument." Wagenmakers et al. was caught using a ridiculous prior that did confirm their initial bias. Their selection of the Bayes factor was also absurd as already addressed by Bem et al. because by their claim of "making no assumptions" they assumed that it was reasonable to consider a high likelihood for psi effects with such a large effect size that no statistical analysis would even be needed! They attempted to justify this absurdity by saying real life effects are noticed without statistical analysis which is absurd to apply to the artifical laboratory settings that cannot by ethical standards expose people to the danger and emotional trauma common to spontaneous cases! In light of this terrible reasoning, they also ignored the effect size of previous similar experiments which is relevant to include in the Bayes Factor analysis. However, frankly, I don't know which way to go on the one vs. two tailed analysis. I am not willing to argue this one because I don't know enough, so I'm not sure why you're so confident. However, considering the other flaws in Wagenmakers et al.'s analysis along with the reputation of the statisticians on Bem's side, I am inclined to take the side of Utts, but I could be wrong.

You have not established that the Bem's experiments were "false positives." Knock off with the pseudo-scientific bullh!t where you think that some potential flaws in the studies therefore falsifies the research. If you had any clue to the process of science you would realize that this is a process and more research is needed to test the hypothesis that those possible flaws in fact were the result of the experimental results. You're just trying to jump right to saying it was "false positives" which is unfounded. I already told you that this charade when on for decades with the Ganzfeld experiments, only to find out later after addressing all the supposed methodological flaws, they ended up providing better evidence!

Second, you claim that Bem's meta-analysis of 90 experiments "has been shown to be the product of statistical manipulation." Based on what evidence? You have not addressed the similar results that Mossbridge et al. obtained in their meta-analysis of other studies. You have to demonstrate that it was a result of manipulation. You can't just claim it.

When you say "But there's no phenomena" you're just assuming the results you want, but that's not how science works. You attempt to attribute all sorts of psychology to Bem without knowing what his motivations are in attempt to discredit him along with terms like "leap of faith" and "woo woo nonsense." Please, leave out the ignorant bullsht and stick to real arguments. That's an appeal to motivation and that does not demonstrate anything and just makes you look like an arrogant fool. Stick to real arguments.

When you say "The argument that in the history of science many effects were discovered prior to the phenomena itself is a fallacy," you demonstrate a breathtaking ignorance of scientific history. You do realize that quantum theory is based on many experiments that found effects before we really understood what was going on, right? Everything from black body radiation to the photoelectric effect to the double slit experiment.

To try to object that Bem "could not describe what it is, what its mechanisms are" is complete nonsense. Again, this is how quantum theory was arrived at. Just imagine! Telling the founders of quantum theory like Einstein and Planck that quantum theory must be "woo woo nonsense" and that they are making "a leap of faith" that it is merely what they "ardently want to believe." By using experiments on black body radiation they were trying "to open a gap in our rational understanding of reality" so they could "fill it with [their] woo woo nonsense." What complete and utter nonsense you are spouting.

And don't try to twist my words; you know damned well that I did not try to claim that psi is real only because many believe it to be true. You separate out that quote from the entire chain of Bayesian reasoning in an intellectually dishonest attempt to try to claim I was guilty of a logical fallacy.

I'm not lost in semantics, you just don't understand basic epistemology. Again, science is the application of math, logic, and plausible reasoning with empirical methods of learning about the world. You are acting like science is flawed because it uses statistics because it is not flawless and requiring that it be in order to have any justifiable knowledge. And whatever nonsense you are talking about with the goal of logic is contrary to that of science. You do realize that quantum theory is based on probability and statistics, right? And that it is breathtakingly accurate, right? Is quantum theory flawed now, too?

Whether the p =0.05 standard needs to be changed is a matter for the researchers. However, the p values in the meta analyses presented are nowhere near that anyway so it is irrelevant if it needs to be 0.005 or even 0.0005. Until a new p value standard is reached, you really don't have a real objection. You have a concern with the status of the p value standard, which many people do, but concerns do not mean that the entire foundation is flawed.

The response about why it wouldn't show with any other picture is not an objection. There shouldn't be any effect under any condition. Bem did provide a suggestion as to why this effect is seen with the erotic stimuli, but again, strictly speaking that is irrelevant because there should not be an effect with any of them. Your objection is just completely irrelevant and you're trying to pick fly sh1t out of pepper. This is just the same with you wanting to require that he also test a condition with 3, 4, and 5 options. This simply vacuous. First off, practically speaking, there isn't the budget or time. Second, it's irrelevant. The statistical analysis is valid because the null hypothesis is clear and statistical analysis is needed. There should not be any effect whether it's 2,3,4, or 5. Again, this is a non-objection.

Now, with all this said, the problems with looking at individual papers and individual attempted replications is precisely why meta-analysis is so heavily used. As already stated, Mossbridge et al. came to the conclusion that:
The results reveal a significant overall effect with a small effect size (random effects: overall [weighted] ES=0.21, 95%CI=0.13-0.29, z=5.3, p<5.7x10-8; fixed effects: overall ES=0.21, 95%CI=0.15-0.27, z=6.9, p<2.7x10-12). Higher quality experiments produce a quantitately larger effect size and a greater level of significance than lower quality studies.
We can go back and forth on the Bem paper if you want, but when it comes down to it, the meta-analyses are much better evidence, and they indicate there is a significant effect. You should clearly see that your worry over the p = 0.05 standard is irrelevant to a p value of 2.7x10^-12 with a z score of 6.9 that blows by the standard that 5 constitutes a "discovery."

That the physical or "material" properties are emergent and that the information state is primary. That is clearly indicated in the teleportation experiments. I just described the nature of it, so you might want to re-read it.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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If only it was as simple to do something as it was to say you were doing something.
I will stick with infinite wishes.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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Frost wrote: Bem et al.'s response was not a "failed argument." Wagenmakers et al. was caught using a ridiculous prior that did confirm their initial bias. Their selection of the Bayes factor was also absurd as already addressed by Bem et al. because by their claim...
Among the many that have made a good case against Bem, if we use your own standards of evidence, Wagenmaker's criticism stands as one of the most important, since it was published in the same peer-reviewed journal as did Bem's. Or are you saying now that a paper in a prestigious journal by a reputed psychologist with proficiency in statistical methods can be dismissed as ridiculous and absurd?
Frost wrote: You have not established that the Bem's experiments were "false positives." Knock off with the pseudo-scientific bullh!t where you think that some potential flaws in the studies therefore falsifies the research.
I would bet you were dying to say "proved", instead of settling for "established". Anyway, I have established more than potential flaws, but actual, confirmed flaws. There's ample discussion of such flaws in the cited articles and papers, as well as my own criticism of the underlying assumptions of Bem's work. Even the researchers themselves admitted many errors, as evidenced by correspondence they held with other researchers, who ultimately decided not to fall for Bem's claims. You can see one here:
http://daniellakens.blogspot.nl/2014/05 ... -meta.html

And this one is particularly explicit about all the manipulation that goes on with the data to fit the researcher's intent: https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/ ... he-future/
Frost wrote: If you had any clue to the process of science you would realize that this is a process and more research is needed to test the hypothesis that those possible flaws in fact were the result of the experimental results.
Oh, yes, of course Bem's experiments drew the conclusion that his findings are at best controversial, and most likely false and insufficient to establish psi as a real phenomena. Hopefully he will design better experiments with enough controls the next time. Interesting that in his paper he mentions how well casinos control the odds in their favor by adding more slots. It appears the profit motivation makes them better scientists than him.
Frost wrote:When you say "But there's no phenomena" you're just assuming the results you want, but that's not how science works. You attempt to attribute all sorts of psychology to Bem without knowing what his motivations are in attempt to discredit him along with terms like "leap of faith" and "woo woo nonsense."
You either missed the point or indulged yourself in straw man arguments. I never said anything about motivation, because whatever his motivation, the fact remains that after concluding his collection of data, the most Bem was allowed to do (in his best case scenario) was to note that he had observed something, an effect not explained by chance (according to his statistical significance assumptions), for which he would propose a falsifiable hypothesis of the effective causes and the mechanisms under which they operate. Then he would have put this hypothesis to test with replicable methods. But Bem himself admits in his paper that he had not met the theoretical challenge, he just believed in ESP and once he had the chance to claim "not chance", he then jumped right away to exclaim: "eureka, it's psi!!!". Not so fast, Speedy. Since when speculation is science?
Frost wrote: Please, leave out the ignorant bullsht and stick to real arguments. That's an appeal to motivation and that does not demonstrate anything and just makes you look like an arrogant fool. Stick to real arguments.
I had asked you to control your emotions. Insults will not make your argument any better and you should look the next time you enter this forum to what is written at the top of the main page:

An internet oasis of open discussion without personal attacks

If you want to rant against someone, write to Wagenmaker or any of Bem's detractors to express your anger.
Frost wrote: When you say "The argument that in the history of science many effects were discovered prior to the phenomena itself is a fallacy," you demonstrate a breathtaking ignorance of scientific history.
You missed the point, again!! You see, I was not saying it was a lie, I said it was a fallacy: just because some effects were discovered prior to the phenomena, doesn't mean automatically that THIS effect guarantees the discovery of the phenomena that is proposed as its cause. It is still the duty of a real scientist to try to figure out with a systematic, unbiased approach, the real cause and not to sit lazily claiming that something he just happen to believe is the cause.
Frost wrote: You do realize that quantum theory is based on many experiments that found effects before we really understood what was going on, right? Everything from black body radiation to the photoelectric effect to the double slit experiment.
The real issue here is that we don't really understand what is going on at quantum scales. That's the limit science reaches for now and from there departs all the woo woo nonsense.
Frost wrote:I'm not lost in semantics, you just don't understand basic epistemology. Again, science is the application of math, logic, and plausible reasoning with empirical methods of learning about the world.
The more you repeat this, it becomes more evident that you're lost in semantics: "science is not about lemonade, but it's about the application of lemon juice, water and sugar". It's so obvious that your initial mistake of erasing the word "proof" from the debate has forced you to use euphemisms that mean basically the same. And so you still cannot explain why science would require the application of logic and math (which are said to pursue proofs) if science is not in the business of proving anything. Why would you want to stir lemon juice, water and sugar if you don't want lemonade.
Frost wrote:The response about why it wouldn't show with any other picture is not an objection. There shouldn't be any effect under any condition.
Of course it is an objection and considering how Bem manipulated the experiments, especially regarding the erotic pictures, so that they produced the desired effect, it's even more relevant. It should have been the whole reason of the project: why this effect is observed under these conditions and not under these. It was not his business to suggest, but to explain it scientifically. But of course, that's what only real scientists do. The excuse that there is not enough money is laughable.
Frost wrote: Now, with all this said, the problems with looking at individual papers and individual attempted replications is precisely why meta-analysis is so heavily used. As already stated, Mossbridge et al. came to the conclusion that:
But meta-analysis is toilet paper if the experiments themselves were flawed. And this has been well established. And in the meta-analysis carried out by Ben and colleagues some silly mistakes are made, as for example what constitutes an "exact replication".
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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Count Lucanor wrote: March 16th, 2018, 10:49 pm You either missed the point or indulged yourself in straw man arguments. I never said anything about motivation,
The hell you didn't. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining:
Count Lucanor wrote: March 15th, 2018, 11:53 pm He just makes a leap of faith that it means what he ardently wants to believe. He tries to open a gap in our rational understanding of reality, so that he can fill it with his woo woo nonsense.

Count Lucanor wrote: March 16th, 2018, 10:49 pm The more you repeat this, it becomes more evident that you're lost in semantics: "science is not about lemonade, but it's about the application of lemon juice, water and sugar". It's so obvious that your initial mistake of erasing the word "proof" from the debate has forced you to use euphemisms that mean basically the same. And so you still cannot explain why science would require the application of logic and math (which are said to pursue proofs) if science is not in the business of proving anything. Why would you want to stir lemon juice, water and sugar if you don't want lemonade.
Reality isn't founded on logic. Empirical science is not a matter of logical proofs. You obviously have never read any philosophy of science if you do not understand the difference between mathematical or logical proof and empirical evidence.
Count Lucanor wrote: March 16th, 2018, 10:49 pm But meta-analysis is toilet paper if the experiments themselves were flawed. And this has been well established. And in the meta-analysis carried out by Ben and colleagues some silly mistakes are made, as for example what constitutes an "exact replication".
Yeah, you missed this part:

"Higher quality experiments produce a quantitately larger effect size and a greater level of significance than lower quality studies."


And I will reiterate my point about the outdated view of a materialist mind. The teleportation experiments are perhaps more the kind of evidence you would like to see. Clearly reality isn't material and the material or physical properties emerge from patterns of actualized information states. Materialism and strong realism are dead and are entirely untenable metaphysical doctrines. There is no material mind.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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Frost wrote:Reality isn't founded on logic.
Reality is founded in causality, it's an order of causal relationships. We wouldn't take on step if it didn't work that way.

You simply have a huge confusion about our relationship with the world and the role science plays in it. You have taken the abstract categorization of the fields of knowledge and treated them as independent realities, disconnected from common human praxis and from themselves. The empirical domain does not belong to scientists, nor logic to logicians, nor math to mathematicians. In every day life, people has empirical relations with the environment, they qualify and quantify things and they use logic as part of their basic cognitive abilities. All of this in one general effort to make sense and transform the world, and for which humans set up themselves in a truth-seeking enterprise. This happens even before there are any disciplines of empirical science, math or logic. As our understanding of the world improved, it became necessary to categorize our knowledge in separate fields of the empirical, mathematical or logical order, which originally were systematized within just one institutionalized practice (as we can attest with most ancient philosophers) and with time and progress, given the level of specialization inherent to the limits of their inquiries and applications, became separate disciplines. But the truth-seeking enterprise is still one human effort, and it still deals with the overall truths and certainties about the world, even though it also requires the particular truths of systematized math, systematized logic and systematized empirical science, all justified in said order of causal relationships. Without inferences, simply not only there wouldn't be any formal science, but not even informal claims about the world, because logic is part of human reasoning. Empirical sciences are unavoidably tied to math and logic because at the end it is part of the same effort to arrive to truths, to achieve certainties.

And that's all that "proof" means. Taking it out of a discussion about scientific matters to avoid the pretensions of absolute knowledge would extend the same effect to words like "establish", "demonstrate" "justify" or "evidence", that would have no grounds to support them. No best science paper, no best statistical method, no best hypothesis, no better philosophy of science, nothing...just plain assertions of the type: "I believe this". And even these will not be guaranteed, leading ultimately to the statement "I want to believe this". So your whole thinking framework about science is pure nonsense, it is the foundation of irrationality.
Frost wrote: Empirical science is not a matter of logical proofs. You obviously have never read any philosophy of science if you do not understand the difference between mathematical or logical proof and empirical evidence.
I never said it was exclusively a matter of logical proofs. I just said proofs in the same rational sense that words like "demonstrated", "established", "evidenced" or "justified" are used. But your confused mind does not allow you to see that the key distinction in truth-seeking efforts is the distinction between absolute and relative certainties, or better explained, the spectrum of certainties composed by higher and lower degrees. That a star of some magnitude is positioned in relation to other objects that travel around it in elliptical shapes, constitutes our high degree of certainty about the existence and functioning of our Solar System. It may be not absolute knowledge, but the difference is practically irrelevant and we can justify such claims as indisputable.
Frost wrote: And I will reiterate my point about the outdated view of a materialist mind.
Perhaps outdated in reactionary religious and "spiritualist" circles, but that's not something new.
Frost wrote: The teleportation experiments are perhaps more the kind of evidence you would like to see. Clearly reality isn't material and the material or physical properties emerge from patterns of actualized information states.
Something in a state is still something of a material nature and part of the causal order of the universe. If there was something apart from the physical world, it wouldn't have any effect on it, it wouldn't even be noticed. And if there was something having an effect on the physical world, it would be interacting with other things within the realm of the physical world, so it is still one domain, and still of a material nature. There's simply no evidence, nor any theoretical framework that describes any other realm, unless we took the Summa Theologiae as such study, or current speculations by some physics, which amount only to that: speculations.
Frost wrote: Materialism and strong realism are dead and are entirely untenable metaphysical doctrines.
The last time I looked it was doing very well. Idealism and its court of superstitions may be very popular, but that's as much as they can aspire. They have no chance against real science.
Frost wrote: There is no material mind.
Still haven't seen a disembodied mind, though.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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Reality is founded on causality? That's just nonsense. First off, I think you mean causation, not causality, and second, you couldn't even describe what causation is. I'll give you a hint...causation is not based on some principle of causation but is fundamentally a-causal at its foundation. This is demonstrated in quantum mechanics.

But again, this does not mean that reality is based on logic. I don't know why you are denying this. Logical positivism died over 50 years ago.

I never said that logic and math belong to logicians and mathemeticians respectively. Did you miss the part where I said science must apply mathematics and logic? I just said it two posts ago:
Frost wrote: March 16th, 2018, 1:15 am Again, science is the application of math, logic, and plausible reasoning with empirical methods of learning about the world.
Again, logical and mathematical proofs are nothing like the assessment of empirical evidence and theory. There is no proof that can be demonstrated that quantum wave equations are a true description of the world like Godel's incompleteness theorems are demonstrated by proof. Why you are arguing against this just silly. The way you are trying to use the word proof is not how it is used in science or math or even philosophy of science. Your attempted definition merely muddles philosophy of science by eliminating this structural distinction.
Count Lucanor wrote: March 18th, 2018, 12:52 pm Perhaps outdated in reactionary religious and "spiritualist" circles, but that's not something new.
LOL I talk about quantum mechanics experiments and this is the response you give?
Count Lucanor wrote: March 18th, 2018, 12:52 pm Something in a state is still something of a material nature and part of the causal order of the universe. If there was something apart from the physical world, it wouldn't have any effect on it, it wouldn't even be noticed. And if there was something having an effect on the physical world, it would be interacting with other things within the realm of the physical world, so it is still one domain, and still of a material nature. There's simply no evidence, nor any theoretical framework that describes any other realm, unless we took the Summa Theologiae as such study, or current speculations by some physics, which amount only to that: speculations.
LOL you realize if the photon were "material" that its instantaneous teleoportation of over 100km would constitute a complete violation of Special Relativity, right? You seem to have a problem with psi supposedly being anti-scientific yet you just suggested a gross violation of Special Relativity in a vain attempt to cling to dogmatic materialist beliefs. Interesting.

I'll say it again. Physicality or materiality is a manifestation of certain patterns of information. This information must be formed in state vector reduction. There is nothing physical until state vector reduction, and even that is a manifestation of a particular information state. This is demonstrated multiply in teleportation experiments due to the instantaneous manifestation of a photon at a distance as well as the nature of entangled photons.

If you want to go ahead and claim that virtual particles or the quantum vacuum are "material" then you're simply using a meaningless term and any claim of a "material mind" is also meaningless.
Count Lucanor wrote: March 18th, 2018, 12:52 pm
Frost wrote: Materialism and strong realism are dead and are entirely untenable metaphysical doctrines.
The last time I looked it was doing very well. Idealism and its court of superstitions may be very popular, but that's as much as they can aspire. They have no chance against real science.
Who said anything about idealism? Why are you using such outdated categories? Strong realism has long ago been refuted by quantum mechanics (see the experiments on the Leggett-Garg inequalities). To claim otherwise is purely anti-scientific. Strictly speaking, quantum mechanics permits only a weak form of realism, since the choices of the experimenter enter dynamically into the structure of reality and there is no actual events until state vector reduction. The whole idea of materialism and realism are a result of the out-dated Newtonian paradigm which is irrelevant to philosophy (well, maybe history of philosophy and understanding where all the mistakes came from).
Count Lucanor wrote: March 18th, 2018, 12:52 pm Still haven't seen a disembodied mind, though.
I love how you continue to make jabs like this when you have such an anti-scientific attitude. But that is expected from the use of out-dated philosophical categories.

So to try to get back to the topic of the thread. The entire idea that the mind must be material because everything is material is not supported by modern physics. There is something much more fundamental about mind that involves non-physical experience, which is the basis of understanding and therefore of knowledge. This is why AI that results from algorithmic effective procedures will never be strong AI--it will never be conscious. In order to make AI conscious so that it can understand, it would require a radically different construction that is first conscious and second can use the power of algorithmic computation which we are poor at.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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Frost wrote:Reality is founded on causality? That's just nonsense.

Oh, really. What is it found on?
Frost wrote:First off, I think you mean causation, not causality, and second, you couldn't even describe what causation is.

I see no major distinction between the two terms and they're often used interchangeably. In Spanish, causality is translated as "causalidad", which is the appropriate term, while "causación" is rarely used. Anyway, by causality I just mean the concept of an order of relations of sufficient causes and effects.
Frost wrote: I'll give you a hint...causation is not based on some principle of causation but is fundamentally a-causal at its foundation. This is demonstrated in quantum mechanics.

Events at quantum levels may have shown to be counter-intuitive to the notions of causal order we are used to, but they don't destroy causality. That could only happen if complete arbitrariness was observed and absolutely no regularities were expected, but even the most avid quantum woo woo peddler expects a sufficient cause behind every phenomena. The words "demonstrated" and "effect" couldn't be possible used if they didn't submit to the principle of causality.
Frost wrote: But again, this does not mean that reality is based on logic. I don't know why you are denying this. Logical positivism died over 50 years ago.

I don't know why you assume I have denied that "reality is not based on logic". I have never said such thing. Logic can only be attributed to minds and reality exists independently of them. It seems you're confusing epistemological issues with ontological issues here.
Frost wrote: I never said that logic and math belong to logicians and mathemeticians respectively. Did you miss the part where I said science must apply mathematics and logic? I just said it two posts ago:

That's implied in the unnuanced compartmentalization of practices that you use to deny the unified truth-seeking effort in human inquiries. Of course, you then try to solve it resorting to the word "application". Remember the lemonade.
Frost wrote: Again, logical and mathematical proofs are nothing like the assessment of empirical evidence and theory. There is no proof that can be demonstrated that quantum wave equations are a true description of the world like Godel's incompleteness theorems are demonstrated by proof. Why you are arguing against this just silly. The way you are trying to use the word proof is not how it is used in science or math or even philosophy of science. Your attempted definition merely muddles philosophy of science by eliminating this structural distinction.

Again, the unnuanced compartmentalization of knowledge. You're still tangled with semantics and fail to understand the implications of applying a definition of "proof" that ultimately annuls the pretensions of your own propositions. Sure, we might not use "proof" in empirical science, but in that case we shouldn't use "demonstrate", "establish" or whatever, either.
Frost wrote:
Count Lucanor wrote:Perhaps outdated in reactionary religious and "spiritualist" circles, but that's not something new.
LOL I talk about quantum mechanics experiments and this is the response you give?
Actually you talked about "outdated views" and certainly it is not in quantum mechanics where a non-materialist view of the mind is nurtured, that's exclusively the business of New Age gurus. Penrose tried and it was quickly discredited.
Frost wrote: LOL you realize if the photon were "material"
LOL, talk about complete nonsense!!
Frost wrote: that its instantaneous teleoportation of over 100km would constitute a complete violation of Special Relativity, right? You seem to have a problem with psi supposedly being anti-scientific yet you just suggested a gross violation of Special Relativity in a vain attempt to cling to dogmatic materialist beliefs. Interesting.
But of course, everyone knows that nothing really was "teletransported", in Star Trek style. Entangled particles were separated and they kept the entanglement at a long distance. This "spooky action at a distance" has been known by scientist for decades now, a quantum-scale curiosity that has not, in any other sense of the macroscopic scales of the universe, changed our materialist and causal order inferences expressed in the known physical laws. We just don't really know yet how and why it happens at those scales, but that does not justify the quantum mysticists to claim consciousness is in any sense related to quantum mechanics. Consciousness still relies on a physical brain in a living organism that dwells in a macroscopic domain governed by fundamental laws of physics.
Frost wrote: I'll say it again. Physicality or materiality is a manifestation of certain patterns of information.
Nonsense. It's the other way around. States of physical reality manifest themselves in our perceptions, which then are organized mentally as representations and become information. Talking about information as an intrinsic principle of the universe is just the same as talking about a disembodied mind.
Frost wrote: Who said anything about idealism? Why are you using such outdated categories? Strong realism has long ago been refuted by quantum mechanics (see the experiments on the Leggett-Garg inequalities). To claim otherwise is purely anti-scientific. Strictly speaking, quantum mechanics permits only a weak form of realism, since the choices of the experimenter enter dynamically into the structure of reality and there is no actual events until state vector reduction. The whole idea of materialism and realism are a result of the out-dated Newtonian paradigm which is irrelevant to philosophy (well, maybe history of philosophy and understanding where all the mistakes came from).
This is a good summary of all the absurd claims of quantum woo peddlers, not necessarily the general view of serious physicists, which would not want to misuse and abuse reason to allow this quantum mysticism to prevail. The idea that a new spiritualist paradigm has taken over the sciences and sent Newtonian physics to the garbage bin is totally bonkers.
Frost wrote: There is something much more fundamental about mind that involves non-physical experience, which is the basis of understanding and therefore of knowledge.
What is non-physical? If it existed, would it interact with the physical?
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

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I'm going to separate the part on causation into a separate post because I think it deserves it.

The question of the foundation of causation is a fun one. There are two fundamental things to look at. First, the time-symmetric equations of quantum theory (particularly the relativistically invariant Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations) are commonly claimed to not show causation since causation is time-asymmetric (many have attempted to claim retro-causation, but this is mistaken). This is claimed to support the Russellian notion that physics does not deal in causation but instead it deals with invariant quantitative relations.

Second, we must investigate a classic example of radioactive decay. What causes the atom to decay? It appears that there is none and that it is just probabilistic in nature. It has been used to suggest that fundamentally causation does not exist.

Physics does in fact deal with causal relations. Considering the complex conjugate solutions to the relativistically invariant Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations, this process can be interpreted as a real pattern of a process of information transaction facilitated by an atemporal resonance of retarded (Ψ) and advanced waves (Ψ*) connecting emitter and absorber. This process of emitting an "offer wave" (Ψ) and subsequent "confirmation waves" (Ψ*) and the atemporal process of repeated emitter-absorber wave exchanges develops standing waves between all possible emitter-absorber pairs, which with sufficient amplitude, facilitates the transmission of a quantum of energy (ħω) and momentum (ħk) between emitter and absorber if, and only if, actualized in a primary experiential state. This resonance is a result of perturbation of the stable state of the absorber as a result of the offer wave (Ψ) from the emitter. This resulting confirmation wave (Ψ*) similarly perturbs the emitter.

This process of atemporal standing waves facilitates the transmission of information between emitter and absorber, which can then be actualized as a transaction in a primary experiential state. This actualization of transactions is what is commonly referred to as "collapse of the wave function," which John Cramer does not establish but instead attempts to bypass the issue by suggesting a stochastic choice prior to—though atemporally— the establishment of standing waves. It is important to understand that the actualization of this quantum transaction of information is, considered in total, what is considered a cause. Without the actualization of the transaction in a primary experiential state, there is no symmetry breaking and no "actual occurrences," but only complex amplitudes interpreted by the Born Rule as a probability for a particular actual transaction. In other words, there can be no causes without actualization in primary experiential states.

This quantum transaction process, when viewed in toto, describes a causal process of emission and absorption of quanta of energy between particles. It can be understood that in the case of radioactive decay, there is a causal process which occurs, if, and only if, an actualized transaction occurs, and this causal process is detailed explicitly in the transactional interpretation. If no emission occurs, then clearly there was no causation and no transaction. If emission does occur, an offer and confirmation wave was sufficiently established and actualized in a primary experiential state which facilitated the transmission of information between emitter and absorber.

While John Cramer's Transactional Interpretation is very important and not given the attention it deserves, it fails by attempting to hold on to the essentially Newtonian paradigm. The informational interetation of the Transactional interpretation (hah!) is accommodated within the von Neumann interpretation. This explains precisely what causation is, which is an emergent exclusive, selective real pattern of information transaction which is actualized in a non-physical experiential state. The causation in the radioactive decay is a matter of the offer and confirmation waves, where the receiving of the confirmation wave and actualization of the transaction in an experiential state establish the causation. This is in distinction to the normal probabilistic notion that appears to defy causation. However, this is an emergent property of the universe. Fundamentally there is no causation without experiential states, i.e. without life of some sort to actualize the quantum state of the system.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Frost:
I'll say it again. Physicality or materiality is a manifestation of certain patterns of information. This information must be formed in state vector reduction. There is nothing physical until state vector reduction …
I’ll say it for the first time, you don’t know what you are talking about. But then again, I have said and will say it again, neither does anyone else. We have gotten very good at predictive accuracy but no one really knows what is actually going on. See, for example, “A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics”
Foundational investigations in quantum mechanics, both experimental and theoretical, gave birth to the field of quantum information science. Nevertheless, the foundations of quantum mechanics themselves remain hotly debated in the scientific community, and no consensus on essential questions has been reached. Here, we present the results of a poll carried out among 33 participants of a conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics.(https://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1069)
We do not have satisfactory answers as to what is going on at the quantum level or how it relates to the macroscopic level.

There are various definitions of materialism, physicalism, matter, and information. This is obviously a problem when one makes statements such as:
LOL you realize if the photon were "material" that its instantaneous teleoportation of over 100km would constitute a complete violation of Special Relativity, right?
A photon is a is a basic particle of matter according to the standard model. You seem to be mistaking mass for matter. It is not that materialism is outdated it is that your notion of materialism is outdated.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Frost »

Count Lucanor wrote: March 18th, 2018, 7:36 pm But of course, everyone knows that nothing really was "teletransported", in Star Trek style. Entangled particles were separated and they kept the entanglement at a long distance. This "spooky action at a distance" has been known by scientist for decades now, a quantum-scale curiosity that has not, in any other sense of the macroscopic scales of the universe, changed our materialist and causal order inferences expressed in the known physical laws. We just don't really know yet how and why it happens at those scales, but that does not justify the quantum mysticists to claim consciousness is in any sense related to quantum mechanics. Consciousness still relies on a physical brain in a living organism that dwells in a macroscopic domain governed by fundamental laws of physics.
Crimony. You're trying to say that teleportation is just entanglement?? A photon was on one island and then instantaneously it was on another island. That's teleportation.

"a quantum-scale curiosity" you do realize the entire universe is quantum, right? And to say "that has not, in any other sense of the macroscopic scales of the universe, changed our materialist and causal order inferences expressed in the known physical laws" is a good one. Ever hear of the delayed choice experiments? How about the delayed-choice quantum eraser experiments? And seriously knock off the retarded insults. John von Neumann was literally the man that formalized quantum theory and this formalization is still used to this day, so he is not a "quantum mystic" when he provides the logical postulate that the non-physical experiential state must be involved in state vector reduction.

"Macroscopic domain" LOL that's a good one. Sorry, there are no levels in reality. There is only the quantum realm. If you disagree, show me in the equations where that cut off exists. Hint: it doesn't.

Count Lucanor wrote: March 18th, 2018, 7:36 pm Nonsense. It's the other way around. States of physical reality manifest themselves in our perceptions, which then are organized mentally as representations and become information. Talking about information as an intrinsic principle of the universe is just the same as talking about a disembodied mind.
Yeah. Right. Quantum information theory is mainstream physics dude. Get a clue. The photon teleported could not have been a material photon. It was on one island and instantaneously it appeared on another island over 100km away. Because of the nature of the teleportation method using entanglement, there is no doubt that what was teleported was the information state of the photon, and with that information state a physical particle emerged.

Count Lucanor wrote: March 18th, 2018, 7:36 pm This is a good summary of all the absurd claims of quantum woo peddlers, not necessarily the general view of serious physicists, which would not want to misuse and abuse reason to allow this quantum mysticism to prevail. The idea that a new spiritualist paradigm has taken over the sciences and sent Newtonian physics to the garbage bin is totally bonkers.
There you go again with your retarded attempts at insulting people that have literally revolutionized physics. So who are the "absurd claims of quantum woo peddlers" that make these claims? I dunno, how about John von Neumann that literally formalized quantum theory? That the choices of the experimenter enter dynamically into the structure of reality is in the damned orthodox quantum formalism. Or could you mean the highly respected experimentalists Anton Zeilinger or Anthony Leggett? I'm sure you've never looked into the experiments refuting micro-realism based on the Leggett-Garg inequalities. Yeah, that's just "absurd claims of quantum woo peddlers." What a wanker you are.

Back to the point. Dozens and dozens of quantum experiments refute the notion of materialism. There is no materialist interpretation of quantum theory which is consistent with all the evidence. Micro-realism is experimentally refuted and they are testing macro-realism as well, since orthodox quantum theory predicts macro-state vector reduction (of near-classical mixture states). In addition, the meta-analyses of various parapsychology experiments further indicate the non-material nature of mind and how it interacts with the world. There is no material mind and the strong AI notion that is common is terribly mistaken. While there is strong empirical evidence against the out-dated notions of materialism, there is even the philosophical point of the Chinese Room problem that does not depend on this evidence. Computers using computation will never understand anything, and this tremendously limits their ability. This is not to say that they will not have other phenomenal abilities that exploit the power of syntactical manipulation found in algorithmic computation (especially if we master quantum computation), but it is clear that it will not produce strong AI and such computers will not understand anything.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Frost »

Fooloso4 wrote: March 18th, 2018, 9:06 pm A photon is a is a basic particle of matter according to the standard model. You seem to be mistaking mass for matter. It is not that materialism is outdated it is that your notion of materialism is outdated.
There was no physical particle that traveled between spacelike separated events. There is no physical manifestation of a photon particle without state vector reduction.

I know the physicalists are attempting to bend everything in QM to fit their metaphysical belief of how the world should be, but when you start calling things like virtual particles and the quantum vacuum "physical" or "material" the term has lost any meaning that it ever had.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Count Lucanor »

Resorting to insults like "retarded" will not make your arguments more solid, it will only make them weaker. Maybe you should go back to your books from Chopra and do some meditation to return to your peaceful state of consciousness.

Anyway, your desperate attempts to show that you really DO know about quantum phsyics is the best clue to the extent of your confusion. We know what Feynman said about that and I think Bohr himself expressed something of the same nature. Maybe Feynman was retarded, too.
Frost wrote:I'm going to separate the part on causation into a separate post because I think it deserves it.

The question of the foundation of causation...
...Fundamentally there is no causation without experiential states, i.e. without life of some sort to actualize the quantum state of the system.
All that long pretentious gibberish boils down to this: there's a causal order in the universe. No one would make any inferences if it didn't work that way. And that applies even to the double slit experiment and any other we could think of. You would not make any assertions about ESP if you thought causality is not operating. As I said before, the only alternative to it would be complete arbitrariness, the old "anything goes", but no decent physicist, not even your preferred New Age guru or astrologist would claim that. Your unbelievable fantasy that "all the universe is quantum" and the mind "non-physical" shows that you're fully immersed in wishful thinking. Everyone is aware that quantum-level physics and classical physics must be reconciled, which is to say that we must find a theory that accounts for both probabilistic models and deterministic models, but to say that classical physics just don't operate anymore is, as I said before, totally bonkers. Quantum cosmology, as exemplified by Hawking, is still in highly speculative state and attempts to unify both models. So far, as Feynman said, the "only mistery" at the quantum level remains and the table is set for speculations. Unfortunately, as it has always been in the past, that also opens the invitation to new gods of the gaps.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Frost:
There was no physical particle that traveled between spacelike separated events.
Right, but saying what is not going on is not the say as saying what is going on. We have yet to make sense of what is going on.
There is no physical manifestation of a photon particle without state vector reduction.
Does a wave function represent reality, that is, is it objectively real independent of observation or is it a mathematical probability that reflects our lack of knowledge? This question has not been resolved. What you call a “physical manifestation” will mean two different things depending on how one conceives of the wave function.
…. when you start calling things like virtual particles and the quantum vacuum "physical" or "material" the term has lost any meaning that it ever had.
You might as well say an “atom” has lost any meaning that it ever had because what we now call an atom is not an indivisible.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Frost »

Fooloso4 wrote: March 19th, 2018, 9:38 am
Right, but saying what is not going on is not the say as saying what is going on. We have yet to make sense of what is going on.

Does a wave function represent reality, that is, is it objectively real independent of observation or is it a mathematical probability that reflects our lack of knowledge? This question has not been resolved. What you call a “physical manifestation” will mean two different things depending on how one conceives of the wave function.

You might as well say an “atom” has lost any meaning that it ever had because what we now call an atom is not an indivisible.
Check out the Afshar experiment. The interpretations which claim there is a physical particle such as the De Broglie-Bohm or Many Worlds cannot account for this, neither can objective collapse modifications such as GRW or Penrose’s Objetive Reduction.

Afshar, S. S. (2005) “Violation of the principle of complimentarity, and its implications.” Proc. SPIE 5866, 229-244, arXiv: 070127

Also there are experiments on the Leggett-Garg inequalities which demonstrate there is no state prior to observation. No physical particle can do that.

The wavefunction is a complex amplitude that requires transformation under the Born rule to determine probabilities. The wavefunction itself is not a spacetime object, but is a real pattern that exists between experiential states that accurately describes the potentials for actual occurrences.

The way “atom” was originally conceptualized has lost meaning, but the word atom today describes the structure of molecules which is not a metaphysical stance like physicalism or materialism. Very different.
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Re: Artificial intelligence: doom or survival?

Post by Frost »

Count Lucanor wrote: March 19th, 2018, 8:49 am Resorting to insults like "retarded" will not make your arguments more solid, it will only make them weaker. Maybe you should go back to your books from Chopra and do some meditation to return to your peaceful state of consciousness.
No, I get sick and tired of [ad hominem] that try to insult very well-respected physicists and people that literally founded the science in order to defend their dogmatic metaphysical views. Instead of learning something about quantum mechanics you would rather just say “Deepak Chopra! Deepak Chopra! Deepak Chopra!” (I lost count of how many times you try to use that as some sort of argument or insult).
Count Lucanor wrote: March 19th, 2018, 8:49 am Anyway, your desperate attempts to show that you really DO know about quantum phsyics is the best clue to the extent of your confusion. We know what Feynman said about that and I think Bohr himself expressed something of the same nature. Maybe Feynman was retarded, too.
Ahh yes, use Feynman’s saying to hide your ignorance. Good one. Try addressing the experimental evidence. No! Just claim “oh well no one knows anything anyway! Woo woo! Mysticisms! Deepak Chopra! Deepak Chopra! Did I say Deepak Chopra?” and hold on to your out-dated metaphysical beliefs about the world as if modern physics doesn’t exist.
Count Lucanor wrote: March 19th, 2018, 8:49 amAll that long pretentious gibberish boils down to this: there's a causal order in the universe. No one would make any inferences if it didn't work that way. And that applies even to the double slit experiment and any other we could think of. You would not make any assertions about ESP if you thought causality is not operating. As I said before, the only alternative to it would be complete arbitrariness, the old "anything goes", but no decent physicist, not even your preferred New Age guru or astrologist would claim that. Your unbelievable fantasy that "all the universe is quantum" and the mind "non-physical" shows that you're fully immersed in wishful thinking. Everyone is aware that quantum-level physics and classical physics must be reconciled, which is to say that we must find a theory that accounts for both probabilistic models and deterministic models, but to say that classical physics just don't operate anymore is, as I said before, totally bonkers. Quantum cosmology, as exemplified by Hawking, is still in highly speculative state and attempts to unify both models. So far, as Feynman said, the "only mistery" at the quantum level remains and the table is set for speculations. Unfortunately, as it has always been in the past, that also opens the invitation to new gods of the gaps.
Gibbersh? I should have known not to waste my time explaining the transactional interpretation on someone that can’t even tell the difference between entanglement and teleportation. [colourful suite of abuse to close the post deleted by mods]
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