"Why we haven't met any aliens" by Geoffrey Miller

[Cato]

     I thought it sounded familiar, like the Omega point where everything finally becomes God after keeping us all in suspense.....for all it's crackpottery I always liked one thing about the Teilhardian thesis, that it actually observed the basic evolutionary principle that meaning, purpose and intelligence is a product rather than the cause of a Universal evolutionary process. Otherwise it's Looney Toones, I guess.

Yes, as mentioned, in this sense the Big Bang is God as a sacrifice for creation, and the "Divine Plan" is the re-creation and coalescence of universal intelligence back into a divine unity.  You can see why Eastern mysticism gets connected here.

Tipler throws all kinds of mathematics at the reader (fortunately in an appendix) to prove his ideas are valid: for someone with a Ph.D. I suppose they are comprehensible.

One thing, however, is debatable: he insists that "Intelligence" will want to have complete knowledge of the Universe's past History in a quest for completeness, and therefore will resurrect all (intelligent?) beings through (what seems to be) a computer emulation.

It is not clear to me that "Intelligence" must want to know anything of the sort.  He presents it, however, as a given.

[Scarpia]

Tipler throws all kinds of mathematics at the reader (fortunately in an appendix) to prove his ideas are valid: for someone with a Ph.D. I suppose they are comprehensible.

I suspect the greater your training the more incomprehensible they will be.

[Cato]

I suspect the greater your training the more incomprehensible they will be.

Wocka Wocka!   

Somebody named Phillip Stahl on Amazon in the review for a sequel book called The Physics of Christianity, who says he is a physicist, does indeed quibble with Tipler's mathematics at length!

http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Christianity-Frank-J-Tipler/product-reviews/0385514255/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

[Scarpia]

Wocka Wocka!   

Somebody named Phillip Stahl on Amazon in the review for a sequel book called The Physics of Christianity, who says he is a physicist, does indeed quibble with Tipler's mathematics at length!

http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Christianity-Frank-J-Tipler/product-reviews/0385514255/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

You can do all of the math you want, and it might even be correct.  Whether math applies to physical reality and how is the crux of it.  It took years and years for physicists to agree how to interpret the equations of quantum mechanics in terms of simple physical systems like an electronic whose spin might be up or down.  The idea that mathematical equations can say something interesting about "immortality" is too absurd to contemplate.

[oabmarcus]

You can do all of the math you want, and it might even be correct.  Whether math applies to physical reality and how is the crux of it.  It took years and years for physicists to agree how to interpret the equations of quantum mechanics in terms of simple physical systems like an electronic whose spin might be up or down.  The idea that mathematical equations can say something interesting about "immortality" is too absurd to contemplate.

Math is a language, we use it to describe the natural world in a way that we can understand.

[sospiro]

Math is a language, we use it to describe the natural world in a way that we can understand.

Is 'math' short for something?

[Scarpia]

Math is a language, we use it to describe the natural world in a way that we can understand.

Do you claim that this sentence means something?  Before you can claim your math describes the natural world, you have to take the trouble to experimentally verify that there is a correlation between the equation and empirical reality.  If you do it is called science.  If you don't it is called mysticism.  Mysticism may be fun, but I wouldn't advise you to cross a bridge designed by a mystic.

[Opus106]

Is 'math' short for something?

Short for maths.

[Elgarian]

I wouldn't advise you to cross a bridge climb a ladder designed by a mystic.

Depends where you're wanting to get to, I guess...

[drogulus]

It is not clear to me that "Intelligence" must want to know anything of the sort.  He presents it, however, as a given.

      That's just absolutist nonsense. Any reasonable person is aware of limits to knowledge. It doesn't matter how big and fast your computer is, it can't know everything. Tipler would be correct if he were to say only total knowledge could replicate a complex entity, which is not only impossible but formally understood to be so since 1931.

      It wouldn't matter if you could copy dead people, since they would still be dead even if the copies were alive. The same applies to Captain Kirk after he's beamed down. He's dead. No one knows this on the stupid starship Enterprise.....the copy says he's Kirk and everyone agrees. Kirk isn't around to protest that he is dead. What use is it to him that his copy is alive?

[oabmarcus]

Do you claim that this sentence means something?  Before you can claim your math describes the natural world, you have to take the trouble to experimentally verify that there is a correlation between the equation and empirical reality.  If you do it is called science.  If you don't it is called mysticism.  Mysticism may be fun, but I wouldn't advise you to cross a bridge designed by a mystic.

it's a tool, like how we use English to exchange abstract ideas. We need something to model nature. Nobody is saying that math=nature here.

[Scarpia]

it's a tool, like how we use English to exchange abstract ideas. We need something to model nature. Nobody is saying that math=nature here.

I'm just say, in the case of this tosser Tipler who wrote the book with the appendix full of math, math says nothing about nature unless you carefully verify that there is a relationship between nature and the particular equation you've written.  Give the subject matter of the book, it is hard for me to imagine that is possible.

[Cato]

      That's just absolutist nonsense. Any reasonable person is aware of limits to knowledge. It doesn't matter how big and fast your computer is, it can't know everything. Tipler would be correct if he were to say only total knowledge could replicate a complex entity, which is not only impossible but formally understood to be so since 1931.

      It wouldn't matter if you could copy dead people, since they would still be dead even if the copies were alive. The same applies to Captain Kirk after he's beamed down. He's dead. No one knows this on the stupid starship Enterprise.....the copy says he's Kirk and everyone agrees. Kirk isn't around to protest that he is dead. What use is it to him that his copy is alive?

Quite true: the problem for Star Trek is the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, which would disallow reintegration after atomic disintegration, because you could never know the energy and the position of the atoms needed to put Captain Kirk  together again.

The counter-argument - which takes you into "ghost in the machine" territory - is that the present "you" is also a copy, as your body rebuilds itself over the decades.  Apparently even in old age the brain can grow new neurons: so does the "you at 15" have exactly the same atoms as the "you at 51" ?

So is what you were at 15 "dead" ?  I suppose in one sense..yes.

And so, goes the counterargument, which one is "you" really?  So if "new" atoms are used to reintegrate Captain Kirk, and he does not know any difference, is he still "really" Captain Kirk the way you are still Drogulus after 20 or 30 years of changes in your body?

I have no pretensions to having an answer, but the questions are intriguing.

[Scarpia]

Quite true: the problem for Star Trek is the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, which would disallow reintegration after atomic disintegration, because you could never know the energy and the position of the atoms needed to put Captain Kirk  together again.

Please don't interpret this as a claim that the Star Trek transporter is possible, but I don't think it is necessary to reproduce the quantum state of Captain Kirk to reproduce him.  Captain Kirk is a "thermodynamic" system, meaning there is no quantum mechanical coherence from one instant to the next.  Quantum entities like electrons and protons are always colliding with each other and scrambling their unique quantum phases.  Presumably what you need to recreate Kirk is a map of every cell in his body, with a list of molecules contained inside and their arrangement (i.e., chromosomes, proteins, lipids, etc).  Of course, that is equally unknowable.

[drogulus]

    This is from Martin Gardner:
     

     Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP):

    "At the instant the Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of knowledge which it is logically possible to know. And this is the end."


     No, no! Say instead "The end of the beginning...." to leave room for a sequel!

      CRAP II, The Final Conflict

     My position on teleportation doesn't rest on the presumptive accuracy of the copy or the reasons why it's possible or not. It rests entirely on what happens to the original, which is destroyed. The continuity required for the copy to be not a copy but the original is not maintained. There would have to be a "chain of custody" where the mind of Kirk takes control of the new entity before the disappearance of the original. That would have to be the minimum necessary condition and perhaps a sufficient one. Gradual replacement of components works, we know that much. The problem is generally ignored in depictions of teleportation.

      Here's a fun look at how identity might get spread over time and space.

      Where Am I?

[Scarpia]

My position on teleportation doesn't rest on the presumptive accuracy of the copy or the reasons why it's possible or not. It rests entirely on what happens to the original, which is destroyed. The continuity required for the copy to be not a copy but the original is not maintained. There would have to be a "chain of custody" where the mind of Kirk takes control of the new entity before the disappearance of the original. That would have to be the minimum necessary condition and perhaps a sufficient one. Gradual replacement of components works, we know that much. The problem is generally ignored in depictions of teleportation.

There is no problem.  Creation of a copy and destruction of the original are independent processes.  You can make the duplicate and keep the original.  They would be identical when first created (ideally) and would start to diverge as they had different experiences and due to the intrinsic unpredictability of large chaotic systems (i.e., the butterfly effect).  In the Federation of Planets there must have been a rule that you have to kill the original after making the copy.  Consciousness, it would seem, is a property of the dynamic system of the brain, and would evolve in the new organism independent of what happened to the original organism.

[drogulus]

    Yes, I'm saying they are independent processes. The usual view is that one thing is happening, a form of transportation. That is not the case. As described teleportation involves the disintegration of a person and a reintegration somewhere else. The reintegration is assumed by some kind of reasoning to just be the original.

     So I'm not saying that the copy is not a copy, nor am I saying that such copying could not work in principle. I'm only saying the copy is not the original.

[Scarpia]

So I'm not saying that the copy is not a copy, nor am I saying that such copying could not work in principle. I'm only saying the copy is not the original.

Yes, why would you allow yourself to be killed, as long as a copy of you would be created somewhere else.  On the other hand, in the original television show they frequently referred to the process as though the actual atoms were transported from one place to another.  If that were literally true I guess the thing would have to be quantum mechanical.  In any case, trying to make sense of Star Trek is a loosing proposition.  Just enjoy the nubile female androids that Kirk inevitably falls in love with.