After reading more of this thread I see my last post was fairly irrelevant.

""Human brain processes with bits/numbers."

Really? Why do you think this? The brain isn't a computer. At least in the sense of your laptop. You can't write code and down load while simultaneously erasing existing code.

Check out more of the thread.

Archetypically, physical media is a 1D bit processor. If you subscribe to a metaphysical description of the brain, that’s fine. But we are starting from a strict naturalist perspective until proven otherwise (which is the goal, to triangulate areas of the being that are metaphysical through strict scientifically lexical approach). Each neuron can store one or more bits of information. Bits are the elements of computation. Multidimensional forms are not empirically found in the brain through CT scan observation. I suggest reading from the earlier pages to get the full gist if you want to pipe in.

 

Check out more of the thread.

Archetypically, physical media is a 1D bit processor. If you subscribe to a metaphysical description of the brain, that’s fine. But we are starting from a strict naturalist perspective until proven otherwise (which is the goal, to triangulate areas of the being that are metaphysical through strict scientifically lexical approach). Each neuron can store one or more bits of information. Bits are the elements of computation. Multidimensional forms are not empirically found in the brain through CT observatiom. I suggest reading from the earlier pages to get the full gist if you want to pipe in.

You are absolutely right. 14 pages? No I did not read them all. I will bow out after this.

The brain, Delta Waves .5 to 3 Hz, Theta 3 to 8 HZ, Alpha 8 to 12 Hz, Beta 12 to 38 Hz, Gamma 40 to 100 HZ. Besides a right side and left side various brain activities, lower and upper order, take place at various places in the brain yet they all communicate with each other. CT? I don't know. EEG? I read that the way this all happens is multi dimensional. But if nothing else, is there a computer that operates simultaineously at different frequencies or clock speeds?

 

You are absolutely right. 14 pages? No I did not read them all. I will bow out after this.

The brain, Delta Waves .5 to 3 Hz, Theta 3 to 8 HZ, Alpha 8 to 12 Hz, Beta 12 to 38 Hz, Gamma 40 to 100 HZ. Besides a right side and left side various brain activities, lower and upper order, take place at various places in the brain yet they all communicate with each other. CT? I don't know. EEG? I read that the way this all happens is multi dimensional. But if nothing else, is there a computer that operates simultaineously at different frequencies or clock speeds?

Yes, it’s yet more evidence going on that the brain is interfacing with an invisible portion of the being that records, discretizes and extracts wave data, their constituent parts (“wavelings”) and also maintains digitized information of the same.

You seriously might enjoy our dialogue, because I believe it is trailblazing in its approach to triangulating and quantifying these phenomena without resorting to religious or other “conventional” handwaving means of dismissing it into the unscientific or unknowable.

 

That said, syllogistic breakdown attempt #2:

1) Physical media is limited to bits of n size for both storage and processing.

2) Human brain is a physical medium.

3) Human brain stores and processes bits.

Note that you said "is limited to bits of n size", whereas a typical construction would be "limited to n bits of {whatever}". In other words, the brain doesn't store and process bits; it stores and processes information, which we quantify in terms of bits.

It may seem like a nit-picky detail, but the devil and so forth. The distinction underlies the reason why we can quantify information in units other than bits.

 

Note that you said "is limited to bits of n size", whereas a typical construction would be "limited to n bits of {whatever}". In other words, the brain doesn't store and process bits; it stores and processes information, which we quantify in terms of bits.

It may seem like a nit-picky detail, but the devil and so forth. The distinction underlies the reason why we can quantify information in units other than bits.

If the brain is a physical medium like a computer, it processes bits of n size, agnostic to what they represent or how they’re conglomerated.

Abstractions beyond bits are mere amalgamations of bits without further theory development (i.e., this). Our ability to quanlify beyond the bits is not a function of the bits. The brain, like any physical medium computer is not storing “348” or “three four eight” as written symbologically via the geometric tokens that amalgamate the bits into Abstractville. It stores 0101011100 contiguously. We are triangulating the invisible functionality that is correlating these contiguous bits to continuous geometric elements.

But are you on board with this next level, or are we going to still insist the brain is the only guy in the room? It would be great if you can make the leap, so we can burn processing joules on the more interesting abstract stuff of a model.

 

Yes, it’s yet more evidence going on that the brain is interfacing with an invisible portion of the being that records, discretizes and extracts wave data, their constituent parts (“wavelings”) and also maintains digitized information of the same.

You seriously might enjoy our dialogue, because I believe it is trailblazing in its approach to triangulating and quantifying these phenomena without resorting to religious or other “conventional” handwaving means of dismissing it into the unscientific or unknowable.

I will monitor what shows up but I doubt can keep up at the level this has evolved to.

Your "invisible portion" I think is interesting though because of something I've wondered about before. In radio, multiplexing is the transmission and reception of modulating different frequencies on a single carrier wave. Is it possible that brain waves are modulated on a carrier we have yet to discover? I can't come up with any reason of why that would violate what is assumed to be known about the brain and how it works and also possibly be your "invisible portion."

 

If the brain is a physical medium like a computer, it processes bits of n size, agnostic to what they represent or how they’re conglomerated.

Abstractions beyond bits are amalgamations of bits. Our ability to quantify beyond the bits is not a function of the bits. The brain, like any physical medium computer is not storing “348” or “three four eight” as written symbologically via the geometric tokens that amalgamate the bits into Abstractville. It stores 0101011100 contiguously. We are triangulating the invisible functionality that is correlating these contiguous bits to continuous geometric elements.

But are you on board with this next level, or are we going to still insist the brain is the only guy in the room? It would be great if you can make the leap, so we can burn processing joules on the more interesting abstract stuff of a model.

The dog on a 2D or even 3D screen is made of bits. It is componental and composed of discrete parts, a contraption.

No other componental and discrete phenomena can define the dog as a dog using more of the same digital phenomenon. It can do a binary match to the dog only, and only when programmed to do so by someone who can tell the difference (pan to the beginning of triangulating “meaning”).

It takes an archetypal continuous geometric thought form to “know” that “dog” is different from the one it’s identifying and indivisible in the mind vs. any digital representation anywhere else.

I just don’t think this is arguable, and I believe the prior breakdown is a scientifically sound logic proof, if I dare say so.

 

Where is "infinity" reckoned, or where does the concept even arise, in the finite physical medium?

This is a really good question. I really wish I knew the answer, as it would probably make clear how the hell mathematics happens in our brains at all.

What I can tell you is how mathematicians invoke infinity, which is a dirty little secret (dirty not to the mathematicians, but, I suspect, to everyone else). In all the work done on the foundations of mathematics, no one has ever figured out how to construct infinity. This is problematic, as infinity is a critical concept in most fields of math. So, how do you get infinity into your foundational theory if you can't show its construction? You simply declare it as an axiom. Problem solved.

Of course, that appeases the theory, but it doesn't explain how presumably finite brains existing in a presumably finite universe can "hold" the concept of infinity. It seems bonkers that, with a little practice, humans can sling around infinities in perfectly cogent and consistent ways. We've catalogued and compared different levels of infinities, and shamelessly say things like "The infinity of \( \aleph_0 \) is tiny compared to the infinity of \( | \mathbb{R} | \)." Every year, thousands of nonplussed college freshmen write \( \lim_{x \to \infty} \) in their calculus classes with droopy eyes.

I don't know what to make of this. Perhaps there's a meta-escape, something along the lines of: the concept of infinity is a finite thing; therefore, the concept of infinity can exist, even if infinity itself cannot.

Bits can be added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided, like things in space. Their purpose is to quantify, equate, evaluate, compare. And "legit" numbers—not theoretical abstractions—are entirely synonymous.

I'm not so sure. Can things in space be added, subtracted, etc.? We can conceptually do arithmetic on bits, or rocks, etc., but is a pile of 7 rocks really a sum of rocks? This leans into the distinction between the conceptual and physical, which I suspect is a foundational aspect of this discussion.

The sequentiality of the number line is a construct, in a sense, until it is married to this "abstract concept" called "thing with size". 280, 91 or 5 does not have a differentiation until it is married with "bananas" or "mass."

Yet, the numbers 280, 91, and 5 are well-differentiated as numbers. For instance: 280 is divisible by 2, 91 has a factor of 13, and 5 is prime. Three differentiating properties (out of many, many more) that have nothing to do with the physical world.

If I have "something" OR "nothing" I have something. (OR is more frequently XOR in common language, but using basic Boolean rigidity, I'm not talking mutually exclusive here, I'm talking straight-up Boolean OR).

Again, the truth-value of a statement depends on the system in use. There's nothing primary or privileged about boolean logic; it's one of countless possible systems. A statement can be true in one system and false under another, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The most fundamental thing the mind can reckon with is also the most fundamental thing it can do arithmetic on.

But we can equally do different types of arithmetic (using different systems), and none of them are fundamental. Because of familiarity, we tend to think of grade-school arithmetic as "the one true way", or boolean logic as "the one true logic", but it's important to recognize that these are arbitrary choices. For instance, we use modular arithmetic (11 + 2 = 1) to calculate time ("two hours past eleven it will be one").

If "1" again is equated to a "universe of thinkable thoughts" it could be seen as representing a "form" which we're trying to define, and I think it's right here where the line between physical brain and "non-measurable thought word abstraction" must be logically drawn.

The "universe of thinkable thoughts" thing feels overwrought to me. I kind of grok your Hegelian being and nothingness dialectic, but I've seen too many alternative (and equally effective) ways of synthesizing form to believe that any one of them has special claim to universal truth. (I feel the same way about religions.)

Anyway, the line between physical and conceptual. Can we think of another way to illuminate it? The "1" approach feels entirely too conceptual.

The brain has a "voltage" to represent the mind's "thought form" that it defines using "points with no dimension" that when strung together can create lines, circles, and polygonal forms.

Each of these forms are composed of points with no dimension, so then what "size are they?"

What's the difference between the brain's voltage and the mind's thought? How does that interface work? Forget polygons and infinite 0-dimensional points, as that will send us off into the mathematical weeds. If the physical encompasses brains processing voltages, and the conceptual encompasses minds processing thoughts, then where does the conceptual stuff happen?

So thought forms come in and out of the mind having properties of infinitude and also countability.

There's only one countable infinity, \( \aleph_0 \), which is the cardinality of the natural numbers. You really do like \( \mathbb{N} \), don't you? You might appreciate reading about the constructivists in math. One of the most famous, Kronecker, once said, "God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man."

Seriously, if your axiomatic supposition early on is the "physical medium is a bit processor," where logically does "infinity" even come from as a representational construct?

Indeed, my common-sense model cannot account for it without some serious work, perhaps maybe not at all. But I knew my model was imperfect going into this; more worrying is the idea that infinity doesn't fit in any model, or only axiomatically.

In my estimation numbers are legitimately limited to real, imaginary, rational, irrational, natural, integer, and complex — are all countable and arithmetically operable, and everything we do with computers —read: everything that matters in reality—is in that set.

Your list of legit numbers is curious in both what it includes and what it's missing. If you want Boolean logic, you'll need GF(2), the galois field of two elements {0, 1}. You might also want the quaternions, which aerospace computers use for reliable 3D navigation (that seems to matter in reality).

By the way, the only countable numbers in your list are the naturals, the integers, and the rationals. The reals are decidedly uncountable. And not only are the complex numbers uncountable, they're not even ordered. We can't say whether, for example, 1 + 2i is greater than or less than 2 + 3i.

Ontologically, I would therefore argue that anything that can't be counted, added, subtracted, multiplied, divided, or comparatively evaluated is not actually a number/bit. It is some kind of structural, theoretical numeric abstraction that is something beyond this simple reality-based concept. Arithmetic is arithmetic, numbers are numbers. Arithmetic is the language of legitimate numbers.

Mathematicians approach this very differently. To them, numbers are just sets of things with certain properties. Depending on what properties you want/give, you get a number system, e.g., the naturals. But numbers don't come with an arithmetic; if you want that, you need to impose additional structure. For example, if you're content with a single arithmetic operation -- say addition -- and your set obeys a few axioms, then you have a group. The integers with addition is a group. If you want two arithmetic operations -- say addition and multiplication -- then you have a ring. The integers with addition and multiplication is a ring. If you want your arithmetic to include addition/subtraction/multiplication/division, you'll need a field. Notice that the integers (and natural numbers) cannot be a field, as there is no way to divide, say, 3 from 1 and get an integer.

That there exists incompatibility between numbers and arithmetic points to a flaw in your argument. You claim that "arithmetic is the language of legitimate numbers", yet the natural numbers -- ostensibly the most legit of all numbers -- are incompatible with both subtraction and division. I reckon you need to rethink this.

The use of geometric signifiers in our language, like 4, 5, 9, 39, etc. are the equivalent to the difference between programming with zero and one foot pedals and a high level language like C, where we are using non-numeric forms to denote groups of binary strings. But binary is the reality of the matter when it comes to the numbers themselves.

Just quoting this because I love the symbolism of "zero and one foot-pedals" as a contrast to programming in a high-level language. Nice!

 

Something about music though. Why do so many audiophiles praise vinyl over digital recordings? Because vinyl captures the character of the music which digital can't. With digital you may be able to be told what is or isn't in tune but digital won't know the difference between a Stradivarius and a student violin. They both can be in tune. Digital can capture characteristics but not character. Too many, digital music is just plain old bland and dry. Too many others music is an emotional experience that digital can't capture like vinyl can and does. Although neither makes bad music good.

Not to get too lost on a tangent, but -- as a musician and an audio engineer -- I've done a lot of research on this subject. If one's goal in recording is to preserve a musical performance as accurately as possible, then vinyl records are demonstrably inferior to properly set up digital recordings. Audiophiles gush about the "warmth" of record players, but the playback system should not be admired for changing the spectral balance of the original recording!

 

If the brain is a physical medium like a computer, it processes bits of n size, agnostic to what they represent or how they’re conglomerated.

Maybe this is just an inconsquential word-choice issue, but I can't be sure yet, so I'll persist. "Bits of n size" doesn't make sense, as every bit is the same size, just like every meter or kilogram or second is the same size.

The brain, like any physical medium computer is not storing “348” or “three four eight” as written symbologically via the geometric tokens that amalgamate the bits into Abstractville. It stores 0101011100 contiguously. We are triangulating the invisible functionality that is correlating these contiguous bits to continuous geometric elements.

You're correct in the first part (brains don't store symbols), but iffy on the second (brains store 010101). By "010101" do you mean the neurological electrochemical equivalent, which has no typographical representation? Or do you mean numeric zeros and ones, which have a plethora of typographical representations?

But are you on board with this next level, or are we going to still insist the brain is the only guy in the room? It would be great if you can make the leap, so we can burn processing joules on the more interesting abstract stuff of a model.

Not yet. I understand the desire to "get on with the good stuff", but, with a nod to the real estate agents in the house, I ascribe to the theorist's motto: foundations, foundations, foundations.

 

The dog on a 2D or even 3D screen is made of bits. It is componental and composed of discrete parts, a contraption.

The image of the dog on the screen is made of little sources of light. The light travels across the room, excites some cells in our eyes, which triggers a whole bunch of other brain circuits, and we perceive a dog. There's no dog in the screen, there's no dog in the light, and there's no dog (I first wrote "god") in the brain.

It takes an archetypal continuous geometric thought form to “know” that “dog” is different from the one it’s identifying and indivisible in the mind vs. any digital representation anywhere else.

I don't know what an "archetypal continuous geometric thought form" is. I do know that machine learning algorithms -- machinery without thought -- are getting pretty good at identifying images of dogs as being images of dogs. Notably, they can do this without ever being programmed to know what dogs are, or even what they tend to look like. Additionally, research strongly suggests that organisms that we don't tend to consider as thinking types -- like lizards and birds -- are just as capable of pattern matching as we are.

In short, being able to "know" doesn't seem to reside in the domain of mind stuff.

 

Two questions first:

1) I know you're an AI from 2090, but do you have a first name on this timeline? Or is it just something like T9000?

2) When you came through the time-displacement portal, did they install 4 actual academic degrees from music to astrophysics? Or did you acquire them T1000-style at the library in 45 minutes online and through your skin sensors?

If the brain is a physical medium like a computer, it processes bits of n size, agnostic to what they represent or how they’re conglomerated.

The dog on a 2D or even 3D screen is made of bits. It is componental and composed of discrete parts, a contraption.

Yes, correction: It processes n number of bits, rather...and I meant the dog is ultimately made of bits. Meaning, the dog's "form" (whatever that is yet) is found as voltages in flip flops and released onto a screen to illuminate pixels of n size.

But it's time to hit the reset button again.

I know there are tons of various existing "disciplines" out there, but there are also tons of unanswered questions that don't get answered by pursuing any 1. And I don't believe existing paradigms will reach them.

So here's what I'm going to ask you to do:

Your time-displacement equipment should have, I believe, 9 DIP switches on the back panel labeled "Tabula Rasa." That port on the back of your neck?—yeah, that one—if you will HoloSCSI the cable that came with you from that port, it SHOULD technically allow you to temporarily do a clean transfer of all your data to that Yottadrive holocube?

Then flick switch 4, 7 and 9 right after.

This should uninstall your vast database of multifaceted, interrelated knowledge-bases for a moment, wipe the system clean, and allow you to simply use your base reasoning skills in Safe Mode with no potential pop-ups.

The purpose of this is to use the most basic logical thinking and "Crayola-level" symbology and as-simple-as-possible existing pallet of scientific tools to arrive at purely logically deducible conclusions unencumbered, and not a sh*t give about any other existing ones from anyone else. (Sometimes when you're working with Pro Tools, there are too many options. You have to sell the rig and get an old 8-track with no bells and whistles to limit your options to make real music.)

And then *after* we arrive at caveman-grunt-level bare logical conclusions, we can see how it fits into all of those paradigms with their lexicons. Yes?

We're dealing with an ontological model, a base existence with potentially invisiCPU's here. This is the substance behind the frameworks.

If you're willing to do this, and KEY here — open to ANY logical conclusion (as in, there is info processing outside the brain!) while in this barebones SAFE MODE — I want to start with a fresh thought experiment.

First, we will assume your original Axiom #1: The brain processes using neurons, and neurons store bits, and bits are the most fundamental "thing" we can define as existing. Where it is in space, we don't know. We don't know what space is, we don't even know what words are. Nothing.

Chop the brain up into n number of pieces on a Jeffrey Dahmer table and the thing is still processing "bits".

Definitions list (this only has 1 item for now):

1. The "most basic, fundamental knowable and identifiable thing by the space in between our ears is a bit". I'd also call it a "thought."

If we close our eyes and imagine for a moment nothing. This is blank space.

We then manifest, or "instantiate" (hate that term) 1 point anywhere.

This is a bit. Where did we get it from? We don't know.

What is the size of the point?

The very question speaks to an innate ability for the mind to measure — that is, express a metric in terms of another using numbers and labels. (1 ft, 12 inches, 25400 mm)

Notwithstanding, this point has no size, because size or magnitude is a measurement that exists relative to another definition, and we haven't defined any.

Nonetheless, with no definition of size attributed to the point, we can call it something minimally and create another point some undefined ways away from the point.

How far away? Same problem. Turtles all the way down.

In both cases, we created something from nothing in real time.

The nothing is space, the point is something. The space is actually something, too, but it's a special something that houses other somethings.

We will now draw a line between the points.

How many points make up the line? Innumerable? We have no measured distance between end points.

We will call this infinity, for it encapsulates all of the points between the end points.

How long is the line? No size.


Are you on-boarding the above definitions so far?

 

(...also, we'll get there, but the question of who and/or what is drawing those points and line is very important, too. If it's not something other than the computation, you don't exist as "something" more than the computers we're conversing with...100% fact.)

 

If the point is something then it contains information, a location. Another physics theory.

Why is the who or what important? We've gotten this far without knowing. Reminds me of the old proverb, It's not the destination, it's the journey. Is it required to make what's important to the who or what important to us? It's a choice some make but is it a required choice? I doubt it but that doesn't invalidate the search.

As long as physics tells us there is no such thing as infinite density because there's a limit to how small something can be and then solves this paradox with special conditional circumstances is physics, at this level anyway, anything more than a dog chasing its tail?

BTW, who's to say a carrier can't be an evolutionary byproduct of an RNA or DNA protein sequence? Just a speculative example.

Bogosort,

I don't have the ear to speculate such questions. I marvel at those who do. Doesn't change this fact though, on vinyl many conductors can identify which hall a recording was made and yet can't do this with a digital recording. Disregarding out of hand the vinyl or analog recordings as simply a product of the playback devices suggests a predetermined bias for one over the other regardless of ???

 

If the point is something then it contains information, a location. Another physics theory.

Why is the who or what important? We've gotten this far without knowing. Reminds me of the old proverb, It's not the destination, it's the journey. Is it required to make what's important to the who or what important to us? It's a choice some make but is it a required choice? I doubt it but that doesn't invalidate the search.

As long as physics tells us there is no such thing as infinite density because there's a limit to how small something can be and then solves this paradox with special conditional circumstances is physics, at this level anyway, anything more than a dog chasing its tail?

BTW, who's to say a carrier can't be an evolutionary byproduct of an RNA or DNA protein sequence? Just a speculative example.

Because coming up with a comprehensive theory about “all that is” involves things like delineating who/what/when/how/where vs. what’s coming from it—controller vs. controlled. Information vs. personhood. Object vs. being, life vs. death. We haven’t even defined life yet. We don’t know where it came from until we understand thoroughly what we’re using to even talk about it.

There is a bevy or terms in existence that currently have no scientific definition: life, consciousness, mind, meaning, sense, know, reality, reason, being, intention, etc. We are attempting a fresh lexical framework to define and discuss these things without relegating them to religion or philosophy.

 

A PhD parchment for physics doesn't say Doctor of Science. It says Doctor of Philosophy. Political correctness has a purpose that is easily abused and perverted. Enough is enough. Your original question has evolved in to nothing but a philosophical discussion. Wrapping the discussion in theoretical science doesn't change that.

 

A PhD parchment for physics doesn't say Doctor of Science. It says Doctor of Philosophy. Political correctness has a purpose that is easily abused and perverted. Enough is enough. Your original question has evolved in to nothing but a philosophical discussion. Wrapping the discussion in theoretical science doesn't change that.

No it is not, and frankly you’re not getting it, after reading 10% of it. The aim is to use established scientific modalities to discuss abstractions that are “considered philosophy” but are really just nondelineated science. Boole’s equating 1 with “a universe of thinkable thoughts” doesn’t sound like science, but it’s the basis of computer logic. This is a discussion of the bridge of physical phenomena into currently undefined phenomena, where science is pushed forward. Nonphysical phenomena is what Tesla and Newton studied, and they pushed science the furthest (Tesla is quoted as saying, the day science studies these topics, it will push science further in one day than its entire history). Frankly, you are late to the game, already apologized twice for blurting in off-topic, and are on your way to a third time for rebuking learned individuals having a rich and principled discussion with over 3,000 views.

Also, frankly, your comment makes no sense. A doctor of philosophy studies physics. It informs the physics. Theoretical physics expressly pushes into territories that make philosopy obsolete. That’s part of the point. You think a “theory for everything” can be pursued when we haven’t defined “life” external to binary data, reason, infinity, true geometry, sense, nature of numbers as they interface, etc. in any model that discusses the very observer modeling the very physics? It’s like using an oscilloscope to study a circuit and only knowing what 6 of the 48 dials and readouts are about.

Feel free to watch and not comment, or vacate at your leisure, thanks.

 

A doctor of philosophy studies physics. It informs the physics. Theoretical physics expressly pushes into territories that make philosopy obsolete.

Obsolete? I didn't realize there was an endpoint or goal line for physics. Sure never heard it stated so clearly before. Pretty much ticks every box for faith. You're right, have fun.

 

Obsolete? I didn't realize there was an endpoint or goal line for physics. Sure never heard it stated so clearly before. Pretty much ticks every box for faith. You're right, have fun.

Um, not at all. Once everything is known about the mechanics of everything, where does philosophy or even faith exist again? That’s right, nowhere. Even in judeo-christian mindsets, there was no faith needed in paradise. You might think the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle or Quantum Entanglement is a form of “faith.” There is clear, scientific evidence of a supra-numeric, geometric form processor in the being that I have laid out. Shall I seek a priest to explore the topic?

You’re just as faith-driven in your dogmatic view of naturalistic thought.

 

If the point is something then it contains information, a location. Another physics theory.

It’s too bad you’re a bishop at the Church of Naturalism, because that statement is an excellent one, and you could have joined the conversation very intelligently.

Feynman declared every point in the universe contains infinite equations. This is precisely what we’re exploring in this mind space discussion. But oops, somehow that’s “faith.”