I would call it a "law" that if I sample from a normal distribution I am more likely to sample from the mean than from the tail. The law is not on a specific draw but what the histogram will look like. The same way I wouldn't jump off a bridge because someone might jump off right after me with a parachute and attach it to me I wouldn't bet against classical laws due to quantum interaction. Can you name any specific physicists who should change their outlook? How should they be doing experiments differently due to your point?
Thought experiment. I have a machine that produces a standard normal distribution. I know this because I built it and tested it a lot (alternatively, have God/divinity/an oracle/whatever build this machine).
You sample from it 100 times and get the number 3000 every time.
What can you say about the machine? Did it follow a normal distribution? Really?
How much was your statement about normal distributions able to predict what happened?
What does it mean for something to follow a law? The word law comes from a legal background for rules in human society. If society makes a law, can that law be broken following a normal distribution?
> I wouldn't bet against classical laws due to quantum interaction.
In my daily life I do not. However, given that the inner workings of the human brain are not explicable in our current understanding of physics, I don't need to 'bet against classical laws' there. We already know that something is going on.
> Can you name any specific physicists who should change their outlook?
There are several competing outlooks in physics right now. One is the 'shut up and calculate' approach which admits there are unknowable, unobservable, unmeasurable 'systems' (for lack of a better word) and all we can do is make colloquial statistical claims about them. Another is that the universe is always predictable and quantum choice is due to the branching of the universe into many observable worlds (although they never explain why my conscious experience only follows one path... one is forced to conclude they believe some quantum process is in play). Another is that quantum physics is just completely wrong (unlikely). Another is that consciousness (which is undefined) is a crucial feature to quantum mechanics and is necessary to cause collapse of the wave function. There's pilot wave theory which requires there to be an unseeable aether (and again, admits no way to measure the aether, so I'm not sure that exists).
Depending on your belief in what takes place (and it's really truly a belief, and in some systems, it's going to stay that way), take your pick of scientists who should change their outlook.
> How should they be doing experiments differently due to your point?
They shouldn't. Most physicists do good work explaining the way the world works, but they also admit that there are unknowable, unobservable, unmeasurable systems that govern it. The comment I replied to claimed otherwise.
What do you mean by the basic building blocks of reality? The very machine you are posting your comment from can only be manufactured because the laws of physics don't change, and these machines and their manufacturing process operate on the atomic level. Similarly, do you have an example of a well defined experiment that would not produce the same result consistently? You can win a noble prize easily by publishing such an experiment. Lastly, if someone did produce an experiment that did not produce consistent results, that is, an experiment performed twice with all variables staying the same, but the result of the experiment being different, then the theory that all well defined experiments are reproducible would be wrong. It isn't axiomatic.
>try to keep focus on just what we observe
That's all science is though – making observations. Writing hypothesis and making experiments are etc. are just a means to creating things to observe. I'm curious, what did you observe that you felt was not bounded by some static law of nature?
> What do you mean by the basic building blocks of reality?
I was thinking photons which, when passed through a diffraction grating one at a time will cause an interference pattern on average but whose individual course is -- as far as we know -- unpredictable.
This flies in the face of the idea that the universe is perfectly predictable.
> The very machine you are posting your comment from can only be manufactured because the laws of physics don't change, and these machines and their manufacturing process operate on the atomic level
Indeed.. an axiomatic religious belief that has incredible amounts of evidence and that has proven very useful, but for the reason I mentioned above, certainly could not be the case. We shouldn't confuse the laws of statistics either certainty, even if the law of large numbers usually works.
> Similarly, do you have an example of a well defined experiment that would not produce the same result consistently?
I mean there are hundreds of them at this point. Passing single electrons or photons or buckeyballs through diffraction gratings (humans too!, we think). The stern Gerlach experiment. I can go on. Determining the individual spin states of entangled pairs of particles.
> Lastly, if someone did produce an experiment that did not produce consistent results, that is, an experiment performed twice with all variables staying the same, but the result of the experiment being different, then the theory that all well defined experiments are reproducible would be wrong
Well like I said we have lots of experiments whose results are different and who we cannot predict (some of which the math says we can never know), and yet, at the macro level we do science anyway because of our religious belief that it usually is okay.
For someone who purports to defend science, I'm shocked at the level of ignorance yet arrogance in this comment.
It is only unpredictable if you confine yourself to a single branch. If you embrace Many Worlds and simulate things accordingly, creating branches as needed, the result of such simulation is consistent and reproducible.
Everyone admits to being unable to predict individual quantum interactions. My point is that above the quantum level these interactions don't have much of an effect. The reason that I didn't assume you were talking about these interactions is because you seemed to be rejecting scientific observations altogether. The context of your comment was in replying to the comment that "everything is governed by laws, when we uncover it, we can replicate it." Your response didn't read at all like you were talking about quantum interactions because you could have just said that. In fact it is usually common in such threads to reply "but what about quantum interactions?" to such comments. The way I read "a religious enterprise expressing our belief in a constant, unseen, unchanging reality" was that you disagreed that the equations in physics textbooks will change at some point. The reason I thought that was the context was "Everything is governed by laws" so I thought you were saying that the laws are not unchanging.
Now reading your post, you seem to actually agree with most current scientific understanding. You don't actually seems to be saying that the laws of physics will change, Ask any physicist if some classical interaction will certainly happen the way it should. They will not say that it will happen with 100% certainty but rather that it is extremely likely that it will happen that way.
>an axiomatic religious belief that has incredible amounts of evidence
ie. not axiomatic.
>and yet, at the macro level we do science anyway because of our religious belief that it usually is okay.
I'm confused by what you are saying here. You agree that we can understand quantum interactions within "the laws of statistics" even if we can't know them for certain. So why would we change what we do on the classical level based on that? You can just add "extreme likelihood of following this equation" to every classical equation. How would you do science differently?
Additionally, what claim do you think is only being held together by the idea that the rules of physics are constant?
It seems like what you really might mean is "due to quantum level interactions, an inorganic object that reproduces the same classical effects of the brain will not have consciousness." Is that correct?
You should really be doing a bit more defense here given how completely off base your initial comment was, but whatever.
> Everyone admits to being unable to predict individual quantum interactions.
No.. not everyone, including you, before this comment. You asked for experiments that do not produce the same results, and I gave you several examples. That in and of itself refuted your initial arguments.
> My point is that above the quantum level these interactions don't have much of an effect.
Really depends what you're talking about, it's not true that every macro interaction has no phenomenon that relies on quantum mechanics. In other words, classical physics cannot explain several macro phenomenon.
> The reason that I didn't assume you were talking about these interactions is because you seemed to be rejecting scientific observations altogether.
That's your assumption not mine. If I were you, I'd think about why I made it.
> everything is governed by laws, when we uncover it, we can replicate it.
> Your response didn't read at all like you were talking about quantum interactions because you could have just said that. In fact it is usually common in such threads to reply "but what about quantum interactions?" to such comments. The way I read "a religious enterprise expressing our belief in a constant, unseen, unchanging reality" was that you disagreed that the equations in physics textbooks will change at some point. The reason I thought that was the context was "Everything is governed by laws" so I thought you were saying that the laws are not unchanging.
In other words, you are upset when I pointed out that science itself relies on unprovable assumptions. Again, that is not my problem to resolve. The inner tension between the aspect of science where we discover laws and the reality of the universe, which is that it seemingly randomly chooses what to do, is a tension for you to resolve, not me. But the belief that all things obey laws is a religious one. It is is an unprovable one, and when such interactions were discovered caused a major metaphysical problem for scientists, which you completely gloss over.
> Now reading your post, you seem to actually agree with most current scientific understanding. You don't actually seems to be saying that the laws of physics will change, Ask any physicist if some classical interaction will certainly happen the way it should. They will not say that it will happen with 100% certainty but rather that it is extremely likely that it will happen that way.
The 'current scientific understanding' that not every scientist shares. In response to the knowledge that the universe is not predictable, some scientists have simply accepted that and have relaxed their initial claim (which is, again, a religious one) that while the universe is not fully predictable, its macro phenomena can be described with certainty. That's one resolution. Some claim yet more esoteric ones, for example, that we live in a simulation (again, a religious belief). Some claim that the universe branches(again a religious belief, since it's unprovable). The only claim here that does not rely in some unseen reality is the first, which, again, is a major departure from what science was.
> I'm confused by what you are saying here. You agree that we can understand quantum interactions within "the laws of statistics" even if we can't know them for certain
Sure, in a colloquial sense, we can understand them. At no point did I refute this point, but accepting it is an implicit rejection of the comment I replied to that everything follows laws. A better restatement might be that 'as far as we know, many things seem to follow predictable patterns at sufficiently high levels of complexity', which is a very different statement.
> Additionally, what claim do you think is only being held together by the idea that the rules of physics are constant?
I'm not sure, but either way, this question is not on me to answer, because the person I responded to was the one claiming that conscious is physically explainable using the now-disproven idea that the universe is predictable at every level. Certainly, again, based on what we just said, brains might be using some unknown laws of physics, given that neurons do indeed operate at the molecular/atomic level (individual enzymes and neurotransmitters... who knows).
Finally,
> The way I read "a religious enterprise expressing our belief in a constant, unseen, unchanging reality" was that you disagreed that the equations in physics textbooks will change at some point.
You have no possible way of knowing whether they will or won't. In fact, some things become easier to explain about our own universe if they did indeed change, but I digress, because -- again -- no one has any clue. The belief that physics won't change is a prime example of a religious belief in science. The belief in a firm un-changing reality governed by principle un-changing laws. It's telling that this is a common aspect of divinity in the monotheistic religions that birthed science. More specifically, in the Christian West's view, this is the 'immutability' of God. I would argue from a humanist perspective that this belief in God's constancy (as opposed to the fickleness of nature spirits) is what gave birth to Western science.
Now that I've defended myself, I'm going to say a few words about this interaction. Firstly, you admit (thank you) that you made a few assumptions based on my framing of the commenter's belief system. I have noticed that many science-minded people get upset when you point out that science also comes with a set of beliefs that are tacitly accepted as true without any proof. I'm not sure why this is the case, since it seems most human endeavors ultimately do, but the response to this, instead of curiosity, was -- from my perspective -- wild accusations of not believing in science. To the contrary... I believe in science -- a lot. It's proven incredibly useful, and also, I do believe the universe follows laws, even if we can't see it. But I just admit it's a belief and move on with my life instead of being zealous about it.
>No.. not everyone, including you, before this comment.
It's interesting how you deny that classical equations really hold true yet you will comment on what I actually believe.
>You asked for experiments that do not produce the same results, and I gave you several examples.
What I really meant was experiments that do not follow the laws we have so far discovered about nature. In the classical realm, that means experiments that do not produce the same results. In the quantum world, it means a histogram that is not in line with the expected probability (assuming n is large enough). Nobody had mentioned quantum randomness at that point so there was no need to mention it. And if you can run an experiment that produces an unexpected histogram in some quantum field, yes, you will get a Nobel prize. I think that I could have worded it better to include quantum effects, but it still was clear in my opinion that I was talking about the rules we have discovered so far not changing, as I said at the end "what did you observe that you felt was not bounded by some static law of nature?" It is clear in this question that I am talking about the laws being static, not that every individual particle's movement can be predicted absolutely, even though that is essentially true in the classical world, which was what I was referring to in when I said experiments produce the same results.
>it's not true that every macro interaction has no phenomenon that relies on quantum mechanics
Ok. But there is no classical effect where quantum randomness is observed.
>That's your assumption not mine. If I were you, I'd think about why I made it.
I made that assumption because you called science a religion (which I still disagree about). Most people that call science a religion do not believe in science at all. For example there are a lot of people that do not believe in germ theory or believe that the earth is flat. These are generally the people that called science a religion. Being that you didn't make your point very clearly, that is what it sounded like you were saying, given the context.
>In other words, you are upset when I pointed out that science itself relies on unprovable assumptions
I just didn't understand the point you are making. In fact, I am still unclear on whether you believe that the laws of physics are static or not. It seems your main point now is that you cannot definitely determine future events because of quantum randomness. But that all future events can be definitely determined is not something science relies upon. "The belief that all things obey laws" is not something that science relies upon, given "law" is defined as an algorithm whose inputs are any material conditions and outputs are exact location of that material at some given time step. This is not what was meant by "Everything is governed by laws, when we uncover it, we can replicate it." We are not talking about the movements of individual particles here.
>Sure, in a colloquial sense, we can understand them [...] but accepting it is an implicit rejection of the comment I replied to that everything follows laws
But that was said in a colloquial sense. We can use the probability distributions we find in nature to build things. And when our histogram looks more like a straight line than a curve we can safely rely on it. Also, I don't know were you got your definition of the word "law" but "the second law of thermodynamics," for example, is a probability, and we call that a law. Technically I could leave a cup of hot water out in a cold room and it would get even hotter, it just isn't statistically probable. And we call that observed probability the second law of thermodynamics. If someone said "I will use the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow to inform my decision of buying sunscreen" would you tell him that he should really say "as far as we know, many things, including the sun, seem to follow predictable patterns at sufficiently high levels of complexity leading me to buy sunscreen?"
>[some scientists now claim] that while the universe is not fully predictable, its macro phenomena can be described with certainty.
Please cite one physics journal where this claim is made. No physicist will say that quantum randomness cannot possibly have an effect on the macro scale. The claim is that it is extremely unlikely to do so, just like it is extremely unlikely that my hot cup of water will get hotter in a cold room.
>The only claim here that does not rely in some unseen reality is the first, which, again, is a major departure from what science was.
Ok, and? Your claim was that it was axiomatic. If scientists have departed from this idea, it was not axiomatic or religious. Scientists also parted from Newtonian gravity. What point are you making here.
>> Additionally, what claim do you think is only being held together by the idea that the rules of physics are constant?
>I'm not sure, but either way, this question is not on me to answer
"science itself relies on unprovable assumptions"
"science is ultimately a religious enterprise expressing our belief in a constant, unseen, unchanging reality"
>brains might be using some unknown laws of physics, given that neurons do indeed operate at the molecular/atomic level (individual enzymes and neurotransmitters... who knows).
This is completely false. The brain does not operate at the atomic level. It actually operates at a level above the atomic level. It is a bit higher than that of modern day computer processors, which have a gate size of about 45 nm. It is also clear that it is the neurons that cause the brains activity, and conceptually neurons have no reliance on any atomic effects at all. (Similar to how logic gates have no reliance on atomic effects, and can be carried out by hand, just very slowly).
>You have no possible way of knowing whether they will or won't
What point are you making here? The world could end do to physics expiring right after finish reading my comment. That is true but a useless statement. Nobody disagrees with this point they just don't preface all their statements like "in event that the laws of physics don't drastically change tomorrow, do you want to get something to eat?"
>The belief that physics won't change is a prime example of a religious belief in science
Science doesn't say that physics won't change. Science doesn't say anything. All science does is give us observations. It's not like science pops out of a microscope after you do an experiment and says "now you have discovered my next lesson, right that down in the textbook of science." You cannot definitely accept anything as true the way you describe. You cannot even definitely accept that what you see is real. For example the quantum randomness that you see might not be real. You can't actually make a single positive statement beyond the rules of thought (which are axiomatic, or religious as you would say).
>It's telling that this is a common aspect of divinity in the monotheistic religions that birthed science.
What about the Romans' complete lack of scientific advancement? What about Greek science and Babylonian mathematics? The Scientific revolution was started by Christian Universities beginning to use Greek works (for example that of Aristotle and Eudoxus).
>you made a few assumptions based on my framing of the commenter's belief system
Yes, but you could have made your point much more clear.
>I have noticed that many science-minded people get upset when you point out that science also comes with a set of beliefs that are tacitly accepted as true without any proof
Are you referring to ZFC? Or the three rules of thought? Or Occam's Razor?
>wild accusations of not believing in science [...] I believe in science -- a lot
There is no such thing as believing in science
>I do believe the universe follows laws
That is a belief. That makes you "religious" in your terms. Yet you said we should "take an irreligious look at things." An irreligious look at things, under your definition, would be to make zero positive statements.
>I’m suggesting that the model you choose is axiomatic - taken as given as opposed to inferred from evidence
The brain is the seat of consciousness and the brain is material, therefore consciousness is emergent from material. My evidence that the brain is the seat of consciousness is that when my head hurts it impairs my thoughts, and that my eyes are connected to by brain.
Stated a bit differently:
All events must have a cause, therefore consciousness must have a cause. The brain is the most likely candidate for the cause of consciousness. The brain is material, therefore consciousness is emergent from material.
What role do you think the brain plays in consciousness? Do you believe that events must have causes?
> The brain is the seat of consciousness and the brain is material, therefore consciousness is emergent from material
This is true from the standpoint of materialism but not necessarily fundamentally true.
How do you know you have a brain? As you explore this question, you’ll realize that the knowledge that you have a brain only manifests as appearances within consciousness.
It’s not necessary true that these appearances are giving you a window into an objective material universe. Instead it might be possible that your consciousness is a product of a simulation where your entire subjectivity - including the observation that you have a brain - is a manifestation of another mechanism that is outside of observability.
The point is that we simply don’t know what’s at rock bottom - an objective universe, a simulation, or an alien’s dream. Therefore the “arrow” of causality might flow from consciousness towards material as opposed to the other way around.
>it might be possible that your consciousness is a product of a simulation where your entire subjectivity - including the observation that you have a brain - is a manifestation of another mechanism that is outside of observability.
Ok. But that is equally true for any observation. For example, I don't really know that the computer I'm using to write this post actually exists under that proposition, as perhaps by brain is imagining it. So you are really rejecting observations in general here. My point is that given that observations in general are correct, then it is clear that the brain is the cause of consciousness.
If observations imply that there’s a material universe that you are inspecting then I agree with your conclusion that the brain creates consciousness and it seems possible to replicate that consciousness artificially.
However, I am rejecting the idea that observations necessarily imply the existence of a material universe.
Actually rather than “rejecting”, I’m suggesting that it’s logically possible to take the “reverse” position: that consciousness is primary and we are experiencing what appears to be a material universe within that conscious experience. In this model it doesn’t make logical sense to be able to replicate consciousness with materials because materials seem to exist within consciousness as opposed to the other way around.
My overarching point is that most people here seem to believe that we’ll obviously replicate consciousness with more understanding of biology and I think that’s a bold claim because it’s not obvious that materialism is the “correct” framework to describe existence.
In any case, these frameworks are in the realm of non-falsifiability (axiomatic) so you can’t really claim either is fundamentally correct.
>Instead it might be possible that your consciousness is a product of a simulation where your entire subjectivity - including the observation that you have a brain - is a manifestation of another mechanism that is outside of observability.
Ok, well in that simulation materialism is true and I can make an AI with emergent consciousness ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not clear that the material world of the simulation is of the same kind of the material world we seem to observe. Further it seems definitely not clear that we can interact/modify the simulation’s material at all.
The arrow of causality flows from simulation to consciousness and there might be no mechanism to artificially create consciousness from within consciousness.
Whatever reality is, humans have sex and make new conscious agents all the time. If they can be created by birth, why not by building?
My point was that however the subjective reality I perceive came about, the laws of it still seem to allow for the creation of new non-biological conscious agents.
Or GP himself watches these videos. And I would push back on the claim that most posters here are more likely to watch a Youtube video than read an article.
As someone who hasn't researched to this topic at all, and therefore has no dog in this race, I don't like when people link to something and say "this guy says I am right." That goes to both linking the book in the first place and it's refutation. I especially dislike when people post the names of books on these types of topics because these are really topics that need to be treated academically, while popular books try to persuade you to their opinion for 400 pages while leaving out or rewording fair criticisms. I would much rather read 150 pages from 3 articles published in reputable journals than 400 pages of a biased viewpoint. I should note that academics can also be biased but 1) they are less free than book authors to make things up 2) you can read multiple opinions 3) they do not use as much rhetoric as book authors. Basically, the name of a book is not an argument or a discussion. Posting the argument(s) of the book is much better, whether accompanied to a link to the book or not.
The way I would have preferred the discussion to have been had would to be something like "Jonathan Haidt has a book out (The Anxious Generation) arguing for a causal link between children having smartphones with social media, and the increases in depression, suicidality, anxiety and other negative effects in teenagers and young adults over the last decade or so. Specifically Haidt notes that/ claims that x factor caused y result." If the only thing you can mention about the book is the conclusion, ie. that social media causes depression, then there may be little substance to the book. This is part of why academic journals have book reviews. Similarly, "read my link that refutes your book" is not helpful as it now requires me to read the book (which, as explained above, I don't want to do) and the refutation. It ends up just as people trading links without having an actual discussion. So I agree that it would be better to just post the relevant point(s) directly by both sides.
The Romans managed to accomplish very little in 1,000 years considering the extent of their empire. The Greeks contributed much more than the Romans in a shorter time frame and with much less land, power etc. The reason Romans are romanticized is they are the ones who brought civilization to Norther Europe. (more or less. Or, at least, these is what Europeans themselves thought.). These Europeans then created the scientific and industrial revolutions (almost 1,000 years after the fall of Rome, I should note.) Rome also spread Christianity to Europe and maintained control over the Christian religion in Europe via the Pope. So it makes sense that people romanticize Rome because they see it as the predecessor of Europe. Even though Rome itslef is actually not that great, even if we accept that it spread civilization to Europe.
> The Romans managed to accomplish very little in 1,000 years considering the extent of their empire.
Yes, apart from the aqueducts, the sanitation, the roads, the wine, public health, public baths, public order, cheese, medication, law, education and entertainment the Romans accomplished very little.
You are saying that sarcastically but that actually is very little. Compare the advancements from the 1,000 year prior, even just by the Greeks in Mathematics (Pythagoras, Euclid, Diophantus etc.) science (Aristotle), philosophy (Plato, many others) technology (Archimedes, killed by a Roman soldier) and astronomy. None of the things you mention are really hard problems. The fact is that the Romans were anti-intellectual and only cared about building which is not that hard. Also the Romans did not invent cheese or wine. Compare also with the Babylonians. Compare also the advancements made from 1200 in Europe.
Ok. But it is sarcastic in the Monty Python skit as well, and the argument is being made to the same effect. The same low quality Monty Python joke was in a previous Rome thread I posted in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38765525
>There is an international trend to move from explicit consent (opt-in) to presumed consent (opt-out) policies for deceased organ retrieval: Chile (2010), Finland (2010), Greece (2013), Uruguay (2013), Wales (2015), Colombia (2016), Iceland (2019), the Netherlands (2020), England (2020), Scotland (2021), and the province of Nova Scotia in Canada (2021) have implemented opt-out policies. Switzerland is presently considering it, and Australia, Denmark, Germany, Israel, Romania, and several states in the USA had been discussing this as well.[0]
As far as I'm aware, none of the listed western countries (except Chile, whose status as a "western" country is dubious) allow the use of organs for 'scientific experimentation' without consent. Additionally many of the listed countries (Finland, Greece, ...) require attempts to ascertain consent for those organ donations, which means asking family members of the deceased.
>The GPUs used to train them only existed because the DoE explicitly worked with Nvidia
Do you have a source for this claim? Isn't eg. an H100 basically just a RTX GPU with more and faster memory? (Or, at least, an RTX GPU with the same VRAM as an H100 would perform similarly.) And these GPUs were created to run video games. Unless you are referring to something like NVLink?
>SQL is great and should be used wherever performance allows for it
I feel like this is worded poorly. SQL has better performance than most noSQL databases (eg. document databases) for many types of queries. The issue with SQL has historically been cost and scaling, (both of which have been at least partially solved in recent years)
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