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Thanks for this explanation. I've tried to read it some time ago but have not really coped with it. Now after reading again it was interesting for me to check if this is explained on some other internet sources and how exactly. So I checked one of the first top search results and here is what I saw: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/91695/double-slit-expirement-fundamentals-half-silvered-mirror-version
There some guy asked for an explanation of this experiment and answers are all about optical refraction and phase shifting, which honestly speaking would not clarify the matters for me. Now this is all ok about theory and numbers. But I tried to google some videos which will show this in action and found that actually it is not really easy (or not possible at all) to set up all these pieces and see it in action. For example, in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6y_igUpyCg guys tries to set it up and does not succeed. Is that about he is usint a laser which in fact transmitts a bit different photons every time? Could you recommend some video where this experiment can be seen in action?
I said that with a humor. But as there are a lot of people who believe in dragons, who are on the supernatural end of the scale, there are rational people who are on the opposite end of the scale AND there are a lot of people in the middle. They are partially rational and partially they can believe that e.g. by practicing meditation or some other practices they may achieve SUPERNATURAL abilities. So Eliezer's post may convince some of them to abandone their "dreams" of supernatural. Sayint this I don't mean that meditation or other practices are irrational and bad, things are not black and white :)
The conclusion is rather strong one, Eliezer destroys the dreams of millions of people who are reading books about meditation, mind-control and other stuff. But this conclusion is stated at the end of the sequence which was preparing us all the way through - so it is good and gives a good chance to reflect over it.
Personally I enjoyed the movie :) Just because I am consciousness ))
One more thing. Suppose there is a GLUT and I can talk to it. So I can ask a question: "GLUT, is there a question which you cannot answer?" What do you guys think the GLUT will tell me?
Probably I am not right, but it looks to me that consciousness can go on without any "inputs" and "outputs". If I sit in the dark room alone and think about some sort of problem then I neither taking any inputs at that moment and nor generating any output uless I decide to think aloud :) So if you believe I am not a zombie then I am consciousness regardless if there are any inputs/outputs.
yes, you are right
And if the tiny gravitational pull of the littlw 1 gram switch can turn off the consciousness then imagine what would happen in the crowded city when a large lorry loaded with 20 tons of lead moved accross that city :) People will go zombiiiiiies and that would be a total chaos.
Now I know who is Scott Aaronson, so your comment was useful.
Honestly I don't know who Scott Aaronson is, so hard to say for me. And regarding that science cannot explain consciousness - it probably cannot explain it exhaustively YET. But this was the same with a lot of other things in the past, which were not explainable at some moment in time but were explained completely clear after some work has been done. So be patient, science will explain consciousness some day as well (at least I want to believe in this).
Eliezer, I am wondering why to bother yourself with going into dispute with people who profess a zombie argument :) Do you hope that some of them will change their way of thinking? I hardly believe they visit this site often. In general, have you personally seen a transformation of such type of person who operates seriously by things like zombie argument to a more rational type of person?
For me this article is really actual since I've caught myself few times already thinking about pretty this relation between heat and motion. I am literate and educated person, I've even been learning math BUT nowadays I am trying to rethink all these stuff which is just packed in my head under labels similar to "heat vs motion". So actually it is not that hard for me in 2015 to think that heat and motion are probably different concepts :) I just know that I need to really think a lot and re-learn the basics in a proper way, not just re-reading books again but really "inventing" the subject for myself. And regarding explanation vs understanding, I've read a joke recently: two analysts are having a lunch and one tells "hey, do you understand the situation on the middle east, what's going on there?". And the other one replies "I can explain you, sure". Then the first guys tells "I can explain this to anyone in this room as well, but I have actually asked if you UNDERSTAND it".
In short I measure this the similar way as you measure which restaurant for you is good and which is bad. Probably there exist postmans whos command of knowledge about black holes is very strong, but I believe an average postman knows quite little on topics like that.
Could you clarify your question?
the country just above the Black sea on the map ;)
Do all zebras have the same (withing some accuracy range) ratio of black to white, btw?
We should not also neglect the material side of the scientists status. For example, a junior in a family may be told by his father: "look our neighbor Bob, he spent 30 years of his life on science and look what a junkie car he has and what a small house he lives in. Better have a simple but reliable job, like buying t-shirts in China and selling them here or alike, that will give you a reasonable living." I have seen quite a lot of such justifications in real life and this has to be taken into account because it reflects the factual state of things.
Regarding making the products of scientific knowledge hidden and secret, well.... Eliezer has not made this site's content protected by initiation rituals and it is publicly accessible :P If I had that $100,000 I would put on a grey robe, go to that Electricity Monastery and grant it to Eliezer to become my sensei and teach me about blueness and redness implied from atoms :)
I'm not in USA but people here in my country really don't read newspapers a lot anymore. 90% of newspapers are quite low-quality, so called "yellow press". So really internet is a media of a greater quality. Most of newspapers are covering stuff like politics, economics, other stuff which seems more "clear" for the people reading them. But in fact, e.g. a seller of apples trying to argue with a postman about situation in Syria is quite much the same if they would discuss collision of black holes.
This post is different. For it is poetic. And I liked to read it in a different way than I liked to read other posts. Thanks for putting simple words into a beautiful form, Eliezer.
The rainbow is still there, I saw one recently )))
For a person who already escaped from religion a thought about "What general strategy would a religious person have to follow in order to escape their religion?" is like a thought about how to make all people on Earth stop eating meat for a vegetarian person. Not a very constructive thought. If one starts thinking about such general strategy then one implicitly sets a goal to somehow assist all religious persons to escape from their religion. But that kind of goal is not necessarily a good one :) Instead, a person who already (or from the start) escaped the religion, can spend that time to look for more people with similar minds.
I am reading this series and suddenly realized that Mercy, Justice and Fair are citizens of this 2nd-order-logic. As well as the "6" number. This is why they are imaginary and non-existing in the physical world. To most of you this comment would seem trivial but it just shows I am really enjoying my reading and thinking :)
Guys, I am not a physicist but I have problems with understanding this:
There would be no hypothesis in your hypothesis-space to describe the standard model of physics, where space is continuous, indefinitely divisible, and has complex amplitude assignments over uncountable cardinalities of points.
Is that a proven known thing that space is really continuous and indefinitely divisible?
claiming that most people don't have the concept of an argument, and that it's pointless to try and teach them anything else until you can convey an intuitive sense for what it means to argue
This is something I can observe everyday in my life. Probably I am less lucky then other guys and in my surrounding there are not that much "respected partners" who are able to listen and not rudely immediately disagree. So yes, it seems like most people don't have the concept of a proper argument. But that way I also did not have thsi concept for a long time. We all learn and change. The easiest way is to say "people are rude and dumb and there is no point in trying to change them". But in real life one cannot just change his surrounding, change the location, change the work and colleagues, change friends. If you want to have more "respected partners" - try to educate those you already have.
Hi, my name is Alex. I'm not that smart as ppl posting articles here. My ability to properly challenge the captcha only from 2nd attempt while registering here in LW proves this :) So I was learning math when being student, now working in IT. While typing this comment I've been thinking what is my purpose of spending time here and reading different info... and suddenly realized that i'm 29 already and life is too short to afford thinking wrong and thinking slow. So hope to improve myself to be able learn and understand more and more things. Cheers to everyone :)