Tag: quantum mechanics

  • Life is meaningless! You are nothing but space debris!!!

    Over breakfast and interesting conversation evolved about the state of physics and what it tells us about the meaninglessness and purposelessness of our lives, both individually and collectively.

    I’ve been thinking about physics lately, well, because I’m a mad scientist, but also because my brother visited.  He’s an actual, bona fide, physicist.  Plus, a friend of mine mentioned an article on the Higgs Boson to me on Facebook – the supposed God Particle.

    Now here’s the thing: the state of physics right now reminds me of where biology was in the early 20th century.  Back before Watson and Crick and Rosalind Franklin came along and showed us that DNA was at the heart of all cells, and was the carrier of information from one generation to the next, biology was a mess.

    Really. A big mess.  We had people going out, collecting species from all over the world, dissecting them with extreme care under microscopes, and trying to figure out “how it all fit together.”  The result was a field called taxonomy, which was all about sorting and sifting through these species and seeing how the limb of a frog looks kind of like the limb of a human, so must somehow involve something similar going on. It led to overly complex book volumes that would discuss these similarities (and differences) at length.  People spent lifetimes debating them. Oh, what a waste!

    Once we finally figured out that DNA was at the core of it all – in every cell – it dramatically simplified things!  It’s not that biology is now simple. Genomes are incredibly complex.  However, they give us a simple unifying principle for how cells grow, mature, and pass on information from one generation to the next.  As a result, the advances in biology have been dramatic.

    If we turn our telescope to the field of physics, which is attempting to bore down into the deepest of recesses of our universe to figure out “how it works” – it is very much like those microscope-wielding biologists in the pre-DNA days.

    The field of “quantum field theory” does the same kind of sifting and sorting through the “taxonomy” of the universe that biological taxonomists did in the early to mid 1900’s.  We have particle after particle being named and endlessly debated. We have massive supercolliders that are much like the microscopes that biologists used… attempting to probe ever deeper into matter.

    And yet… there’s something missing. Something very big. It’s that unifying principle thing.

    See, the assumption of these physicists (like my brother, whom I love very much), is that the universe is like a big machine. It is no more and no less than a machine.

    What got that machine going is “outside of their scope.” How it got there is “irrelevant.”

    So, they peer and dissect and postulate and theorize, all based on this “universe is a big machine” theory.

    Our best and brightest are all working to “prove” that our life, and our universe, is essentially meaningless.  Because if it’s just a machine, then it IS meaningless.

    If it is a machine, then everything we do is just a product of gears turning away in the deep recesses of matter, and we have no control whatsoever over what happens.  We are just cogs in that machine, going through the motions.

    Maybe the reason that physics has failed to figure it out is that it is intentionally ignoring the unifying principle.

    What if that unifying principle involves consciousness and awareness, rather than gears turning away endlessly and meaninglessly?

    Harumph. Well, physics won’t go there.  It can’t go there. There is a great fear among the sciences to admit anything that sounds like God might be involved.  The schism goes too deep, and science has thrown the baby out with the bath water.

    What if we don’t have to refer to “God” in any traditional sense to find our unifying principle? What if, instead, we refer to a simple “field of awareness” that exists, and of which we are a part? There are many ways we could use the concept of awareness or consciousness without having to refer to God. But, no. Anything that remotely hints at anything even slightly God-like is BAD. It’s got to be rejected.

    Because of that penchant to reject even the slightest whiff of consciousness, to admit that it’s not all just a machine turning away its gears, we have our best and brightest, across the world, working very hard to prove that life is meaningless, to prove that our universe is a machine, and to prove that our cells are just little machines inside the big machine that we call our lives.

    These folks – intentionally or unintentionally – work to deny that there could be some reason that we exist within our magnificent universe, such as being here to enjoy life, create, and grow. Any reason is “outside the scope.”

    Well, what if you were crossing the desert, and you found a big machine that looked kind of like a printing press, but it wasn’t.  You started to take it apart to figure out how it worked. You carefully dissected it, classified each gear, and each circuit. You drew diagrams and equations of how they all fit together.  You could even put it back together if you needed to.

    But you never stopped to ask yourself: why is this machine here in the desert? Who made it? What is it’s purpose?

    That’s how physics is today.

    The sad part is that many of us look to our best and brightest for guidance about “what does it all mean?”  But they can’t give us guidance. They’ve for the most part stopped asking that question. Instead, the only thing they can tell us is “this is how the parts fit together.” As if the meaning were in the gears, equations, and circuits.

    No. The meaning of any machine is in its purpose.  No human would build a machine, investing time and effort, if it didn’t have some purpose.  So, why is it that we think that the most complex machines we know of (human brains) are entirely purposeless?  It’s fucked up.

    Don’t let them tell you that it’s meaningless. They have no clue. They are not looking for meaning. They are looking for the absence of meaning.

    Because meaninglessness is what they’re looking for, meaninglessness is what they find.

    So, don’t let them convince you that your life is meaningless and purposeless. It is not. It is just that you have to find it yourself, since you can’t look to anyone to find it for you. They aren’t looking in the right place.

     

  • Would computers really want to do math proofs?

    Roger Penrose wrote a book titled “The Emporor’s New Mind.” The book roused quite a bit of controversy, because he claimed that he had proof that computers can’t think in the same way that humans do.

    To illustrate, he used the complex subject of mathematical proof making. Using various fancy arguments tied to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, he basically said this: computers can’t go beyond the logical system they’re already inside of, and math proofs must go beyond what’s already known, therefore humans are doing something when making math proofs that computers can’t do.

    There’s been a lot of argument about the points he raised. Some artificial intelligence proponents have shown ways in which computers can do things like mathematical proof making. The arguing back and forth goes ’round in circles of complex logic and abstract math theory, with neither side really gaining all that much traction in the debate.

    Yet, it’s almost twenty years after the book was published, and we still don’t have self-aware or creative computers. Sir Penrose was onto something, but I think he somewhat missed the boat on a much simpler argument that could have been wielded for his side: would computers really want to do math proofs to begin with?

    No. Not unless a human programmed them to do math proofs. That is the one and only instance in which a computer will do math proofs.

    This is really where the argument lies. Computers have no inherent self-awareness, and hence no intrinsic motivation to accomplish any goal. The only “motivation” they ever have is that supplied by their human programmer.

    Now, a simplistic argument might go like this: ok, Ms. smarty pants, but our human motivations are simply programmed functions of our DNA and our environment growing up! Despite that there is no hard proof for this would-be-assertion by a would-be-hard-core-artificial-intelligence-practicioner, it is nonetheless likely to be wielded much like a shield wielded by a knight going into battle.

    The counter-proof to this not-really-proof is simple: humans often go directly against our programming. For the new book I’m writing, I’ve been doing a bit of research on the Wright brothers. You know, those guys who invented powered flying machines that actually worked. They went against their programming in many ways. They gave up their bike shop, which provided them with economic well being, to have the time to pursue the flying, and they suffered financially. Multiple crashes resulting in broken bones and potential death, but they kept flying. After their first successful flights (albeit short ones), they faced scorn and outright hostility, with many newspapers calling them liars. They were going firmly against their programming of self-preservation, social belongingness, and economic well-being to pursue a crazy idea that nobody had evidence of actually being able to work.

    No computer can do that, or will do that – at least not as presently constructed. A series of binary switches, no matter how complex, is still just a responsive mechanism. There is no place for motivation in there. There are just inputs and outputs. That’s all. Those inputs and outputs may do some incredible things, and do them very fast. But at no time is it suddenly going to become magically “aware” as the computers get faster.

    A lot of people think that when computers reach the computing capacity of our brains that they will automatically become aware. Ummm no. That’s about as logical as saying that putting a bigger engine in your car will help it drive itself. Putting the bigger engine in your car will help it go faster, but the car still needs a driver.

    Computers are ultimately just machines, much like that car. It’s a fine and noble mission to be giving them ever “bigger engines” so that they can do more stuff and faster. But to assume that, at some point, this will automatically lead to them being self-aware and self-motivated is much like assuming that your car is going to suddenly start driving itself. It is just a fantasy.