The Universe Is a Machine That Keeps Learning, Scientists Say
popularmechanics.com
popularmechanics.com
Any serious defense of this idea needs to address one very basic question: what does this theory explain that the anthropic principle does not? On this question the paper is silent. There is one reference to the anthropic principle, and that is just to present the fine-tuning "problem". The paper says nothing else about it. So the entire thing is one giant exercise in question-begging [2].
[1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/
[2] https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definit...
How do these writers sleep at night.
"Yeah, so I start my day -- I take the collective work of several brilliant people, and then I butcher it to fit in a few paragraphs between adspace and collect my paycheck. It's a good life."
Gross.
You know they can't have read the paper they're writing about. Because if they bothered to read the paper, it would take up the majority of their workday and they'd have no time to write anything.
Also not sure how believable it is that someone academically talented enough to digest that paper is working as a writer for Pop Mechanics.
However, epistemologically it might be sound, I've been thinking about this for a while now. Mainly because of the simple potential well problem and considering Hegelian epistemology.
The particle form isn't determined until it is measured, this is okay in regular epistemology and transcendental idealism. Not an issue, all appearances are human activities anyways created by our limited senses and tools.
But the amazing thing is that the particle still complies with our concept of causality despite not yet existing (its probabilities are completely dependent on potential energy)!
There are several theories to try to reconcile this. Real many-worlds theory, holographic universe, superdeterminism, single-electron etc. But all of these have either epistemological issues or cannot account for all phenomena.
This has led me to what I think is the most satisfying interpretation so far, which I call retroactive superdeterminism (RS).
In RS in order to resolve the problem of maintaining causality for an object which does not exist, on information of the appearance of the particle which may otherwise contradict causality, the mind changes the entire history of the world so to be that the particle existed the entire time with defined position and momentum, thereby producing causality. Thereby saving the mental framework we have on all things (phenomenology).
In this way the universe 'learns' but of course it is merely the ensemble of the appearances of the world and their properties that are changing as a result of that mental activity, which from one perspective can be argued that the universe is learning.
Billions of minds on this planet alone (and rapidly increasing), all firmly part of the universe.
So is the universe conscious?
Of course it is. And it's learning about itself from all sorts of crazy angles.
I don't think this is cut and dry.
Consider a video game. Let's say Doom. All the characters inside Doom (including the player) exist within the Doom universe, but the mind controlling the player does not exist within the Doom universe. Yet there is no indication whatsoever, within the Doom universe, that there exists anything outside it. There is no (or, at least, not necessarily any) experiment you can do inside Doom to determine that the player's consciousness is outside Doom. We only know it is because we've seen outside.
Why must our universe be different? We only assume our minds are within it because we haven't seen outside.
Remove the neocortex and the mind is gone. Almost all of the rest of the brain's biology is optional to the phenomenon of mind, except in their respective roles of supporting the neocortex.
Neuroscience can't really experiment the same way as other disciplines, but they can study injury and deformity and so-called lower animals, and some of the science is definitive. Unless you demand something metaphysical or spiritual or magical be involved in the human mind, in which case, why are you bothering with science at all?
There is no magic. We are neurons relaying a dance of fascinating electrical patterns back and forth, somehow resulting in the construct of our subjective experiences.
We have an answer to the question of the mechanics of consciousness. We don't have the algorithm yet, but we're making exponential progress in that direction as microscopy and biology increase the resolution of neural connectomes.
The brain, specifically the neocortex, contains the mind, and there's no good reasons to assume otherwise.
It's equally possible that the brain, specifically the neocortex, contains the interface to the mind.
And for what it's worth, I'm not assuming this is the case: I don't know. I'm just saying it might be.
The difficulty I have with the idea that the mind is inside the brain is that I do not see how a bunch of neurons can give rise to self-awareness. I'm happy to agree that a bunch of neurons can compute arbitrarily-complex functions, and produce arbitrarily-complex behaviours, and produce the outward appearance of consciousness. But I can't see where the inward sensation of consciousness can come from.
Either consciousness is some sort of a a metaphysical process we haven't figured out (or simply won't be able to), or our minds are clearly part of the universe. You can do things to the brain, such as anesthesia during surgery, and consciousness goes away.
That particular space in the universe that is inside our skulls is conscious (and thus is a point and space in time) means the universe is conscious on some level. How can it possibly be argued otherwise, it's not like brain isn't in this universe? Unless we want to decouple consciousness from brains, but that gets back to the anesthesia example.
> haven't seen outside.
There is no outside. Einstein showed with general relativity that space and time are connected. No space, no time. And certainly no concept of "outside".
> There is no outside.
This is unknowable. To take my example from the other comment: there is nothing within the Doom video game universe to indicate that there is a real universe outside. You can go as far as you want in X, Y, or Z and you'll never break out of Doom and find yourself in real life. But that doesn't mean there is no outside: the mind controlling the player is outside the Doom universe.
(But anaesthetic can't work within the Doom universe, because the anesthetic has no way to reach the mind.)
ISOs. Bio-digital jazz, man.
The universe certainly contains machines that keep learning (lifeforms, and more broadly life itself) as part of itself, but I wonder how the stronger claim can be made, especially since there are parts of the universe being doomed to never interact with any other part as the universe expands and their local neighborhood is pushed beyond reach of particles travelling at c.
It's not clear that this disqualifies the claim. Would you mind expanding?
I am heavily biased toward what I call a "computationalist" point of view on metaphysics. This has resulted from the study of machine learning theory, being primarily Bayesian probability theory, statistical mechanics, computing theory, etc. and recognizing the deep isometries between them. This position seemingly inevitably leads one to a panbiotist stance, i.e., that there is no line but an arbitrary one between what can be considered "individual" vs "collective", nor between "living" and "non-living". In short, It is the Spinozan "God" for the Information Age. So I am in vigorous agreement with the conclusions of these cosmologists.
Though not necessary to your points, I think GP's post is saying that omnipresent omniscience is not computable everywhere equally in the current best understanding of physics.
Titles are important- they tell the audience the value they will receive from a work- acting as the vector of the people through truth to power. Many people who read the news are working class, and because of this have a structural disadvantage that stunts formation of an attention span encouraging deep engagement with literature. To make news more equitable, it is incredibly important that titles pop, not just for the "typical" stodgy reader, but also for the common person, who's full potential can be unlocked by the world of learning woven in the fabric of well crafted words. So for this title I would have gone with something more like:
"The Universe Is a Machine That Keeps Learning, Scientists Say, and That's a Good Thing! What this means in a post-trump america".
This is not a criticism, its a teaching moment, and we'd do best to remember that.
Can it be changed, globally or within a confined space?
Are „those laws“ the physical constants?