World's smartest physicist says…

This topic has 13 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 1 month ago by wv.

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August 22, 2016 at 6:42 pm #51399

wv
Participant

(This article is by John Horgan, who wrote “rational mysticism” which
is one of my ten favorite books. Fwiw. )
w
v
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World’s Smartest Physicist Thinks Science Can’t Crack Consciousness
String theorist Edward Witten says consciousness “will remain a mystery”

By John Horgan on August 18, 2016
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/world-s-smartest-physicist-thinks-science-can-t-crack-consciousness/

“…I think consciousness will remain a mystery. Yes, that’s what I tend to believe. I tend to think that the workings of the conscious brain will be elucidated to a large extent. Biologists and perhaps physicists will understand much better how the brain works. But why something that we call consciousness goes with those workings, I think that will remain mysterious. I have a much easier time imagining how we understand the Big Bang than I have imagining how we can understand consciousness…

August 22, 2016 at 7:26 pm #51403

nittany ram
Moderator

Ah, the arrogance of physicists. Of course if a physicist can’t comprehend how something as complex as consciousness could someday be understood then there’s no way any practitioners of the lesser sciences could ever figure it out.

Witten probably isn’t even aware of the current research being done on consciousness by neuroscientists. Now, I’m not saying a paper that explains the mysteries of consciousness will be published anytime soon but there is work being done. Maybe it won’t bear fruit but maybe it will, and if it doesn’t another avenue of research eventually will. Baby steps.

http://www.livescience.com/47096-theories-seek-to-explain-consciousness.html

August 22, 2016 at 9:01 pm #51415

bnw
Blocked

nittany ram wrote:

Ah, the arrogance of physicists. Of course if a physicist can’t comprehend how something as complex as consciousness could someday be understood then there’s no way any practitioners of the lesser sciences could ever figure it out.

Don’t understand using the term “lesser” referring to other areas of science. Especially areas of science in which knowledge isn’t disproven as often as it is in physics. IOW physicists don’t know nearly as much as they think they do.

The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

Sprinkles are for winners.

August 22, 2016 at 9:20 pm #51420

nittany ram
Moderator

bnw wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

Ah, the arrogance of physicists. Of course if a physicist can’t comprehend how something as complex as consciousness could someday be understood then there’s no way any practitioners of the lesser sciences could ever figure it out.

Don’t understand using the term “lesser” referring to other areas of science. Especially areas of science in which knowledge isn’t disproven as often as it is in physics. IOW physicists don’t know nearly as much as they think they do.

Lesser only from a physicist’s perspective. Not all physicists feel this way of course but some I’ve met do have a superiority complex related to other sciences.

Of course, I have no idea if Witten is like that.

All sciences have ideas that are proven wrong. No shame in that -it’s an inevitable occurance in the advancement of understanding. But they are proven wrong through the work of other scientists. That’s the cool thing about science. It’s self-correcting.

August 22, 2016 at 10:32 pm #51430

bnw
Blocked

nittany ram wrote:

bnw wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

Ah, the arrogance of physicists. Of course if a physicist can’t comprehend how something as complex as consciousness could someday be understood then there’s no way any practitioners of the lesser sciences could ever figure it out.

Don’t understand using the term “lesser” referring to other areas of science. Especially areas of science in which knowledge isn’t disproven as often as it is in physics. IOW physicists don’t know nearly as much as they think they do.

Lesser only from a physicist’s perspective. Not all physicists feel this way of course but some I’ve met do have a superiority complex related to other sciences.

Of course, I have no idea if Witten is like that.

All sciences have ideas that are proven wrong. No shame in that -it’s an inevitable occurance in the advancement of understanding. But they are proven wrong through the work of other scientists. That’s the cool thing about science. It’s self-correcting.

Yes but I wouldn’t want to be the one updating a physics textbook. Always an extensive rewrite.

The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

Sprinkles are for winners.

August 23, 2016 at 9:38 am #51442
PA Ram
Participant
I wonder if computer scientists will be the ones to unlock this mystery.

Will they ever be truly able to create a “conscious” AI and actually know they’ve done it and not some sort of imitation of the real thing. That would be an incredible thing. It couldn’t just look and sound like consciousness, but would have to be real. And I would imagine the complexity of such a thing is unimaginable.

I believe they will solve it some day but not anytime soon. And that is if funding is there for research and we don’t destroy ourselves until then. Big “if”.

I don’t believe they will find it by breaking things down though–like a physicist sort of does–looking for some elemental “thing”. It seems to be more of a process than a thing. And that’s what makes it so tough, of course.
- This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by PA Ram.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
August 23, 2016 at 9:46 am #51445
Billy_T
Participant
My step-father got his doctorate in Nuclear Physics. A brilliant guy, and generally pretty humble about it. He was not likely to ever hold that over anyone’s head, even among other scientists.

__

WV, thanks for the book rec.

__

PA, if you haven’t seen it yet, the movie “Her” is really well done and seriously thought-provoking on the subject of AI. Remarkable too in that it’s a love story . . . and I think it could well be our future. One of the best films I’ve seen in the last decade.
- This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Billy_T.
August 23, 2016 at 9:59 am #51453

nittany ram
Moderator

Yeah ‘Her’ is very good. One of the few love stories I ever liked only because it explores AI and the issues it entails. ‘Ex Machina’ is another good film about AI. You think it’s going to be a love story but then it takes a turn…

August 23, 2016 at 10:05 am #51454

wv
Participant

PA Ram wrote:

Will they ever be truly able to create a “conscious” AI and actually know they’ve done it and not some sort of imitation of the real thing. That would be an incredible thing.

————
Well yes it would be an incredible thing. To create AI ‘consciousness’. But even if they were able to create AI-consciousness it still wouldn’t eliminate the ‘mystery’ of why it ‘works’ or where it comes from, etc.
I think there will always be new discoveries, but i think there will always be a boundary line of mystery surrounding everything we know. Ya know. Humans will continue to push the boundary line outward, but there will always be mystery surrounding the Island of human-knowledge. Who knows though.

w
v

August 23, 2016 at 10:24 am #51456

Billy_T
Participant

WV,

Perhaps THE biggest mystery can be boiled down to “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Pascal, Kierkegaard and Heidegger (among a host of other great thinkers) all had different ways of posing that question and dealing with it, but the subject of “Being” is perhaps the one mystery we’ll never solve.

So I think science will eventually be able to reverse engineer the brain (and the body), and figure out how everything functions to get the results we see . . . . but we’ll never know why there is “Being” in the universe, of any kind . . . . which also includes that universe itself.

In my admittedly biased opinion, religious explanations tend to block us from getting closer to the mystery of Being. They give us nice little stories about the whys and the wherefores, so we just go, “Oh. Okay. God did it.” And we move on. It’s like there are all of these gateways out there — at least potentially — and they have the various gods and goddesses listed on them, on a sign, and that stops most people in their tracks. So they don’t bother to open the gate and go through it to see what’s on the other side. The names or some Name stops them short.

IMO, we need to get rid of the names first, so we can go through the gates. Maybe we’ll find out what “Being” really is someday. Probably not. But maybe.

August 23, 2016 at 10:28 am #51457

Billy_T
Participant

nittany ram wrote:

Yeah ‘Her’ is very good. One of the few love stories I ever liked only because it explores AI and the issues it entails. ‘Ex Machina’ is another good film about AI. You think it’s going to be a love story but then it takes a turn…

I really liked Ex Machina too. Very well done.

I’ve written a Sci-Fi novel, with a plan for a trilogy, and it deals with some of those issues. Clones and robots. It needs work. But I think it has potential. Unfortunately, with each month that goes by, with new stories from shows like Orphan Black, which I love, I’m seeing more and more competition . . . . and I really want it to be original to the degree possible.

August 23, 2016 at 11:15 am #51462

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

WV,

Perhaps THE biggest mystery can be boiled down to “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Pascal, Kierkegaard and Heidegger (among a host of other great thinkers) all had different ways of posing that question and dealing with it, but the subject of “Being” is perhaps the one mystery we’ll never solve.

So I think science will eventually be able to reverse engineer the brain (and the body), and figure out how everything functions to get the results we see . . . . but we’ll never know why there is “Being” in the universe, of any kind . . . . which also includes that universe itself.

In my admittedly biased opinion, religious explanations tend to block us from getting closer to the mystery of Being. They give us nice little stories about the whys and the wherefores, so we just go, “Oh. Okay. God did it.” And we move on. It’s like there are all of these gateways out there — at least potentially — and they have the various gods and goddesses listed on them, on a sign, and that stops most people in their tracks. So they don’t bother to open the gate and go through it to see what’s on the other side. The names or some Name stops them short.

IMO, we need to get rid of the names first, so we can go through the gates. Maybe we’ll find out what “Being” really is someday. Probably not. But maybe.

————–
Yeah, i tend to agree, comrad.

But, as you know relying on human-language to even try to discuss ‘the mystery of being’ is…well…..

w
v

August 23, 2016 at 11:38 am #51463

Billy_T
Participant

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

WV,

Perhaps THE biggest mystery can be boiled down to “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Pascal, Kierkegaard and Heidegger (among a host of other great thinkers) all had different ways of posing that question and dealing with it, but the subject of “Being” is perhaps the one mystery we’ll never solve.

So I think science will eventually be able to reverse engineer the brain (and the body), and figure out how everything functions to get the results we see . . . . but we’ll never know why there is “Being” in the universe, of any kind . . . . which also includes that universe itself.

In my admittedly biased opinion, religious explanations tend to block us from getting closer to the mystery of Being. They give us nice little stories about the whys and the wherefores, so we just go, “Oh. Okay. God did it.” And we move on. It’s like there are all of these gateways out there — at least potentially — and they have the various gods and goddesses listed on them, on a sign, and that stops most people in their tracks. So they don’t bother to open the gate and go through it to see what’s on the other side. The names or some Name stops them short.

IMO, we need to get rid of the names first, so we can go through the gates. Maybe we’ll find out what “Being” really is someday. Probably not. But maybe.

————–
Yeah, i tend to agree, comrad.

But, as you know relying on human-language to even try to discuss ‘the mystery of being’ is…well…..

w
v

That does present a problem. I’ve always found it interesting that some of the most brilliant thinkers, poets, musicians, artists and so on sometimes arrive at this conclusion:

“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

— Wittgenstein

Some may take great satisfaction in this, or think it gives them a shortcut toward a kind of non-thinking, mute reality. But I think these thinkers don’t think that way. They’re actually saying something to the effect of: “Go through this process, this journey, make it as immense and deep and profound as possible, be fearless, be courageous, don’t let society stand in your way, take it as far as possible, and try to express what the experience means, as well as can be done. That remainder, that part that can’t be expressed? It’s okay to remain silent about that.

Again, I’m biased, by I think poets, musicians and artists get the closest to this. Wittgenstein’s words influenced a great many.

August 23, 2016 at 4:59 pm #51476

wv
Participant

Billy_T wrote:

They’re actually saying something to the effect of: “Go through this process, this journey, make it as immense and deep and profound as possible, be fearless, be courageous, don’t let society stand in your way, take it as far as possible, and try to express what the experience means, as well as can be done. That remainder, that part that can’t be expressed? It’s okay to remain silent about that.

Again, I’m biased, by I think poets, musicians and artists get the closest to this. Wittgenstein’s words influenced a great many.

————
Yes, i tend to agree with that.

w
v
“Mystical additions and subtractions always come out the way you want.”
― Umberto Eco
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