All Recent Open Source Thoughts

I didn't mean to say that emergence is a fairytale, far from it. It is an observation and explanaion fully supported by science and facts

I was drawing a similarity between Dreamtime and emergence as well as modern Etiology. They are nothing alike yet they are explaining things based on the knowledge available at the time of their conception. Emergence is the way individual parts of a whole interact to become much more than the sum of their parts and the Dreamtime still uses this definition by the way the stories all interact to explain the world around the Aborigines.

If you take a look at some of the stories you will see that their explanation of events are always series of complex events between parts of the environment. It is also interesting to note that the "little man" makes an appearence in many of them.

Presently however we are supporting these explanations and chaining of events with facts where previously, Etiology often was little more than imagination.

I don't throw around "Wisdom of the Ancients"-like messages, trendy or otherwise, I just saw way of comparing the Dreamtime stories to the present day -- they just didn't have the facts.

But emergence is not just a jury-rigged attempt to explain consciousness. Other emergent systems (ant colonies, slime moulds, evolutionary circuits...) have been studied and independently found to possess these self-organising traits.

There's a difference between just inventing a story to explain something, and applying a theory that is, in itself, independently plausible. The application of emergence to consciousness is controversial; its application to slime moulds is not.

So, with all due respect to the Dreamtime, I don't think these two theories can be lumped together. Theories of emergence are based on scientific studies; the Dreamtime is not. That difference should not be trivialised, despite the trendiness of espousing enlightened, condescending "wisdom of the ancients" inclusivism.


Isn't it? What makes you say that?

For a start, it's possible to interfere with the mind by operating on the brain. Lesions to the frontal lobe alter a person's personality in quite predictable ways; and so do drugs. There are myriad ways to influence a person's consciousness.

If a machine were to possess a similar relational structure to the human brain, then I would expect it to be a mind. Of course, we're not currently capable of making such machines.

I agree, the whole "little man" behind the eyes things is not something that I picture when stray down the path of no resolution and I can see and understand your belief for consciousness.

It makes sense that I cannot decide what me is because me is not a sum of my parts and not any particular part. Me is me as a whole. Emergence makes for some interesting reading which I will continue to do.

That wikipedia link of the fallacy of division makes some parallels in the thinking I undergo whenever I pose this problem to myself.

I like the idea of Emergence but I don't think (or at least I am not entirely convinced) it completely explains consciousness.

Etiology is just another thing that has changed with the times. The Aborigines of Australia, 50 000 years ago, created the Dreamtime with stories that explained how everything works and why it is so.

Today Emergence, although much more informed, seems to be another incarnation of the Dreamtime as we try to discover what consciousness is and why it is so.

The idea and innovation in Artificial Intelligence has always fascinated me with one opposing viewpoint to the technology being the eventual takeover of humans by sentinent machines. I cannot see this as valid opposition because consciousness is not something that can be programmed. So, the whole, the sum of the parts, the collective intelligence of otherwise stupid parts does not fully explain why we ask and get confused by the "who am I?" questions.

In asking such questions, you're touching upon the central problems in the Philosophy of Mind: what is the difference between the mind and the brain?; and what is consciousness?

These are extremely deep questions. You seem to be heading in the direction of Cartesian dualism: Descartes created an ontology (a way of partitioning reality) that divided the universe into physical and mental substances. Objects in the world, including your body and brain, are physical; by their nature they have such properties as extension (they take up space). Your mind (or soul, as Descartes would have it) is mental; it is opposite in nature to physical things, and lacks such properties as extension.

There's more to his theory than that, but that's the important point: divide reality into the physical and the mental. The main problem with this theory is it's theoretically impossible for mental things to influence physical things, or vice-versa. Descartes fudged this horribly, by locating the point of interaction in the pineal gland -- essentially allowing this tiny part of the brain to become a magic box.

These ideas often lead people towards the paradoxical notion of a homunculus [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus#Homunculus_argument_or_fallacy_in_the_philosophy_of_mind ]: a "little man" who sits inside the brain, rather like the old Numbskulls cartoon from the Beano [ http://www.fustar.info/2006/12/02/193/ ].

In more modern theory, the questions are more concerned with how mental events (thoughts, consciousness) arise from the physical brain. Although neuroscience can correlate brain areas with certain functions, consciousness is particularly elusive. It's hard to point to a part of the brain and say, "this is consciousness", or "this is a thought".

I believe that consciousness is most likely an emergent entity. Emergence is a fascinating concept that explains how systems with a large number of individually "stupid" parts can develop astonishingly complex behaviour. Such systems are often described as "self-organising". Important examples of self-organising systems include slime mould and ant-colonies. Ant colonies in particular have been demonstrated to develop long-term memories and to solve geometric problems with great precision; and yet the individual ants are far too stupid to be capable of such feats.

Emergence is a new kind of etiology ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etiology ), completely divorced from traditional philosophical thought. I believe that the human mind is an emergent system: thoughts and consciousness emerge from interactions (the firing of neurons) within the physical brain.

In my view, the whole brain vs. mind problem is based upon the fallacy of division ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division ). This fallacy insists that any property possessed by an object must also be possessed by its components. Normally we can detect such fallacies easily (see the examples on that link!); but when it comes to our own minds, we seem to have a peculiar logical blind spot.

I really like the idea of this site. One problem: it's extremely difficult to use your text-entry box. The controls don't work, and I have to click at the end of a text line to give the box focus. This is a severe issue.

Anyway, back to cars. It's worth noting that the main limitations on car efficiency come from air friction, not ground friction. Cars (and other vehicles) are highly conservative in design; there are many exciting prototypes in funky aerodynamic shapes, which claim to deliver extraordinary fuel-efficiency.

For example, there's an electric car that (apparently) achieves the equivalent of 15,200 MPG (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/04/science.renewableenergy, http://www.primidi.com/2005/07/05.html#a1238).

Hey Mike! It's good to see you here, it is minds like yours that I dearly wanted to start congregating on this site when I was creating it.. Unfortunately I have haven't put anywhere near as much time as I would have liked into this site recently :$

Thank you very much for giving some perspective on the topic, it is very interesting. I had heard about the Maglev trains before tring to use the idea in a more personal form of transport but never really looked much into the technology behind them.

A trait of new ideas that cross my mind is that they don't hang around too long trying to disprove themselves, especially at 5:30am (and that wasn't from me getting up early).

In the few weeks after writing this post I did some research and fact finding in an attempt to overcome some of the prohibitive practical problems with the approach and I dearly wanted to find something that said "Perpetual motion? Yeah, that's possible". I didn't though. Ha!

It was an interesting point you made above that a magnet will eventually lose its conserved energy after it is transfered into kinetic energy. I guess I was still enthralled by the "magical" floating paperclip from my youth and didn't stop to think that there might be a limit on how long the magnet could continue to cast its spells.

I still see potential in this idea in the form of using electromagnets but I am now trying to come up with a method of power supply that would be viable.

The Maglev trains could provide some more ideas here.

At the moment I am still in the realm of the early scientists (back when they were all philosphers) -- figuratively speaking -- and remain captivated with all the ideas.

Really appreciate you taking the time explain the things my glassed over eyes were staring through!

Hi Rakuli! I liked this idea so much that I thought it worthy of a proper response. So I had to join your forums.

Magnetic levitation already exists, and can be used to create efficient transport, such as Maglev trains. The reduction in friction gives such vehicles the potential to reach very high speeds.

The problem with your idea is energy conservation. It's seductive to see the levitating paperclip, and think that this force can be harnessed for free energy. But one of the most fundamental laws of physics states that energy is conserved. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, only changed from one form into another. The total amount of energy in the universe is a constant (and most of it is tied up in the form of mass).

What you're describing is a perpetual motion machine: a device that creates endless motion, without requiring any energy input (or force, if you prefer). Early scientists (back when they were all philosophers) were fascinated by the idea of perpetual motion. But nowadays, we believe that perpetual motion is impossible, because it would violate the law of conservation of energy.

There are many practical problems with your idea, such as how you'd prevent the cars from flipping over. But let's open our minds for a moment: suppose you could overcome these problems, and suppose it was economically viable. What would happen?

Well, the strength of your magnets would weaken over time: potential energy of the magnets would be changed into kinetic energy of the vehicle. The more you used the roads, the weaker their magnetism would become.

You could use electromagnets, of course, but then you need a power supply (note the interesting relationship between magnetism, movement, and electricity: moving a magnet can create electricity, or electricity can move the magnet). This is what the Maglev trains do, but that electricity is not free.

So, although magnetic levitation can reduce friction, it's not a source of free energy. Magnets are neat, but they're not magical.

Check out the Wikipedia entry on perpetual motion techniques (involving magnets): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Techniques


Magnetic levitation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation
Maglev trains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train#Maglev_vs._conventional_trains

Well I had to laugh at the video, even if it is truely not edited there are probably many other ways they could have set that up. I laughed even more at some of the other video's taking the piss out of the main one.
 
I agree with Rakuli though as I'd like to see them prove me wrong.

LOL. I managed to track down the video on youtube and unfortunely I am not more a believer than previously.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pSTcgn6IaZo

The funnier thing about all of this is the rip-off videos that are springing up. They are much better and 10 times more hillarious.

My thoughts on the whole thing are fake simply due to the fact that this guy only showed it to "experts" who perhaps are a little biased and looking for proof to fill their preconceived notions.

I would like it to convince me otherwise but I cannot say with any more surity now than before.

Hey..
Found this the other day, its brand new, and thought this might be the place to disgus it =D



Im to lazy to find the youtube video of it.. but its out there =]


What you guys think?
Real?
Fake?

I have read many articles about this, and experts say that this footage is impossible to fake =O

But... It seems so fake, as, the aliens face, is exactly like how 'we' would expect it.. Like we see in films and cartoons... (btw, the allien face in the news article isnot the actual alien).. personally i think, that we cannot see aliens + half the creatures on this planet..

On the otherhand, people must of gotton the idea of the typical alien face from someonewhere...



What yoooh guys think?!