Okay, okay, I made a post about this in another forum, but since the topic has plagued my mind for the past couple of years, it have become significant enough to me to try and make it significant to you. I also did a google search and could not find and MTG Salvation threads on the topic.
So, the Mandelbrot set...now I'm not a mathematician, but one is not required to be one to make observations. It's very difficult to discuss what I believe to be true about our realities so I'll make it as simple as I can.
1. Our conscious view of the world is a window from a dimension of greater complexity than the atomic dimension. There is no limit on our complexity of thought. We can imagine things breaking the laws of physics all the time, that's what makes consciousness unique and powerful. The universe within our heads is of another dimension, not limited by atomic physics. (edit- but dependent on physical arrangements of atoms in order to exist)
2. The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics. From a pure layman's perspective, the points of emphasis and orientation of the Mandelbrot set look suspiciously like an uninhibited mind.
A) The image 'looks' forward. Eyes in nature tend to do the same thing. Eyes are essentially a part of the brain.
B) The image also has emphasis where life-forms tend have ears. The set 'hears' from the side.
C) The image bears equal complexity on all sides and spaces imaginable, both representing the ability to 'feel', both externally and internally. The amount and quality of feelings one can feel are truly infinite.
D) The rear of the image curls in ward like brains do at the back where the hemispheres separate.
Now that's all I can think of for now, but if anyone would wish to debate, criticize, or help me grow my opinions on the subject, I would be greatly appreciative. My ideas are in evolution, as I observe new and intriguing things every day that make me question exactly what life is. I'm not looking for attention, I tend to run away all shy with or without attention, but this is something I feel strongly. It's not exactly a useful observation to me, but on that provides infinite perspective.
The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics.
What. Pretty sure mind evolved because other living things are delicious, and catching them often requires planning.
D) The rear of the image curls in ward like brains do at the back where the hemispheres separate.
You've never dissected a mollusc, have you?
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It seems you just have misconceptions of the actual literal meaning of these things. A dimension is an axis by which you can locate an object with specific coordinates. This is not an imagination. A mind is not a physical image, there is no way to quantify it or dimensionally measure it.
A Mandelbrot set is an indefinitely complex and infinitesimally small non-differentiable surface which physically does not exist because of the quantinization of matter and energy but that matter can exhibit properties of following the pattern.
You seem to just be attempted to make random connections between random things and I have no idea what model or theory you're really trying to suggest and what it's really modeling.
The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics.
What. Pretty sure mind evolved because other living things are delicious, and catching them often requires planning.
Well cognitive thinking processes perhaps, but not just for hunting but for generally surviving and moving about, not getting eaten yourself.
It seems you just have misconceptions of the actual literal meaning of these things. A dimension is an axis by which you can locate an object with specific coordinates. This is not an imagination. A mind is not a physical image, there is no way to quantify it or dimensionally measure it.
A Mandelbrot set is an indefinitely complex and infinitesimally small non-differentiable surface which physically does not exist because of the quantinization of matter and energy but that matter can exhibit properties of following the pattern.
You seem to just be attempted to make random connections between random things and I have no idea what model or theory you're really trying to suggest and what it's really modeling.
The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics.
What. Pretty sure mind evolved because other living things are delicious, and catching them often requires planning.
Well cognitive thinking processes perhaps, but not just for hunting but for generally surviving and moving about, not getting eaten yourself.
I believe the rules governing consciousness were always in place whether atoms were capable of supporting it or not. There is no better, more advantageous way for consciousness to exist that as it does. Life propagated with consciousness not because they determined it to be the best way to get food, but because the molecules randomly mutated into something that was really really good at getting food and doing other things as well. During the place and time when the little squigglies developed brains, they were sure to be successful because consciousness on any level of complexity is so much greater than any concept known in the universe.
The direction of the dimensions greater than ours is within. If people in Flatland are constrained by the dimension 'up', we are constrained by the dimensions 'within' the atoms. Therefor, the Mandelbrot set represents and object which is not limited by atomic constraints, as it would be in our dimensions. It operates under different rules.
As far as other creatures brains are concerned, many brains are similar to human brains because effective brains under certain atmospheric conditions should all be similar, because they all do similar things (as well as most successful brains evolved along the same line). Brains of other life forms are different, my lack the great repositories of gray matter, but the brain ultimately wishes to evolve into something with infinite memory like the mandelbrot set, but cannot because of atomic restrictions.
The mandelbrot set isn't the mind as we know it, we aren't mandelbrot sets, but just as other aspects of biology resemble simpler forms of fractal geometry, I believe the mind is modeled after the infinitely complex mandelbrot fractal geometry.
edit - I overstate the visual resemblance to brains, but I don't think it's entirely without foundation. Many things in nature tend to resemble arbitrary, fractal processes, so I don't consider it to far-fetched for something to imitate more complex fractals. To me, that thing must be the most complex biological object we know, the thing that allows us to know in the first place.
Just as it takes many iterations of a formula to create the Mandelbrot set mathematically, it takes many iterations of evolution to bring it closer to what it is intended to be.
DOUBLE EDIT: I'm not a super genius or anything...I am a Wikipedia who reads the darn site hours at a time on different topics, so I've learned many things but am a master of nothing. Evolution of the brain is so short, I know nothing but what I can infer.
I've dissected a squid. Insufficient brains remain insufficient because of the biological roles the lifeforms reside in. They are successful at doing what they are doing, but the ways that exist limit the growth-potential for their brains. Worms brains remain small because they live underground and don't acquire the nutrients to improve the brain further.
Part of evolution is chance of biological chemistry as well as victory over the environment. Where life is able to find a spot where conditions for brain development are good, the brain continues to improve. When life moved onto land, it found a better place to grow. Omnivores such as humans have the distinct advantage of being able to collect many different kinds of molecules to improve operation of the system.
It seems you just have misconceptions of the actual literal meaning of these things. A dimension is an axis by which you can locate an object with specific coordinates. This is not an imagination. A mind is not a physical image, there is no way to quantify it or dimensionally measure it.
A Mandelbrot set is an indefinitely complex and infinitesimally small non-differentiable surface which physically does not exist because of the quantinization of matter and energy but that matter can exhibit properties of following the pattern.
You seem to just be attempted to make random connections between random things and I have no idea what model or theory you're really trying to suggest and what it's really modeling.
The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics.
What. Pretty sure mind evolved because other living things are delicious, and catching them often requires planning.
Well cognitive thinking processes perhaps, but not just for hunting but for generally surviving and moving about, not getting eaten yourself.
I believe the rules governing consciousness were always in place whether atoms were capable of supporting it or not. There is no better, more advantageous way for consciousness to exist that as it does. Life propagated with consciousness not because they determined it to be the best way to get food, but because the molecules randomly mutated into something that was really really good at getting food and doing other things as well. During the place and time when the little squigglies developed brains, they were sure to be successful because consciousness on any level of complexity is so much greater than any concept known in the universe.
The direction of the dimensions greater than ours is within. If people in Flatland are constrained by the dimension 'up', we are constrained by the dimensions 'within' the atoms. Therefor, the Mandelbrot set represents and object which is not limited by atomic constraints, as it would be in our dimensions. It operates under different rules.
As far as other creatures brains are concerned, many brains are similar to human brains because effective brains under certain atmospheric conditions should all be similar, because they all do similar things (as well as most successful brains evolved along the same line). Brains of other life forms are different, my lack the great repositories of gray matter, but the brain ultimately wishes to evolve into something with infinite memory like the mandelbrot set, but cannot because of atomic restrictions.
The mandelbrot set isn't the mind as we know it, we aren't mandelbrot sets, but just as other aspects of biology resemble simpler forms of fractal geometry, I believe the mind is modeled after the infinitely complex mandelbrot fractal geometry.
edit - I overstate the visual resemblance to brains, but I don't think it's entirely without foundation. Many things in nature tend to resemble arbitrary, fractal processes, so I don't consider it to far-fetched for something to imitate more complex fractals. To me, that thing must be the most complex biological object we know, the thing that allows us to know in the first place.
Just as it takes many iterations of a formula to create the Mandelbrot set mathematically, it takes many iterations of evolution to bring it closer to what it is intended to be.
DOUBLE EDIT: I'm not a super genius or anything...I am a Wikipedia who reads the darn site hours at a time on different topics, so I've learned many things but am a master of nothing. Evolution of the brain is so short, I know nothing but what I can infer.
I've dissected a squid. Insufficient brains remain insufficient because of the biological roles the lifeforms reside in. They are successful at doing what they are doing, but the ways that exist limit the growth-potential for their brains. Worms brains remain small because they live underground and don't acquire the nutrients to improve the brain further.
Part of evolution is chance of biological chemistry as well as victory over the environment. Where life is able to find a spot where conditions for brain development are good, the brain continues to improve. When life moved onto land, it found a better place to grow. Omnivores such as humans have the distinct advantage of being able to collect many different kinds of molecules to improve operation of the system.
See, there's no mathematical problem with having dimensions we can't see, but an imagination or a mind isn't a dimension, that just doesn't make any actual sense.
There's still no real 3D model of a mind or consciousness, so how is there any basis to say that a mind 3 dimension-ally is formed around them?
Also, what is the basis of the arbitrary judgement that squid's brains are "insufficient"? Why can't things go on living life without becoming more complex?
Show me the sets of vectors that span this space and then we can start talking dimensions. Right now, this sounds like a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo that attempts to make a mathematical idea and apply it to things it doesn't apply to.
The Julia set is my avatar at the moment. I find it aesthetically pleasing, same with the Mandelbrot set. The infinity of the sets is the most defining expression of the modeling in my opinion.
It seems you just have misconceptions of the actual literal meaning of these things. A dimension is an axis by which you can locate an object with specific coordinates. This is not an imagination. A mind is not a physical image, there is no way to quantify it or dimensionally measure it.
A Mandelbrot set is an indefinitely complex and infinitesimally small non-differentiable surface which physically does not exist because of the quantinization of matter and energy but that matter can exhibit properties of following the pattern.
You seem to just be attempted to make random connections between random things and I have no idea what model or theory you're really trying to suggest and what it's really modeling.
The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics.
What. Pretty sure mind evolved because other living things are delicious, and catching them often requires planning.
Well cognitive thinking processes perhaps, but not just for hunting but for generally surviving and moving about, not getting eaten yourself.
I believe the rules governing consciousness were always in place whether atoms were capable of supporting it or not. There is no better, more advantageous way for consciousness to exist that as it does. Life propagated with consciousness not because they determined it to be the best way to get food, but because the molecules randomly mutated into something that was really really good at getting food and doing other things as well. During the place and time when the little squigglies developed brains, they were sure to be successful because consciousness on any level of complexity is so much greater than any concept known in the universe.
The direction of the dimensions greater than ours is within. If people in Flatland are constrained by the dimension 'up', we are constrained by the dimensions 'within' the atoms. Therefor, the Mandelbrot set represents and object which is not limited by atomic constraints, as it would be in our dimensions. It operates under different rules.
As far as other creatures brains are concerned, many brains are similar to human brains because effective brains under certain atmospheric conditions should all be similar, because they all do similar things (as well as most successful brains evolved along the same line). Brains of other life forms are different, my lack the great repositories of gray matter, but the brain ultimately wishes to evolve into something with infinite memory like the mandelbrot set, but cannot because of atomic restrictions.
The mandelbrot set isn't the mind as we know it, we aren't mandelbrot sets, but just as other aspects of biology resemble simpler forms of fractal geometry, I believe the mind is modeled after the infinitely complex mandelbrot fractal geometry.
edit - I overstate the visual resemblance to brains, but I don't think it's entirely without foundation. Many things in nature tend to resemble arbitrary, fractal processes, so I don't consider it to far-fetched for something to imitate more complex fractals. To me, that thing must be the most complex biological object we know, the thing that allows us to know in the first place.
Just as it takes many iterations of a formula to create the Mandelbrot set mathematically, it takes many iterations of evolution to bring it closer to what it is intended to be.
DOUBLE EDIT: I'm not a super genius or anything...I am a Wikipedia who reads the darn site hours at a time on different topics, so I've learned many things but am a master of nothing. Evolution of the brain is so short, I know nothing but what I can infer.
I've dissected a squid. Insufficient brains remain insufficient because of the biological roles the lifeforms reside in. They are successful at doing what they are doing, but the ways that exist limit the growth-potential for their brains. Worms brains remain small because they live underground and don't acquire the nutrients to improve the brain further.
Part of evolution is chance of biological chemistry as well as victory over the environment. Where life is able to find a spot where conditions for brain development are good, the brain continues to improve. When life moved onto land, it found a better place to grow. Omnivores such as humans have the distinct advantage of being able to collect many different kinds of molecules to improve operation of the system.
See, there's no mathematical problem with having dimensions we can't see, but an imagination or a mind isn't a dimension, that just doesn't make any actual sense.
There's still no real 3D model of a mind or consciousness, so how is there any basis to say that a mind 3 dimension-ally is formed around them?
Also, what is the basis of the arbitrary judgement that squid's brains are "insufficient"? Why can't things go on living life without becoming more complex?
Right, a mind isn't a dimension, but it definitely exists within one. I argue that one's self of individuality is kind of locked within it's own slice of a larger dimension, some kind of extra-dimension by proxy. The ability to make observations and reason are kind of unique and unnatural to matter. Matter tends to only do what the laws of physics allow us to do. Consciousness give us control over matter in a way that just doesn't happen when atoms are randomly colliding. Much of evolution has to do with developing reflexive behavior, but the mind gives life a way to interact with the world in a proactive way.
There will probably never be a 3D model of the mind. In totality, it is too complex for our physics. It may be possible to make assumptions, and many tests have been run to try and map what people are imagining, but I feel many of the results are tainted by suggestion and are inconclusive. I consider true man-made-intelligence to be completely impossible unless it were brought about biologically, almost chemically identical to natural brains, essentially cloning. Otherwise, it would lack the interface with the quantum world that gives us presiding authority over a majority of our actions.
Squid brains aren't insufficient for what they are, as long as they are good at what they're doing, that's great, but the mind has much more potential than that. The human mind is clearly superior and more successfully evolves because we are able to better understand the laws of nature and practically everything else.
'We are a way for the Universe to know itself' - Carl Sagan.
Show me the sets of vectors that span this space and then we can start talking dimensions. Right now, this sounds like a bunch of metaphysical mumbo jumbo that attempts to make a mathematical idea and apply it to things it doesn't apply to.
It's exactly what people theorize it to be. In quantum physics, we do not observe entire sub-atomic particles at once, only traces of them that happen to be present at the moment. There is more complexity in the parts of the atom than we are capable from observing from our perspective. I guess I could say 'it's like a tesserect', but our reality isn't exclusive to cubes, so in appearance it would be more complicated than a tesserect.
The 2D print-out of the mandelbrot set itself is merely a segment of the complete image. A true mandelbrot...thing would be the '4D Mandelbrots', which would be slightly less comprehensible to people and our models are inaccurate.
Unfortunately, I have no hard numbers for this one, but I have read a lot of science stuff and have yet to prove myself wrong. I am looking at unknowns in science and trying to find an answer. Mankind couldn't pull away from the earth to prove it was round, but by looking along the edges they were able to make observations that suggested it did.
I'm purely non meta-physical though. If it can be proven that I am wrong I will gladly accept the truth about reality. New science always feels metaphysical though. String theory might as well be magic until we know more about it.
The Julia set is my avatar at the moment. I find it aesthetically pleasing, same with the Mandelbrot set. The infinity of the sets is the most defining expression of the modeling in my opinion.
I noticed and I think it's great. I'm aware that the Mandelbrot set is a result of some logarithm involving all possible Julia sets. Julia sets are either 'open' or 'closed' and this creates the mandelbrot image. I have a feeling that Julia sets have a slightly larger influence on reality by method of 'quantum signatures' that give matter it's qualities.
Final edit - OK, I'm reading up on the Quantum Mind now and I guess people have been writing it off as pseudoscience forever, maybe because people suggested telepathy stuff that obviously isn't real.
Well, people may not have proven it but they have yet to disprove it. I urge everyone to always be thinking about what we don't know...why not? I'm certainly not going after pseudoscience or physics-god or anything, but there are many explanations for our reality that have yet to be made, and I'd like to be alive for a few more of them.
So, I guess I'm not really debating right now. I'll just gather more ideas and read more stuff about science and remember to learn all that math I've been putting off...because life is narrow, brief, and unexplained and I want to know as much about it as I can while I am alive.
Everyone be on your toes for earth-shattering observations.
Basically, the Mandelbrot set is a map of equations and what happens when you iterate them indefinitely. Some equations generate a sequence of values that grows and grows without bound, whereas other equations generate a sequence which remains bounded. The Buddhabrot plots which paths lead to unbounded growth. As the name suggests, it looks a little like Buddha. Checkmate, atheists.
Okay, okay, I made a post about this in another forum, but since the topic has plagued my mind for the past couple of years, it have become significant enough to me to try and make it significant to you. I also did a google search and could not find and MTG Salvation threads on the topic.
So, the Mandelbrot set...now I'm not a mathematician, but one is not required to be one to make observations. It's very difficult to discuss what I believe to be true about our realities so I'll make it as simple as I can.
1. Our conscious view of the world is a window from a dimension of greater complexity than the atomic dimension. There is no limit on our complexity of thought. We can imagine things breaking the laws of physics all the time, that's what makes consciousness unique and powerful. The universe within our heads is of another dimension, not limited by atomic physics. (edit- but dependent on physical arrangements of atoms in order to exist)
2. The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics. From a pure layman's perspective, the points of emphasis and orientation of the Mandelbrot set look suspiciously like an uninhibited mind.
A) The image 'looks' forward. Eyes in nature tend to do the same thing. Eyes are essentially a part of the brain.
B) The image also has emphasis where life-forms tend have ears. The set 'hears' from the side.
C) The image bears equal complexity on all sides and spaces imaginable, both representing the ability to 'feel', both externally and internally. The amount and quality of feelings one can feel are truly infinite.
D) The rear of the image curls in ward like brains do at the back where the hemispheres separate.
Now that's all I can think of for now, but if anyone would wish to debate, criticize, or help me grow my opinions on the subject, I would be greatly appreciative. My ideas are in evolution, as I observe new and intriguing things every day that make me question exactly what life is. I'm not looking for attention, I tend to run away all shy with or without attention, but this is something I feel strongly. It's not exactly a useful observation to me, but on that provides infinite perspective.
You wrote something interesting, but for these kinds of musings the devil is in the details.
You really have to elaborate or flesh out your observation further for it be anything more than a half-baked strand of a philosophical musing on life.
Take the Golden Ratio for instance. It's a recurring pattern and motif that occurs everywhere in nature and macroscopic systems. Somewhere therein I suppose there's a deeper philosophical conclusion to be extracted from that, but it's so broad and general that it's really up to the individual author to flesh our any particular usefulness or interesting facet from it.
Same thing with Mandelbrot sets. Same thing with Energy and Mass being equivalent. Somewhere in there there's a really profound conclusion to be made.
But it's up to you to better define the parameters of what you mean by "forward looking", or by visual resemblance to eyes, or the smaller fractal portions representing the infinite variation of emotion.
Brains are made of atoms, just like every thing else.
Based on your "theory" would everything be describable by the Manelbrot set, or just brains? Does the computer I'm typing on have this same level of complexity? Does a rock?
If it's just brains, then where did brains get this quality // how did it come about?
Final edit - OK, I'm reading up on the Quantum Mind now and I guess people have been writing it off as pseudoscience forever, maybe because people suggested telepathy stuff that obviously isn't real.
Well, people may not have proven it but they have yet to disprove it. I urge everyone to always be thinking about what we don't know...why not? I'm certainly not going after pseudoscience or physics-god or anything, but there are many explanations for our reality that have yet to be made, and I'd like to be alive for a few more of them.
And the entire thread summarized into a few sentences.
Also: please learn to science. Yes, nothing can be disproven, we know. It's a stupid argument and I'd like it to go away. Unless the positive claim has been proven, you assume the null assertion.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Also: please learn to science. ... Unless the positive claim has been proven, you assume the null assertion.
Ummm.... Yeah....
"A null hypothesis is potentially rejected or disproved on the basis of data that is significantly under its assumption, but never accepted or proved." [1] Emphasis mine.
Null's are used to disprove a proposed hypothesis, but since the statistical significance needed to PROVE something is much much greater than what is needed to disprove something, disproving a hypothesis with a Null isn't grounds to then accept the Null as true.
You would need to make the Null the new proposed hypothesis and test it against another Null in order to accept it.
Brains are made of atoms, just like every thing else.
Based on your "theory" would everything be describable by the Manelbrot set, or just brains? Does the computer I'm typing on have this same level of complexity? Does a rock?
If it's just brains, then where did brains get this quality // how did it come about?
Well the mathematics does span to indefinite complexity over all of space, it applies to virtually everything we see, it's partly why nebulas hundreds of light years wide form the way they do, or at least we assume they do because we can approximate them and things like plant growth and cell and circulatory system growth with fractals. However, what's still not really clear is why the mind being on a dimension even means anything, why it matters that the rules for consciousness are on these hidden dimensions, how you can actually 3 dimension-ally describe a mind or consciousness.
Well, I'm a fairly strong believer in the Planck units and feel the universe is probably digital, not analog.
But, even assuming that false, there is no reason to believe the mind is somehow able to access this presumed infinite complexity anymore than this computer I'm typing on can. As was said there is no reason to believe the brain evolved in such a manner, and there seems to be plenty of reason to not believe it does. The finite nature of memory, for one.
I definitely do need to improve my arguments, that's why I expose them to sure criticism. I apologize for the unsophisticated nature of my 'studies'...but I feel like the responses make my arguments look worse by only attacking the weakest points of my arguments. I think the only way to truly explain why I jump to this conclusion, which requires a jump, is to explain what I do know to be true about the universe (but that might take time as I gather my opinions, but if this topic is so offensive I can leave it alone).
I think the Golden Rule comparison is favorable towards my argument. Many of the most complicated aspect of reality are represented in simple, aesthetically pleasing ways. Fractal geometry, particularly those discovered by Mandelbrot, is more significant than we are capable of fully digesting at the present time...but I've never experienced a shot in the dark that felt so much like a hit...just going to take a while to turn on the lights and inspect the results.
The fact that we can control whether we pick our arms up or put them down is a violation of the laws of physics. In physics, nothing can make a decision about what it is going to do, it is at the mercy of the forces around it. That in it self suggests that the mind is operating under different rules from what science considers law.
All matter is entangled in all of the possible extra dimensions one way or another. The only way up is within. The subatomic particles that make up atoms, such as the Higgs boson, exist partly in our dimension and partly in another. That is how their mass is much greater than the proton itself.
The 'shape' of the Higgs boson will be up for debate for many, many years. I'm starting to believe that the Higgs boson is shaped as various Julia sets. Julia sets in particular correspond to wave-particle duality, given the open and closed nature of the sets.
Within each atom is a universe of extra dimensions upon extra dimensions...eleven dimensional hyper-space as Michio Kaku would like me to believe. They aren't necessarily alternate worlds where other things live, but rule-based dimensions that govern what is and isn't possible in the universe. I feel like what we are living in is just the culmination of what the other dimensions impose on reality. Since consciousness is dependent on those dimensions to be in place in order to exists, it cannot exists as we know it anywhere but here. But it has a very specific location 'here'.
An amazing thing about the brain is that it is made up of trillions of atoms, but they somehow communicate with each other in concert to create a mental image. If Julia-like quanta are associated with matter, being the Higgs boson, the Mandelbrot set would be the ideal composite of Julia sets acting together. The Mandelbrot set is the fully developed framework of where the mind resides, sort of like the shell the brain reverberates it.
Consciousness is such a unique, irreplaceable aspect of our universe that we know exists but cannot fully explain. Computational models of consciousness are insufficient. Computers require a separate, biological brain (i.e. human) in order to be relevant. A computer experiences nothing and is merely a set of switches and cables. No one with a brain can suggest that their brains do not experience anything - that their lives are simply one program after another. The idea of a 'digital mind' is the scourge of modern philosophy as far as I am concerned. Experience is far more complicated and involved than that.
If people want the thread to die, let it die, but I appreciate the responded because this is something I enjoy thinking about. I need to know what I need to know more about. The answers that are out there are inconclusive.
edit - I'm college drop out. I took a math class that revolved around the topic of infinity which forms the groundwork for much of my musings, but I can't exactly teach the class...this is MTG Salvation forums, we don't need PhDs to discuss the unknown here.
In case anyone reading this doesn't understand extra-dimensions, watch this. I paid a couple grand to learn this in college.
final cut: I wrote some wrong stuff here, particularly about wave/particle duality. I've forgotten how photons figure into the equation, since they, not atoms, are the limiting factors of our experience, although atoms are the limiting factors of our interaction, but they are not limiting factor in our composition.
There are a lot of people with videos and articles that explore the same territory I wish to explore. Perhaps I should seek out more of them, some have very deep and mathematical explanations for how we fit in with the other dimensions, but to tie them all together would be neat.
Also, no offensive intended with the PhD remarks. I'm on the lower tier of scholastic accomplishment compared to the greater body of people associated with MtG. I come here seeking greater mental processing power than my own, and if the answer is to go learn more, I accept.
I feel like the responses make my arguments look worse by only attacking the weakest points of my arguments.
Of course.
That's because if there is a single inconstancy anywhere in your theory, then the whole thing falls apart and needs to be reworked. Such is the nature of the Scientific method.
Anywho, I was hoping you could answer a few questions:
I am assuming brains are made of atoms, just like every thing else.
Thus, would everything be describable by this infinite complexity, or just brains? Does the computer I'm typing on have this same level of complexity? Does a rock?
If it's just brains, then where did brains get this quality // how did it evolve such capacity?
Also: please learn to science. ... Unless the positive claim has been proven, you assume the null assertion.
Ummm.... Yeah....
"A null hypothesis is potentially rejected or disproved on the basis of data that is significantly under its assumption, but never accepted or proved." [1] Emphasis mine.
Null's are used to disprove a proposed hypothesis, but since the statistical significance needed to PROVE something is much much greater than what is needed to disprove something, disproving a hypothesis with a Null isn't grounds to then accept the Null as true.
You would need to make the Null the new proposed hypothesis and test it against another Null in order to accept it.
Technically true, but let's be honest: in practice we don't really do that. We act on what we know, and unless proven otherwise, we assume unproven stuff to be untrue.
The fact that we can control whether we pick our arms up or put them down is a violation of the laws of physics. In physics, nothing can make a decision about what it is going to do, it is at the mercy of the forces around it. That in it self suggests that the mind is operating under different rules from what science considers law.
Look up the game of life and similar stuff. We can get infinite complexity from just those few simple rules (and yes: it is infinitely complex: the game of life is Turing complete). When working on such things, especially when working with multilevel processes, such as which are happening in the brain, and the emerging properties we see in such systems, our gut feeling on what should or should not be true does not apply.
All matter is entangled in all of the possible extra dimensions one way or another. The only way up is within.
Be careful with such words. Those words are talking in 3-D spaces and therefore do not, cannot apply when talking about more than 4 dimensions.
I think the Golden Rule comparison is favorable towards my argument. Many of the most complicated aspect of reality are represented in simple, aesthetically pleasing ways.
Citation needed.
Fractal geometry, particularly those discovered by Mandelbrot, is more significant than we are capable of fully digesting at the present time...but I've never experienced a shot in the dark that felt so much like a hit...just going to take a while to turn on the lights and inspect the results.
Fractals are predictable, which makes them the opposite of infinitely complex.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Technically true, but let's be honest: in practice we don't really do that. We act on what we know, and unless proven otherwise, we assume unproven stuff to be untrue.
I thought we were talking about science, not what we do despite science... Everyone's "default position" is different, anyway, making it a mess. People just fall back on whatever belief they came in with as a "default position' when the proposed is disprove or not sufficient to convince....
...Additionally, I didn't say any of those other things; your post just makes it look like I did... Can you fix that, please?
Technically true, but let's be honest: in practice we don't really do that. We act on what we know, and unless proven otherwise, we assume unproven stuff to be untrue.
I thought we were talking about science, not what we do despite science... Everyone's "default position" is different, anyway, making it a mess. People just fall back on whatever they first believed as a "default position' when the proposed is disprove or not sufficient to convince....
...Additionally, I didn't say any of those other things; your post just makes it look like I did... Can you fix that, please?
Even in science we do this, although with a caveat, of course. If I don't have evidence that certain motor proteins affect cell division, I'm not going to assume that they do. The difference of course being that I do keep in mind that there is no evidence either way, so that when there are some things which might indicate that they in fact to influence the process in question I'm able to accept that possibility and not dismiss it.
So, yes. I think my wording of null assertion was hasty (literally, I was typing this seconds before running to my bus, though do not I did not say null hypothesis). It's in fact simply the application of Occam's razor. It would be impossible to do science without this.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
I feel like the responses make my arguments look worse by only attacking the weakest points of my arguments.
Of course.
That's because if there is a single inconstancy anywhere in your theory, then the whole thing falls apart and needs to be reworked. Such is the nature of the Scientific method.
Anywho, I was hoping you could answer a few questions:
I am assuming brains are made of atoms, just like every thing else.
Thus, would everything be describable by this infinite complexity, or just brains? Does the computer I'm typing on have this same level of complexity? Does a rock?
If it's just brains, then where did brains get this quality // how did it evolve such capacity?
Sure, I understand scientific method. This is not intended to be a thesis paper...more intended to be a causal discussion on a topic that we will not likely live to see resolved. One cannot solve the hard problem of consciousness in a day, but I believe it will one day be solved, to some extent.
Everything is influenced by infinite complexity. I just happen to believe the mind exits on the edges of infinite complexity between one dimension and another. The matter in our dimensions generate the process, but it creates the sense of consciousness in a part of the universe that isn't contained by atoms. The 'infinity' found within these other dimensions give us the ability to make choices in a world otherwise governed by Newton's Laws of motion.
It's incorrect to say that a fractal is infinite, but it has an infinite extra-dimension that ours does not - infinite depth. It is impossible to create a Mandelbrot set using atoms because at a certain depth you just get individual atoms, but in a dimension not bound by atoms, it is completely possible. Also, it's thoroughly on my mind that what we identify as the Mandelbrot set's image is a 2D shadow of something of greater complexity. We cannot observe it's complexity in full, so what we see of it is not infinite.
Brains would have evolved the ability to reach in to the extra dimension by sheer chance of quantum mechanics. These are things I'd lie to be able to explain. I am not well versed on the chemical makeup of the brain, but I'm confident that all brains regardless of evolution have something in common atomically which brings about the conscious experience.
Regardless of whether I sound stupid or make incorrect analysis of what people know to be true, I'm pretty sure that when I am dead, there will be nothing else of my reality. I've been through religion for many years, but I feel like the conscious experience can be more thoroughly be explained through nature (ultimately, science must be used to prove nature, but that doesn't mean nature isn't doing it's thing until then, which is frustrating). I am just curious of this reality and would like to know more while I am still alive. There is no answer that will prevent the inevitable though, so maybe the whole search is pointless.
I'm willing to test these ideas for the rest of my life, hopefully it will lead to something. I'm sorry that I can't provide more evidence. It just fits all too well with my personal account of what it is like to experience consciousness.
I definitely do need to improve my arguments, that's why I expose them to sure criticism. I apologize for the unsophisticated nature of my 'studies'...but I feel like the responses make my arguments look worse by only attacking the weakest points of my arguments. I think the only way to truly explain why I jump to this conclusion, which requires a jump, is to explain what I do know to be true about the universe (but that might take time as I gather my opinions, but if this topic is so offensive I can leave it alone).
I think the Golden Rule comparison is favorable towards my argument. Many of the most complicated aspect of reality are represented in simple, aesthetically pleasing ways. Fractal geometry, particularly those discovered by Mandelbrot, is more significant than we are capable of fully digesting at the present time...but I've never experienced a shot in the dark that felt so much like a hit...just going to take a while to turn on the lights and inspect the results.
The fact that we can control whether we pick our arms up or put them down is a violation of the laws of physics. In physics, nothing can make a decision about what it is going to do, it is at the mercy of the forces around it. That in it self suggests that the mind is operating under different rules from what science considers law.
All matter is entangled in all of the possible extra dimensions one way or another. The only way up is within. The subatomic particles that make up atoms, such as the Higgs boson, exist partly in our dimension and partly in another. That is how their mass is much greater than the proton itself.
The 'shape' of the Higgs boson will be up for debate for many, many years. I'm starting to believe that the Higgs boson is shaped as various Julia sets. Julia sets in particular correspond to wave-particle duality, given the open and closed nature of the sets.
Within each atom is a universe of extra dimensions upon extra dimensions...eleven dimensional hyper-space as Michio Kaku would like me to believe. They aren't necessarily alternate worlds where other things live, but rule-based dimensions that govern what is and isn't possible in the universe. I feel like what we are living in is just the culmination of what the other dimensions impose on reality. Since consciousness is dependent on those dimensions to be in place in order to exists, it cannot exists as we know it anywhere but here. But it has a very specific location 'here'.
An amazing thing about the brain is that it is made up of trillions of atoms, but they somehow communicate with each other in concert to create a mental image. If Julia-like quanta are associated with matter, being the Higgs boson, the Mandelbrot set would be the ideal composite of Julia sets acting together. The Mandelbrot set is the fully developed framework of where the mind resides, sort of like the shell the brain reverberates it.
Consciousness is such a unique, irreplaceable aspect of our universe that we know exists but cannot fully explain. Computational models of consciousness are insufficient. Computers require a separate, biological brain (i.e. human) in order to be relevant. A computer experiences nothing and is merely a set of switches and cables. No one with a brain can suggest that their brains do not experience anything - that their lives are simply one program after another. The idea of a 'digital mind' is the scourge of modern philosophy as far as I am concerned. Experience is far more complicated and involved than that.
If people want the thread to die, let it die, but I appreciate the responded because this is something I enjoy thinking about. I need to know what I need to know more about. The answers that are out there are inconclusive.
edit - I'm college drop out. I took a math class that revolved around the topic of infinity which forms the groundwork for much of my musings, but I can't exactly teach the class...this is MTG Salvation forums, we don't need PhDs to discuss the unknown here.
In case anyone reading this doesn't understand extra-dimensions, watch this. I paid a couple grand to learn this in college.
final cut: I wrote some wrong stuff here, particularly about wave/particle duality. I've forgotten how photons figure into the equation, since they, not atoms, are the limiting factors of our experience, although atoms are the limiting factors of our interaction, but they are not limiting factor in our composition.
There are a lot of people with videos and articles that explore the same territory I wish to explore. Perhaps I should seek out more of them, some have very deep and mathematical explanations for how we fit in with the other dimensions, but to tie them all together would be neat.
Also, no offensive intended with the PhD remarks. I'm on the lower tier of scholastic accomplishment compared to the greater body of people associated with MtG. I come here seeking greater mental processing power than my own, and if the answer is to go learn more, I accept.
I hate to say this, and I don't mean it in any disparaging way, but your ideas are all half-baked. They're incomplete threads falling short of making conclusions towards any discernable purpose except perhaps for procuring your own sense of wonderment and curiousity.
One does not need a PhD to think about these things; sure its fun to think about julia sets, mandelbrot sets, the golden ratio, the higgs boson, various N-dimensional unification theories, but you still haven't come up with any real cognizable conclusions.
You're musings flow a little like my thoughts did on the nature of i. (sqrt of -1)
What is i? Is it an artifact of our imperfect world of mathematics? Or does the completeness of mathematics rather point us to artifacts in our own world we cannot perceive?
What if I'm solving a differential equation and I find the current is 4.5 +2i amperes. What if I then negate those 4.5 real amperes...what is left in nature then?
Perhaps i indicates the existence of another dimension affecting our world in ways we cannot perceive. Mathematics reveals the truth, and we compute things in this 'imaginery' realm, but the fact that i in fact can result in real values means that there are deeper things at work.
(e^i*pi = -1)
That's the kind of stuff I thought about when I was 25 years old...
I wrote that just now off the top of my head. I might be onto something. But do you see how my thoughts compel no direct conclusion just yet? Flesh out your thoughts more.
You have alot of things you are making assumptions on, and only the light of greater scrutiny can yield to you what you are doing wrong, and what additional solid deductions you need.
Right now the only thing I'm reading from your entire point is, certain things in life tends to follow the pattern of the mandelbrot set.
My response: well of course it does. It's a fractal.
Asterisk
When you talk of "all brains" do you mean, literally "all brains" or just HUMAN brains? Does my dog have this level of complexity? Did Koko the Gorilla? Did Alex the parrot?
I thought the mathematical definition of a fractal was an object that has a perimeter that grows as L^d where L is the characteristic length and d is a non integer number.
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Truth has a liberal bias.
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Okay, okay, I made a post about this in another forum, but since the topic has plagued my mind for the past couple of years, it have become significant enough to me to try and make it significant to you. I also did a google search and could not find and MTG Salvation threads on the topic.
So, the Mandelbrot set...now I'm not a mathematician, but one is not required to be one to make observations. It's very difficult to discuss what I believe to be true about our realities so I'll make it as simple as I can.
1. Our conscious view of the world is a window from a dimension of greater complexity than the atomic dimension. There is no limit on our complexity of thought. We can imagine things breaking the laws of physics all the time, that's what makes consciousness unique and powerful. The universe within our heads is of another dimension, not limited by atomic physics. (edit- but dependent on physical arrangements of atoms in order to exist)
2. The various brains in different lifeforms, which mostly evolved from the original brains, are nature's attempts at recreating the Mandelbrot set in 3D physics. From a pure layman's perspective, the points of emphasis and orientation of the Mandelbrot set look suspiciously like an uninhibited mind.
A) The image 'looks' forward. Eyes in nature tend to do the same thing. Eyes are essentially a part of the brain.
B) The image also has emphasis where life-forms tend have ears. The set 'hears' from the side.
C) The image bears equal complexity on all sides and spaces imaginable, both representing the ability to 'feel', both externally and internally. The amount and quality of feelings one can feel are truly infinite.
D) The rear of the image curls in ward like brains do at the back where the hemispheres separate.
Now that's all I can think of for now, but if anyone would wish to debate, criticize, or help me grow my opinions on the subject, I would be greatly appreciative. My ideas are in evolution, as I observe new and intriguing things every day that make me question exactly what life is. I'm not looking for attention, I tend to run away all shy with or without attention, but this is something I feel strongly. It's not exactly a useful observation to me, but on that provides infinite perspective.
Legacy:
RWBG Goblins
RRR Burn
WBU Affinity
UBR Sac-Land Tendrils!
BBBPox
Next possible deck: D&T, but that just wouldn't be right.
Modern: R Goblins (work in progress)
Standard: I only care about standard when Goblins is a deck.
Limited: I only care about limited when Goblins are in the set.
Pauper:
RGoblins
URCloudpost
other decks
Goblins.
You've never dissected a mollusc, have you?
Art is life itself.
A Mandelbrot set is an indefinitely complex and infinitesimally small non-differentiable surface which physically does not exist because of the quantinization of matter and energy but that matter can exhibit properties of following the pattern.
You seem to just be attempted to make random connections between random things and I have no idea what model or theory you're really trying to suggest and what it's really modeling.
Well cognitive thinking processes perhaps, but not just for hunting but for generally surviving and moving about, not getting eaten yourself.
Box jellyfish say yo.
Art is life itself.
I believe the rules governing consciousness were always in place whether atoms were capable of supporting it or not. There is no better, more advantageous way for consciousness to exist that as it does. Life propagated with consciousness not because they determined it to be the best way to get food, but because the molecules randomly mutated into something that was really really good at getting food and doing other things as well. During the place and time when the little squigglies developed brains, they were sure to be successful because consciousness on any level of complexity is so much greater than any concept known in the universe.
The direction of the dimensions greater than ours is within. If people in Flatland are constrained by the dimension 'up', we are constrained by the dimensions 'within' the atoms. Therefor, the Mandelbrot set represents and object which is not limited by atomic constraints, as it would be in our dimensions. It operates under different rules.
As far as other creatures brains are concerned, many brains are similar to human brains because effective brains under certain atmospheric conditions should all be similar, because they all do similar things (as well as most successful brains evolved along the same line). Brains of other life forms are different, my lack the great repositories of gray matter, but the brain ultimately wishes to evolve into something with infinite memory like the mandelbrot set, but cannot because of atomic restrictions.
The mandelbrot set isn't the mind as we know it, we aren't mandelbrot sets, but just as other aspects of biology resemble simpler forms of fractal geometry, I believe the mind is modeled after the infinitely complex mandelbrot fractal geometry.
edit - I overstate the visual resemblance to brains, but I don't think it's entirely without foundation. Many things in nature tend to resemble arbitrary, fractal processes, so I don't consider it to far-fetched for something to imitate more complex fractals. To me, that thing must be the most complex biological object we know, the thing that allows us to know in the first place.
Just as it takes many iterations of a formula to create the Mandelbrot set mathematically, it takes many iterations of evolution to bring it closer to what it is intended to be.
DOUBLE EDIT: I'm not a super genius or anything...I am a Wikipedia who reads the darn site hours at a time on different topics, so I've learned many things but am a master of nothing. Evolution of the brain is so short, I know nothing but what I can infer.
*sigh* triple edit...
I've dissected a squid. Insufficient brains remain insufficient because of the biological roles the lifeforms reside in. They are successful at doing what they are doing, but the ways that exist limit the growth-potential for their brains. Worms brains remain small because they live underground and don't acquire the nutrients to improve the brain further.
Part of evolution is chance of biological chemistry as well as victory over the environment. Where life is able to find a spot where conditions for brain development are good, the brain continues to improve. When life moved onto land, it found a better place to grow. Omnivores such as humans have the distinct advantage of being able to collect many different kinds of molecules to improve operation of the system.
Legacy:
RWBG Goblins
RRR Burn
WBU Affinity
UBR Sac-Land Tendrils!
BBBPox
Next possible deck: D&T, but that just wouldn't be right.
Modern: R Goblins (work in progress)
Standard: I only care about standard when Goblins is a deck.
Limited: I only care about limited when Goblins are in the set.
Pauper:
RGoblins
URCloudpost
other decks
Goblins.
See, there's no mathematical problem with having dimensions we can't see, but an imagination or a mind isn't a dimension, that just doesn't make any actual sense.
There's still no real 3D model of a mind or consciousness, so how is there any basis to say that a mind 3 dimension-ally is formed around them?
Also, what is the basis of the arbitrary judgement that squid's brains are "insufficient"? Why can't things go on living life without becoming more complex?
Big Thanks to Xeno for sig art <3.
Right, a mind isn't a dimension, but it definitely exists within one. I argue that one's self of individuality is kind of locked within it's own slice of a larger dimension, some kind of extra-dimension by proxy. The ability to make observations and reason are kind of unique and unnatural to matter. Matter tends to only do what the laws of physics allow us to do. Consciousness give us control over matter in a way that just doesn't happen when atoms are randomly colliding. Much of evolution has to do with developing reflexive behavior, but the mind gives life a way to interact with the world in a proactive way.
There will probably never be a 3D model of the mind. In totality, it is too complex for our physics. It may be possible to make assumptions, and many tests have been run to try and map what people are imagining, but I feel many of the results are tainted by suggestion and are inconclusive. I consider true man-made-intelligence to be completely impossible unless it were brought about biologically, almost chemically identical to natural brains, essentially cloning. Otherwise, it would lack the interface with the quantum world that gives us presiding authority over a majority of our actions.
Squid brains aren't insufficient for what they are, as long as they are good at what they're doing, that's great, but the mind has much more potential than that. The human mind is clearly superior and more successfully evolves because we are able to better understand the laws of nature and practically everything else.
'We are a way for the Universe to know itself' - Carl Sagan.
It's exactly what people theorize it to be. In quantum physics, we do not observe entire sub-atomic particles at once, only traces of them that happen to be present at the moment. There is more complexity in the parts of the atom than we are capable from observing from our perspective. I guess I could say 'it's like a tesserect', but our reality isn't exclusive to cubes, so in appearance it would be more complicated than a tesserect.
The 2D print-out of the mandelbrot set itself is merely a segment of the complete image. A true mandelbrot...thing would be the '4D Mandelbrots', which would be slightly less comprehensible to people and our models are inaccurate.
Unfortunately, I have no hard numbers for this one, but I have read a lot of science stuff and have yet to prove myself wrong. I am looking at unknowns in science and trying to find an answer. Mankind couldn't pull away from the earth to prove it was round, but by looking along the edges they were able to make observations that suggested it did.
I'm purely non meta-physical though. If it can be proven that I am wrong I will gladly accept the truth about reality. New science always feels metaphysical though. String theory might as well be magic until we know more about it.
I noticed and I think it's great. I'm aware that the Mandelbrot set is a result of some logarithm involving all possible Julia sets. Julia sets are either 'open' or 'closed' and this creates the mandelbrot image. I have a feeling that Julia sets have a slightly larger influence on reality by method of 'quantum signatures' that give matter it's qualities.
4D set. I mean, a 3D shadow of a 4D set.
Final edit - OK, I'm reading up on the Quantum Mind now and I guess people have been writing it off as pseudoscience forever, maybe because people suggested telepathy stuff that obviously isn't real.
Well, people may not have proven it but they have yet to disprove it. I urge everyone to always be thinking about what we don't know...why not? I'm certainly not going after pseudoscience or physics-god or anything, but there are many explanations for our reality that have yet to be made, and I'd like to be alive for a few more of them.
So, I guess I'm not really debating right now. I'll just gather more ideas and read more stuff about science and remember to learn all that math I've been putting off...because life is narrow, brief, and unexplained and I want to know as much about it as I can while I am alive.
Everyone be on your toes for earth-shattering observations.
Legacy:
RWBG Goblins
RRR Burn
WBU Affinity
UBR Sac-Land Tendrils!
BBBPox
Next possible deck: D&T, but that just wouldn't be right.
Modern: R Goblins (work in progress)
Standard: I only care about standard when Goblins is a deck.
Limited: I only care about limited when Goblins are in the set.
Pauper:
RGoblins
URCloudpost
other decks
Goblins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhabrot
Basically, the Mandelbrot set is a map of equations and what happens when you iterate them indefinitely. Some equations generate a sequence of values that grows and grows without bound, whereas other equations generate a sequence which remains bounded. The Buddhabrot plots which paths lead to unbounded growth. As the name suggests, it looks a little like Buddha. Checkmate, atheists.
You wrote something interesting, but for these kinds of musings the devil is in the details.
You really have to elaborate or flesh out your observation further for it be anything more than a half-baked strand of a philosophical musing on life.
Take the Golden Ratio for instance. It's a recurring pattern and motif that occurs everywhere in nature and macroscopic systems. Somewhere therein I suppose there's a deeper philosophical conclusion to be extracted from that, but it's so broad and general that it's really up to the individual author to flesh our any particular usefulness or interesting facet from it.
Same thing with Mandelbrot sets. Same thing with Energy and Mass being equivalent. Somewhere in there there's a really profound conclusion to be made.
But it's up to you to better define the parameters of what you mean by "forward looking", or by visual resemblance to eyes, or the smaller fractal portions representing the infinite variation of emotion.
Based on your "theory" would everything be describable by the Manelbrot set, or just brains? Does the computer I'm typing on have this same level of complexity? Does a rock?
If it's just brains, then where did brains get this quality // how did it come about?
And the entire thread summarized into a few sentences.
Also: please learn to science. Yes, nothing can be disproven, we know. It's a stupid argument and I'd like it to go away. Unless the positive claim has been proven, you assume the null assertion.
"A null hypothesis is potentially rejected or disproved on the basis of data that is significantly under its assumption, but never accepted or proved." [1]
Emphasis mine.
Null's are used to disprove a proposed hypothesis, but since the statistical significance needed to PROVE something is much much greater than what is needed to disprove something, disproving a hypothesis with a Null isn't grounds to then accept the Null as true.
You would need to make the Null the new proposed hypothesis and test it against another Null in order to accept it.
Well the mathematics does span to indefinite complexity over all of space, it applies to virtually everything we see, it's partly why nebulas hundreds of light years wide form the way they do, or at least we assume they do because we can approximate them and things like plant growth and cell and circulatory system growth with fractals. However, what's still not really clear is why the mind being on a dimension even means anything, why it matters that the rules for consciousness are on these hidden dimensions, how you can actually 3 dimension-ally describe a mind or consciousness.
But, even assuming that false, there is no reason to believe the mind is somehow able to access this presumed infinite complexity anymore than this computer I'm typing on can. As was said there is no reason to believe the brain evolved in such a manner, and there seems to be plenty of reason to not believe it does. The finite nature of memory, for one.
I think the Golden Rule comparison is favorable towards my argument. Many of the most complicated aspect of reality are represented in simple, aesthetically pleasing ways. Fractal geometry, particularly those discovered by Mandelbrot, is more significant than we are capable of fully digesting at the present time...but I've never experienced a shot in the dark that felt so much like a hit...just going to take a while to turn on the lights and inspect the results.
The fact that we can control whether we pick our arms up or put them down is a violation of the laws of physics. In physics, nothing can make a decision about what it is going to do, it is at the mercy of the forces around it. That in it self suggests that the mind is operating under different rules from what science considers law.
All matter is entangled in all of the possible extra dimensions one way or another. The only way up is within. The subatomic particles that make up atoms, such as the Higgs boson, exist partly in our dimension and partly in another. That is how their mass is much greater than the proton itself.
The 'shape' of the Higgs boson will be up for debate for many, many years. I'm starting to believe that the Higgs boson is shaped as various Julia sets. Julia sets in particular correspond to wave-particle duality, given the open and closed nature of the sets.
Within each atom is a universe of extra dimensions upon extra dimensions...eleven dimensional hyper-space as Michio Kaku would like me to believe. They aren't necessarily alternate worlds where other things live, but rule-based dimensions that govern what is and isn't possible in the universe. I feel like what we are living in is just the culmination of what the other dimensions impose on reality. Since consciousness is dependent on those dimensions to be in place in order to exists, it cannot exists as we know it anywhere but here. But it has a very specific location 'here'.
An amazing thing about the brain is that it is made up of trillions of atoms, but they somehow communicate with each other in concert to create a mental image. If Julia-like quanta are associated with matter, being the Higgs boson, the Mandelbrot set would be the ideal composite of Julia sets acting together. The Mandelbrot set is the fully developed framework of where the mind resides, sort of like the shell the brain reverberates it.
Consciousness is such a unique, irreplaceable aspect of our universe that we know exists but cannot fully explain. Computational models of consciousness are insufficient. Computers require a separate, biological brain (i.e. human) in order to be relevant. A computer experiences nothing and is merely a set of switches and cables. No one with a brain can suggest that their brains do not experience anything - that their lives are simply one program after another. The idea of a 'digital mind' is the scourge of modern philosophy as far as I am concerned. Experience is far more complicated and involved than that.
If people want the thread to die, let it die, but I appreciate the responded because this is something I enjoy thinking about. I need to know what I need to know more about. The answers that are out there are inconclusive.
edit - I'm college drop out. I took a math class that revolved around the topic of infinity which forms the groundwork for much of my musings, but I can't exactly teach the class...this is MTG Salvation forums, we don't need PhDs to discuss the unknown here.
In case anyone reading this doesn't understand extra-dimensions, watch this. I paid a couple grand to learn this in college.
final cut: I wrote some wrong stuff here, particularly about wave/particle duality. I've forgotten how photons figure into the equation, since they, not atoms, are the limiting factors of our experience, although atoms are the limiting factors of our interaction, but they are not limiting factor in our composition.
There are a lot of people with videos and articles that explore the same territory I wish to explore. Perhaps I should seek out more of them, some have very deep and mathematical explanations for how we fit in with the other dimensions, but to tie them all together would be neat.
Also, no offensive intended with the PhD remarks. I'm on the lower tier of scholastic accomplishment compared to the greater body of people associated with MtG. I come here seeking greater mental processing power than my own, and if the answer is to go learn more, I accept.
Legacy:
RWBG Goblins
RRR Burn
WBU Affinity
UBR Sac-Land Tendrils!
BBBPox
Next possible deck: D&T, but that just wouldn't be right.
Modern: R Goblins (work in progress)
Standard: I only care about standard when Goblins is a deck.
Limited: I only care about limited when Goblins are in the set.
Pauper:
RGoblins
URCloudpost
other decks
Goblins.
That's because if there is a single inconstancy anywhere in your theory, then the whole thing falls apart and needs to be reworked. Such is the nature of the Scientific method.
Anywho, I was hoping you could answer a few questions:
I am assuming brains are made of atoms, just like every thing else.
Thus, would everything be describable by this infinite complexity, or just brains? Does the computer I'm typing on have this same level of complexity? Does a rock?
If it's just brains, then where did brains get this quality // how did it evolve such capacity?
Technically true, but let's be honest: in practice we don't really do that. We act on what we know, and unless proven otherwise, we assume unproven stuff to be untrue.
Look up the game of life and similar stuff. We can get infinite complexity from just those few simple rules (and yes: it is infinitely complex: the game of life is Turing complete). When working on such things, especially when working with multilevel processes, such as which are happening in the brain, and the emerging properties we see in such systems, our gut feeling on what should or should not be true does not apply.
Be careful with such words. Those words are talking in 3-D spaces and therefore do not, cannot apply when talking about more than 4 dimensions.
Citation needed.
Fractals are predictable, which makes them the opposite of infinitely complex.
...Additionally, I didn't say any of those other things; your post just makes it look like I did... Can you fix that, please?
Even in science we do this, although with a caveat, of course. If I don't have evidence that certain motor proteins affect cell division, I'm not going to assume that they do. The difference of course being that I do keep in mind that there is no evidence either way, so that when there are some things which might indicate that they in fact to influence the process in question I'm able to accept that possibility and not dismiss it.
So, yes. I think my wording of null assertion was hasty (literally, I was typing this seconds before running to my bus, though do not I did not say null hypothesis). It's in fact simply the application of Occam's razor. It would be impossible to do science without this.
Sure, I understand scientific method. This is not intended to be a thesis paper...more intended to be a causal discussion on a topic that we will not likely live to see resolved. One cannot solve the hard problem of consciousness in a day, but I believe it will one day be solved, to some extent.
Everything is influenced by infinite complexity. I just happen to believe the mind exits on the edges of infinite complexity between one dimension and another. The matter in our dimensions generate the process, but it creates the sense of consciousness in a part of the universe that isn't contained by atoms. The 'infinity' found within these other dimensions give us the ability to make choices in a world otherwise governed by Newton's Laws of motion.
It's incorrect to say that a fractal is infinite, but it has an infinite extra-dimension that ours does not - infinite depth. It is impossible to create a Mandelbrot set using atoms because at a certain depth you just get individual atoms, but in a dimension not bound by atoms, it is completely possible. Also, it's thoroughly on my mind that what we identify as the Mandelbrot set's image is a 2D shadow of something of greater complexity. We cannot observe it's complexity in full, so what we see of it is not infinite.
Brains would have evolved the ability to reach in to the extra dimension by sheer chance of quantum mechanics. These are things I'd lie to be able to explain. I am not well versed on the chemical makeup of the brain, but I'm confident that all brains regardless of evolution have something in common atomically which brings about the conscious experience.
Regardless of whether I sound stupid or make incorrect analysis of what people know to be true, I'm pretty sure that when I am dead, there will be nothing else of my reality. I've been through religion for many years, but I feel like the conscious experience can be more thoroughly be explained through nature (ultimately, science must be used to prove nature, but that doesn't mean nature isn't doing it's thing until then, which is frustrating). I am just curious of this reality and would like to know more while I am still alive. There is no answer that will prevent the inevitable though, so maybe the whole search is pointless.
I'm willing to test these ideas for the rest of my life, hopefully it will lead to something. I'm sorry that I can't provide more evidence. It just fits all too well with my personal account of what it is like to experience consciousness.
Legacy:
RWBG Goblins
RRR Burn
WBU Affinity
UBR Sac-Land Tendrils!
BBBPox
Next possible deck: D&T, but that just wouldn't be right.
Modern: R Goblins (work in progress)
Standard: I only care about standard when Goblins is a deck.
Limited: I only care about limited when Goblins are in the set.
Pauper:
RGoblins
URCloudpost
other decks
Goblins.
I hate to say this, and I don't mean it in any disparaging way, but your ideas are all half-baked. They're incomplete threads falling short of making conclusions towards any discernable purpose except perhaps for procuring your own sense of wonderment and curiousity.
One does not need a PhD to think about these things; sure its fun to think about julia sets, mandelbrot sets, the golden ratio, the higgs boson, various N-dimensional unification theories, but you still haven't come up with any real cognizable conclusions.
You're musings flow a little like my thoughts did on the nature of i. (sqrt of -1)
What is i? Is it an artifact of our imperfect world of mathematics? Or does the completeness of mathematics rather point us to artifacts in our own world we cannot perceive?
What if I'm solving a differential equation and I find the current is 4.5 +2i amperes. What if I then negate those 4.5 real amperes...what is left in nature then?
Perhaps i indicates the existence of another dimension affecting our world in ways we cannot perceive. Mathematics reveals the truth, and we compute things in this 'imaginery' realm, but the fact that i in fact can result in real values means that there are deeper things at work.
(e^i*pi = -1)
That's the kind of stuff I thought about when I was 25 years old...
I wrote that just now off the top of my head. I might be onto something. But do you see how my thoughts compel no direct conclusion just yet? Flesh out your thoughts more.
You have alot of things you are making assumptions on, and only the light of greater scrutiny can yield to you what you are doing wrong, and what additional solid deductions you need.
Right now the only thing I'm reading from your entire point is, certain things in life tends to follow the pattern of the mandelbrot set.
My response: well of course it does. It's a fractal.
When you talk of "all brains" do you mean, literally "all brains" or just HUMAN brains? Does my dog have this level of complexity? Did Koko the Gorilla? Did Alex the parrot?