Posted on 05/05/2004 11:31:33 PM PDT by tpaine
You are in a better field to be sure, but nevertheless you are also in a container, in my view, and cannot “read the label” from inside information theory alone. IOW, if you wish to “read the label” - suggest sociological cause/effect and solutions from the aspect of A.I. - you’d need to get outside the container as well. And I believe you would.
For instance, you may construct the most marvelous of all strong artificial intelligence – to the point even where the thing does not even know it is alive. But it is nevertheless a simulation and there is no context for information in the universe itself or in biological systems. Yet they are there and IMHO, you would rigorously pursue such things and more before suggesting how the strong A.I. should alter our collective worldview.
I can just see you saying “context, context, context!” or whatever the equivalent is in your jargon.
Nevertheless, even if superposition were ruled out as a factor - it would still leave non-locality and dimensionality/relativity squarely on the table. To my knowledge, these have not been addressed at all in this context. After all, there is not a wall around the physical brain that causes physics to function differently within the boundary...
I was pleased to see that it came out of UofI, but I'll need to spend more time with it, though, to work through all the shorthand.
Please allow me to return the favor by offering this fascinating article on Decoherence, Quantum Zeno Effect and the Efficacy of Mental Effort. I'm pinging tortoise as well, because he might find this interesting wrt information theory.
These are all relevant to seeing the big picture (outside the coke can).
No, just that they were definately NOT active pariticipants in our great democratic/republican experiment we call the USA. More like vicitims...(though not all tribes were such...)
You have strange views on being 'enlightened', Ronzo.
Not when compared to those views of Pinker...though I do agree with some of his stuff, just not the political ramifications of his "discoveries."
Are you claiming that non-christan native americans are incapable of honoring our constitutional principles?
No, just that they were definately NOT active pariticipants in our great democratic/republican experiment we call the USA. More like vicitims...(though not all tribes were such..
Wrong again. Many native americans abandoned tribal life and 'participated'. Many still do. They simply leave the reservations and join our general population.
Citizens of the USA do NOT have to have "the same basic ideas about sin, morality, family, government, etc", for the system to 'work'.
We just have to honor & obey the same rule of constitutional law.
This is not to say that environment does not play a significant role in how we develop our respective innate personalities. But it is only that--a factor which determines what we do with who or what we are. It does not determine the individual's personality or his aptitudes.
To return specifically to the Nazis. They used "race," not as any serious physical anthropologist used it. They used it with the same fake relationship to a serious disciplined study of human biology, in the exact same way that the Communists used "economics" in relation to any serious disciplined study of economics. In short, each group of collectivist, totalitarian Socialists, politicalized and propagandized their subjects, and gave almost no credence whatsoever to serious scholarship, or any concern for actual truth. For more on this, see The Lies Of Socialism.
What is tragic about the way so many Conservatives today accept some of this propaganda, which has its roots in the various Socialist movements, is that it covers up what is the true Achilles Heel of the Left--the fact that all their notions are based upon what is demonstrably untrue. There is not the slightest evidence of their contentions. All they have ever been able to do in two centuries of postulating theories offered to support the absurd notion of human equality--and the idea that the successful need to exploit the failures (the nonsense of victimization)--has been to cast doubt on this or that piece of evidence of the importance of nature, and the profound differences between people. They have never--not in two centuries--produced any affirmative evidence. On the other hand, the underlying compulsion has led to some examples of real victimization--see Compulsion For Uniformity.
It is the classic example of the effect of the "Big Lie," and one of the saddest aspects is that the victims, usually tend to be the very people that the Academic sycophants, who go along with this nonsense, think they are benefitting. Why? Because programs premised on a lie are not ever going to help people who have real personalities that do not fit the lie.
William Flax
Motivation is certainly a factor in how anyone applies his nature. But motivation, itself, has several facets; some of which are clearly nature driven, as are some of the factors that will tend to externally motivate different individuals.
For example, you can expect a person with great physical skills to be more motivated--all else being equal--to develop those physical skills. You can expect a person with an analytic mind bent, to be more motivated towards intellecutal self-education, than one with other tendencies.
But there is also the factor of external motivation, and here the nature aspect takes on a somewhat different thrust. Certain peoples, for example, are much more internally motivated than others; but the value systems that may come to drive those internal motivations, may well be externally provided--as by parents, in early childhood. Other peoples are more externally motivated, and will respond far more readily to their social associates at any given time in their lives, than to a lifetime value system.
I am keeping this very general, but the points should be obvious. If someone wants to challenge this, however, I can give examples. This is far more than conjecture.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
If think motivation is picked up from one's family and peers. One may have abilities that allow an interest in certain areas.
But considering the importance of motivation to the development of one's potentials, if motivation is genetically determined, then the liberals are right, and where a person is is not his fault but formed beyond his choice and control.
I think you are confusing different personality traits with each other and with personal value systems. Yes we all know of people who successfully compensate for infirmities. Indeed, history is full of instances where a physical infirmity inspired a driven individual to great things. That is really off the subject that I was addressing.
Motivation and ambition are closely related in one sense, particularly with the self-driven individual, as opposed to the more social, group-driven individual. But there are many forms of motivation that are not ego driven, certainly not in the sense of reflecting personal ambition.
But you really misconstrue the "Liberal" position. The "liberal" position, in the sense of using the term to describe the Socialist position today, is not to accept that those who fail usually fail because of personal limitations. Rather it is to impute blame for failure on those who succeed, or on the system, or on the results of economic freedom, etc., and to seek to intervene in the working of the economy and society, to reverse the results that historically obtain. It is precisely because of the importance of nature, that no form of such "liberalism" is logically maintainable.
Of course, the converse is not true. One can oppose Governmental--Collectivist--intrusion into the lives of a people, and still believe that human traits are environmentally determined. That concept, alone, would not entitle the Government or the Collective (the group) to play God with the lives of individuals, or to take away the achievements of some to confer unearned achievements on others. But my point, again, is that understanding the enduring quality of human personality traits, the lack of plasticity, is to understand the Achilles' Heel of the Left. It is precisely because they are so vulnerable to such an understanding, that they scream like Banshees, whenever anyone challenges their environmental hypothesis.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
The issue, I think, to the libs is responsibility. If in any way the responsibility for his situation is lifted from an individual's shoulders then socialist programs have to exist to level the playing field.
To say that motivation (and by extension, ambition) is genetically determined, wouldn't that also release the individual from responsibility for his life, giving us maybe another flavor of socialism, but socialism nonetheless?
It seems to me that personal responsibility and socialism are mutual exclusive. Where there is not one, there is the other.
And, here, there is and always has been a societal component in the motivation factor. Every healthy society imposes negative motivational forces, to help people discipline themselves; provide incentives against criminal and other anti-social behavior. It is typical of the victimization culture of the Left, however, that they confuse the one area where social environment has always played a major role--that is in the criminalization and stigmatization of anti-social behavior--by providing excuses for misconduct, even as they blame other failures of the miscreants on third parties.
No whatever your innate characteristics, you are personally responsible for what you do with what you have. Any any dilution of that concept is counter-productive to the true interests both of the individual and his society. The strength of any society will be measured to a major degree, by the extent that it succeeds in instilling the concept of personal responsibility--and accountability--in its members.
The slide show that you provided at post 53 and your previous posts - along with the Tegmark study mentioned in the link I provided at post 65 - all point to an instance. IOW, the significance (or lack thereof) in a discrete quantum event in the physical brain.
The thrust of the Quantum Zeno link I provided is the propagation (mental effort - concentration - the mind) - which I shall refer to as a "ripple effect" (if we continue to discuss it) - to keep this in easier lingo rather than the von Neumann-Wigner theory.
A quantum ripple effect within the physical activity of the brain underscores the relevancy of time (intervals and therefore space, wave functions) independently of my previous mention of geometric physics.
Just more food for thought...
Any any dilution of that concept is counter-productive to the true interests both of the individual and his society.
Yes, and dilution of that concept can ether be by means of incorrect weighing of the environment or incorrect weighing of genetics.
The monsters are waiting to devour us if we overcompensate either way.
No, I'm claiming that there were NO native americans present during that great constutional convention we had in Philadelphia some 200+ years ago. As far as I'm aware, the entire convention was made up of white European theists and diests. I don't believe we asked any native tribes for their input into the make-up of our Constitution...
God is much more important to me than advancing human liberty or anything or anyone else, including myself.
Are you claiming that non-christan native americans are incapable of honoring our constitutional principles?
No, just that they were definately NOT active pariticipants in our great democratic/republican experiment we call the USA. More like vicitims...(though not all tribes were such..
Wrong again. Many native americans abandoned tribal life and 'participated'. Many still do. They simply leave the reservations and join our general population.
Citizens of the USA do NOT have to have "the same basic ideas about sin, morality, family, government, etc", for the system to 'work'.
We just have to honor & obey the same rule of constitutional law.
-- I'm claiming that there were NO native americans present during that great constutional convention we had in Philadelphia some 200+ years ago.
So what? Why do you think we would invite part of the enemies arrayed against us?
As far as I'm aware, the entire convention was made up of white European theists and diests. I don't believe we asked any native tribes for their input into the make-up of our Constitution...
We should have, as many tribes were not friends of the British either.. And some tribes also had rudimentary democratic forms:
"The The Iroquois League was a confederation of upper New York State Indian tribes formed between 1570 and 1600 who called themselves "the people of the long house." Initially it was composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. After the Tuscarora joined in 1722, the league became known to the English as the Six Nations and was recognized as such in Albany, New York, in 1722.
They were better organized and more effective, especially in warfare, than other Indian confederacies in the region.
As the longevity of this union would suggest, these Indians were more advanced socially than is often thought. Benjamin Franklin even cited their success in his argument for the unification of the colonies. During the U.S. War of Independence a split developed in the Iroquois league, with the Oneida and Tuscarora favoring the American cause while the others fought for the British...
I'm very skeptical about this paper. His operator P is unphysical; instantaneous change is impossible in q.m., because of the uncertainty relationship between energy and time. He claims this is solved by non-locality, but I don't see how.
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