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MH2
climber
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May 19, 2014 - 11:50am PT
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The lady was someone I knew from the neighborhood. It's a big neighborhood and as my Aunt Victoria used to say, "It takes all types." The woman wanted a science type.
Now, I'm not any type, unless old is a type, but I was brought up right. I aim to please and needed the target practice.
The lady had an Eastern air like a rose garden in Shangri-La. She knew her left brain from her right brain and either side could pacify a paradox. I stopped calculating the coefficient of jazz to listen to her melody.
She made no sense to me. She wanted an essay in a non-European language, a meaningful poem, and writing in the style of one of the literary greats. This was not going to be an easy shot. I tried to remember where I had stored my telescopic sights.
My brain cleared like a wino's glass eye falling into acid. I gave her some Zulu (she didn't say how long an essay) and a poem that blew in the door. But what in the name of the Prince of Wales footman is a literary great?
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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May 19, 2014 - 01:02pm PT
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Nice one! Thank you!
A literary great is whoever has been declared to be one. Usually, but not always, old dead white males writing in a European language. The themes also need to be serious and involve human issues - war, peace, life, death, the meaning of it all, that sort of thing. Subject to opinion of course and not reducable to a chemical or mathematical formula.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2014 - 01:12pm PT
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Now Largo can complain that an object with no physical extent cannot spin, so the analogy with the electron doesn't mean anything because we know the "real" electron can't have these properties.
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Hold on, Ed, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is what one of my buddies said to me after I broke my leg. It made perfect sense to me that my body had a certain density and that gravity was real and when I fell, my mass and old man gravity drove me into the ground and my bones gave out. Except when we reduce my body down to smaller and smaller parts, as a good reductionist does, we finally get to quarks that have no mass or volume. I'm not saying they don't "spin." QM shows us otherwise, I believe. The question is, if our most basic stuff has no mass or volume, then WHAT is it if not energy.
Obviously, the subjective realm is where I have done all my exploring so these science things are just diversions. It's pretty wild to see how people's opinions vary within the field. One of my riding buds over at Caltech who is a particle dood says that he and others are starting to think that a particle does not have energy, rather that energy has particles, that energy is the fundamental source from which the other stuff emerges. Another friend at JPL says bullsh#t. So it goes in any field, I suppose.
Another interesting idea I came across from a science type who studies mind, whatever that is, LOL, is that, as mentioned, and for reasons not entirely known, the quantum world and the macro world cannot be conflated and the rules and regulations (so to speak) of one don't necessarily translate to the other. This would, he says, indicate that there are realms or dimensions of reality that, while not mutually exclusive or stand alone by any means, operate by their own rules, laws, etc. So it goes with the subjective and objective. While there is much ground covered per computational and functioning modes of the brain, sentience itself, the irreducible brute fact of our experiential lives, will likely require some other approach that the same one used for exploring a rock or a tree, in which there is nothing "extra" and left over from investigating the parts.
JL
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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May 19, 2014 - 02:22pm PT
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 19, 2014 - 02:46pm PT
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Would I have to worry about copyright infringement if I "borrowed" that last post of yours Largo?
From Wikipedia
Quarks have various intrinsic properties, including electric charge, mass, color charge and spin.
You're not trying very hard on the science, quite frankly, Largo.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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May 19, 2014 - 03:57pm PT
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the irreducible brute fact of our experiential lives, will likely require some other approach that the same one used for exploring a rock or a tree, in which there is nothing "extra" and left over from investigating the parts.
In other words, the important claim here is that there are elements of human experience which stand outside of any hitherto known or natural context, that is, there are elements of human experience which resides in the universe , like rocks and trees, but are intrinsically exempt from the same general method of investigation.
Why is human subjective experience exempt?
We have been told it is exempt because of the inherent limitations of science to know the subjective. We have not been told whether those scientific limitations are absolute or provisional.
And yet it is still claimed that useful and relevant objective knowledge can be gleaned from subjective experience. Knowledge that can assume its place next to all other forms of useful, empirical knowledge.
Here it is implied:
will likely require some other approach
What is that approach ? How will it function to uncover general truths about subjective experience?
What method will this approach use to separate the subjectively-bound anecdotal from the generally valid; the hallucinatory and delusional from the real?
How will this approach identify inherent contradictions within the structure of subjective experience itself?For example, if a truth is recognized using some as yet undefined experiential method, and that truth is shared and identified by numerous people ---in their respective subjective experiences---does that truth uncovered by the numerous subjective experiences become instantly catapulted into an objective realm and thus become either rejected outright( because it has acquired an objective nature) or does such consensual experience then meet the criterial qualifications for objectively-based scientific investigation?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2014 - 04:51pm PT
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Ward, I would encourage you to think about those issues a little closer.
I tried to show you in my ramblings about sentience how the discursive works and in what context it does not work - by design. But at the heart of the matter is your comment: "or does such consensual experience then meet the criterial qualifications for objectively-based scientific investigation?"
When I say other ways to investigate sentience, I am pointing out the fact than when we are doing objectively-based scientific investigations, as you mean it, we are using instrumentations of objective or material stuff - namely the brain, meaning we are NOT investigating subjectivity, but the physical aspect of the brain we suppose is directly related to sentience. We can make the mistake of conflation and and say the brain and mind are the SAME THING, but we have effectively sidestepped the hard question of consciousness with a non-answer.
As was mentioned, it may be that just as the realms of QM and the meta world operate on different principals, apparently, this MAY be the case with the subjective and objective. Maybe not. If you don't admit that the quantum world and the meta world are qualitatively different, you are left to try and make the rules and regulations of one work in the other. We know there are problems in doing so. That's the point. Even within the physical world there are sometimes problems when trying to force a one-size fits all approach.
My sense of what is going on with you is that you have no experience therefor no faith in anything but an instrument-driven investigation of reality, everything else being voodoo and woo. So quite naturally, anything but instruments, or data that was drawn from instruments, cannot be objective. Not so. Any time your awareness narrow focuses and our attention locks onto a thing we are objectifying, drawing a specific object from the entire field or reality. We have language for the objects in our mind and "out there," and we understand each other accordingly.
As far as the mass of quarks goes, Ed can explain that. Or read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton#Quarks_and_the_mass_of_the_proton.
What common sense says is stuff - is not. And the forces we take for matter or density "out there" seem to be electromagnetic forces, not the seeming "weight" of matter.
But I'd be glad for actual science types to enlighten us.
I think after all of these posts, a lot of the back and forth breaks down to a few basic misconceptions (IMO). People used to using instruments to investigate physical reality equate everything to the physical ("what isn't physical?") and equate all empirical knowledge to data wrought from the instruments and the math and so forth that is applied to it. Quite naturally they believe this is the only perspective by which we can really know anything once and for all. WITHOUT the instruments, and the attending figures and "science," we are all just winging it on fuzzy feelings and imagination. So when we look directly into the subjctive, what we are really doing is trying to do science, but without the instruments or the figures. So what we might come up with is, perforce, basically shitty science, or a substitute for science. In fact this is not the case at all. But you don't make that case by offering up quanitative "proof." That's the domain of the objective/physical. Nor is it the case that what you encounter is imagined.
But I have to get back to work . . .
JL
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jgill
Boulder climber
Colorado
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May 19, 2014 - 07:01pm PT
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Ed’s comments about the symmetries of nature and the possibility these symmetries underlie mathematics is interesting and possibly supported by so many physical applications describable by a single bit of mathematical structure. A very simple example is the following: the rate of change of something is proportional to the amount of that something. Stated as an elementary differential equation, dQ/dt = KQ , this has applications in finance (continuous compounding), at various places in the sciences and engineering, and even in the quantum world (correct me Ed, but doesn’t Schrodinger’s equation have this property regarding wave functions under some circumstances?)
However, the notion of a more general “idea” being a physical entity sounds a little metaphysical and I will pass on that line of inquiry. I suppose if someone were to ask me “how can an idea be physical?”, I might respond “as certain electrochemical patterns in the brain.” But that won’t pass muster here, where discussions run much deeper.
;>)
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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May 19, 2014 - 07:18pm PT
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“as certain electrochemical patterns in the brain.
It passes general muster with me, as the most probable and credible hypothesis out there.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - May 19, 2014 - 07:20pm PT
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John said: I suppose if someone were to ask me “how can an idea be physical?”, I might respond “as certain electrochemical patterns in the brain.”
Who would doubt that there IS that - that thinking has a corresponding footprint in the brain we recognize, among other things, as electrochemical patterns or activity. I used to spend hours every day studying these with EEGs and qEEGs. What are we going to say - they DON'T exist. We might as well say that fossils don't exist so evolution isn't viable.
But the interesting case with thinking is that, unlike basically any other realm besides the subjective, there is something MORE than the material stirrings. These stirrings explain what everything IS in the purely physical world. But not so with sentience. To say only the physical footprint is real means you have to deny the sentience that is aware of that very thought. There are electrochemical stirrings all over the place and few of them are equated with sentience, so we can't call them selfsame with any credibility.
And that's what makes this so slippery. It's a pretty basic fact that anyone claiming subjectivity is a simple matter, just like looking at anything else in Nature, is going to at least be guilty of gross conflation.
JL
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 19, 2014 - 11:54pm PT
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Matter of fact, everything Largo has written on this thread is just as good as it gets. I actually read his posts out loud to my wife for laughs. I completely agree with HFCS. Largo is a blowhard and a bully who knows nothing of what he speaks. I can't understand why the smart ones on this thread (other than HFCS) put up with it.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 20, 2014 - 12:07am PT
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Eeyonkee, lol! so maybe you've gathered by now... I work more or less in the same (progressive secular, alas minority) field as Dawkins, Harris, Tyson, Dennett, Pinker, Coyne, et al..... in my next life though, lol!, assuming I have any say in the matter, I'm going steer far and wide into something else more practical, down-to-earth, not so globally idealistic or utopian, shall we say, (hopefully moreover where I can "experience" first person subjective, "nondiscursively" and hedonistically, a bit more Girls Gone Wild; think Tony Stark ala Iron Man), lol!!
Cintune, I should say, he throws up some pertinent posts (incl links); so I can't help but respect him (them); and Norton has a strong intuition along the right lines, I think.
Should say tho: I'm still completely unclear as to the infatuation of jgill and mh2 with Largo. (Might forever remain so, but that's okay.)
I admire your OW skills, life and times, btw; perhaps I could be so lucky - in another life? :)
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 20, 2014 - 12:16am PT
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we finally get to quarks that have no mass or volume.
quarks have mass (I think there is an echo in here... I thought I heard that upthread).
The sum of the quark masses in a proton do not add up to the proton mass, but they don't have to either... the fact that they are moving around in the proton, they have kinetic energy, and that the gluons (which are massless) are moving around too, all contribute to the mass of the proton.
This is simply because of the most famous equation:
E² = p²c² + m²c⁴
that the total energy of the system is the sum of a part which is the rest mass of the particles m and the momentum of the particles p
if p=0 then we have
E=mc²
In a system with lots of particles, we can define the mass of the composite as:
M²c⁴ = ( ∑Eᵢ )² - ( ∑pᵢ )²c²
where we sum over all the particles that make up the composite... in this case all of the energy of the individual particles:
Eᵢ² = pᵢ²c² + mᵢ²c⁴
for the ith particle
If all the particles are at rest then pᵢ=0 for all i and
M²c⁴ = ( ∑mᵢc² )²
M = ∑mᵢ
the mass of the composite particle is equal to the sum of the masses of the constituents. But relativity tells us that you have to consider the momentum of the particles constituent particles too, so we have:
M²c⁴ = ( ∑Eᵢ )² - ( ∑pᵢ )²c² ≥ ( ∑mᵢc² )²
so it isn't strange at all that the proton mass is not the sum of the constituent particles.
That the quarks have momentum in side of the proton isn't strange, either... just consider the Heisenberg uncertainty principle:
ΔpΔx ≥ h/4π
multiply both sides of the equation by c:
ΔpcΔx ≥ hc/4π = 98 MeV-fm
the radius of a proton is approximately Δx≈1 fm so
Δpc ≥ 98 MeV
the quarks masses in the proton are 2x 2.3 MeV/c² + 4.8 MeV/c²
which is much less than the 98 MeV energy each quark has by moving around inside the proton, but still not enough to make up the 938 MeV/c² mass of the proton.
For that you need the energy due to the gluons... also about 98 MeV per...
which turns out to be a lot of gluons...
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WBraun
climber
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May 20, 2014 - 12:22am PT
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What's all this have to do with the "Mind" ?
The mind is material that can be shaped either by the spiritual or the material realm.
You guys make simple things so complicated that you lose sight of the goal.
Then you say there is no goal and revert to your nihilistic consciousness due to poor fund of knowledge of why you even exist period .....
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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May 20, 2014 - 12:22am PT
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lar·go: (adverb & adjective) in a slow tempo.
But the interesting case with thinking is that, unlike basically any other realm besides the subjective, there is something MORE than the material stirrings. These stirrings explain what everything IS in the purely physical world. But not so with sentience. To say only the physical footprint is real means you have to deny the sentience that is aware of that very thought. There are electrochemical stirrings all over the place and few of them are equated with sentience, so we can't call them selfsame with any credibility.
And that's what makes this so slippery. It's a pretty basic fact that anyone claiming subjectivity is a simple matter, just like looking at anything else in Nature, is going to at least be guilty of gross conflation.
Yeah, the simultaneous processing of trillions of feedback loops is not a "simple matter." But pretending that anyone ever said it was is yet another finely crafted man-o-straw.
http://willcov.com/bio-consciousness/review/Reentry%20and%20Recursion.htm
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jstan
climber
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May 20, 2014 - 12:12pm PT
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Should say tho: I'm still completely unclear as to the infatuation of jgill and mh2 with Largo. HFCS
I think we are not adequately factoring in Master Gill's overpowering courtesy. Look at his career in climbing. Courtesy is at the core.
Andy's interest in this topic antedates this thread by half a century, I would guess. It is not an amusement for him. It is an environment. If anyone gets to leave the scene knowing more than they knew coming in, it will be due to Ed's contributions.
So that I do not feed this thread I will edit.
Years ago someone tried to support their argument by bringing up my supposed inadequacies in a way that avoided substantiation.. That clearly showed we were in for copious quantities of solipsism and deceit. There is no discussion here.
As I have said in the past I think the subject will be advanced hugely in the coming decades through increased knowledge of neural function. It can't come too soon if our specie is to avoid placing all of its hopes on the rapture.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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May 20, 2014 - 01:23pm PT
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jstan, all I was referring to was the mystery surrounding the enabling of him again and again and again regarding sentience, consciousness, modes of thinking, also science and scientism, the problems or limitations of objective measuring, etc. esp when the views have been expressed so very many times already. Really, when's enough enough? I understand the friendships, the affection, courtesy, the outstanding notable careers in climbing and all - but this thread, its topics, its weirdness and the critiques at least on my part concern something other than those.
Enabling a bad habit...
As I'm sure you know, it's often hardest to stop the more you care about someone.
When does an enabler become accountable?
To be clear... jgill's overpowering courtesy was never at question. Rest assured.
.....
Don't get me wrong, even the enabling or the repetitivity to follow wouldn't be that distractive if the latter didn't always come back in some way or other grossly errant, flippant, and/or insulting to science or scientists. Why enable that? that in particular?
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