The Science Thread

Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Louanne Learning, Aug 2, 2022.

  1. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    An emergent property. Is that what love is? The grief accompanying the loss of your child?

    I'll leave science to the scientists. Certain aspects of consciosuness are far better dealt with by poets writers musicians and artists.
     
  2. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    And yet neuroscientists around the world continue their search for the mechanisms that produce the brain's subjective experience.

    The questions remains: If it is not electro-chemical processes, what is it?
     
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  3. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I agree we don’t know what it is. But then it seems to me we can’t demonstrate it’s not physical any more than we can demonstrate that it is.
     
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  4. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Exactly. Science can't even say what it is, except that it's outside of its purview. Do you go to a butcher to ask what life is?
     
  5. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Wait no, that's not even right. It definitely isn't physical. If it is, then where in the brain is it located? They've thoroughly dissected and scanned brains for millennia now, and nobody has found it yet.

    But I'll content myself that those who prefer a materialist explanation will not be swayed. And I definitely won't be. Beyond a certain point (and we're there) there's no further point in discussing it, unless somebody can bring in a new angle.

    But I'll definitely agree that 'emergent property' is the best explanation term science has been able to come up with for it. That's exactly what it is—a term for the inexplicable, not an explanation.
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2022
  6. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    I've said several times that of course it arises only in a living human body. That's necessary in the same way the physical light bulb is necessary for light to be produced (or a sun or a fire or something). But beyond that, science peters out. Emergent Property is a label slapped on inexplicable phenomenae.

    If any further understanding is achieved, I doubt it will be through microscopes or chemical analysis. Oh, they may get one micro-step closer, and maybe another, but science by its own admission can't penetrate that veil. It can't study the non-physical, except insofar as it affects the phyhsical. And that study has been ongoing for a long time—it's called Psychology and Philosophy and Religion and Art and Myth and Poetry and Literature. They still can't explain anything, but they've explored deeply into human consciousness, into those regions science can't touch

    Does science tell as anywhere near as much about grief as the great Blues players? Science can tell us about the brain, but not the mind.

    Dammit, why doesn't my computer underline misspelled words?? I switched off autocorrect, not spellcheck!
     
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2022
  7. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Oh my bad—I used the wrong term:

    A phenomenon is an observable event.[1] The term came into its modern philosophical usage through Immanuel Kant, who contrasted it with the noumenon, which cannot be directly observed.
    Source
     
  8. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    What some have been calling 'emergent properties' a biologist would call function.

    In a zoology course a long, long time ago, I learned that all parts of a body were to be described in terms of structure and function.

    And structure always compliments function.

    The brain is the structure. The mind is the function. The mind is the flow of information through the nervous system.

    The only way to "see" this flow is with brain-scan technologies.

    For example, consider fear. Scientists have investigated why fear memories tend to last longer than pleasant memories.

    What they found is that when faced with a frightening situation, the brain increases secretion of the stress hormone norepinephrine, which stimulates inhibitory neurons in the amygdala, to generate a repetitive bursting pattern of electrical discharges. This changes the frequency of brain wave oscillation in the amygdala from a resting state to an aroused state that promotes the formation of fear memories.

    Does knowing this lessen the experience of fear? No, not in the least.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220601133030.htm
     
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  9. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Honestly you remind me of Carl Sagan, who I wouldn't classify as strictly a reductive materialist. He was utterly driven by fascination and awe at the universe and all the strange things in it. He had what's hard not to call almost a religious or spiritual awe in the face of these great wonders.

    You seem to have the same awe. And your story (the one I've seen) shows emotion conquering pure rationalism. It even seems like we agree on about 99% of things.

    Of course all the things you just said in the previous post are true. I just think there's a huge gap covered up by those band-aid words Function and Emergent Property. And it's literature and art and all the rest I mentioned that fill in that gap like an endlessly expanding cornucopia. That's a lot to sweep under a tiny rug labeled Function.

    But we're covering the same ground over and over, and as I've said we're not going to convincce each other. Let's just let it go, alright? You can get in the last word if you want, I won't respond. Then this thread can get back to science.
     
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  10. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Thank you. What a compliment!
     
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  11. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    And now for something completely different....

    Climate change is here. The heat-trapping gases are killing us. Droughts, wildfires, extreme rainfall, etc.

    What are we going to do about it?
     
  12. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    It might not be a good idea to bring up such a politically charged topic. :whistle:
     
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  13. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    Thanks for the heads-up. But scientific consensus is that Earth's climate is warming.

    And that human activities are the primary driver.
     
  14. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    It can be an ‘emergent’ (if we can agree on that term as a handy one to use for purposes of this discussion) property of a complex physical system.

    I’m not saying that we know for sure it is. However, for me to believe that it is something spiritual, metaphysical, etc. I’d want to see some evidence in support of that. That’s just how I tend to view these things—not necessarily the only correct way to do so. For me, absent evidence in support of a spiritual or metaphysical explanation, I fall back on what I feel is the most likely solution, which is that it is somehow (in a way we don’t understand) a property of our physiology. That is in part because I don’t see evidence of the spiritual or metaphysical generally, much less in this specific context.
     
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  15. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I should add, though—if consciousness is spiritual or metaphysical, perhaps there is no reason to expect there to be ‘evidence’ in the sense we generally expect when it comes to scientific endeavors. I’m just not prepared to take that up as an affirmative belief, even though it is a possibility.
     
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  16. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, hell no.

    Repeat after me, everyone: this is a writing forum.

    One more time, slowly for emphasis: This. Is. A. Writing. Forum.

    Not a philosophy forum. Not a religious forum. Not can-be-the-soul-be-quantified forum. And it sure as shit is not a climate change forum. If you want to talk about that, go the comments section on Fox News or MSNBC and have at it.

    Don't misunderstand me. I have no issues whatsoever with intelligent discussion and spirited debate about any topic, but like the How Many Characters Believe in God thread, there are no writing applications here. Nothing even remotely to do with writing, and we have enough of those threads already. Every time we go down this road, things start well for a few pages, and then they invariably swerve into God, Climate Change, Gun Control, or whatever. There are places to discuss those. This is not one of them.

    I'm reopening the thread... tread carefully.
     
  17. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    I apologize, especially to @Louanne Learning.

    Lately I'm the Thread Destroyer. I won't do it anymore.
     
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  18. Louanne Learning

    Louanne Learning Happy Wonderer Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Contest Winner 2022

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    We'll try to keep it to science from now on.....
     
  19. Catriona Grace

    Catriona Grace Mind the thorns Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    (Science writer cautiously creeps back into the room.)

    So how 'bout that Scientific American magazine?

    One of my summer goals was to find other outlets for my science articles, but I've been waylaid by other things, including three non-fiction writing projects that have to come first. One is a text for an ethnic embroidery course which includes having to design a bunch of stitch graphics. I'd rather write half a dozen articles on wildlife biology than draft a single stitch diagram. Whine, whimper.

    Anyone have favorite science publications they write for?
     
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  20. Amon

    Amon Member

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    Here is one for the science community:

    In my entire life as a computer programmer I have never seen a random number generator that is truly random. They are all based off a seeded value and are not truly random.

    My Philosophy of why:

    Computers cannot generate truly random numbers because that feature is blocked in our universe. Everything is math, right? The reason it is blocked is because if the Universe allowed truly random events then it would allow for the possibility of an event occuring that the Universe wouldn't know how to deal with.
     
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  21. evild4ve

    evild4ve Critique is stranger than fiction Supporter Contributor

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    Won't quantum computers be able to do that? How close are those now?
     
  22. Amon

    Amon Member

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    Nope, Quantum computers will not be able to computationally generate a truly random value. The generated value isn't dependent on the CPU doing the processing. It just can't be done. Quantum computers do exist now but not in the capacity of our desktop or laptops.
     
  23. evild4ve

    evild4ve Critique is stranger than fiction Supporter Contributor

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    They seem to be trying?: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-95388-7 "Therefore, the natural randomness contained in the laws of physics on which to generate unpredictable truly random numbers is sought more and more frequently."
     
  24. Amon

    Amon Member

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    They are trying but there is always the need for a seed. Take a look at the wording of that and you will work out what is seeding the random values. I've bolded what the seed is below.

    The laws of physics are what keeps the whole show going. Math! If something were allowed that breaks the math then the Universe would collapse.
     
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  25. evild4ve

    evild4ve Critique is stranger than fiction Supporter Contributor

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    How would randomness break math if randomness is contained in math?
     
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