What does it mean for something to be "logically possible"?

[Speakpigeon]

The primary difference between dreams and thought are to which they are connected. One is process set A working in a real sensory world and the other is process A working without the sensory connections.

I would be fine with this, and this is an idea you don't need to read the scientific literature to be aware of. My point never was that dream and thought are completely foreign to each other. It's pretty damn obvious that we do both using the same brain to start with. What is relevant, though, is what we can do in terms of complex mental tasks when we dream v. when we think. You think there's no significant difference?

We agree that waking thought, most of it, and dream thought are different. The point is I have evidence for the how and why of the differences (Sensory connected versus metabolically connected, see above)

So what? That dreams may be largely like thought cut off from sensory inputs and motor outputs has been known from the non-specialist that I am for a very long time.

Still, you should realise that the same organ can have several modes of operation according to inputs. Your papers don't go sufficiently into the details to have anything to say about what distinctions, or lack of distinctions, there is between dream and thought.

You are the one making assumptions, in particular about what the scientific evidence you referenced is evidence of. As you say, the human mind is profoundly biased. You got that right.

and you have a presumption of class because they seem different. The underlying processes and neural mechanisms are are reference to memory, visual imagery, and language access included in thought and dream are the same.

You're making an unjustified assumption when you say I have a presumption of "class" if by that you mean I think dream and thought are entirely unrelated. We use words like "work" and "play" to refer to two very different types of activities, yet, work and play require many of the same abilities and can produce very similar series of events. Big deal. Even clumsy technical systems will often have several operating modes relying on a unique set of equipment. Oh, yeah.
EB

 

[untermensche]

You have nothing but worthless opinions. That sentence contains absolutely no information. It could be said in response to anything from anyone.

Why you waste time and effort to express it is amazing.

It shows a deep ignorance of what constitutes rational criticism.

It's rather cute that you imagine that I might wish to continue banging my head against the brick wall of your impenetrable ignorance. But I gave up a while back - as you might have noticed, if you were actually reading the arguments others present, rather than simply rejecting anything that doesn't wholeheartedly agree with your inane preconceptions.

You have demonstrated repeatedly that any attempt at reason is wasted on you; that you imagine I would continue such attempts regardless is simply further evidence of your inability to understand reality.

So you have been reduced to a mindless pest with nothing but worthless opinions because your arguments are shitty.

I understood that already.

 

[bilby]

It's rather cute that you imagine that I might wish to continue banging my head against the brick wall of your impenetrable ignorance. But I gave up a while back - as you might have noticed, if you were actually reading the arguments others present, rather than simply rejecting anything that doesn't wholeheartedly agree with your inane preconceptions.

You have demonstrated repeatedly that any attempt at reason is wasted on you; that you imagine I would continue such attempts regardless is simply further evidence of your inability to understand reality.

So you have been reduced to a mindless pest with nothing but worthless opinions because your arguments are shitty.

I understood that already.

And yet you continue to respond to my posts.

It's almost as if you are worried that I might be right - and it is abundantly clear that you are starkly terrified of the merest possibility that you might ever have to admit to having been wrong.

That must be a horrible way to live. You have my sympathy.

 

[untermensche]

So you have been reduced to a mindless pest with nothing but worthless opinions because your arguments are shitty.

I understood that already.

And yet you continue to respond to my posts.

It's almost as if you are worried that I might be right - and it is abundantly clear that you are starkly terrified of the merest possibility that you might ever have to admit to having been wrong.

That must be a horrible way to live. You have my sympathy.

It's my thread.

I try to point out complete nonsense like your worthless opinions that pollute it.

 

[fromderinside]

EB

We're pretty much agree.

 

[Kharakov]

Locations only know their neighbours. The topology may have each location with much more than four and even eight neighbours (in a 2D model), as many as you might need. The larger the number of neighbours, the closer the topology will be to our default notion of continuous space.

Sounds more like a neural net then spacetime. Perhaps your brain is overly influencing the way you think.

Could you explain it a bit further? Wouldn't something have to calculate various values in each point in space based on equations if space was discrete?

How do you deal with Bell's theorem?

Also, how does the information travel between points, do they have a continuous connection between them, are the separate, but something transports the information? You need some form of continuity.

 

[Kharakov]

It's my thread.

lol.

 

[untermensche]

I think I hear the whimper of a little girl.

 

[LordKiran]

That must be a horrible way to live.

It is. I was that way once and admittedly sometimes still am (Trying to be better though). The worst though is when one's pathological need to be right is combined with a sense of superiority over the people one argues with. At that point the person has built themself up so much that to concede would break them, making the very notion untenable. So now you might as well not even bother. He'll never concede, his ego wont allow for it until he musters the courage to show outward humility and present himself as vulnerable to others.

- - - Updated - - -

I think I hear the whimper of a little girl.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

And they say there's nothing of value in biblical texts.

 

[fromderinside]

I'm in control. I am in control. I. Am in control. Dr. Jung. Help?

 

[untermensche]

I think I hear the whimper of a little girl.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

And they say there's nothing of value in biblical texts.

Pride?

If people talk about me and not ideas they will be called out for it.

I answer ideas with ideas and stupid criticisms that are nothing but opinion with the same.

A prideful person wants to give their opinions of others and not discuss ideas with rational arguments.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Locations only know their neighbours. The topology may have each location with much more than four and even eight neighbours (in a 2D model), as many as you might need. The larger the number of neighbours, the closer the topology will be to our default notion of continuous space.

Sounds more like a neural net then spacetime. Perhaps your brain is overly influencing the way you think.

I do allow some contribution from my brain for all the very basic stuff but the bright ideas all are from me.

The structure is very simple. Each location is contiguous with N others and then nothing else. Except you get to choose the value of N to fit the empirical data. Obviously there are a few interesting properties. If A is neighbour of B then B is neighbour of A.

And it's a formal definition. You can't imagine it except for simple cases like the chessboard.

Could you explain it a bit further? Wouldn't something have to calculate various values in each point in space based on equations if space was discrete?

I fail to see why a discrete space would require something a continuous one wouldn't. It seems to me there has to be something missing in the way you understand discreteness v. continuity.

So, two conjectures...

First, you are unable to imagine discrete space properly. Your default representation of ordinary space as continuous is crowding out your attempts at thinking discrete space. This is what ryan seems to be doing as well. You can't stop your brain from reframing discrete space as being within continuous space so that there's always something in between two neighbouring discrete locations, much like we think there are always reals in between two distinct integers. And then the joke about "..." being discrete becomes relevant. If you think of discrete space by imagining (visualising) locations as a series of dots separated by gaps then this is wrong.

This would explain why you seem to look for a specific mechanism for things to move from one discrete location to the next. You think it would still have somehow to cross the continuous space, the gap, in between. But that's not what the concept of discrete space says. What it says is that things move from one location to the next without having to cross anything at all because there's nothing in between, not even empty space. So neighbouring discrete locations are best thought of as contiguous so that objects move from one location to the next without having to jump any gap so to speak. An object is in one location at a time and it will be in the next location as soon as it will have left the current one. No gap.

Actually, a chess board is an excellent representation of a discrete space. From the point of view of the rules of the game, it doesn't matter where exactly you put the Queen within a given square. What matters is which square it is. And then movement is done through a succession of elementary moves from one square to a neighbouring one. The inevitable physical movement of the Queen on the chessboard doesn't count from the point of view of the rules. What count is that the Queen is in one square and one square only at the end of the move. If you don't accept that then you can't play chess.

And I have no other conjecture...

How do you deal with Bell's theorem?

Sorry, but Bell's theorem is well above my pay check.

But I would say on principle that there has to be no substantive difference with a continuous space scenario. The best model of discrete space can be so chosen as to behave as close as continuous space as you need so as to fit with the empirical data. You can put one location per centimeter or billions of billions of them if that's what is required. The more locations per centimeter the closer to continuous space in every respect.

Also, how does the information travel between points, do they have a continuous connection between them, are the separate, but something transports the information? You need some form of continuity.

See? That's typical. There's nothing special required. You move to the neighbour location just by leaving the one you're in. Just like the Queen on a chessboard. Think in terms of contiguity instead of continuity: contiguous discrete locations instead of continuous space.
EB

 

[LordKiran]

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

And they say there's nothing of value in biblical texts.

Pride?

If people talk about me and not ideas they will be called out for it.

I answer ideas with ideas and stupid criticisms that are nothing but opinion with the same.

A prideful person wants to give their opinions of others and not discuss ideas with rational arguments.

Normally I'd agree had you not clearly crossed a line or two over the past 46 pages, and all as Bilby says, because you don't want to be wrong.

 

[Kharakov]

Actually, a chess board is an excellent representation of a discrete space.

Yeah, a continuous checkboard is used to play a game with discrete moves. To me, it looks like someone is applying rules to continuous space to play a discrete game.

How do you deal with Bell's theorem?

Sorry, but Bell's theorem is well above my pay check.

It basically says that no theory of local hidden variables can explain what we observe at the quantum level. So hidden variables would have to be non-local variables (information transmits instantaneously between points in space).

Also, how does the information travel between points, do they have a continuous connection between them, are the separate, but something transports the information? You need some form of continuity.

See? That's typical. There's nothing special required. You move to the neighbour location just by leaving the one you're in. Just like the Queen on a chessboard. Think in terms of contiguity instead of continuity: contiguous discrete locations instead of continuous space.
EB

Ok, so the continuity is because all the locations are touching other locations, so they are continuous with their co-locations. You have a limited continuous space, with a different framework for things touching. You propose that we increase N (number of points touching a point) to explain what we observe. If we don't observe that the N (resolution of spacetime) is high enough to explain observations, just increase it.

There are some theories like that (space is a bunch of tunnels, wormholes, or something like that), that have been discredited down to at least 10^-11 times the Planck length by observations of GRBs. This type of space really resembles certain neural structures, if you think about it.


Can you think of any arguments against this type of space (other than physical observations not supporting its existence)?

It seem to me that obvious questions would be how many points are there between 2 electrons? For a photon to travel between an electron on Earth and an electron on Alpha Centauri, is there a line of "straight" continuous points between the 2, or is the photon programmed to shift over every 33 points, etc. Is there a straight line of points between every photon source and receiver?

Or do you propose something stranger: points in between particles that time stuff according to non local variables, like a recording of the continuous structure of the universe at each point?

 

[Kharakov]

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

And they say there's nothing of value in biblical texts.

Pride?

If people talk about me and not ideas they will be called out for it.

I answer ideas with ideas and stupid criticisms that are nothing but opinion with the same.

A prideful person wants to give their opinions of others and not discuss ideas with rational arguments.

Normally I'd agree had you not clearly crossed a line or two over the past 46 pages, and all as Bilby says, because you don't want to be wrong.

I tend to think of untermensche as either a glutton for punishment, or a comic foil playing the "incorrect" pieces of the philosophical chessboard. Almost entirely the latter, as it's more pleasant to think of someone as if they make incorrect statements to purposefully stimulate conversation.

 

[untermensche]

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

And they say there's nothing of value in biblical texts.

Pride?

If people talk about me and not ideas they will be called out for it.

I answer ideas with ideas and stupid criticisms that are nothing but opinion with the same.

A prideful person wants to give their opinions of others and not discuss ideas with rational arguments.

Normally I'd agree had you not clearly crossed a line or two over the past 46 pages, and all as Bilby says, because you don't want to be wrong.

Crossed the line?

I will attack bad ideas without mercy and ridicule bad ideas, but I only attack people who have attacked first. Or people who over and over offer no ideas just worthless meaningless opinions.

But I have no interest in discussing me.

This is about what it means to say something is logically possible.

I won't dodge any reasonable argument along those lines. But I will attack bad arguments. Destroying a bad argument is always helpful.

What I have seen so far is that some believe physical impossibilities could somehow be logical possibilities. Like a division of something real that ends up with "lengths" of zero. Or moving zero distance and claiming you have moved.

I have yet to find out in which universe these things are logical possibilities though. Certainly not in this one.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Actually, a chess board is an excellent representation of a discrete space.

Yeah, a continuous checkboard is used to play a game with discrete moves. To me, it looks like someone is applying rules to continuous space to play a discrete game.

Hey, chessboards exist in a universe we assume by default as continuous so we can only see them as such. But the rules of chess, and that of all board games, provide a good model for discrete space. But it can only help if you're prepared to think about it in those terms.

How do you deal with Bell's theorem?

Sorry, but Bell's theorem is well above my pay check.

It basically says that no theory of local hidden variables can explain what we observe at the quantum level. So hidden variables would have to be non-local variables (information transmits instantaneously between points in space).

Sure, I've looked into it, several times, and I'm fine thinking of it as correct. I think I don't really understand the physical implications but I tend to look at things from a formal perspective as I don't really buy the reality of the physical world as we ordinarily perceive it. I don't believe in the physical reality of space.

Also, how does the information travel between points, do they have a continuous connection between them, are the separate, but something transports the information? You need some form of continuity.

See? That's typical. There's nothing special required. You move to the neighbour location just by leaving the one you're in. Just like the Queen on a chessboard. Think in terms of contiguity instead of continuity: contiguous discrete locations instead of continuous space.
EB

Ok, so the continuity is because all the locations are touching other locations, so they are continuous with their co-locations. You have a limited continuous space, with a different framework for things touching. You propose that we increase N (number of points touching a point) to explain what we observe. If we don't observe that the N (resolution of spacetime) is high enough to explain observations, just increase it.

Locations don't actually need to touch each other. It was only to get you a better angle. All we need is that things can move from one location to any of its neighbour locations. It's to be seen as a basic property. You don't need anything else except how many neighbours each location has.

There are some theories like that (space is a bunch of tunnels, wormholes, or something like that), that have been discredited down to at least 10^-11 times the Planck length by observations of GRBs.

Yep, but maybe 10^-11 is still ridiculously too big.

This type of space really resembles certain neural structures, if you think about it.

Not this one, not really. It's the contiguity that's not brain-like.

And a chessboard does not look like a brain I think. It seems somehow so much simpler.

Can you think of any arguments against this type of space (other than physical observations not supporting its existence)?

A model is wrong if either it does not fit the empirical evidence or it is self-contradictory. So, no, I don't know.

It seem to me that obvious questions would be how many points are there between 2 electrons? For a photon to travel between an electron on Earth and an electron on Alpha Centauri, is there a line of "straight" continuous points between the 2, or is the photon programmed to shift over every 33 points, etc. Is there a straight line of points between every photon source and receiver?

If electrons are point-like then two electrons could be on two neighbouring locations.

If not, then an electron would occupy several neighbouring locations at the same time. But two electrons could still occupy two neighbouring locations.

There would be no true straight lines, only minimal paths between origin and destination, like in a Relativist space-time. The photon could move according to probabilities, and sometimes perhaps fail to arrive, or maybe there's something else that makes it very unlikely it doesn't arrive, for example if electrons are really big relative to locations. The idea is that movement is local, from one location to one of the neighbours and then just repeat. Direction could be achieved through probabilistic moves. It could also be achieved by a mechanism similar to the Game of Life for example.

Or do you propose something stranger: points in between particles that time stuff according to non local variables, like a recording of the continuous structure of the universe at each point?

No. THAT is complicated.
EB

 

[untermensche]

I tend to think of untermensche as either a glutton for punishment, or a comic foil playing the "incorrect" pieces of the philosophical chessboard. Almost entirely the latter, as it's more pleasant to think of someone as if they make incorrect statements to purposefully stimulate conversation.

If I were a glutton for punishment I would have to go somewhere else.

It is only a very big delusion that I am being punished at all.

There are people who think things like infinity is real.

I am the one that punishes them.

You refuse to make any arguments because I have slapped you around so many times.

 

[Kharakov]

I tend to think of untermensche as either a glutton for punishment, or a comic foil playing the "incorrect" pieces of the philosophical chessboard. Almost entirely the latter, as it's more pleasant to think of someone as if they make incorrect statements to purposefully stimulate conversation.

If I were a glutton for punishment I would have to go somewhere else.

It is only a very big delusion that I am being punished at all.

There are people who think things like infinity is real.

I am the one that punishes them.

You refuse to make any arguments because I have slapped you around so many times.

You're right. I'm sure that's what everyone who knows me thinks. I am easily intimidated. I run away from challenges.


Did you ever make a successful argument? I didn't notice that you did. If you could repeat it, I would enjoy reading it.

 

[fromderinside]

..a civil approach? With untermenche? RU4 real?