I The Simulation Theory and the dangers of pop-science

[sophiecentaur]

I wouldn’t call a CPU a G-word. Would you?

Of course not but many people seem to need a G word and a massive CPU could be treated, by many people, as one. Polytheism treats pretty much everything as a potential G word.

You seem to be implying that a CPU is a brain

I'd invert that and say that a brain can be regarded as a CPU (unspecified spec). Nervous systems of all levels exist and have a lot in common. If a nematode worm can be characterised in terms of logical functions then why not our own brains?
The philosophical question of a brain analysing itself is a difficult one if one feels there has to be an answer. Personally, I feel no shame in saying that the question is too hard for me (along with a lot of Science and Culture). Reaching for a magic word to take care of all that is one way of dealing with it.

 

[Digcoal]

Of course not but many people seem to need a G word and a massive CPU could be treated, by many people, as one. Polytheism treats pretty much everything as a potential G word.

I'd invert that and say that a brain can be regarded as a CPU (unspecified spec). Nervous systems of all levels exist and have a lot in common. If a nematode worm can be characterised in terms of logical functions then why not our own brains?
The philosophical question of a brain analysing itself is a difficult one if one feels there has to be an answer. Personally, I feel no shame in saying that the question is too hard for me (along with a lot of Science and Culture). Reaching for a magic word to take care of all that is one way of dealing with it.

“Inversion” is just another way of saying two things are analogous, just perceived from different frames of reference.

The point being: mathematics is pure abstraction meant to reduce particular instances to more manageable logical constructions and to reverse the process into other instances of the same abstraction. That’s all the brain ever does. It converts an instance of ‘reality’ into a manageable dataset in order to create a new instance of reality.

 

[sophiecentaur]

“Inversion” is just another way of saying two things are analogous, just perceived from different frames of reference.

Hang on a bit; I inverted the sentence. Draw a Venn diagram of the two statements and the difference is clear. All black objects are not cats.

 

[AlexCaledin]

- anyway, the psychophysical Process of awareness is fundamental, all the rest being the outcome of its self-organizing...

 

[Chris Miller]

I'm a machine whose inputs I call reality. The context/source of this data is unknown. Does a simulation require a simulator?

 

[sophiecentaur]

But isn’t a simulation an artefact, purposely built to represent something? It’s an approximation to reality (or an invented reality). If stands on its own then how is it a simulation? What is it ‘like’?

 

[Nugatory]

This thread has evolved into a convincing example of why the simulation hypothesis is on the list of topics not allowed for discussion here.

It is closed.