Can Random Neural Connections Unlock Universe's Secrets?

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The discussion centers on the concept of the brain as the essence of a person, with thoughts, feelings, and experiences encoded in neural connections. It explores the idea that a machine could randomly create neural pathways, potentially leading to a brain structure that mirrors human cognition or even contains advanced scientific knowledge. This raises questions about the nature of knowledge and truth, particularly regarding theories beyond current scientific understanding. Participants debate whether knowledge derived from random processes can be validated, emphasizing the importance of empirical evidence and the scientific method in discerning truth. The conversation also references thought experiments like the China Brain and the typing monkeys, illustrating the challenges of verifying novel ideas against established knowledge. Overall, the dialogue reflects on the interplay between randomness, knowledge acquisition, and the validation of new theories.
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Lets assume that the brain is you - it is all your thoughts, feelings, experiences, 'soul' stored within the many different combinations of neurons. Now since these connections between neurons cause a person to be then a machine capable of creating a humans neural pathways randomly would, eventually create a brain structure identical to yours. Now with that being said also as equally random would be the creation of a brain structure that contains the knowledge of advanced science, theories beyond that of relativity and quantum mechanics, beyond that of our understanding of the universe and existence.

So what does this conclude to? That the secrets of the universe are contained within, that random processes can lead to a result that was there since the beginning but the path required to it undiscovered yet?

Im interested to see what your interpretation of this is.

-Denton.
 
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If these pathways are created randomly, how can you tell that "knowledge of advanced science, theories beyond that of relativity and quantum mechanics" is true of fake?
 
Dmitry67 said:
If these pathways are created randomly, how can you tell that "knowledge of advanced science, theories beyond that of relativity and quantum mechanics" is true of fake?

i don't think that he is implying that the theories etc are random.. i think he is saying that humans have true a priori knowledge of everything we just have to figure out how to open the particular pathway.

but considering how the scientific method is run (based on empirical evidence and subject to reasoning to acquire/correct knowledge.. my take on it anyways) i don't think that the pathways we choose are random

and yes, we can not 'know if its true' but we can using empirical evidence deduce that it is most likely true...

as for the part of your post with regard to a machine emulating human brains etc you could read about say the China Brain thought experiment. i find that stuff rather interesting.
 
Typing monkeys.

I think if you had a large enough number of monkeys typing randomly for a long enough time, you might eventually get some Shakespeare. But Shakespeare is something that we know and can verify.
If brain number 987,768,789,890,891,343,233 suddenly starts reporting some idea that we have never heard of before, we would have to be able to test it out, match it up against existing knowledge. It might just be a baloney machine. I guess I'm with Dmitry on this one.
 
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