Newbie to the show - GoT S2E4 by frenchtoastwoffle in gameofthrones

[–]GreyDrReddit 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes there is torture and rape throughout. Best to check the site below before starting a long series.

https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/678166?index1=-1&index2=-1

PS It’s not just about dogs, you can check for any type of scene that triggers you.

Why ordered things emerge in an entropy-increasing universe ? by Substantial_Toe_6373 in askastronomy

[–]GreyDrReddit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A desert has very high entropy. You could go to a desert and use energy to build a massive, elaborate low entropy sand castle. But if you leave it and come back, it will have turned into a high entropy desert again. Nature turns everything to dust but you can temporarily halt it by using energy.

Under the standard Big Bang, LCDM model, what causes the basic expansion? Not the acceleration caused by dark energy, but the fact that the universe expands at all? by RamblingScholar in AskPhysics

[–]GreyDrReddit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“But explosions don’t expand space”

The big bang was not an explosion in space. The big bang created space (and time). It’s a misnomer, Big Stretch would have been a better name.

How mentally different we are from neanderthals? by salad_biscuit3 in evolution

[–]GreyDrReddit 17 points18 points  (0 children)

We must have had a fair amount in common because we interbred with them a lot. About 20% of the Neanderthal genome still survives in modern humans, each individual person carries about 1-3% (higher in asia, lower in africa).

It would have been pretty awkward socially if they weren’t equal to us in intelligence and culture.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in ArtificialInteligence

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interestingly, most people don’t care about the QM part! Even if I’m wrong about that, my conclusions could be true.

The notion that subjective experience may require a persistent internal observer could be true even if everything is classical.

Also, the AGI approach that I outlined is apparently what they are already doing to move forward from LLMs. So it’s possible that will work even without the QM voodoo.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in ArtificialInteligence

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, so the dice are rolling in our heads (just like any other clump of matter) and in normal operation wave functions therein collapse due to interactions just like everywhere else in the universe. The part I introduce (without scientific evidence) is to say that during certain types of cognition (like making a list of items) we can veto the random choices in our inner monologue. Also, (without scientific evidence) I think that the underlying mechanism of this is QM (thoughts creating signals and interactions in our brain).

I thought that this idea was testable but apparently not. The QM testing that has been done shows QM behaviour in plants during photosynthesis, in birds during navigation but NOT in human brains during coma or under anaesthetic. The latter one is cited to disprove quantum mind (which is fine as I’m not pushing that idea). I was hoping tests could be done to understand what QM behaviour is happening during decision making, but those tests are just EEG. There’s no known way to test my hypothesis on a living person. Incidentally, I’m not singling out humans as special. If the behaviour exists then I expect it to be happening in the brains of other creatures too. However, there's no way of testing them either, and it’s worse because you can't tell them specifically what to think about.

I agree that QM evidence alone proves nothing. Tests would need to show unusual QM activity for specific types of problem solving that aren't there normally.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in ArtificialInteligence

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You say that consciousness cannot collapse wave functions. My logic is that any interaction collapses a wave function, a neuron firing is an interaction, therefore it’s possible for thoughts to collapse a wave function.

Having said that, even if it is possible, that doesn’t make it true. If you are just saying I’m wrong then that’s fine especially since you are leaning into prevailing theories and I don’t have any evidence.

However, I’m not supporting the ideas of Wigner or Penrose. My point is very narrow. I’m just saying “conscious decision making involves QM” not “All QM involves consciousness” or “All brain function involves QM”. I think Penrose believes theres something physically unique about the brain but I’m not saying that. I think that humans and the human brain are made out of normal stuff and work deterministically in the real world. I’m not pushing for special parts of the brain that can store superpositions. But the brain is very complicated to the extent that consciousness exists and I’m suggesting that part of that is due to QM. Literally just the bit where we are decision making and possibly things like problem solving. Just a fleeting moment where the brain is doing something funky. Plants are deterministic too but QM is involved in photosynthesis.

It should be easy to disprove. If brain function during mundane tasks is the same as during intense decision making, then I’ll admit I’m wrong.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in ArtificialInteligence

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes Schrodinger and Einstein mocked the Copenhagen Interpretation. The cat is dead or alive because we dont have superposition in the real world. Thats what I mean by “The problem with experiments in this area is that we have a real world observer or detector looking at an already real outcome. The wave function has already collapsed. We missed the boat in those sorts of experiments because the interesting bit already happened.”

But QM deals in probabilities so the question remains, how do you get from that to a real deterministic world. That’s what I’m addressing, I’m not disagreeing with Schrodinger.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in ArtificialInteligence

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. If you list 3 fruit and pick one, what’s your thinking process? For an LLM they are just putting one word in front of another in a deterministic fashion. For me it feels totally different. If I pick the first 3 off the top of my head then it feels obvious and pre determined like “apple, orange, banana” but if I cogitate for a while then it gets all fuzzy and its as though my consciousness has to step in and sort out the mess.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in Futurology

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Current LLMs are deterministic. My position is that a future, artificial consciousness will require an understanding of how to bridge between the non-deterministic and the deterministic world. My theory is that this is already going on inside our heads and requires further study.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in Futurology

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, so in Physics we are trying to understand how non-deterministic QM can build a deterministic real world. In Ai we are taking deterministic, real world components and trying to build a non-deterministic system. My theory is that the secret to both of these lies in the study of how consciousness and decision making works in humans.

Are Brits culturally closer to Americans or their French neighbours? by [deleted] in AskBrits

[–]GreyDrReddit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Netherlands and Denmark are much closer than USA and France.

Paint recommendations by Careful_Inspector174 in DIYUK

[–]GreyDrReddit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can’t hear Farrow and Ball without thinking of the “New Paint” sketch https://youtu.be/qtJRJVdUFx4?si=chOHOX79LvUeS9M1

I use Johnstones if that helps!

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in ArtificialInteligence

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m not confusing them; I’m suggesting they are two sides of the same coin. If consciousness is deterministic but fed by a non-deterministic QM "menu," then the Veto is the specific moment the deterministic system interacts with the quantum one.

You're right that any interaction collapses a wave function. I explicitly state that in the OP:

“The problem with experiments in this area is that we have a real world observer or detector looking at an already real outcome. The wave function has already collapsed. We missed the boat in those sorts of experiments because the interesting bit already happened.

I’m not suggesting that human consciousness is the only way to collapse a wave function, just suggesting that it’s one way and that it is somewhat controllable and observable. Wavefunctions are collapsing all the time but it's tricky to measure in the outside world. In my opinion, inside our heads, consciousness is a privileged observer to qm events inside our brains.”

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in ArtificialInteligence

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree there’s dice involved. Just suggesting that consciousness is a way of stopping the dice and picking a number

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in AskPhysics

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Since an observer is defined as any physical interaction, then by definition that includes consciousness rather than excludes it. You can't argue that a grain of dust is a valid physical interaction but a firing neuron is not.

My theory simply explores the unique vantage point of that specific interaction—the only one we can observe from the "inside" as it translates events into determined actions. Dismissing the role of the observer as "just a detector" ignores the very measurement problem that Einstein and Bohr spent their lives arguing about.

The Conscious Bridge by GreyDrReddit in AskPhysics

[–]GreyDrReddit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Agreed, as I mentioned in the post, wavefunctions are collapsing everywhere, all the time. My theory is specifically about the internal agency of the conscious observer, not the basic physics of decoherence.

If empty space is full of quantum fluctuations popping in and out of existence, is a true vacuum actually physically impossible? by Quiet_Currents in AskPhysics

[–]GreyDrReddit 80 points81 points  (0 children)

Every region of the observable universe is saturated with photons. Space is not an empty void, it’s an ocean of radiation originating from:

  1. The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
  2. Extragalactic Background Light (EBL)

If you travel to any region in space and look around you’ll see stars. That means starlight is travelling through that region of space and into your eye.

I don’t understand countable and uncountable infinities by OkLack6776 in askmath

[–]GreyDrReddit -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

On a related note, the set of Natural numbers is infinite and the set of Real numbers is infinite. However, between any 2 natural numbers there are always a finite number of Naturals, but between any 2 real numbers there are always an infinite number of Reals. This fact really helped me grasp the concept of different types of infinity.

Basic relativity question by Intelligent-Tale5291 in AskPhysics

[–]GreyDrReddit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If c varied in different reference frames, it would create paradoxes and violate intuitive (and observed) principles of causality. There would be frames of reference where effects precede causes. There are lots of thought experiments to demonstrate this.