5AF Philosophy Thread

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Postby Freddy Rumsen » Sat Feb 23, 2019 6:07 pm

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 9:44 am

Starting to think that intelligent life on other planets shouldn’t just be assumed.

I think that the 4 fundamental forces, combined with matter had an absolutely astronomical shot of producing a central nervous system, DNA and a fleshy cage. There may be other modalities of consciousness, but that’s very speculative.

So let’s say there are a trillion planets in the Goldilocks zone. And a 1 in a trillion chance of this phenomenon. The exact numbers don’t matter of course. But I just don’t think it’s a given that the dominos fell the right way widespread throughout the cosmos.

There are a lot of conceits about the nature of consciousness that feed into this, but maybe we are just that special.

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Postby robbiestoupe » Fri Mar 08, 2019 9:57 am

Starting to think that intelligent life on other planets shouldn’t just be assumed.

I think that the 4 fundamental forces, combined with matter had an absolutely astronomical shot of producing a central nervous system, DNA and a fleshy cage. There may be other modalities of consciousness, but that’s very speculative.

So let’s say there are a trillion planets in the Goldilocks zone. And a 1 in a trillion chance of this phenomenon. The exact numbers don’t matter of course. But I just don’t think it’s a given that the dominos fell the right way widespread throughout the cosmos.

There are a lot of conceits about the nature of consciousness that feed into this, but maybe we are just that special.
I'm surprised you came to this thought, shmeguin. Our POV's/worldviews are completely different, but I've thought of intelligent life (well, life in general) on other planets in a similar way.

From my POV, using statistics alone to explain the presence of life is playing without a full deck. Statistics is just math, and math is just a language we use to explain things we are able to see and observe. How much is out there is unknown to us, because a) our use and understanding of math is incomplete and b) there may be other methods besides math to explain/discover other things.

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Postby MalkinIsMyHomeboy » Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:40 am

to me, an assumption either way is silly. It's ok to admit that we have no idea if there is life elsewhere, sentient or not.

I am interested in the search though

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 10:43 am

I've made some "breakthroughs" with my own subjective understanding of humanity/identity/consciousness that frame sentient life as a colossal anomaly. Maybe even a "mistake", depending on how cynical you want to be. Short story is that it relies on an extremely unlikely set of dominoes falling. The matter that was created after the universe cooled would have had to have been organized in an insanely precise way for neurons to form, for DNA to exist, for the brain to be the perfect storage system.

And our day-to-day existence makes this all seem far more trivial than I believe it to be.

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:04 am

I don't think of "intelligent" life in the universe in terms of whether it's out this, but rather when it was/will be out there. Time is a motherf*cker of a concept to wrap your mind around. Life on Earth has existed in such a minuscule amount time (let alone humanity) compared to the lifetime of the universe. Statistically speaking, I'd imagine life has happened before Earth, life will happen after Earth.

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 12:14 pm

I don't think of "intelligent" life in the universe in terms of whether it's out this, but rather when it was/will be out there. Time is a motherf*cker of a concept to wrap your mind around. Life on Earth has existed in such a minuscule amount time (let alone humanity) compared to the lifetime of the universe. Statistically speaking, I'd imagine life has happened before Earth, life will happen after Earth.
But you agree that certain conditions need met for sentience to exist. I simply don’t think it’s a given that it’s a widespread phenomenon. Not only is there a need for matter to mush together the right way initially, but you also need this initial mush to be protected enough to reproduce.

I get that there could be permutations of intelligence we can’t fathom. But the earthly model seems very unlikely to exist as much as most people imagine.

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:15 pm

I always go back to the infinite monkey theorem... a monkey at a typewriter hitting keys at random, if given infinite time, will type out the complete works of Shakespeare.

I agree with you that it's likely not as wide spread at this current point in time as people imagine; however, I don't agree that it's not wide spread through the course of time.

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:28 pm

the monkey theorem is proven to be inaccurate, though. Because there is an infinite combination of keystrokes, it is not certain they will type the works of Shakespeare. I'm not sure it would even be likely.

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:36 pm

It's not proven to be inaccurate. It's been proven to be correct as the theorem states "almost surely". In any case, once you apply time limits to it, the probability drops to nearly zero, but in infinite time the probability is 1.

That's the fun thing about infinity... :lol:

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Postby robbiestoupe » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:41 pm

I always go back to the infinite monkey theorem... a monkey at a typewriter hitting keys at random, if given infinite time, will type out the complete works of Shakespeare.

I agree with you that it's likely not as wide spread at this current point in time as people imagine; however, I don't agree that it's not wide spread through the course of time.
Infinity is too strong of a concept to use to explain these things. It's carte blanche for anything and everything to possibly happen, when in reality there are only a finite number of events in the universe (hypothetically, of course).
I get that there could be permutations of intelligence we can’t fathom. But the earthly model seems very unlikely to exist as much as most people imagine.
I've thought of this as well. There could very well be "life" out there, but what we perceive as life (carbon based, water dependent entities) may not be encapsulating the entire spectrum of universal life.

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:47 pm

I always go back to the infinite monkey theorem... a monkey at a typewriter hitting keys at random, if given infinite time, will type out the complete works of Shakespeare.

I agree with you that it's likely not as wide spread at this current point in time as people imagine; however, I don't agree that it's not wide spread through the course of time.
Infinity is too strong of a concept to use to explain these things. It's carte blanche for anything and everything to possibly happen, when in reality there are only a finite number of events in the universe (hypothetically, of course).
I get that there could be permutations of intelligence we can’t fathom. But the earthly model seems very unlikely to exist as much as most people imagine.
I've thought of this as well. There could very well be "life" out there, but what we perceive as life (carbon based, water dependent entities) may not be encapsulating the entire spectrum of universal life.
"life" isn't that interesting to me. i imagine there is an immense amount of life in the universe. but does that move the needle? energy being consumed to multiply cells? "consciousness" is where it gets twisted.

and c2i - check your initial phrasing. read as "they WILL produce shakespeare".

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:48 pm


and c2i - check your initial phrasing. read as "they WILL produce shakespeare".
Yup, corrected myself.

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:51 pm


and c2i - check your initial phrasing. read as "they WILL produce shakespeare".
Yup, corrected myself.
but if you have an infinite amount of permutations of an event that are repeated an infinite amount of times, it's not possible to have a probability of 1. do you mean "near 1". come on science boy. don't confuse me.

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:51 pm

I see life largely as just a certain set of chemical reactions. Those reactions will happen if conditions are favorable. There are a large number of planets/moons out there where the conditions are favorable. The only thing that's left is the activation energy required to kick start those chemical reactions.

If you want to move to "consciousness" and "intelligence" that's a matter of philosophy, so move it to the appropriate thread, please.

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:52 pm


and c2i - check your initial phrasing. read as "they WILL produce shakespeare".
Yup, corrected myself.
but if you have an infinite amount of permutations of an event that are repeated an infinite amount of times, it's not possible to have a probability of 1. do you mean "near 1". come on science boy. don't confuse me.
At a certain point, if a number is near 1, it can be assumed as 1.

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Postby robbiestoupe » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:52 pm

Source of the post "life" isn't that interesting to me. i imagine there is an immense amount of life in the universe. but does that move the needle? energy being consumed to multiply cells? "consciousness" is where it gets twisted.
Move what needle? Not trying to dump on you, just curious regarding your angle here. Do you take an active interest in knowing whether there are conscious beings out there, or is it one of those things where if "they" exist, great, if not, no hair lost on my head.

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:53 pm

I see life largely as just a certain set of chemical reactions. Those reactions will happen if conditions are favorable. There are a large number of planets/moons out there where the conditions are favorable. The only thing that's left is the activation energy required to kick start those chemical reactions.

If you want to move to "consciousness" and "intelligence" that's a matter of philosophy, so move it to the appropriate thread, please.
what thread are we in? the probability of me not understanding you is 1.

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:54 pm

Source of the post "life" isn't that interesting to me. i imagine there is an immense amount of life in the universe. but does that move the needle? energy being consumed to multiply cells? "consciousness" is where it gets twisted.
Move what needle? Not trying to dump on you, just curious regarding your angle here. Do you take an active interest in knowing whether there are conscious beings out there, or is it one of those things where if "they" exist, great, if not, no hair lost on my head.
just distinguishing life from consciousness. the former is represented in simple organisms, devoid of any brain activity/intelligence. i find this to be likely spread out across the universe.

i think i was just being pedantic. i didn't have any real intent.

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Postby count2infinity » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:54 pm

Probability of you missing my joke is most certainly 1. :lol:

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Postby shmenguin » Fri Mar 08, 2019 1:55 pm

Probability of you missing my joke is most certainly 1. :lol:
i am a monkey that got lucky. you are communicating with the infinite abyss in real time.

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Postby shmenguin » Sat Mar 16, 2019 1:07 pm

It's not proven to be inaccurate. It's been proven to be correct as the theorem states "almost surely". In any case, once you apply time limits to it, the probability drops to nearly zero, but in infinite time the probability is 1.

That's the fun thing about infinity... :lol:
Ok. Let’s take this for a whirl...

Make the following assumptions:

1) time is infinite
2) the universe will expand and contract infinitely (this takes a leap, I know)
3) there is no degradation in the amount of matter in each cycle. In other words, no matter is lost (also a leap, since some matter might jet out beyond the gravitational reach of THE black hole)

But if you make these assumptions, then you have the universe expanding, contracting, then blowing up again from a ball of energy. Expand. Contract. Repeat. And let’s say it could blow up again in any fashion with any asymmetry.

So...you have an infinite amount of time and a finite amount of matter that could be distributed in a finite amount of ways.

If aaaall this is true, then every permutation of the Big Bang will repeat an infinite amount of times. The energy will cool the same way. Quarks and sub atomic particles and hydrogen and metals and planets and stars and dna and neurons will all form the same way. Butterflies flap wings the same way. Coin tosses are won the same way. And we have this interaction the same way. Not once. Not a hundred times. Not a trillion times. But we do this an infinite amount of times.

Typing on my phone so this might not be as eloquent as I hope. But we’re all living forever. Mazel tov.

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Postby count2infinity » Sat Mar 16, 2019 1:18 pm

I don’t want to get into it with you now... I’ll wait for the next go around. :wink:

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Postby Willie Kool » Sat Mar 16, 2019 1:33 pm

Not once. Not a hundred times. Not a trillion times. But we do this an infinite amount of times.
Yes. Not every time around, in fact in relation to the number of possible configurations of matter it would be beyond exceedingly rare, but an infinite number of times.
we’re all living forever.
Are we really though? No information can be passed on from one iteration to the next, so instead of 'living forever' it's really more living the same life (and an almost infinite number of variations) an infinite number of times.

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Postby Willie Kool » Sat Mar 16, 2019 1:37 pm

And, of course, in the vast majority of those universes we never exist.

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