Gvildenu | Mintys / JohnHarland

Žr. Sąmoningumas, JohnHarland ?

Andrius: This very much relates to my friend John Harland's (a fellow grad student from UCSD) theory of consciousness. It's actually simple but very powerful: You simply consider the statements relevant to some domain and the ability to check if they are true or not. Something is conscious if it shares this "Turing test" type ability - but this is crucial! it is with respect to that domain. (I suppose also the ability to reflect upon oneself or another being that it is able to apply such tests. I suppose this accords with the operation +3 that I think of as consciousness, by which I think we add three perspectives (to a division of everything) so as to allow for such a generic "other" (such as ourselves but also others) who can make such tests). So there is a huge partial order of consciousnesses that accords with the many domains out there. As a practical example, he's interested in how a deaf person might be able to "see" sound in an intuitive way, this should be possible. Similarly, I'm interested to be able to not just 'know anything' but to be able to know, in particular, that vantage point from which I can know anything, looking out on all dominion. Which is to say, to sit in God's lap, and look out with him.

Really interested in knowing how to frame physics in a way that it makes sense that very special states will evolve.

What is it that's learnable about our universe? Why can you look at a grain of sand and have it relevant on different scales?

What is special about our world? Physics is too general, it includes nonphysical possibilities. General physics but not special physics.

What is special? Learnability?

What is that pathway (to miracles, to life).

A way of navigating through possibilities.

A parallel process.

Physical norms can be violated.

Entropy: a useful dynamic assumption for systems regarding heat. 99.999999% reliable But it says nothing about that applying to every system. Usually heat Mutated bacteria can become a billion bacteria under the right conditions.

We don't have an underlying theory of biology. Natural selection theory. Biological systems have that sensitivity. But it makes it very hard to pin down with general purpose laws.

Physical theory has some major hang-ups: time, space

Orders of magnitude they are used practically but not theoretical constructs.

Physics is just constraints on universes.

So many layers of adaptation.

Electrodynamics - generates a field when accelerated - field that it generates relates back to its own motion

Jackson says that there is no good model of the self-field

There are very basic problems in classical field theory that are problematic

May this restrict the possible universes? If these field theories operate globally? We must believe there is a solution.

John's intuition: there are no global solutions. Willing to throw that out.

Spin up and down entanglement experiments.

Need to learn more about Lie algebras.

Universe is heading towards heat death. Will become completely trivial and uninteresting.

Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Possibility vs. actuality A better conceptual framework Bohm model for deterministic quantum theory Many worlds interpretation

Any theory with enough parameters can work

Need to write down some big picture things he's been thinking about:

How do you take two independent frames of observation and put them together in a single coherent picture? How does that apply to quantum phenomenon?
What is learnable? What do we mean by that? What are systems that can be broken down piece-by-piece? What is their characterization?

Andrius Philosophy is opaque, but spin-offs are interesting. Ways of how we learn things in math and physics.

Reading the gospels.