Re: virus: MEME UPDATE: To Censor Or Not?

Dave Pape (davepape@dial.pipex.com)
Tue, 17 Dec 1996 01:07:17 GMT


>> >I'm currently studying both Quantum Mechanics and General
>> >Relativity on the side, and computational difficulties abound.
>>
>> So what d'you think? Are we getting close to the powers of information
>> processing which exist as a PART of the universe, to describe the MECHANICS
>> of the universe?
>
>The stall in the progress in this area indicates some sort of blatant
>oversight. I prefer more rationalistic terminology for this concept.

Sorry? I... genuinely don't quite follow you here... am I right... you...
think there's a big oversight in QM... but you don't think it's to do with
the Godel problem of the universe being fundamentally unable to understand
itself? I mean, fair enough, I was just a bit unsure about what you were
getting at.

>> >> I get a buzz from the idea of explaining meta-spiritual
>> >> information-processing as being as deterministic and physics-bound as
>> >> chemistry... the definitions are so lax here, though.
>> >
>> >In this case, I don't view information-processing as spiritual. I view
>> >programming the information processing as spiritual. [No, a genetic
>> >algorithm hunting for an efficient program is still raw information
>> >processing; it isn't getting to spiritual *yet*.]
>>
>> Hmm... I'm not saying that ALL information processing is spiritual. I'm just
>> interested in entertaining the idea that what people tend to get spiritual
>> about (consciousness, souls etc) might arise from information processing.
>> And, well, they must, surely, as they're an emergent of neural processes?
>> Your "programming the information" is kind of like layers of information
>> processing itself at lower, more concrete, levels, isn't it? So, memetic
>> structures in the programmer's brain manipulate information in the
>> computer... but then, they also manipulate perceptual/motor neural
>> information in the programmer's brain. Above a certain number of iterations
>> in this self-referential process, maybe that's what we consider to be
>> "spiritual"?
>
>Not in my framework, but it's formally workable.

So... if you don't mind me cutting right in here... where do you think
consciousness comes from? (simple terminology, please!)

There is no such thing as anything.

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