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buffed · 05-Oct-11, 03:29pm

Q&A was terrible the other night i thought. It seemed like the discussion went nowhere other than a bunch of egotists ranting and raving

claude glass · 05-Oct-11, 03:31pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid A

I thought the whole thing, whilst being entertaining, ended up being a load of hot air. Too many egos, too much story telling, too much emotive ranting with not enough theory. 1 hour wasn't long enough.

Yes I agree. Would have been good just to let Zizek go for an hour.

DJ Squiggle · 05-Oct-11, 06:55pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

I had an epiphany on monday night after watching The Secret Life of Chaos...
You may have to watch the program to grasp just how profound this idea is because it can explain the structure of the universe as well as the mechanism for biological evolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7gdlTrCQY

It is on USENET also.
"BBC.The.Secret.Life.of.Chaos.2010.WS.PDTV.Xvi D-MVGroup.nfo"
622 days old but I am able to dl (am paid subscriber on astraweb).

DJ Squiggle · 06-Oct-11, 01:15am

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

I had an epiphany on monday night after watching The Secret Life of Chaos...
You may have to watch the program to grasp just how profound this idea is because it can explain the structure of the universe as well as the mechanism for biological evolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7gdlTrCQY

Lots of eye candy which was not as illustrative as it could be. But it was watchable eye candy for those into arthouse visuals. eg why was there no timescale/clock for the petri dish animations? eg the shifting of the Z from one side of the equation to the other was plain wrong (the whole right hand side should become the new Z on the left). For a deeper understanding of the Mandelbrot set you cannot go past the following.

Firstly some eye-candy.... apparently the world record for zooming in.
Rendering ended up taking 6 months on three home computers.
Three quad-cores computers running at 2.8GHz.

Media Player

To understand how the above zoomed Mandelbrot set is created first
refresh your memory on what imaginary/complex numbers are
(the 4 minute mark is where the magic is... even though it seems an arbitrary definition)

Media Player

then check how the Julia set is created

Media Player

then you can undertand the Mandelbrot set

Media Player

DJ Squiggle · 06-Oct-11, 02:07am

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ Squiggle

To understand how the above zoomed Mandelbrot set is created first
refresh your memory on what imaginary/complex numbers are
(the 4 minute mark is where the magic is... even though it seems an arbitrary definition)

If any of you get lost then you need to first watch a video that explains what "i" is.
http://youtu.be/BzKYiupZBYk

and if that is confusing then you need to first go back to year 7 basics
http://youtu.be/CMnrZJeodGQ

I have now given you five turorial video links for all the maths you need
to blow your mind and understand the first video,
ie the record-holding(?) video of the Mandelbrot set
and to understand reality in a new light.

dbb618 · 06-Oct-11, 07:12am

why do maths? you can understand how fractals work by eating a little piece of paper covered in a couple hundred micrograms of a funny little acid.

Kid A · 06-Oct-11, 10:20am

^ ha. you wouldn't believe how many times I heard the word "fractals" being thrown around at rainbow serpent festival.

twistedbydesign · 06-Oct-11, 11:46am

'It's conditioning man!'

I feel a meme coming on..

Memes are mental ideas or beliefs. Some refer to a meme as a mental virus…..an idea that spreads from mind to mind. We use memes to build cultures the way genes build bodies.
For example, the founders of our nation (America) created a new cultural script or meme when they created the “idea” that we could be a nation that embraces freedom as its most important value. This meme called freedom grew to eventually give birth to a major paradigm shift in the structure of human society in the new world.

It is important for us to understand that the various human cultures and societies we have thus far created on this planet are but a few of the infinite possible cultures available to us. Each of the current human cultures on this planet simply reflects the specific memes that the members of that particular culture have chosen or adopted to define their culture.

It should come as no surprise that the predominant worldview or meme being used today is the vertical power paradigm of the primitive ego; commonly referred to as survival of the fittest.
The violence and conflict we see around us in the world today is a direct reflection of this vertical power paradigm.

The vertical power meme of the primitive ego was an important evolutionary step in human consciousness.
A basic meme of primitive humans was the self-identity one had with one’s tribe.
It was a very helpful meme when the primary goal of life was survival. The strong tribes survived, the weak tribes perished. Tribes remain an important meme in the Middle East even to this day.

The most defining concept we use to describe the modern world is that of change. Human knowledge is growing exponentially. The rate at which we are discarding the old memes, and creating new cultural memes is also growing. The memes of Marxism and Communism have collapsed. The meme called unlimited economic growth is being questioned. The meme of terrorism is on the increase.

Blacks and other minorities are rapidly becoming equal partners in a meme called an “integrated culture”. The old meme was called white mainline society. Women are beginning to take their place along side of men as the old meme called “patriarchal domination” gives way to the meme of “sexual equality”.

It is important to note that racism and sexism, which reflect the primitive ego’s meme of vertical power are slowly giving way to memes of horizontal power called integrated culture and sexual equality. The primitive ego is slowly beginning to mature; but not without conflict.

It is important to remember, it is not the memes that create the conflict. Faith, religious beliefs, economic and national ideologies are neutral; simply the religious, social, and cultural models that we are currently exploring as a species. It is not the various religious faiths or the national and economic ideologies that create the conflict. Conflict emerges when the primitive ego uses vertical power to protect the memes or models that it is using to create its own self-identity

Simply stated, our primitive ego, which believes itself to be an object separate from all other primitive ego objects; is created and maintained using the vertical power meme of negation and vertical power, and, as such, cannot co-exist with other primitive ego objects without conflict.

The human ego will not change because of force of will, it will change only when the old memes no longer make any sense.

They haven't made much sense for awhile now..

Kid A · 06-Oct-11, 11:59am

Play this as an accompaniment to reading the last few paragraphs of the ^^above^^ post. Make sure your internal reading voice allows large pauses for dramatic effect. This is the track they played during the Mandelbrot, feedback revelation during the BBC chaos doco from Monday. lolol, tune.

Media Player

horst · 06-Oct-11, 12:46pm

Squiggle, to be honest I'm glad they didn't overhype the pretty pictures aspect in 'the secret life of chaos' because I think it really detracts from the central idea of self-organization, I've played with the software and it's been fun, but it isn't what happens in nature, it only illustrates the process by graphic analogy, which is good, but it doesn't help you appreciate that it is also the process by which DNA forms hands and feet and eyes, which to me is the most extraordinary revelation.

And then to carry this idea of this self-organizing force over to other phenomena, as an example say the Arab spring, and recognize that what happened was on one hand familiar but also unknowable, and that expert commentators saying it happened because of this and this, and what they should have done or should not have done, what their expectations were and if they have been met is just gas bagging. They don't know. There was no plan, it just happened because of the self-organizing property of social change. I just find this fascinating.

Kid A · 06-Oct-11, 01:03pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

Squiggle, to be honest I'm glad they didn't overhype the pretty pictures aspect in 'the secret life of chaos' because I think it really detracts from the central idea of self-organization, I've played with the software and it's been fun, but it isn't what happens in nature, it only illustrates the process by graphic analogy, which is good, but it doesn't help you appreciate that it is also the process by which DNA forms hands and feet and eyes, which to me is the most extraordinary revelation.

And then to carry this idea of this self-organizing force over to other phenomena, as an example say the Arab spring, and recognize that what happened was on one hand familiar but also unknowable, and that expert commentators saying it happened because of this and this, and what they should have done or should not have done, what their expectations were and if they have been met is just gas bagging. They don't know. There was no plan, it just happened because of the self-organizing property of social change.

Certainly over-rationalising (applying causal theories etc) these events (like the arab spring) in hindsight is a bit silly. The epistemic arrogance of the Q&A panel aside though, I think it's pointless in suggesting that these mathematical laws that underpin reality in anyway undermine the (instrumental) relevance of sociological or political discourse. As Douglas Hofstadter points out early in his book (which incidentally discusses consciousness, will and self identity with a lot of attention given to the theories discussed in the BBC doco); it would be silly to criticise or assist somebodies snooker playing abilities by discussing the behaviour of the atoms that make up the snooker balls they strike.

We use different systems/levels of knowledge for different purposes.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 01:04pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

Squiggle, to be honest I'm glad they didn't overhype the pretty pictures aspect in 'the secret life of chaos' because I think it really detracts from the central idea of self-organization, I've played with the software and it's been fun, but it isn't what happens in nature, it only illustrates the process by graphic analogy, which is good, but it doesn't help you appreciate that it is also the process by which DNA forms hands and feet and eyes, which to me is the most extraordinary revelation.

And then to carry this idea of this self-organizing force over to other phenomena, as an example say the Arab spring, and recognize that what happened was on one hand familiar but also unknowable, and that expert commentators saying it happened because of this and this, and what they should have done or should not have done, what their expectations were and if they have been met is just gas bagging. They don't know. There was no plan, it just happened because of the self-organizing property of social change. I just find this fascinating.

you might find this article interesting http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-tansley-smuts

horst · 06-Oct-11, 01:16pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid A

Certainly over-rationalising (applying causal theories etc) these events (like the arab spring) in hindsight is a bit silly. The epistemic arrogance of the Q&A panel aside though, I think it's pointless in suggesting that these mathematical laws that underpin reality in anyway undermine the (instrumental) relevance of sociological or political discourse. As Douglas Hofstadter points out early in his book which discusses consciousness, will and self identity (with a lot of attention given to the same theories discussed in the BBC doco); it would be silly to criticise somebodies snooker playing abilities by discussing the behaviour of the atoms that makes up the snooker balls.

We use different systems/levels of knowledge for different purposes.

The difference between snooker and the arab spring is that snooker is a simple system, there are very few actors to consider, basically the player, the ball, the paddle, the surface, friction, air resistance, you can predict with great certainty what is going to happen when you strike the ball, but even then result isn't guaranteed, the more actors in a system the less certainty you have and the less controllable the result, and the arab spring had millions of those.
Besides there are no mathematical laws involved in this, on the contrary, the observation is that you can not determine results of these large systems with maths.

gravyishot · 06-Oct-11, 01:33pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

you might find this article interesting http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-tansley-smuts

I liked this bit:

Quote:

Again, the central weakness of the self-organising system was dramatically demonstrated. Whether it was used for conservative or radical ends, it could not cope with power, which is one of the central dynamic forces in human society.

Seems to be a weakness of almost any political ideology.

horst · 06-Oct-11, 01:33pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

you might find this article interesting http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...-tansley-smuts

yes that was interesting, but the folly they committed was that they assumed they were the "self-organizers" of the system, they weren't, they were just actors in the system, had they recognized this they wouldn't have been surprised that the outcome didn't match their expectation, because a true self-organizing system doesn't have an expectation or even a conciousness.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 01:34pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

The difference between snooker and the arab spring is that the snooker is a simple system, there are very few actors to consider, basically the player, the ball, the paddle, the surface, friction, air resistance, you can predict with great certainty what is going to happen when you strike the ball, but even then result isn't guaranteed, the more actors in a system the less certainty you have and the less controllable the result, and the arab spring had millions of those.
Besides there are no mathematical laws involved in this, on the contrary, the observation is that you can not determine results of these large systems with maths.

You've left out a lot of actors (or actants which are in your list). You need to also include the people the player has relationships with, the alcohol the player drank the night before, the glass the alcohol was in, the pub the player drank the alcohol in, who was in the pub, the opponent, the audience, the floor, the building the game is being played in, etc. All networks are complex. All objects have agency.

Kid A · 06-Oct-11, 01:39pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

The difference between snooker and the arab spring is that the snooker is a simple system, there are very few actors to consider, basically the player, the ball, the paddle, the surface, friction, air resistance, you can predict with great certainty what is going to happen when you strike the ball, but even then result isn't guaranteed, the more actors in a system the less certainty you have and the less controllable the result, and the arab spring had millions of those.
Besides there are no mathematical laws involved in this, on the contrary, the observation is that you can not determine results of these large systems with maths.

I agree with all this. My point is simply that there are only ever ways of talking about things. The factors/bodies/actors you put forward regarding the snooker analogy are irrelevant to the discussion of the finer points of sub-atomic behavior that are still 'involved in the game', on some level. Not a pragmatic one of course.

The self-organising principle holds little relevance to Zizek's dissection of the Arab Spring, imo.

horst · 06-Oct-11, 01:43pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

You've left out a lot of actors (or actants which are in your list). You need to also include the people the player has relationships with, the alcohol the player drank the night before, the glass the alcohol was in, the pub the player drank the alcohol in, who was in the pub, the opponent, the audience, the floor, the building the game is being played in, etc. All networks are complex. All objects have agency.

yeah I considered appending an etc to that list, but I didn't think it was that important in making the point

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 01:46pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

yeah I considered appending an etc to that list, but I didn't think it was that important in making the point

It is because snooker is not a simple system.

twistedbydesign · 06-Oct-11, 01:47pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by gravyishot

I liked this bit:

Seems to be a weakness of almost any political ideology.

Ego is the root weakness in any ideology.

Griggle · 06-Oct-11, 01:47pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

Besides there are no mathematical laws involved in this, on the contrary, the observation is that you can not determine results of these large systems with maths.

Not understanding the maths behind something and there not actually being maths behind something are two different things.

The Guardian article is interesting but the author clearly has some bias issues. A simpler explanation for the spokespersons comments was that she didn't want to condone the violence but obviously approved of the sentiment behind it.

According to the comments his history is basically lifted from this book as well but hasn't provided a reference to it.

horst · 06-Oct-11, 01:48pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid A

I agree with all this. My point is simply that there are only ever ways of talking about things. The factors/bodies/actors you put forward regarding the snooker analogy are irrelevant to the discussion of the finer points of sub-atomic behavior that are still 'involved in the game', on some level. Not a pragmatic one of course.

The self-organising principle holds little relevance to Zizek's dissection of the Arab Spring, imo.

My point is purely about predictability, I'm not saying that Zizek isn't insightful or even wrong, just that what he says is only interesting but only of limited value in predicting of how things turn out in the short term (years).

horst · 06-Oct-11, 01:52pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

It is because snooker is not a simple system.

sure it is, can you predict what is going to happen with a snooker shot for a good player with a 90% confidence level? I'd say yes you can.
Even for a a very bad player you can say the predictability is 90%... of not making a snooker shot.

Griggle · 06-Oct-11, 01:58pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

It is because snooker is not a simple system.

What's a simple system though?

You'd probably consider snooker simple compared to accurately predicting at any moment the power output from the fusion reaction in a star. Somewhere there may be a person or society or computer that would have no problem predicting this however.

Back when I was at uni I was having difficulty with some calculus problem and one of my mathematics professors made a fantastic comment to me once that was incredibly trite yet also summed up this point problem pretty well.

"You only think it's difficult because you don't know how to do it yet."

gravyishot · 06-Oct-11, 01:58pm

Two body systems are simple.

Kid A · 06-Oct-11, 02:00pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

My point is purely about predictability, I'm not saying that Zizek isn't insightful or even wrong, just that what he says is only interesting but only of limited value in predicting of how things turn out in the short term (years).

OK. I agree.

It's this following statement that I see as an example of reductionism, which I was primarily trying to discredit with the snooker analogy:

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

what their expectations were and if they have been met is just gas bagging. They don't know. There was no plan, it just happened because of the self-organizing property of social change.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 02:03pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by horst

sure it is, can you predict what is going to happen with a snooker shot for a good player with a 90% confidence level? I'd say yes you can.
Even for a a very bad player you can say the predictability is 90%... of not making a snooker shot.

But that's not really the point. What was the probability of that player making that shot on that table at that time? That is the real system. To compare the Arab spring to a snooker shot you would actually need to compare the probability of a rioter thowing a rock at and hitting a policeman during the riots.

In fact, if you were looking for predictors of the Arab spring you could have found them:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14841018

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 02:05pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by gravyishot

Two body systems are simple.

And idealised, not real. Snooker is not a two body system.

gravyishot · 06-Oct-11, 02:06pm

Credit card companies can apparently predict when couples are going to divorce. I don't think predicting a revolution would be too difficult, given enough data and a big enough supercomputer. I bet the Chinese are working on it.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 02:08pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griggle

What's a simple system though?

You'd probably consider snooker simple compared to accurately predicting at any moment the power output from the fusion reaction in a star. Somewhere there may be a person or society or computer that would have no problem predicting this however.

Back when I was at uni I was having difficulty with some calculus problem and one of my mathematics professors made a fantastic comment to me once that was incredibly trite yet also summed up this point problem pretty well.

"You only think it's difficult because you don't know how to do it yet."

We are talking about two different perspectives though. You are talking about physics and I am talking about one way of looking at the real world, which is what I thought this was about (complexity).

Physics is reductive and can only predict when you know all the variables (and you can never always know all the variables). It can be applied, but it doesn't predict everything. Physics does everything you need it to, to get to the point of driving a car for example. But physics doesn't predict that the car driver is drunk and runs off the road.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 02:08pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by gravyishot

Credit card companies can apparently predict when couples are going to divorce. I don't think predicting a revolution would be too difficult, given enough data and a big enough supercomputer. I bet the Chinese are working on it.

They would be, that comes with living in the strongest economy.

gravyishot · 06-Oct-11, 02:11pm

That's some fine baiting there, claude.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 02:12pm

it was really just a joke

gravyishot · 06-Oct-11, 02:27pm

I know, just thought it was a good way to get the China haters to pop up.

Griggle · 06-Oct-11, 02:32pm

Claude you really should read through the comments by Biophiliac in that Guardian article. He wrote a better article of ecosystems than Adam Curtis.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 02:38pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griggle

Claude you really should read through the comments by Biophiliac in that Guardian article. He wrote a better article of ecosystems than Adam Curtis.

Just had a quick squiz. My guess is biophiliac is Timothy Morton, although I would normally expect him to use his real name. I'm a big fan of Timothy Morton.

BTW I never said I wholeheartedly agreed with the article, I just said it might be found to be interesting.

Griggle · 06-Oct-11, 02:42pm

Oh I don't know enough about the subject to comment on the validity of eithers thesis, I just thought it was hilarious he got such a massive response to his article.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 02:48pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griggle

Oh I don't know enough about the subject to comment on the validity of eithers thesis, I just thought it was hilarious he got such a massive response to his article.

I reckon that's what those comments should be like. Better than one line rants from ignorant nutcases. If there is one good thing about the internet (and there are many good things) it's the opportunity to hold (or to read) intelligent discourse with intelligent people on a range of subjects, in the most unlikely places (like here).

The fact that sometimes you have to argue with molluscs is a necessary side effect I suppose.

gravyishot · 06-Oct-11, 02:55pm

Seems a bit smarmy to put an essay in comments criticising an article's thoroughness when newspaper articles are generally aimed at broad readership groups.

Kid A · 06-Oct-11, 03:03pm

I'm chucking the two Morton books you suggested in my next web order. Though, from just reading bits and pieces+ watching his mini youtube lectures, I'm still struggling to appreciate what exactly we are supposed to take from it.
Surely, even the most basic of scientific thinkers appreciates that there is no ontological distinction between what we label as natural and unnatural.

I don't want to start a big discussion on something I'm yet to read, but can you explain a little further what you gained from his stuff? Or more specifically, what you think the consequences of his arguments are?

Griggle · 06-Oct-11, 03:26pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

We are talking about two different perspectives though. You are talking about physics and I am talking about one way of looking at the real world, which is what I thought this was about (complexity).

Physics is reductive and can only predict when you know all the variables (and you can never always know all the variables). It can be applied, but it doesn't predict everything. Physics does everything you need it to, to get to the point of driving a car for example. But physics doesn't predict that the car driver is drunk and runs off the road.

Your assumption that physics doesn't happen in the "real world" is maybe showing a little of your own cognitive dissonance.

I noticed this before in one of our previous conversations about efficiency that you referred to systems developers as "arsehole developers who are always trying to push the rules impede a public servant's chance of success."

Do you really feel that people who attempt to create abstract systems to model real life situations are wasting everyone's time? Or were you just venting in regards to a specific developer?

-------------------------------

Unless they believe in souls and simultaneously believe in free-will, most people are fine with the concept that the brain is a biological computer.*

If we treat the brain like a computer with programs, the assumption can be made that as we better understand those programs, predictive modelling of human behaviour will become more and more accurate.

Saying that it is impossible to model "real life" social interactions is akin to ascribing souls to people and essentially a defeatist cop-out, imo. Far more accurate would be saying "We aren't that good at modelling human interaction right now."

As I said "We only think it's difficult (complex) because we don't know how to do it yet."

----------------------

* Our understanding of the human brain is getting better all the time. Given that scientists can already tell what you are looking at thanks to your brain waves, a future where we understand the programs controlling people isn't an impossibility.

gravyishot · 06-Oct-11, 03:33pm

Nah, I reckon it is. Like absolute zero.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 03:59pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by gravyishot

Seems a bit smarmy to put an essay in comments criticising an article's thoroughness when newspaper articles are generally aimed at broad readership groups.

True

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 04:10pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid A

I'm chucking the two Morton books you suggested in my next web order. Though, from just reading bits and pieces+ watching his mini youtube lectures, I'm still struggling to appreciate what exactly we are supposed to take from it.
Surely, even the most basic of scientific thinkers appreciates that there is no ontological distinction between what we label as natural and unnatural.

I don't want to start a big discussion on something I'm yet to read, but can you explain a little further what you gained from his stuff? Or more specifically, what you think the consequences of his arguments are?

Well for me personally his ideas are influencing a research direction that I don't really want to go into detail about here because it will sound very wanky. But his idea of climate change as a hyperobject is probably the central thing. I like how OOO challenges post-kantian idealism, and I like how Morton meshes this with Buddhism. I don't think he has finished cementing his ideas so it's great to watch the online development of a philosophical direction wrt to Harman, Bogost, Levi and Morton.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 04:26pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Griggle

Your assumption that physics doesn't happen in the "real world" is maybe showing a little of your own cognitive dissonance.

I noticed this before in one of our previous conversations about efficiency that you referred to systems developers as "arsehole developers who are always trying to push the rules impede a public servant's chance of success."

Do you really feel that people who attempt to create abstract systems to model real life situations are wasting everyone's time? Or were you just venting in regards to a specific developer?

-------------------------------

Unless they believe in souls and simultaneously believe in free-will, most people are fine with the concept that the brain is a biological computer.*

If we treat the brain like a computer with programs, the assumption can be made that as we better understand those programs, predictive modelling of human behaviour will become more and more accurate.

Saying that it is impossible to model "real life" social interactions is akin to ascribing souls to people and essentially a defeatist cop-out, imo. Far more accurate would be saying "We aren't that good at modelling human interaction right now."

As I said "We only think it's difficult (complex) because we don't know how to do it yet."

----------------------

* Our understanding of the human brain is getting better all the time. Given that scientists can already tell what you are looking at thanks to your brain waves, a future where we understand the programs controlling people isn't an impossibility.

No I didn't say physics doesn't happen in real world. Of course it does. My surfboard whacked me in the nose yesterday morning. That was physics. That was all three of Newton's Laws of Motion which I can still feel.

I think that was about property developers and it was tongue in cheek. No I think systems modellers are doing some of the most important and vital work there is to do. Systems modellers are expanding our sense of the world.

Complex is not the same as difficult. But I think what you are talking about is determinism. And, you know, some thinkers suggest that the arrow of causality is not always forward in time. So that opens up a whole new world, as does quantum coherence.

Ad do the brain waves mean a parrot is really a parrot? Is it a thing in itself? How can we really know a parrot?

Kid A · 06-Oct-11, 04:43pm

Lay off the Heidegger, bro.

claude glass · 06-Oct-11, 04:46pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid A

Lay off the Heidegger, bro.

Good advice.

Tim-BO · 06-Oct-11, 04:47pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJ Squiggle

Lots of eye candy which was not as illustrative as it could be. But it was watchable eye candy for those into arthouse visuals. eg why was there no timescale/clock for the petri dish animations? eg the shifting of the Z from one side of the equation to the other was plain wrong (the whole right hand side should become the new Z on the left). For a deeper understanding of the Mandelbrot set you cannot go past the following.

Firstly some eye-candy.... apparently the world record for zooming in.
Rendering ended up taking 6 months on three home computers.
Three quad-cores computers running at 2.8GHz.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jGaio87u3A

To understand how the above zoomed Mandelbrot set is created first
refresh your memory on what imaginary/complex numbers are
(the 4 minute mark is where the magic is... even though it seems an arbitrary definition)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DznD05F1DLI

then check how the Julia set is created
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZYZ-L8m9Q

then you can undertand the Mandelbrot set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ma6cV6fw24

oh fuck i just did an assignment on this

that is the simple part - it gets harder deriving perimeter and area

Geezah · 06-Oct-11, 05:30pm

Dudes, start typing some of the books that cover what you are talking about in this thread:

The recommended reading for things like philosophy/history/science/politics thread.

Cheers.

Griggle · 06-Oct-11, 06:43pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid A

Lay off the Heidegger, bro.

Godwin's again. We're on a roll in here lately.

Actually I've been reading a lot of stuff to do with quantum mechanics and the brain lately like David Bohm's Thought as a System.

His concept of thought not being simply a item inside each of our heads but rather something shared by all creatures/objects/stuff on the planet/galaxy/universe making a massive system would suggest (if provable) that we could indeed predict future behaviour of smaller subsets of the entire system so long as you had an understanding of all the other elements of the system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by claude glass

No I didn't say physics doesn't happen in real world. Of course it does. My surfboard whacked me in the nose yesterday morning. That was physics. That was all three of Newton's Laws of Motion which I can still feel.

I think that was about property developers and it was tongue in cheek. No I think systems modellers are doing some of the most important and vital work there is to do. Systems modellers are expanding our sense of the world.

Complex is not the same as difficult. But I think what you are talking about is determinism. And, you know, some thinkers suggest that the arrow of causality is not always forward in time. So that opens up a whole new world, as does quantum coherence.

Ad do the brain waves mean a parrot is really a parrot? Is it a thing in itself? How can we really know a parrot?

Are you are of the same school of thought as David Chalmers in his paper (for you Geezah) Facing Up To The Problem Of Consciousness:

Quote:

Originally Posted by "David Chalmers"

Purely physical explanation is well-suited to the explanation of physical structures, explaining macroscopic structures in terms of detailed microstructural constituents; and it provides a satisfying explanation of the performance of functions, accounting for these functions in terms of the physical mechanisms that perform them.
This is because a physical account can entail the facts about structures and functions: once the internal details of the physical account are given, the structural and functional properties fall out as an automatic consequence.

But the structure and dynamics of physical processes yield only more structure and dynamics, so structures and functions are all we can expect these processes to explain. The facts about experience cannot be an automatic consequence of any physical account, as it is conceptually coherent that any given process could exist without experience.

Experience may arise from the physical, but it is not entailed by the physical.

Are you arguing in favour of his position that there is in fact a Hard Problem of Consciousness and that even if we understand all the physical elements of the brain?

Essentially as I understand it his argument is that we do in fact have souls and as such we will never be able quantify human thought through physical sciences.

EDIT: Just reread my reduction of his work there and it doesn't really represent what he is saying well. He does believe we will be able to eventually understand the how experience works (or at least seems to think we should definitely try to find out) he is saying that he thinks we won't be able to work out how creatures undergo the phenomena through reductive reasoning and that we will need to come up with some other strategy to understanding what he refers to as the Hard Problems of Consciousness. Bah just read the paper, my brain doesn't work on his pay-grade.

PS Claude I'm just trying to start up a debate. It's been quiet in CAAP lately.

buffed +	05-Oct-11, 03:29pm #151 Registered User
Joined Mar '03 Times thanked < 51 Posts 13,911	Q&A was terrible the other night i thought. It seemed like the discussion went nowhere other than a bunch of egotists ranting and raving
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claude glass +	05-Oct-11, 03:31pm #152 Registered User
Joined Jun '10 Times thanked < 118 Posts 1,471	Quote: Originally Posted by Kid A I thought the whole thing, whilst being entertaining, ended up being a load of hot air. Too many egos, too much story telling, too much emotive ranting with not enough theory. 1 hour wasn't long enough. Yes I agree. Would have been good just to let Zizek go for an hour.
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DJ Squiggle +	05-Oct-11, 06:55pm #153 intolerance will not be tolerated
Joined Feb '08 Times thanked < 2 Posts 164	Quote: Originally Posted by horst I had an epiphany on monday night after watching The Secret Life of Chaos... You may have to watch the program to grasp just how profound this idea is because it can explain the structure of the universe as well as the mechanism for biological evolution. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF7gdlTrCQY It is on USENET also. "BBC.The.Secret.Life.of.Chaos.2010.WS.PDTV.Xvi D-MVGroup.nfo" 622 days old but I am able to dl (am paid subscriber on astraweb).
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DJ Squiggle +	06-Oct-11, 02:07am #155 intolerance will not be tolerated
Joined Feb '08 Times thanked < 2 Posts 164	Quote: Originally Posted by DJ Squiggle To understand how the above zoomed Mandelbrot set is created first refresh your memory on what imaginary/complex numbers are (the 4 minute mark is where the magic is... even though it seems an arbitrary definition) If any of you get lost then you need to first watch a video that explains what "i" is. http://youtu.be/BzKYiupZBYk and if that is confusing then you need to first go back to year 7 basics http://youtu.be/CMnrZJeodGQ I have now given you five turorial video links for all the maths you need to blow your mind and understand the first video, ie the record-holding(?) video of the Mandelbrot set and to understand reality in a new light.
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dbb618 +	06-Oct-11, 07:12am #156 This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.
Joined May '06 Times thanked < 658 Posts 12,767	why do maths? you can understand how fractals work by eating a little piece of paper covered in a couple hundred micrograms of a funny little acid.
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