infamouse

If I might be so bold as to take a stab at one of the most controversial definitions in philosophy and science, I would define consciousness as a causal chain from perception, to instinct, to conceptualization. This causal chain is reflected in our evolution across time as a species, as well as our day-to-day actions. Single celled organisms perceive light, complex organisms develop feelings in accordance with higher level perceptions, and eventually conceptualization acts as a modifier on perception-based instinct. I.e., I see a tiger (by the time light bounces off the tiger into my eyes, I am seeing an image of the tiger a fraction of a second in the past). A fraction of a second after my mind processes the visual information of a tiger, I feel fear; if I have no language, and perhaps even if I do, this alone provides an adequate basis to run for my life. A fraction of a second after feeling fear, my conceptual processes may kick into overdrive, providing a series of logical options and prevalent concerns. What is the best course of action? Run? Pick up the spear at my side and attack? Remove my handgun from its holster and fire? Will I ever see my family again? My tribe? Am I about to die a painful, gruesome death? In other words, our everyday actions follow the same process as our historic path of evolution.

Natural Selection allowed or even incentivized the formulation of conscious social constructs. The basis for any conscious social construct must be a shared intellectual medium (such as language, math, art, or some combination thereof). A conscious social construct is essentially a database, created across generations, codified in early social learning, and utilized as the foundation for any large scale social organization. Imagine a child denied all access to human interaction and conceptual information. Suppose all their basic needs are provided for, but they are isolated in a room throughout their formative years into early adulthood. Having no social basis for mutual understanding, they are released into society and found to behave like an animal. There is no possible way they could spontaneously create a new language, contribute to the evolution of existing language, or reveal some hitherto unknown insight into the nature of mathematics, regardless of whatever potential existed intrinsically at birth. In order to reach their potential, they needed access not only to contemporary society, but to the historical database of math, language, and art upon which all of contemporary society depends. Released into the wild, they would be beholden strictly to the laws of Natural Selection, i.e. pure genetics. Bear Grylls, on the other hand, has a better chance of survival in the wild given the application of relevant social constructs. In the wild, he will be subject to interplay of Conscious Selection and Natural Selection.

Conscious Selection can be used as a tool to subjugate the cold-hearted anarchy of Natural Selection, but when utilized selfishly, it introduces a third form of selection to the equation: Unnatural Selection. Unnatural Selection is what happens when a turtle or a seagull can’t tell the difference between plastic and food, or when human beings fail to naturally perceive the impacts of atmospheric distortion on their environment. In such a circumstance, a turtle or a seagull continues to be accountable to natural selection: they have not evolved any perception that enables them to readily adapt to such circumstances, and over time will likely die out. Conscious entities, i.e. beings capable of advanced conceptualization, have the option at least in theory to utilize Conscious Selection to their collective advantage. A society reaching the point where Unnatural Selection has become endemic in their environment as a result of collective action, must harness conscious selection as a tool for collective survival or face dire consequences, not the least of which may be absolute extinction.

I hypothesize that resource distribution and utilization remains a major issue for our society primarily because of our failure to recognize the fundamental nature of conscious social constructs such as language and math. For 2,000 years, we have engaged in the same form of communication with little or no improvements to the fundamental code; the software, so to speak.

I propose that the conceptual ability of a society to deal with unforeseen or highly complex circumstances is directly proportional to the information density of the intellectual mediums at hand. I predict that children educated in base 100 mathematics (particularly if they are encouraged to practise math without a calculator to the extent of their capabilities)  and an equivalent higher form of language, will demonstrate advanced IQ relative to peers in a control group. Is anyone aware of any similar studies? Any thoughts on the controls that might be necessary, or the idea in general?

I have recently been reading Michio Kaku's new book, The God Equation, and a couple of things stood out to me that raised significant questions.

"But if we blindly accept Einstein's theory, then we get into trouble, since his equations predict that the gravitational force at the very center of a black hole or the beginning of time is infinite, which makes no sense."

Why is it that this "makes no sense"? Why is it that this assertion is frequently purported to be unassailable without any accountability to basic logic?

In a section entitled "Why is the Night Sky Black?" Kaku writes:

"If we start with a universe that is infinite and uniform, then everywhere we look into space our gaze will hit a star. But since there are an infinite number of stars, there must be an infinite amount of light entering our eyes from all directions... The final answer was actually given by Edgar Allen Poe in 1848. Being an amateur astronomer, he was fascinated by [Olber's] paradox and said that the night sky is black because, if we travel back in time far enough, we eventually encounter a cutoff-that is, a beginning to the universe. In other words, the night sky is black because the universe has a finite age. We do not receive light from the infinite past, which would make the night sky white, because the universe never had an infinite past. This means that telescopes peering at the farthest stars will eventually reach the blackness of the Big Bang itself. So it is truly amazing that by pure thought, without doing any experiments whatsoever, one can conclude that the universe must have a beginning."

Kaku's conclusion here makes sense, IF and only IF you subscribe to his presupposition that the universe is infinite AND uniform. The Universe, as we are all aware, is not uniform, so how could Kaku get a way with such a blatant flaw in basic logic?

To demonstrate the flaw in his logic, I present a simple paradox:

Let's assume for the moment that the Universe is infinite. There are infinite Sun-like stars, and infinite M-Dwarf stars. Infinity is infinity, so there is the same number of both types of star... Right? Wrong. The reason is simple. In infinite spacetime, M-Dwarf stars are vastly more common. So even thought there are infinite Sun-like stars and infinite M-Dwarf stars, there are infinitely more M-Dwarf stars than sun-like stars.

This simple paradox demonstrates quite conclusively that the universe can be infinite without blinding us by an indefinite field of endless white light.

To explain Olber's paradox, all you need to do is eliminate the presupposed "uniformity" of the universe and account for the relative speed of light.

Furthermore, isn't belief in a finite universe a bit like belief in a flat Earth? isn't the underlying implication that, upon traveling a definable distance, you will eventually hit a magical wall or fall off the edge of the universe? This strikes me as rather absurd.

Right now, there are objects approximately 1,000 light-years away that exist in the relative present, but nobody on Earth will see them for 1,000 years. That doesn't mean I doubt their existence. Likewise, the Big Bang is a barrier in time obscuring the Singularity from our relative sight. So is the Event Horizon, and the Planck Length. That doesn't mean that I doubt its existence. Every instance of the Singularity in physics should be treated not as separate, individualized entities, but as a unified instance of a single phenomenon: the physical manifestation of the fundamental physics of infinity, acting as the frame of reference from which all relative physics can be derived.