DV8 2XL

Well I am not yet convinced that the Limitive Theorems can be dismissed that lightly. All of them suggest that once the ability to represent the structure of thought (by the process of thought) reaches a certain critical point , that is the kiss of death: it guarantees it can never be fully described and will always be incomplete. Because assuming that thought is consistent and the level of modeling is below some critical level; it is incomplete by hypothesis. Or it must reach a point where the Limitive Theorems (or their metaphorical analogues) kick in and it incomplete in some Godelian way. The more likely case is that thought is inconsistent and thus cannot be deterministic.

No. The Question of Consciousness subsumes many other metaphysical questions, but ID is not one of them. Creationism in general assumes Duality, and a mechanism that is by definition beyond human understanding: the soul.

The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that proposes the existence of multiple "parallel universes", all of which have the same physical laws and constants, but occupy different states. It was initially formulated by Hugh Everett as an alternative to wavefunction collapse used in the Copenhagen interpretation to explain non-deterministic processes (such as measurement) in quantum mechanics.

It's a beginning.

I'm not so sure you can assert that something simulated on a Turing machine is not equivalent to a Turing machine. It would seem to me that the Church-Turing Thesis would suggest that this is exactly the case.

The issues brought up by Dennett are far from resolved, and there is a continuing stream of arguments and counter-arguments attached to his work. Most of which suggests that Dennett's argument misses the point of the inquiry by merely re-defining consciousness as an external property and ignoring the subjective aspect completely Unfortunately though, if you assert that the mind can be modeled as a Universal Turing Machine, you must deal with the baggage that it entails. I should think that refuting Godel would have to be a more rigours process than an empirical theory of the mind would be able to deliver.

Yes, see: http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/ THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER

I think I would like to see a few more details. This looks like a bit of a red herring. I doubt the constitution of France would permit that sort of general restriction

Scientists in North Carolina say they have identified a gene that affects IQ, a finding that, if confirmed, would be a significant step toward understanding the genetic basis for intelligence. The new research could also have ethical implications because the effect of the gene appears to be quite dramatic: The scientists say that as a group, males — but not females — who had the variant gene had IQ scores about 20 points lower than males who didn't. More here: http://www.azstarnet.com/news/105238

I don't think I was missing the point as much as making it. 1. And the hard evidence of a mechanistic model would be...? 2. This differs in kind from what I wrote about the nonexistent bridge between hardware and software how? Please. Claiming a position in this field on the Principle of Parsimony' date=' given that you haven't got anything better than it is more 'sensible' is sheer nonsense. Some of the quantum models are less complex than some of deterministic models. Anyway, Occam's razor is only supposed to be used to choose between two scientific theories which are otherwise equally predictive. The problem with the "simplest is best" equation is that Occam's razor never claims to choose the 'best' theory, but only proposes simplicity as the deciding factor in choosing between two otherwise equal theories. It's possible that, given more information, the more complex theory might turn out to be correct the majority of the time. Balderdash. Suggesting that given the current state of the field, that no rational line of inquiry should be dismissed, doesn't come close to a god-in-the-gaps argument.

As I said up-thread, if you invoke Determinism, the point becomes moot. McCulloch and Pitts proved an important theorem: that a network of binary neurons is fully equivalent to a universal Turing machine, i.e., that any finite logical proposition can be realized by such a network, i.e., that every computer program can be implemented as a network of binary neurons. However, when you try to use it locally (in some mechanistic, wet computer, sort of way) to explain thought, The Limitive Theorems (Godel, Church-Turing, etc) come into play. And this is an issue that can't be blown off. Although some feel that this in fact disproves Incompleteness, I'm not ready to throw that out just yet. But if we use a Boltzmann machine type (or any other gradient-descent algorithm) model, like you suggest, based on thermal randomness and stochastic annealing the shear number of events that would be required to manifest something as complex the mind gives rise to some computational thermodynamic issues that again cannot be ignored. Computational models of neural activity now abound. The number of mathematical theories on how neurons work almost exceeds the possibility of testing them. And in the end a bridge is still missing between the physical, processes and the macroscopic mind processes of reasoning, thinking, knowing, etc., in general, the whole world of symbols. Does this mean that they are all wrong and that we must look to quantum effects (at quantum scales) for an explanation? No, it has it own problems, issues of scale and temperature that won't go away. This is what I have been driving at: it is premature to dismiss any plausible research in this matter as pseudoscience at this time.

gib65, when you say; "I'll agree with any materialist insofar as the brain being physically deterministic, and that this explains behavior..." On what do you base that assertation? The current crop of quantum mind theories are very speculative at the moment and none should be taken seriously, but it is a proper line of inquiry given that there is no macro-scale model that is any better at explaining the phenomena we call thought.

I doubt if Dennett watched many babies through the first year. I have and I have a feeling that there is much, much more than just 'analyzing and mimicking'. There is some other innate program running in those little minds, and by it's own agenda.

You will note that I tagged it 'sophistry'. The writer is a more rabid supporter of quantum mechanical mind theory than you are of of classical mechanical mind theory. This actually is one of the more lucid samples of his diatribes, that he occasionally favours me with. He takes considerable exception to the fact that I have mentioned other models than his favourite, and that I had the temerity to devoted a section of the article to criticisms.

You could also work by weight and with standard tables.

How hard a vacuum are you going for?

http://www.lavarnd.org/ The LavaRnd Random Number Generator LavaRnd is a cryptographically sound random number generator. At its heart, it uses a chaotic source to power the generation of very high quality random numbers.

This was posted to me by an anon. via the Wikipedia article on Quantum mind. I post it here for your entertainment.. "...however, given that the brain, as a material thing, (it) is just a collection of quantum fields. If mind is connected to matter, as would seem altogether plausible, and matter is quantum in nature, then it follows as a ready consequence that mental processes are quantum processes. Thus, e.g., Abdus Salam: all chemical binding is electromagnetic in origin, and so are all phenomena of nerve impulses. If perceptual fields, e.g., are phenomena of nerve impulses, then it would seem to follow that perceptual fields are electromagnetic in origin. Needless to add, perhaps, our most advanced physical theory, quantum electrodynamics (QED) just is the quantum theory of electromagnetic interactions -- like those which govern modern chemistry." ...sophistry, of course, but well written.

Not anymore, I don't think. The term 'salted bomb' has come into general usage for the former and 'dirty bomb' has been subsumed by the latter. At least in the media.

Being in my mid fifties I have to say that up until rather recently the term was used to describe a radiation enhanced weapon (cobalt bomb) not a radiological dispersion weapon.

I was just pointing out that term has gone through a change of meaning over the years.

The term has also been used historically to refer to certain types of nuclear weapons. Due to the inefficiency of early nuclear weapons (such as "Fat Man" and "Little Boy"), 2% or less of the nuclear material would be consumed during the explosion. Thus, they tended to disperse large amounts of unused fissile material in the form of nuclear fallout. During the 1950s, there was considerable debate over whether "clean" bombs could be produced, and these were often contrasted with "dirty" bombs. "Clean" bombs were often a stated goal, and scientists and administrators said that high-efficiency nuclear weapon design could create explosions which generated almost all of their energy in the form of nuclear fusion, which does not create harmful fission products. While some proposed producing "clean" weapons, other theorists noted that one could make a nuclear weapon intentionally "dirty" by "salting" it with a material which would generate large amounts of long-lasting fallout when irradiated by the weapon core. In the post-Cold War age, this usage of the term has largely fallen out of use.

Help yourself National Terror Alert Resource Center, http://www.nationalterroralert.com/readyguide/dirtybomb.htm National Terror Alert Fact Sheet U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs.html Factsheet on Dirty Bombs Council on Foreign Relations, http://www.cfrterrorism.org/weapons/dirtybomb.html Terrorism Q&A: Dirty Bombs U.S. Dep't of Labor Occupational Safety & Health Administration http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/emergencypreparedness/rdd_tech.html Radiological Dispersal Devices / Dirty Bombs American Institute of Physics, http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2002/038.html "Dirty Bombs" Much More Likely to Create Fear than Cause Cancer Health Physics Society http://hps.org/hsc/documents/factsheet.pdf Factsheet