immortal

Well yes these self referential statements are quite weird and it can get on to your head if you continue to think on that. But the best part is that we get the fruit in the form of solution for thinking hard on it. The thing which interested me was this statement "I do not know that this statement is true". Now let assume G = "I do not know that G is true". Now if i know that G is true then the statement "I do not know that G is true" is false. So IF I know that G is true then I know that G is false so I really don't know that G is true. So the statement "I do not know that this statement is true" is true and Hence "I know that G is true". I think the same thing applies to God. "We know something that God already knows". A similar discussion is going on in another forum so interested members can follow to this link.My link

Of course a UTM which speaks a lie is not a UTM. But Godel's incompleteness theorem proved that a UTM is not truly universal. Godel's incompleteness theorem did not speak anything about the correctness of UTM. We have to believe in the UTM that it always says correct answers. It is same as how you believe in a theory the more we fail to disprove the theory the more we are going to believe in that. In the same way we are going to believe in a axiomatic system if it continues to give consistent answers. As you know we are not going to completely eliminate the theory as we progress in science, we may just add something to the theory or the theory itself may become a sub-case for a whole new larger theory for example -the Newton's law of gravity is a sub-case in Einstein's general theory of relativity. If this was'nt the case then no one would have had belief in science. Now if we apply the same argument of yours to humans, even though we are capable of making false statements (i.e. a lie) and say that "G is true" we know that we are lying and understand that G is true even though we know that it will become a lie if we say it provided that we can not make false statements. Now the question is can a UTM understand that when it says that "G is true" which makes 'G' a false statement, then G turns out to be a true statement provided that the UTM can not make false statements and we firmly believe in it. So the statement "G is true" is a fundamental truth which we humans somehow can grasp. Godel proved that not all parts or systems in mathematics is complete.

Well i am a layman not a mathematician so i found a link which gives the proof of the godel's incompleteness theorem from a layman's perspective. Here's the link My link I quote a paragraph from this website "The proof of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem is so simple, and so sneaky, that it is almost embarassing to relate. His basic procedure is as follows: Someone introduces Gödel to a UTM, a machine that is supposed to be a Universal Truth Machine, capable of correctly answering any question at all. Gödel asks for the program and the circuit design of the UTM. The program may be complicated, but it can only be finitely long. Call the program P(UTM) for Program of the Universal Truth Machine. Smiling a little, Gödel writes out the following sentence: "The machine constructed on the basis of the program P(UTM) will never say that this sentence is true." Call this sentence G for Gödel. Note that G is equivalent to: "UTM will never say G is true." Now Gödel laughs his high laugh and asks UTM whether G is true or not. If UTM says G is true, then "UTM will never say G is true" is false. If "UTM will never say G is true" is false, then G is false (since G = "UTM will never say G is true"). So if UTM says G is true, then G is in fact false, and UTM has made a false statement. So UTM will never say that G is true, since UTM makes only true statements. We have established that UTM will never say G is true. So "UTM will never say G is true" is in fact a true statement. So G is true (since G = "UTM will never say G is true"). "I know a truth that UTM can never utter," Gödel says. "I know that G is true. UTM is not truly universal." If we put a little bit effort we can know or understand that G is true. Now if we apply the same argument on ourselves for example, let G = " I will never say G is true". NOW if someone asks me whether G is true or not. if I say that G is true then the statement which I made earlier is false and hence G is false. Therefore I know that G is true provided that I can not make false statements. What's the difference? Even though both humans and machines can't say that G is true when we can not make false statements. We has humans know or understand that G is true but the machine does not know that G is true as there is no systematic procedure to obtain the result that G is true. So the way humans think and understand is very different from the machines. Don't you think that this argument opens up the world of plato. I know that this is metaphysics but when there is a strong and valid argument we may have to withdraw our hypothesis. Ofcourse an another argument would be that there may be other axiomatic systems which helps us to prove that G is true which we don't know yet

The ansewr to that question would be by Natural selection. Prions are not always harmful it is helpful when an animal is living in two extreme conditions so that the prions can fold or change shape when the animal is living in either of these conditions and vice versa. This is a huge advatanage has the animal does not have to rely on the DNA for mutation to take place. However as you said it becomes harmful by making the other proteins to fold into its shape with the help of a molecule called chaperone. It affects the brain in humans often called the mad cow disease. Here the brain cells die not because of too much prions in its environment but it sacrifices itself as soon as the prionic conversion is triggered to save other cells.

I think this is off topic because this is a science forum not a spirituality forum. I am an hindu and I also believe that jesus died for our sins and he is the saviour because it is metioned in our sacred scriptures that the saviour(world leader) will be born in Persia(modern Iran). As the other member said there were many gods before Jesus Christ. There was YAHWEH the jewish god. The persians and greeks had thier own pantheons. The SUN GOD of egyptians was called AMON-RE. Greeks worshipped the sun god has Helios. Persians worshipped him as Mithra. In Hindu even though there are hundred gods they are all different forms of the SUN GOD. That is why we worship him daily. Where ever the aryans travelled there all you can see the cultures believing in gods. Even though Vishnu has his own individuality(i.e. just a name) but the reality is that the SUN GOD which is present inside him gives all the powers. In fact it is the light of sun present in each and every one of us which stimulates our intellect to know our universe better. When Jesus christ returns he will not say not to believe in this or that. But to find whether it is true or not before you start believing in it.

I disagree, science has some limitations with in itself, whether we try to impose some limitations on the applications are not. The reason for my arguement is that our sense organs have limitations we can not look the whole of physical world as it is.(eg:- radiowaves and other em waves). Another important reason is that our intelligence has some limitations. Most mathematicians agree that the central nervous system is using less logic and lesser math to solve its problems. So there is something beyond intelligence. Our language impose limitations on how much we can think.

First of all let me say that we don't have a good definition for intelligence on which we all agree upon. So I think intelligence is something beyond space and time and it not physical and it is not an idea. As you can see I am a Platonist. I will clear it for you. 1. Well in mathematics you should'nt have doubts. You can not say that the statement is 50% true and 50% false. With this kind of a computer you can not prove anything. Mathematical statements are absolute. 2. I think the way humans know that it is true is because we use a non-algorithmic process to access those absolute truths. This is why Roger Penrose thinks that we need new physics. Once we have found out that non-algorithmic process then we can think of building a AI machine if possible. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged First of all let me say that we don't have a good definition for intelligence on which we all agree upon. So I think intelligence is something beyond space and time and it not physical and it is not an idea. As you can see I am a Platonist. I will clear it for you. 1. Well in mathematics you should'nt have doubts. You can not say that the statement is 50% true and 50% false. With this kind of a computer you can not prove anything. Mathematical statements are absolute. 2. I think the way humans know that it is true is because we use a non-algorithmic process to acsess those absolute truths. This is why Roger Penrose thinks that we need new physics. Once we have found out that non-algorithmic process then we can think of building a AI machine if possible.

The brain is not a Turing machine. The brain can say that a statement is true which a turing machine can't. This is the simplest example that I found on the net " The sum of two even numbers is always an even number". We know that this statement is obviously true but the program on the turing machine runs without halting. This is why Roger Penrose argues that the states of consciousness have an element of non-computability.

It is this contradiction which forced Albert Einstein, Roger Penrose and others to say that quantum physics is incomplete. There has to be an underlying reality which exists even when someone is not observing it. According to Albert Einstein a particle does possess attributes even when someone is not observing it. According to special theory of relativity the events in the past are still happening some where and the future has already happened. I think that I don't have free will. The reason why Roger Penrose is with Albert Einstein is because special theory of relativity is a more accurate theory than quantum physics so if there is anything wrong it has to be with quantum physics. I find some interesting connections with the interpretation of Quantum physics and the interpretation of Upanishads. One school of thought believes in Advaita, for them the universe is an illusion and it is not real. It gives a tendency to exist when someone observes it. The other school of thought believe in Visishtadvaita for them the universe is real and it exists even when some one is not observing it. I think you can figure out to which school of thought the various physicists belongs to. I will leave that to you.

One reason for humans not evolving is that our cultural evolution is extremely fast and there are no selection pressures or there is no pressure to evolve. But if cultural evolution fails to eliminate the pressures then biological evolution will come into the picture. This is what happened with HIV, our cultural evolution failed to find a vaccine for HIV so our biological evolution came into act and selected those individuals which carry two copies of the mutant CCR5 gene who are completely immune to HIV.

Here's the link:-http://www.springerlink.com/content/x3m1618084153548/?p=a280291fba5a45618deabaf29a6f7bd9π=22 I don't have access to the link. I hope you have it. We just know that time may flow backwards but we have no idea what so ever of how and from where the brain receives the information?

I will go on to say that the human mind is in everything that exists.

Yes memory is a chemical structure but it does'nt store energy, it utilises it. The membrane protiens degrade with in a few weeks, so if you want to have long term memory you need to program your control processing unit (i.e. the nucleus) to synthesise these membrane protiens and send it to the tip of the axon using the anterograde transport. For this programming of nucleus you need protein kinases which add or delete phosphate groups to proteins changing their shapes. Most of the ATP molecules will be used by the Na+- K+ ATPase enzyme which pump the ions across membranes to restore the potential. I did not understand anything else from your post apart from this. What do you mean by negative energy and negative unconsciousness?

A better question to ask is why there is a neccesity for a quantum information processing in the brain? Earlier I said that there is a difference between sensation and perception. We don't directly interact with the physical world. There is a delay between sensation and perception but the brain compensates for that giving an illusion as though we are directly interacting with the physical world. One of the explanation for this compensation was given by Roger penrose. He says time flows backwards and the brain somehow recieves the information from the near future and gives us a sense of perception without any delay. You are right, just because quantum mechanics is a wierd science it is wrong to believe that every problem is somehow connected to QM. But there is nothing wrong in making any hypothesis which make sense.

Well Hameroff himself had said that the neurons in the brain may act as quantum at one time and classical at other times. Your researcher argues against the Hameroff's model by saying that the collision between ions will quickly decohere the system without exhibiting any quantum phenomena. But I find no reason why nature could'nt have find out a solution for that. It is very much possible that the vibrational energy of the ions can be decreased by spreading their energy in a phononic field and there by the nature may add some constrains so that they remain in coherence something which normally happens in a superconductor (however at low temp). I think still more experiments have to be done before coming to any conclusion. Well there is no demarcation line so that you can make a distinction between quantum and classical systems. As the technology progresses larger structures will be shown to have wave properties. Well if this was the case then the problem of abiogenesis would have been solved long before. With the amount of new data that we are getting for evolution by NS we certainly need a new theory to explain these data because the new synthetic theory has some drawbacks. If a new theory did exists then it has to address the problem of self organisation. Kaufmann said "There is organisation for free in living organisms". The same is with the neural network theory. It has some severe drawbacks. Its inability to explain the origin of experiences like pain, pleasure etc and also the inner voice forces me to look for a new theory. You just can't say that the experience is just an emergent phenomena due to some complex computation if it is then show me how. I think most people do research on these issues only for personal reasons. There is a difference between sensation and perception. If dolphins developed human intelligence and if they go on to explain the physical world then do their models of the world will be identical to ours? It looks like we all had been programmed to see the world in this way. What I like about the Penrose-Hameroff's model is their mechanism. But I don't like the idea that the collapse of the wave function will result in a particular experience. I also think that consciousness is discrete.

Jimmydasaint I advice you to read the book 'A Beginner's guide to Quantum mechanics' by Michael Rae I hope this will help you in having a basic foundation in quantum mechanics. Even if this did not work then don't worry I myself as a layman don't know how to view the quantum world and I have no idea how the physcists view the world. It confused its creator Erwin Scrodinger and it continues to confuse everyone. As far as Hameroff's model is concerned there is a strong reason to believe that it may be correct owing to the fact that quantum physics plays a very important role in living organisms. However still much research has to be done to confirm the theory. It is also very much consistent with what spiritualists have said. Apoorva Patel at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore has shown why our genetic code has four nucleotide bases and 20 amino acids using the Grover's algorithm which uses quantum properties. http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/jun2001/145.pdf If life is an algorithm and if we all had been blindly programmed then how did nature find that algorithm. Any programmer easily understands that no good program will arrive by accident. Every good program requires some forethought about who will use it? what software product will it produce? etc. As far as I know there is no process in nature which could create codes and algorithms. You may say that it is random but that does'nt mean that nature is random. Things appear random because of the lack of information that you have about the system more than anything else. I think there is a connection between physical entropy and Informational entropy.

Are you talking about gap junctions? I thought they were used to transport ions and other solutes between the cells of a tissue. I think storage of memory is more complex than that I don't know from where you got that idea. To Jimmydasaint According to the latest research in molecular neurobiology. We view that memory and learning is nothing but a further differentian of neurons. ( I am not talking about the way our brains produces images this is still a unsolved mystery) Memory is stored between synaptic junctions by the growth of synaptic spines. The plasticity of the information stored in the brain depends on two important factors:- 1. The reactivity of the receptors (present in the post synaptic junction) to the neurotransmitters 2. The type of ion that enters through the receptor.(it can be Na+, K+, Cl etc) Stuart Hameroff went on to explain that quantum computation may be occuring in microtubles coupled to actin and mysin which attaches synaptic vesicles (organelles carrying neurotransmitters) to the projections present in the presynptic membrane giving even more plasticity for information storage in the brain. You should also remember that the brain has 9 billion neurons and each neuron is connected to another 100 to 200 thousand other neurons and each neuron further differentiates by making synaptic contact which are very plastic. For an anology it is like a radio, you make all the connections for the perfect working of your radio and just fine tune it to hear some melodies. One more advice, Roger Penrose along with Stuart hameroff have shown that we are very much connected to the fundamental reality than we have thought of and we play an important role in the universe and you just can't exclude what Spiritualist have said that easily.

I know this is off topic. I posted here because you started discussing about free will. Ok anyways thanks for your advice it looks like Bascule is against my views and I does'nt want to carried away by what our philosophers have said. Just four days back I read on the newspaper that max planck institute of technology have shown that humans don't have free will. Here's the link:-http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/articles-health/2676 This is not a surprise as our philosophers have been saying that we all are controlled by a materialistic mechanism and I think that mechanism may be orch objective reduction. It is this probabilistic description of reality which leads everything into a bad state of affairs. Why can't we correctly say that the wavicle will be found at this particular point in space at a particular time on the detector? Either we lack complete information about the wavicle or our perception of matter may be wrong.

Well I really don't know whether I can discuss these issues here as this is a scientific forum. Currently I am reading the book 'From science to god' by Peter Russell. I think one phenomena which science has not yet explained is self awareness. According to me the best theory of consciousness was given by Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff because it was very much consistent with neurophysiology. Roger Penrose himself said that self awareness is something which physics as not yet understood and he also said that self awareness has an element of non-computability. The problem is "experience" can science define pain, pleasure, happiness and sorrow?. This eventually leads to pansychism which says that even rocks have an element of experience. Fortunately I am from the east and we have so much of information about self awareness. Infact today physicist are trying to figure out what are the mechanisms behind quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation. I think quantum teleportation is indeed very much possible and I have read many ancient books and there were many claims that ancient sages were indeed teleporting themselves and also can look into the future. Infact believe it or not even today there are people who can teleport themselves. I know how this feels for a scientist but common sense can be wrong. Its just we should have an open mind to it and take these thing very seriously. If SOULS really exist and if it is immaterial then the question of how can a immaterial substance control a materialistic body naturally arises and this is were the claim made by Roger Penrose becomes important and gives a very important clue into the mysteries of consciousness.

Mr Skeptic you have to understand that Natural selection is cumulative i.e. accumulation of good designs. You can't expect any algorithm to design gills for you in one step. Humans can only introduce genes which are created by nature. You can't produce a new gene or a protein in one step because it requires some knowledge of the solution some thing which we don't have. You have to take a random walk. I am not saying that there are no efficient algorithms other than Natural selection. Just as there are higher adaptive peaks for a population there can be other algorithms. Our brains do work like neural networks and thats how a micro processor works it has a transistor which works like an axon and a variable resistor which works like a synapse. Infact learning is nothing but just further neuronal differentiation each neuron very well knows to which other neurons it has to connect this is due to lecithin receptors present between the synaptic junctions. No matter how much you are hard wired you still have to make some trial and error and optimise it so that you can give an accurate solution. Actually Imagination is done in the pre-motor area of the brain and it is in the Wernicke's area where your ideas or memes originate and you express it through your speech and our imagination has some limits because we don't pass on our memes efficiently we don't ensure that our memes replicate and mutate and this truly corresponds to the fact that the number of people in the scientific community are very less compared to the population of the world. We do create designs randomly (that does'nt mean that we create designs that does'nt make any sense) and learn from our previous mistakes and come up with better designs which works better than the old one. You can't expect algorithms to be simple. Life is information and information leads to complexity. Actually the speed of biological evolution not only depends on rate of mutations but also on how much of those mutations get fixed. Even Natural selection can insert some non random changes to its genome and we have good proof that transposons do produce programmed genome modifictions. Infact I am in favour of genetic engineering. What's the point in studying life if we don't convert our science into technology. I don't really study these things just for the joy of discovering something I study them because I think its worth studying them. Every technology as a risk factor involved in it its all about reducing the risks and move on. Our ability to survive on this planet depends on our ability to manipulate it something which we are doing since the new stone age. The reason why the species are going extinct at a faster rate because our culture evolution has become extremely fast and if we have to save these species we have to accelerate biological evolution which is slow but very good at finding an optimal solution.

Actually poverty plays a very important role in increasing the population, espescially in third world countries. Women will prefer to produce more offsprings so that they can send their children to work in hotels and garrages so that they can earn for their living. This in turn leads to child labour, unemployment, food crisis etc. We have to either eliminate them or improve them. If we don't do either of them then their population will go on increasing making their impact on the whole nation and eventually on the entire globe.

Actually I think we need a quantum computer to figure out how a protein would fold. Chemical bonding (the london force) plays a very important role by inducing constrains and there by distinguishing the goods and the no goods of a solution. The reason why the diversity of the species is decreasing in our planet is because our cultural evolution has become extremely fast and we change our environments so rapidly that other species can't adapt to the rapidly changing environment, they wholly depend on biological evolution which is slow but very good at finding an optimal solution. I am quite dissapointed that humans have not developed an art like agriculture or metallurgy which would enable us to manipulate the environment so that we can keep our environment in equillibrium. I know its very complicated but our ability to survive on this planet depends on our ability to manipulate this planet. Every technology has a risk factor involved in it and its all about reducing the risks and move on and Scientists very well know what those risks are and what should be done to eliminate those risks. For example :- Scientists have discovered split proteins like split genes. In genes it is called as introns and in proteins it is called as inteins. This can be used to prevent what some environmentalists call 'contamination'. It is very much possible that the phenotype of an individual can be modified with genes one situated in nucleus and the other one situated in chloroplast and made to translate proteins which will self splice and attach the two proteins and there by modifying the phenotype of an individual and also the spread of these genes.

There has been a lot of debate about whether organisms evolve in a gradual way with changes occuring in a normal rate or often need sudden bursts of big changes followed by some small mutations. Now a days there is a compromise on both sides accepting each others argument. But I really have a problem with this model How big is really big in terms of evolution? I think we need to have a criteria to distinguish big changes from small changes. A mutation to one of the pigment proteins changes the colour of a flower attracting new pollinators and in another case a mutation in the Hox genes can create macroevolutionary changes changing crustaceans into insects. I think it is the interaction of the phenotype of an individual with its environment which will determine how big an evolutionary advantage or a change is to that species. What is a big change (changes produced by similar mutations) to one species may be a small change to another one.

Well Jimmydasaint I think we have enough data to explain how speciation occurs. The answer to your question is 'No' and I am not a biologist and I don't know when the wolf and dog diverged from their common ancestar. I think Natural selection had already introduced a species barrier to prevent the wastage of gametes. If any populations produce inferior offsprings by mating with other populations of different allelic frequencies then natural selection will introduce a species barrier due to the above reason. I think species is very fundamental to evolution. Well Jimmydasaint I think we have enough data to explain how speciation occurs. The answer to your question is 'No' and I am not a biologist and I don't know when the wolf and dog diverged from their common ancestar. I think Natural selection had already introduced a species barrier to prevent the wastage of gametes. If any populations produce inferior offsprings by mating with other populations of different allelic frequencies then natural selection will introduce a species barrier due to the above reason. I think species is very fundamental to evolution.

Well there is a bit of doubt whether living things are quantum computers or do they use some quantum algorithms which are more efficient and faster than classical computers. Everyone were excited when Apoorva Patel at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore found out how the genetic code would arise naturally using the Grover's algorithm and the numbers which arosed was a coincidence. http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/jun2001/145.pdf The problem of decoherence arises when one is dealing with quantum computers and we need to find out whether living things are capable of keeping long term coherence so that they can effectively compute things. This is not going change the theory of evolution in any way because even if you use an algorithm it does'nt guarantees you that a solution will be found. You have to repeat that algorithm and chance still exists. If it turns out that living things are indeed quantum computers then I think biologists have to make an advanced course in the field of quantum mechanics which is bit wierd. Here's another way of making Biological computers. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/05/will-biological.html