That is the fovea. No rods in the fovea. Cones need brighter light (more photons) than rods to be bothered to do anything.

I said I (probably) wouldn't call a dog or a human stupid. Humankind is a different matter, because I'm included. That's intellectual honesty

I'm as stupid as most. Are you?

The entity wouldn't fill that criteria to perfection.

Okay.

...

In some ways yes, in some ways no. I'm stupid enough to continue engaging in this conversation to nowhere. But the things I'm saying in this conversation to nowhere are better than what some others are saying. A more intelligent being probably would have given up on it a while ago.

The only necessary assumption, or more appropriately, speculation about this topic is that the imaginary intelligence can use human sense and reason, but with a non-human 'brain'.

But the cones still react to one photon. Some of the responses are getting through, if the receiver is vigilant.



http://retina.umh.es/webvision/Evolu...ART%20III.html

No. A small change in the photopigments (below a certain threshold) does not get sent to the neuron that exits the eye.

Maybe it's not impossible this could be "trained"? In the end there are always feedback mechanisms in the neural system. The photon reactions are eliminated or clumped together at different stages, before coming to our consciousness, for us not being overwhelmed with the information. Every bit of that eliminated or non-clumped information would be gold for the entity.

As I said earlier, this is much about where we choose to tap into the system. The nearer we get to the retina, the better. Maybe this thread most correctly can be about stopping the information "wasting" when the optical nerve enters the brain.

A question is also how the interface between the optical nerve and the entity's processor would look. Could it have a possibility for the biological feedback mechanisms there may be in place? Thinking about it, maybe just utilizing every possible information the optical nerve produces is most suitable. I think science doesn't know quite how much information there is in there yet, will make some searches.

Maybe the entity could be a combination of Batman and Superman, so it has superior eyesight, can fly AND is not afraid of the dark. Just a thought, have to make some searches on that.

Why not. How do they explain the superior eyesight of Superman? How the flight ability? His calculating and learning abilities? Batman hasn't any super powers though, an ordinary human, with normal eyesight and brains. A bit less afraid of the dark than most.

Let's concentrate on the eyesight / calculating thing in this thread. So search for Superman, tell about the results!

Could a sufficiently intelligent entity derive all of physics from non human senses of a fictional alien?

This thread needs to be long. Not sure how much of eyesight you need to have for deriving a great deal of physics by observing cleverly. The eyesight thing is just one small, even if important, part of it.

I found him, he said he is not impressed with your ideas. He suggested you should definitely stop taking LSD on a daily basis.

How does he know that, you ask? Well, he is Superman after all.

Even Superman can fault. Like the entity probably would.

No, Superman is perfect. He cannot fault, that's why they call him Superman. So I trust his judgement more than yours.

As previously proffered, the intelligence would have to be sufficient to correct fallacies of reason and sense. If it's prone to uncorrectable misperceptions which may come from such fallacies, it wouldn't be able to accurately understand physics.

"There is a remote possibility that something is not impossible."

And, no, the human eye cannot itself be trained to convey information that it doesn't convey. It steadfastly refuses to even consider the merest possibility of being trained.

Keep in mind that this ultra-intelligent being lacks even simple tools. It cannot do surgery to tap into its retina directly. Of course, if it could use tools, it would just forego that and build telescopes.

It's an interesting question. What resolving capacity of incident light would you need to start substantially agreeing with the OP? Once you can see cells and microstructures, as well as cosmic macro structures, the intelligence level needed to derive physics goes way down. Where does the OP's restrictions + a handful of lenses of his choice, get him?

So basically, could unlimited intelligence combined with new scientific instruments as senses figure out physics?

No, that is not an interesting question.

Maybe the entity could be allowed to do what a wild man 10,000 BC potentially would have been able to do, if having the time, being motivated and smarter.

This would take him a bit, materials replaced with some I think you could find in nature:

http://media.scouting.org/boyslife/w...microscope.pdf

Could it optimally magnify 10x ? Cells could maybe barely be detected if he meticulously honed it?

We can't expect him to find a rock with some clear crystal, which would make him a Leeuwenhoek^10 in an instant, as he starts to grind and polish against the materials he finds.

Or he could just ask Superman to help him shape the lens with his super-eyes.

Unlimited intelligence might escape the limits of physics, rendering exercises like these purposeless.

For example an unlimited imagination can have any physics imaginable.

It would be a part of his faulting process. He will have to create hypotheses about how things work, checking out more and search his brain for finding out.

Symmetry was mentioned as a reason he will find out physics. He will check out this, in the name of symmetry: "What if an even smarter guy is behind this? I can put two rocks together, and I'm apparently standing on a big rock (deduced from the mountains) with some other stuff here and there". I think he would conclude he will never know for absolutely sure, but needs to check out other options.

Getting to know the surroundings he senses, creating physics etc, should be an important part of his quest, imo. But in his spare time he could create other potential scenarios for how a universe works. He might ask what would happen if everything else would be the same but stuff weighing only a fraction of what it does, what would happen then? Is this the case somewhere? Then he could work on the parallel universes hypotheses.

No. You can imagine that a brick to the side of the head wouldn't cause damage. Reality would politely disagree and say something about F=MA.

Yes, that isn't logical response to what was written. Your assumption about imagination isn't accurate to arrive at that conclusion.

The problem is you and I can barely comprehend unlimited imagination even though we have one to consider the idea. The best guesses one can make to support no is that physics isn't in the same universe as imagination or that unlimited imagination is impossible for some reasons, but all of that rests upon Assumptions that remain within the bounds of simply an ginormous imagination, much less unlimited.