Finally! You've tried to construct an argument! Not that I agree with it, but at least you're *finally* taking a step in the right direction.

Well, not from "philosophy" so much as as assumptions that you've arbitrarily declared in a post-hoc manner.

No, not really. There are mathematical structures and properties that are not made manifest by simple/basic rules. There are some ridiculously complicated mathematical systems out there built up from ideas that basically nobody who isn't a specialist in the area really understand.

And that's not actually anything like the "very basis of reason and prediction." This is you hand-waving your way across mountains of details again. While there may be very "basic" rules to logic (modus ponens, modus tollens, etc.) it's more analogous to the rules of a sport than anything else. These are the bounds within which one must play to be playing by the rules of the game. This doesn't mean that playing the game is easy, or that things like "strategy" are necessarily simple.

It's also far from clear that rules across the universe ought to be homogeneous, especially when the entire basis of knowledge is built off of earth-like experiences. It's far from a foregone conclusion that some other planet would definitely be subject to the same rules as an earth-like planet. (Indeed, depending on how precisely one considers "earth-like" rules, it may even be false.)

Once again, you're assuming that because *YOU* believe something that this is the natural conclusion that someone else would draw.

This is just a re-assertion of #1. You haven't added anything, and you're still just restating your conclusion.

The bolded is an example of what I mean about you trying to make deep claims about intelligence. It's far from obvious that this is what intelligence seeks. I think there are examples of posters on this very forum who think that this type of model of intelligence is actually quite wrong.

This is an example of you not really having a valid connection to history. Back in the time of the Greeks, everyone pretty much thought the same way, and those philosophies dominated over other philosophies. You've made the classic mistake of thinking that because something is currently popular that it's also the best. If you look at scientists who make philosophical statements, like Hawking and Tyson, you'll see that they're generally criticized as being quite awful at actual philosophy. The same is true of other names, like Dawkins and Sagan. Their philosophies can often be very weak even if their science is very strong.

I grasp what you're saying, but I think you're wrong. And I've explained why I think you're wrong.

A statement like this (especially in light of a couple hundred posts of people disagreeing with you at many levels on many things) is an example of why it is that I think you're the one whose philosophy is weak. The true gap here is that I disagree with you not because I don't understand your position, but because I think your position is wrong. You apparently don't even understand the basic objections to your position.

One of the marks of someone who has philosophical depth is the ability to understand perspectives other than your own. You don't seem to have that ability.

We can argue about those other things, and I've made arguments against some of those other things, but they are of less interest to me.

This thread isn't for most people because it hasn't yet crossed the point where your argumentation is worth the time for people to read it.

The position is fairly well articulated. On many levels, it mirrors what others have been saying throughout the thread. That you think it's in some sort of isolation of those other ideas only continues to demonstrate that the lack of understanding is on your side, not mine. I encourage you to go back and read what others have written.

This isn't much of a leap from what you're already claiming is within the realm of possibility. Let's say for argument's sake that there is only one possible way for the universe, or anything, to exist. In other words, all of physics is exactly as it is because it would be impossible for the phenomenon of "existence" to be manifest in any other way. If that were the case, then a superintelligent AI may be able to derive all of physics without observing anything at all (beyond its own existence).

Yeah, it's kind of silly to just assume that it's impossible "inside a sterile room". If this sort of thing is possible I would bet you don't need any observations just like you don't need to observe anything to prove the Riemann Hypothesis. Granted, I don't really think it's possible.

I think the entity could observe things in a "sterile room" and getting close. Either the walls reflect or they don't. Massive possibility to collect data from there. In a dark room he could analyze the occasional spontaneous light phenomena his own eyes are producing, and come a long way. He could induce sounds. How are they bouncing inside the room? How am I smelling? Other smells? How do they evolve? Why am I pushed against the floor? Lying on the floor it hurts more if felling the arm from higher up than from a lesser distance. How much more does it hurt? Can I make a rule out of it, combining it with the time it takes for the arm to fall? Mixing in the sound?

It's an enormous leap. A hyper intelligent entity with human eyes, outside, will gain access to vast quantities of experimental data, larger than any human and all the scientists together have ever looked at, although missing some key pieces. I know it's hard to comprehend when you can't derive a damn thing from just looking at the world, but humans are so stupid we can't even naturally abstract out/derive equations of motion from watching a ball being thrown, and I think even my detractors can agree that a high intelligence could do that in seconds.

If there's one possible solution, sure. I'm not positing one possible "mathematical" solution. I'm positing one best fit to the hundreds of billions of data points across a large range of aspects of physics that an intelligence would scoop up in an hour or day or week or however long you want to give it.

I think it's it's unlikely to succeed if it's not on Earth. Observing multi-state water and how light plays off it, observing weather, observing active-planet geology, and especially observing life in its various forms (allowing you to deduce all kinds of things from cosmology to the age of the Earth to the varied end results of hyper-complex chemistry and thus parts of quantum mechanics), provides a varied horde of data from most areas of physics to trawl through that you can't get on a barren planet.

I would suggest that this claim comes from exactly the same type of rationalization that your other statements have suffered from. Earlier, the intelligence was so highly tuned that it can basically figure out everything from nothing but an hour long stroll on earth, but now you put a SINGLE roadblock in its way (a different planet) and it becomes rather incompetent and can't do anything.

It's all a bunch of special pleading.

I will not let the idea die. A SINGLE roadblock may block your REGULAR road.

But I personally think there are side roads. Think the guy will calculate how things are if given even half a chance. I'm even worse than OP.

Aaron: black and white?

Eh?

Edit: No, the annoying and useless post #201 at the top of the page is in color.

I think it's a useful post. Shows the glow of an extraordinarily "smart" guy. A bit "god-like" even. Suits this thread excellently, imo.

Interesting we can look at things this differently.

One explanation may be I spend serious time on also some of the at first (and second) sight "lighter" forums.

nsfw

To sufficiently understand one single phenomena in this reality...is to sufficiently understand all phenomena. And vice versa.

Why?

Because every phenomena is interconnected.

To understand what grass is, is to also understand what photosynthesis is; to understand what sunlight is; to understand what molecules are..and so on.

Since physics is a part of this chain of knowledge, a sufficiently intelligent entity would merely experience the grass and deduce the requirements of its existence from there on. It may perhaps not even need to rely on reductive methods and invoke physics or even chemistry, in the learning of its surrounding reality.

Or at least, professors may have you believe.

In actuality, no entity can or will ever know what grass is, in its totality.

Why?

Take away paradox from the thinker and you get a professor.

Look closely upon the face of absurdity. Then look away.

And get on with life.

Thread has the form of some many internet threads. OP comes up with a bad idea, gets a ton of responses as to exactly why its a bad idea but refuses to engage, learn or understand why.

I don't find this analysis particularly thoughtful or accurate. But I've read the whole thread, so I maybe at an advantage.

I am reminded of this:

https://youtu.be/lKFFS3IndPY

Sorry. Had jury duty. Took them a day and a half before they dismissed me. I'll catch up with the rest of the thread as time allows.

So, you are telling me that in Australia that on a moonless night that the shrubbery demonstrates various shades of green and the plateaus are colored. To the human eye.

It is a beautiful photograph. It has little to do with what the human eye is capable without enhancement, but that is what makes it beautiful.

Ummmm. That isn't how sensation works. Something that is barely below the threshold of sensation is below the threshold of perception even if you make gazillions of observations.

Cameras don't take low light well but also don't capture bright point light well. Thus on a long exposure, they'll capture an accurate star map and also over sample the vegetation. No doubt there's post processing as well. But yes, I'm telling you that the star map is accurate. That's what it looks like to the human eye. The skies in places with no light is something you should try to see. Here's an image that's a lot closer to what you see with the surrounding vegetation. It's quite badly undersampled the star colors and the number of them.



This is a tiny image - that which you're seeing would be over you in a vast dome. So put the stars on the earlier image with this vegetation and you're getting close to what you see if you're ever close to the middle of nowhere.
I'm telling you (and dark isn't contradicting me) that this is what you see when you get into clear desert skies far enough away from all light pollution. It's like being parked in a spaceship on the edge of a galaxy. I'm not even sure you can see this in North America, which is near 100% saturated with light pollution. I've traveled the world including remote parts of the Americas for extended periods and never seen anything even close to being in the outback. Perhaps it's a combination of dry clear skies and being 100s of miles from any town or even dwelling with a light source. There are some vast uninhabited stretches out there.

You sure? How about the subliminal?

Though, ultimately the entity maybe will have to analyze his own mind processes, and get a plausible measure from there. "How fast can I think?" He could have this stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_computing

Not far fetched for a future entity.

Remember our imagined guy will have a "kick ass" factor we can't even comprehend for getting where he wants. He will find a way if there is any possibility imaginable.

It was offered ITT he would look just inside himself for getting it all figured out. Maybe. Looking at our grass, rocks and stars could be a lock.

Did you find ze guilty?

Yes, he's sure.

Your choice of rounding is very odd.

20% of North Americans is basically none of them? Or, what I suspect is more likely, you didn't even bother reading the article you linked and just read the title.

One of the great advances in really seeing the depths of space was getting our telescopes off the earth's surface so that we can get beyond atmospheric effects.

You're just a lost cause Aaron. It's why I rarely engage with you; nothing you say has any intellectual depth, and is frequently just plain wrong for the reason that you can't parse simple text. You jump on imagined mistakes like a 5 year old. Let me break it down for you:
Here's what the article says:

Here's what I said:
By "this" I meant the overwhelming vista of the Milky Way, not "any slight glimmer of it", which you can get with quite a bit of light around (the Colorado Rockies have some nice vistas when you get far enough away from Aspen). Context clues, dude. Go do a course on it.

Why clutter up threads with this crap? There hasn't been a single cogent response to anything I've said by you. You offer nothing, not even the intellectual energy of being wrong or even a hint of an original thought. There's just...nothing. Bureacratic learning, and error prone at that.
Yet we derived nearly all of physics without it.

Right, because "saturated with light pollution" and "experience light pollution" really mean basically the same thing.

I could ask the same question of you. You want to play the special snowflake game, but it's really not that interesting until you actually engage meaningfully in some interesting facts about the reality of the world us, including our actual history.

I'm curious what you think "derive nearly all of physics" means. Because obviously we've learned basically nothing from the Hubble telescope. If were just smarter, we could have figured those things out by just wandering the earth for an hour. What an absolute waste of time and money it's been staring just staring out at the depths of space and taking measurements of the universe.

And it's not like we needed tools like radio telescopes to figure things out. Or particle accelerators.

Nope. None of it. We built these things because we're just that stupid.

Stupidity is a relative thing. I'd not say a dog is stupid, neither a human. We are largely inept to figure out things about nature clearly without isolated thinking and evidence though.

We are prone to take to the easy religion card. I pray every night the entity wouldn't fall into that trap, have thought about posting that earlier. Even Newton wasted half of his life on it.