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lollontee
Nov 4, 2014
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!

Squalid posted:

The same can be said of many hominids, including Neanderthals. If they were interbreeding they couldn't have been that distinct!

It's a practically inconsequential distinction yeah. Idiots who don't understand what they're talking about just tend to hang themselves on the existence of the distinction itself. Which is a bit a annoying.

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suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

McDowell posted:

Pretty much

"I don't like having sadbrains" is not a reason for things to actually have meaning though

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


Phyzzle posted:

Doesn't information require some being who can potentially perceive it? Yes, the information written in a book can be said to exist separately from a physical copy of the book, but if the last speaker of that language dies without leaving a translation key, the information is lost. Unless "the information" can sort of hover around a book with no potential readers, a perceiver is required. If life is information, who is the perceiver?

Yes, but it does not require consciousness. That is why I specified that the information must be able to both detect and respond to its environment. Take a bacterium that responds to chemical signals. The perception is implemented through a natural algorithm - chemoreceptors with a low binding affinity. These receptors allow the bacterium to perceive chemical concentrations, as they release messenger proteins or cause membrane polarity changes when the chemical they are sensitive to binds to them. A higher concentration causes more receptors to simultaneously fire. This alters the chemistry and thus behavior of the organism - a response to perception. This is a precursor to neural processing; in fact, all neurons carry out a great deal of processing in chemical "analogue mode" that is converted to an electrical output for relay, since it's a cheap and fast way to implement specialized local calculations while action potentials are very expensive. A bacterium has no need to relay information electrically, generally, since it is unicellular, so it doesn't. A bacterium has no precise macro-scale coordination to accomplish, so it has no need for a consciousness even if it could implement one, but don't mistake bacterial information processing as fundamentally different from your brain's - it's just a matter of scale.

By establishing both messengers and receptors within the cell, the genetic information has created a mechanism for self-perception without, necessarily, self-awareness in a higher sense. Everything in the cell is an expression of the underlying information and every meaningful signal is a perception either of the self or the environment.

Jazerus fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jan 16, 2016

Split Pea Superman
Dec 16, 2010

by FactsAreUseless
Fun Shoe
Are the human-subspecies "intermingling" articles racist yet?

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
What is the body of christ but the church - a material, social institution/bureaucracy? Eternal life that is promised isn't literal - but living on in the memory of subsequent generations who maintain the institution, performing the rituals. The lesson we have to learn is that a basic standard of living and managed reproduction must become the institution.

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008
Scientism is a disease; of wich this world must be cleansed.


Jazerus posted:

information must be able to both detect and respond to its environment.
This statement is without meaning.

McDowell posted:

What is the body of christ but the church - a material, social institution/bureaucracy? Eternal life that is promised isn't literal - but living on in the memory of subsequent generations who maintain the institution, performing the rituals. The lesson we have to learn is that a basic standard of living and managed reproduction must become the institution.
I don't think this reflects the belief of any christian group.

The Belgian fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 16, 2016

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


The Belgian posted:

This statement is without meaning.

thanks for your stellar input :thumbsup:

Could you elaborate?

Jazerus fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Jan 16, 2016

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

The Belgian posted:

I don't think this reflects the belief of any christian group.

It is a personal interpretation of Christianity (and other faiths - especially Islam) as frameworks in human social evolution. The need is for a universal, secular morality. Recall the creation myth - humans ate from the tree of knowledge but were denied immortality. Right now our species will at best live as long as our star - and that is okay.

lollontee
Nov 4, 2014
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!

McDowell posted:

What is the body of christ but the church - a material, social institution/bureaucracy? Eternal life that is promised isn't literal - but living on in the memory of subsequent generations who maintain the institution, performing the rituals. The lesson we have to learn is that a basic standard of living and managed reproduction must become the institution.

:2bong:

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

Jazerus posted:

thanks for your stellar input :thumbsup:

Could you elaborate?

Why do you want to mix up the object with information (whatever information might be).

EDIT: this seems like mixing up a house and a picture of that house.

McDowell posted:

It is a personal interpretation of Christianity (and other faiths - especially Islam) as frameworks in human social evolution. The need is for a universal, secular morality. Recall the creation myth - humans ate from the tree of knowledge but were denied immortality. Right now our species will at best live as long as our star - and that is okay.
Why do you think humanity will only live as long as our star and why are you ok with that?

The Belgian fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jan 16, 2016

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

The Belgian posted:

Why do you think humanity will only live as long as our star and why are you ok with that?

Maybe we will become interstellar and God will start bugging us again - like Battlestar Galactica :awesomelon:

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

McDowell posted:

Maybe we will become interstellar and God will start bugging us again - like Battlestar Galactica :awesomelon:

Becoming interstellar doesn't seem like a maybe; it seems like a certainty.

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


The Belgian posted:

Why do you want to mix up the object with information (whatever information might be).

Because there is no cell, no object, without the information contained in the structure of the relationship between DNA and protein. It encodes for a precise dynamic processing and resource collection machine that has as its goal the propagation of its underlying informational structure. The DNA contains sequences that act as amplifiers or inhibitors on its own activity in response to chemical signals which robustly transmit specific information about the status of the self or environment. This is something which can only be accomplished if other sections of the DNA code for those messengers, and still others for receptors which release those messengers in response to specific cues. The actual objects involved actually matter very little, except in that they fulfill specific roles - the organism is the relationship between the objects. The information.

quote:

EDIT: this seems like mixing up a house and a picture of that house.

It isn't a picture of the house. It is a blueprint for an ever-changing house which dictates how the house changes, and is so intimately linked to the house that a change to the blueprint automatically alters the house. Such a blueprint is a fuller representation of the house than any particular configuration of the house is.

Jazerus fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jan 17, 2016

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

Jazerus posted:

the organism is the relationship between the objects. The information.


Oh, if you want to call that information, the I'm fine with things. Though I see the objects themselves as nothing but the relationships.

The Bloop
Jul 5, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

The Belgian posted:

Becoming interstellar doesn't seem like a maybe; it seems like a certainty.

Lol.

I'm an extremely optimistic person, but there are a mind boggling number of challenges on that road.

I hope so, but certainty? Pff

Mia Wasikowska
Oct 7, 2006

The Belgian posted:

Becoming interstellar doesn't seem like a maybe; it seems like a certainty.

actually op i read that only death is certain

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

Trent posted:

Lol.

I'm an extremely optimistic person, but there are a mind boggling number of challenges on that road.

I hope so, but certainty? Pff

The position is hardly one of extreme optism. Just look at how far we've come these last 500 years. That's a blink of an eye, not only on a cosmological scale; but even on the scale of biological life. Further, there's no sign of our advancement slowing down, on the contrary.


Zas posted:

actually op i read that only death is certain

Death is uncertain.

Mia Wasikowska
Oct 7, 2006

The Belgian posted:

Death is uncertain.

that's not what the wizard holding the flaming skull told me

Jazerus
May 24, 2011


The Belgian posted:

Oh, if you want to call that information, the I'm fine with things. Though I see the objects themselves as nothing but the relationships.

Well, it's the basis of information, I should have said. Information is contained and processed in the structure of the relationships. A single relationship doesn't really contain information out of context - it is what that relationship will do to the overall structure that determines its informational content. A receptor transmits information because one relationship, between its stimulus and itself, enables another relationship, messenger release. Without a messenger to release, the relationship does cause a change in the protein which indicates that it has, say, had a photon collide with it - but the informational content is dissipated because there is nothing observing the change (unless a human is watching with an electron microscope - then the information of "photon detected!" survives, though it didn't get to its intended recipient).

Jazerus fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Jan 17, 2016

The Bloop
Jul 5, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

The Belgian posted:

The position is hardly one of extreme optism. Just look at how far we've come these last 500 years. That's a blink of an eye, not only on a cosmological scale; but even on the scale of biological life. Further, there's no sign of our advancement slowing down, on the contrary.
I don't doubt our raw capability for advancement. There are, however, plenty of signs of us loving everything up before we can get there.

(Also there are possibly insurmountable technical hurdles, but there my optimism is sufficient to generally ignore this fact)

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy

The Belgian posted:

Scientism is a disease; of wich this world must be cleansed.
Actually it's cool and good.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Toasticle posted:

Neither of you are basing this on anything more than "I don't see how therefore it's a near zero possibility" and all I'm saying is that's foolish. Up until 1970 biology believed ALL life derived it's energy from the sun directly or indirectly (either gets its energy via photosynthesis or eats that life to get the energy it's chemically stored from it) and this thread would have both of you saying yeah, it's possible life could be based on something other than photosynthesis but it's so unlikely it's not worth thinking about. Then we go deep enough in the ocean and discover that there is chemosynthesis based life in an ecosystem that is deadly to every other form of life. Even when it was first discovered marine biologists assumed they ate "sea snow", the bits of organic photosynthesis based bits of dead crap that drifts down to the ocean floor.

If I had said back then it's possible for life to form in temperatures exceeding 350-400 Celsius and derive their energy by consuming hydrogen sulfide you'd have the same responses. It not only exists in those conditions but the density of living things is 10,000 times that of the rest of the ocean floor.

Nah, the reaction wouldn't have been the same. It would have been something along the lines of "we have no evidence these things exist, but the idea that life could derive its energy from something other than the sun at least conceptually could be possible." We just hadn't encountered evidence of it existing. Some hypothetical "dark matter life", on the other hand, doesn't even really make sense as a concept.

Your argument is very similar to people who, when discussing faster-than-light travel, say "but 150 years ago we thought airplanes were impossible!" as argument in favor of FTL being possible (I'm referring to things actually moving that fast, not stuff involving wormholes or something). There's a big difference between not yet knowing how to do something and something not making sense on a more fundamental level.

There's a lot of pseudoscience that we can't disprove. This doesn't mean it's valid or worth serious consideration. If we ever encounter even a tiny sliver of evidence that something like "dark matter life" could exist, then it would be worth looking into further. Until then, there are plenty of other things we can actually meaningfully research.

edit: Ah, here's an example of the sort of argument I was talking about!

The Belgian posted:

The position is hardly one of extreme optism. Just look at how far we've come these last 500 years. That's a blink of an eye, not only on a cosmological scale; but even on the scale of biological life. Further, there's no sign of our advancement slowing down, on the contrary.

You're making the completely illogical assumption that, because we've discovered how to do a lot of things, it must therefore be possible to do literally anything as long as we have enough time to research it. This doesn't make sense. There are probably many things that really aren't possible for humans to do in this universe. And when it comes to space travel specifically, there have been very few advancements after we initially figured out how rockets work (and the other stuff required for our early space exploits). We solved a bunch of engineering problems, but we aren't even the tiniest bit closer to something like interstellar travel.

If you wanted to graph out "our progress towards interstellar travel", it would be something like a line (whether linear, expontential, etc, it doesn't matter) going up and then just planing out. We're not on some huge upward trend in that field.

The fact that we've made all this progress over such a short time actually hurts your argument significantly. It would be more convincing if humans continued to make huge technological advances over 10,000 years, but it's entirely possible that everything we've learned over the past few hundreds years has been the equivalent of grabbing all the low-hanging fruit after making a few key discoveries.

Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jan 17, 2016

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

Ytlaya posted:


You're making the completely illogical assumption that, because we've discovered how to do a lot of things, it must therefore be possible to do literally anything as long as we have enough time to research it. This doesn't make sense. There are probably many things that really aren't possible for humans to do in this universe. And when it comes to space travel specifically, there have been very few advancements after we initially figured out how rockets work (and the other stuff required for our early space exploits). We solved a bunch of engineering problems, but we aren't even the tiniest bit closer to something like interstellar travel.

If you wanted to graph out "our progress towards interstellar travel", it would be something like a line (whether linear, expontential, etc, it doesn't matter) going up and then just planing out. We're not on some huge upward trend in that field.

The fact that we've made all this progress over such a short time actually hurts your argument significantly. It would be more convincing if humans continued to make huge technological advances over 10,000 years, but it's entirely possible that everything we've learned over the past few hundreds years has been the equivalent of grabbing all the low-hanging fruit after making a few key discoveries.

There's been advancement in space exploration, but yes, that as slowed down recently. To me, there seem to be two big reasons for this:
*Goverment funding declining over time, because there's no more need for big prestige projects and because it doesn't seem like further andvancements will help us to make better rockets of the type that are intended to kill people. Recently, there seems to be some hope that private invenvestment migh help fill this gap. This decline has nothing to do with the intrinscip viability of space research, but everything with how much money we choose to throw at it.
*Yes, for some things advances in more fundamental fields are needed first. Those fundamental fields are making good progress though.

When we look at our overall scientific advancement, things seem to be going exponentially. There's no sign so far that we're stopping or have only been grabbing the low-hanging fruit.

The Bloop
Jul 5, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

The Belgian posted:

.

When we look at our overall scientific advancement, things seem to be going exponentially. There's no sign so far that we're stopping or have only been grabbing the low-hanging fruit.

Any timescale which makes this argument even look reasonable if you squint at it includes renaissance discoveries that were made well before the scientific method was even codified and essentially using things you find lying about the house. This is pretty much the platonic ideal of low hanging fruit for the field. True modern science has too small a sample size, timeline-wise, to draw any meaningful conclusions. Again, I'm very optimistic, but that's different from confident or convinced by actual evidence.

WhitemageofDOOM
Sep 13, 2010

... It's magic. I ain't gotta explain shit.

Ytlaya posted:

Your argument is very similar to people who, when discussing faster-than-light travel, say "but 150 years ago we thought airplanes were impossible!" as argument in favor of FTL being possible (I'm referring to things actually moving that fast, not stuff involving wormholes or something). There's a big difference between not yet knowing how to do something and something not making sense on a more fundamental level.

Well we have real valid understandings of the light speed barrier and why it is impassable.
Dark matter & Dark energy are literally things beyond what we can perceive, there indeed could be anything from our limited perspective because we know nothing. While discussing it might not be practical, humanity discusses impractical poo poo all the time.

The Larch
Jan 14, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

rudatron posted:

Actually it's cool and good.

Scientism is the philosophical position that no statement is true unless it can be empirically or logically verified. This statement cannot be empirically or logically verified.

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

WhitemageofDOOM posted:

Well we have real valid understandings of the light speed barrier and why it is impassable.
Not really and who knows if it's even actually impassable.

Plus, things like dark energy make it so that objects can move faster than the speed of light relative to each other.

The Larch
Jan 14, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

The Belgian posted:

Not really and who knows if it's even actually impassable.

Plus, things like dark energy make it so that objects can move faster than the speed of light relative to each other.

No, we have a pretty solid understanding of why the light speed barrier exists and that it's impassable.

The second part is not the result of anything moving faster than light. It's the result of the space between the two objects expanding while they move. This gives the appearance of FTL travel.

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

The Larch posted:

No, we have a pretty solid understanding of why the light speed barrier exists and that it's impassable.

Why are you so confident that the local SO(3,1) symmetry of our universe isn't (weakly) broken? People would have had the same confidence in P symmetry in the past.

quote:

The second part is not the result of anything moving faster than light. It's the result of the space between the two objects expanding while they move. This gives the appearance of FTL travel.
Yes, I know how this works, but what makes the object moving different from the space between object and observer changing different to a naïve observer? To the observer the object is moving FTL.

The Belgian fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jan 17, 2016

The Larch
Jan 14, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

The Belgian posted:

Why are you so confident that the local SO(3,1) symmetry of our universe isn't (weakly) broken? People would have had the same confidence in P symmetry in the past.

Yes, I know how this works, but what makes the object moving different from the space between object and observer changing different to a naïve observer? To the observer the object is moving FTL.
I'm not knowledgeable enough about this subject to talk about the first bit, but as to the second, the observer could only observe the object moving FTL relative to another object, not to the observer themself.

The Larch fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Jan 17, 2016

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

The Larch posted:

I'm not knowledgeable enough about this subject to talk about the first bit, but as to the second, the observer could only observe the object moving FTL relative to another object, not to the observer themself.

You're right, for the second part I should have said observer looking at how two objects move relative to eachother, that makes a much clearer case. That doesn't essentially affect what I said though.

Squalid
Nov 4, 2008

Interstellar or not, all species will o extinct. The only real question is: What comes next?

Phyzzle
Jan 26, 2008

Jazerus posted:

By establishing both messengers and receptors within the cell, the genetic information has created a mechanism for self-perception without, necessarily, self-awareness in a higher sense. Everything in the cell is an expression of the underlying information and every meaningful signal is a perception either of the self or the environment.

Ah, okay, you were using information in a very different way from "informing Bob about his rectal cancer", and more to mean a set of related states. Could Conway's Game of Life contain real life-forms?

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

The Belgian posted:

You're right, for the second part I should have said observer looking at how two objects move relative to eachother, that makes a much clearer case. That doesn't essentially affect what I said though.
You can't directly measure two objects move away from each other FTL.

Phyzzle posted:

Could Conway's Game of Life any Universal Turing Machine contain real life-forms?
ftfy

Cnut the Great
Mar 30, 2014

Squalid posted:

Interstellar or not, all species will o extinct. The only real question is: What comes next?

I'd have to consult my pastor.

suck my woke dick
Oct 10, 2012

:siren:I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!:siren:

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

Cnut the Great posted:

I'd have to consult my pastor.

Wrong magisterium.

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

Yes, you can; if the movement is due to the expansion or shrinkage of space between them. We said this and it's exactly what your link says.

America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

The Belgian posted:

Yes, you can; if the movement is due to the expansion or shrinkage of space between them. We said this and it's exactly what your link says.
The essential idea seems to be that the two galaxies seen by the observer are not in the same reference frame because the space between them is expanding at an accelerating rate. Because they are not in the same reference frame, there is no speed of light restriction. The two galaxies sit in their own reference frames and the space between them grows without moving either reference frame.

America Inc. fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Jan 17, 2016

The Belgian
Oct 28, 2008

LookingGodIntheEye posted:

The essential idea seems to be that the two galaxies seen by the observer are not in the same reference frame because the space between them is expanding at an accelerating rate. Because they are not in the same reference frame, there is no speed of light restriction.

Yes, that's what we've said repeatedly??

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America Inc.
Nov 22, 2013

I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even 500 would be pretty nice.

The Belgian posted:

Yes, that's what we've said repeatedly??
The significance is that the frames of each galaxy are not moving, the space between them is expanding. There is a difference. Nothing is actually moving FTL.

America Inc. fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jan 17, 2016

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