Before you read : this may not be much of a proof, but my personal perception as well.
Many philosophies and religions discuss about "what is purpose of our existence" or "why are we living" etc. I thought let's think this question from a little materialistic point of view. As for the question "are we alive", I mentioned that assuming all scientific laws to be true, we are just robots of some kind. I thought, if that is true, what is driving me to live then.
Simply speaking, I have some aims for me, I have some achievements in past, and I have some current work going on. Looking materialistically, all those things were bound to happen. But, I am "feeling" that I am doing something in it. Like some embedded machines, which also do some computation while taking some decision, we also do some computation. We may say that there also some notion of "thoughts" going on in those machines. (Well, they may not be exactly like us.)
When an embedded machine is created, it is created for some purpose. Even if it is some reproducible machine (ya, there are some machines like that called "Fon-Noyman-Machines" or something), it has a purpose at least to reproduce. As for us, we are given some purpose of our own before we are born, say "to survive", and most of the other purposes we learn while surviving. How exactly we get this purposes created?
If the basic purpose is assumed to be only "survival", can it create all such vast pool of purposes that we face now? Or perhaps there is some other "basic" purpose as well? When people discuss about existance of soul, or life-cycle, or heaven-hell theory, they can't be related to only materiastic thought of "survival". And even the thought that we live just for making our long and happy living possible also looks very.... "incomplete". If it were for only survival, then the problem should have been solved by now. So, there does exist something else that drives us or some "basic purpose", that was created in our embedded machine earlier.
"Find yourself"
A robot with AI is created with all humanly inputs givrn to him. WHAT WILL HE END UP LIKE? He will wake up from "sleep" for the first time, what will be the first question that will come in his mind? WHAT IS GOING ON? Thousand and thousands of inpus are entering his brain and he don't know what to do with that data. After he tries to neglect that data, one biggest question comes in his mind. Who am I? "Who" is a completely relative question, like for an ant I am a giant, but for dino I am a bug. So, as a matter of relativity, it becomes necessary for him to know "where is he" ot "who/what is he surrounded with" and maybe "what time/day is it (:P) ".
This question is never finally answered till the end of his life. As you know, the world is changing and also we can't look into our own eyes (metaphorically), we don't completely know who we are.
It may sound crazy, but if you try to think about it, it makes sense. Why do we try to compete? Why do we like to try new music to please ourselves? Why do we want to have kids and nurish them to become a grown person? Every person has an aim called "satisfaction", and till that is not achieved, it can't stop. So, either satisfaction or death can stop his struggle. That's why human tries to beat the death to achieve the satisfaction first. And we can't help it. It is already encoded......"Find yourself".... for that one must survive first. So come the purpose of survival...and follows all other purposes. So, if you can find such "mirror" that will show the complete image of you, you are lucky. We are all in search of that mirror.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Are we alive?
Following contents are based on following assumptions, violations of which will be tremendous problem for our current science stream, and an opening for a new era or force or whatever you want to call it....
:: All forces and laws existing in the world are conservative, definite, and are mutually sane as well.
Now, we know that there is no such thing as randomness in the world. Want an explanation for this. Here it goes....
The laws in the world, like boolean laws, or laws of forces are defined and are definite. If a thing is not existing then it can't exist at the same instance of all possible dimensions. Now, we call something random because we can't see how exactly it is generated. e.g. random number generator in computer, which just runs some form of big counter and outputs the count when some other process is completed. Well, both times are definite. So, theoretically, we should already know what number we are gonna get. In some computer systems, we actually can calculate it as well. So, why is that thing called random? It is because we don't know the laws by which the number is being generated. Right?
Now, when Heisenberg told about his famous uncertainty principle, he made one little comment after that. "we can't predict the future, as we can't predict the present". That is interesting. So, just in case we were able to predict the present, does this mean we could predict the future? Why exactly we can't predict the present? Now, to look closely into this matter, most of us must have heard of something called "least count of an instrument". It tells that beyond this number, this machine can't be more accurate. All machines (except discrete ones) have their least counts. What goes beyond the least count, is beyond us. We sometimes create instruments with lower least count and get more accuracy. But this process has no end. When we say that an arrow hit a bull's eye, what does it mean? It practically means, it has hit at a position, which is at unnoticeable distance from so called center of the target. When this unnoticeable things create problem, it means that we have to make some assumptions. And there starts the concept of randomness.
Now, consider one simple example in books of physics. It is regarding projectile motion of ball thrown. It says that if we know velocity, and position of ball at some time, then we can predict where it's gonna be in future. The only problem is we assume that no other forces are acting on ball except the constant force of gravity. Well, this does sound like a huge assumption to me. Well, here is where we make abstraction. We used to say in early days that matter has least element as "atom". Then it went further to "sub-atomic particles", then towards "strings"...... no ending people. It is just a matter of better and better least count (well, not literally) of our knowledge.
So, we just assume that our laws are true, as there is no way to exactly verify them due to this non-ending process of reducing least count. So, if the laws are actually true, everything that is happening can be predicted, if all forces acting are known at the precise moment. OK, let's forget about predicting something, as it requires knowledge of everything, which is impossible (I mean as of now). But, we can at least say that everything is defined.
Now, extending this argument a little bit to our brains, the content of our brain is some form of atomic particles and maybe some energy in them. All these things are bound by laws ( as per our assumption ). So, due to the predictability of these laws, what we are going to think is also predictable. Rrrrriiiiigggghhhhtttt?????
So, we are just thinking what we are supposed to think now. It is just process like earth is revolving around Sun (Well, a little complex off course ). So, people if you are thinking something about this while reading this, you are supposed to think like that. If you have done something wrong or right in your life, don't be ashamed or proud, as you haven't done anything (Well, the definition of "you" is also pretty ambiguous here). In a way, you are just some programmed machine. You also take inputs like a robot from environment around you (think). And you also make definite decisions like robot does. There are some variables and constant in your program. Everything is as per the laws.
Some people say that the main difference between living and non-living is that living thing has death. I disagree. Death is just transformation of matter. Well, from all this crap written above, my point is this....
"The world is definite but not predictable. So, some definite things are bound to be random for us at any point of time. So, in case you haven't noticed, we are robots who think they are self-governed."
Well, this whole thing above is indeed "assuming all laws". Else, GOD knows what else is there in this world. We maybe actually making decisions on our own. Let's see how time goes, and what we discover about this.
:: All forces and laws existing in the world are conservative, definite, and are mutually sane as well.
Now, we know that there is no such thing as randomness in the world. Want an explanation for this. Here it goes....
The laws in the world, like boolean laws, or laws of forces are defined and are definite. If a thing is not existing then it can't exist at the same instance of all possible dimensions. Now, we call something random because we can't see how exactly it is generated. e.g. random number generator in computer, which just runs some form of big counter and outputs the count when some other process is completed. Well, both times are definite. So, theoretically, we should already know what number we are gonna get. In some computer systems, we actually can calculate it as well. So, why is that thing called random? It is because we don't know the laws by which the number is being generated. Right?
Now, when Heisenberg told about his famous uncertainty principle, he made one little comment after that. "we can't predict the future, as we can't predict the present". That is interesting. So, just in case we were able to predict the present, does this mean we could predict the future? Why exactly we can't predict the present? Now, to look closely into this matter, most of us must have heard of something called "least count of an instrument". It tells that beyond this number, this machine can't be more accurate. All machines (except discrete ones) have their least counts. What goes beyond the least count, is beyond us. We sometimes create instruments with lower least count and get more accuracy. But this process has no end. When we say that an arrow hit a bull's eye, what does it mean? It practically means, it has hit at a position, which is at unnoticeable distance from so called center of the target. When this unnoticeable things create problem, it means that we have to make some assumptions. And there starts the concept of randomness.
Now, consider one simple example in books of physics. It is regarding projectile motion of ball thrown. It says that if we know velocity, and position of ball at some time, then we can predict where it's gonna be in future. The only problem is we assume that no other forces are acting on ball except the constant force of gravity. Well, this does sound like a huge assumption to me. Well, here is where we make abstraction. We used to say in early days that matter has least element as "atom". Then it went further to "sub-atomic particles", then towards "strings"...... no ending people. It is just a matter of better and better least count (well, not literally) of our knowledge.
So, we just assume that our laws are true, as there is no way to exactly verify them due to this non-ending process of reducing least count. So, if the laws are actually true, everything that is happening can be predicted, if all forces acting are known at the precise moment. OK, let's forget about predicting something, as it requires knowledge of everything, which is impossible (I mean as of now). But, we can at least say that everything is defined.
Now, extending this argument a little bit to our brains, the content of our brain is some form of atomic particles and maybe some energy in them. All these things are bound by laws ( as per our assumption ). So, due to the predictability of these laws, what we are going to think is also predictable. Rrrrriiiiigggghhhhtttt?????
So, we are just thinking what we are supposed to think now. It is just process like earth is revolving around Sun (Well, a little complex off course ). So, people if you are thinking something about this while reading this, you are supposed to think like that. If you have done something wrong or right in your life, don't be ashamed or proud, as you haven't done anything (Well, the definition of "you" is also pretty ambiguous here). In a way, you are just some programmed machine. You also take inputs like a robot from environment around you (think). And you also make definite decisions like robot does. There are some variables and constant in your program. Everything is as per the laws.
Some people say that the main difference between living and non-living is that living thing has death. I disagree. Death is just transformation of matter. Well, from all this crap written above, my point is this....
"The world is definite but not predictable. So, some definite things are bound to be random for us at any point of time. So, in case you haven't noticed, we are robots who think they are self-governed."
Well, this whole thing above is indeed "assuming all laws". Else, GOD knows what else is there in this world. We maybe actually making decisions on our own. Let's see how time goes, and what we discover about this.
1st one
Now, I am supposed to write something in this blog. So,should it be about my life, current activities, my political views or any random stuff that people write in blogs? I am little confused. I mean, there is a whole crap in our minds to write about, and too few time to do it. Lets see, how my blogging goes for me.
So, just for the sake of introduction, I am Ameya Ranade from Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India. I am currently in my final year in Computer Science Dept. of IIT-Bombay.
So, just for the sake of introduction, I am Ameya Ranade from Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India. I am currently in my final year in Computer Science Dept. of IIT-Bombay.
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