nameta9

Complex argument. In general it is thought that capitalism is not the ultimate social organization, in fact marx thought that "scientifically" the system would in the end give rise to another system. I seem to think that this is quite possible, not because it is "socially just" or all the old time ideological crap but because if we do progress somewhere as humanity we should end up overcoming all this crap of fighting each other all the time as we have today. Scientific knowledge should increase, wealth should increase and in the end "WITHOUT NOTICING IT" we could end up in another more "advanced" system. Actually there are small examples of these things happening exactly with the internet and IT. Open source is kind of "communistic" but nobody did it because of "ideology". Same thing with peer to peer. The internet itself could be defined as "communism achieved" if people were not so ideologically idiots dividing the concepts in right and left and all the old time bull. The point is humanity could end up manipulating and fighting nature as a whole instead of fighting each other.

And in fact we have been going backwards compared to the seventies. The record player allowed you to see each track of an album and play a precise given piece, because you could recognize the spot and groove pattern. You can't do that anymore so we have decreased "functionality" aside from the fact that tone controls for music are becoming rare. In those years people invented more complex forms of music like progressive rock, seems that today you can't do that anymore. People have forgotten how to do that. The 70s american luxury car interiors where truly plush (large couches with beautiful clothes; see some brochures on the internet) not like all these gray-black crappy funeral home interiors of BMW, Mercedes etc. One make like imperial or oldsmobile 98 could offer you a larger choice of materials and colors than the entire world car market today can (they all choose gray-black with no pattern, crappy stick shift that kills all the leg room , cramped back seats etc)! So they forgot how to do that. What I really think is that maybe technically you could still do the above only that many in these fields can't even "conceive" of them. Granted the examples above are aesthetical, but some are technically related. We will evolve backwards, the 70s actually was the future.

As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it is better that they continue to work like slaves for 200 dollars a month making all kinds of goods as cheap as possible. This will in the long run create world communism. We are all slaves up to a cetain extent, so democracy may really not be important.... At walmart i bought a digital watch for 1 dollar made in china... If cheaper and cheaper goods flood america, the US will become a communist country, actually the US is already very communist from this point of view!

Aside from the fact that humans have evolved at all is a true miracle. That humans have even appeared on earth is practically impossible from any probability point of view. You need so many perfect combinations of parameters, right temperature, right distance from sun, right mass, right chemical combinations, right proportions of metals, possibility to extract metals, right mathematical and scientific evolution to produce high tech etc. I really think it is just an insane quirk chance that we are here at all ! The only possible theory that can justify we are here at all is an "infinite-infinte" theory where every conceivable combination of universes is all present and we are just in one of them. Point is that imagine after each generation, fewer and fewer students study math and science because they are just not talented enough. This is possible because it is happenining in the US and very few people can solve problems like analytical geometry etc. So after a few decades, add all the religious outgrowth (read christian fundamentalists, muslim radicals, etc) humanity could end up forgetting technology!

Can humanity slowly evolve backwards until it reaches the dark ages again forgetting all its science and technology ? As it is now there are really very few people in the world who understand the hardest parts of technology science and its mathematical procedures. Actually everyone knows just a very small part of our technology. It would not be hard to imagine an evolution where fewer and fewer people know the details until a point reaches where we actually start forgetting crucial parts. Who can make a microprocessor at home? Who knows all the steps necessary? Even the best scientists have to rely on hundreds of other technicians for all the details. Isn't this a very fragile system? If we slowly forget how to do things I think humanity could evolve backwards towards the dark ages, (no wonder religions are becoming popular).

Ask a different question. In what terms would you say that consciousness can be explained and described? Imagine a complete solution in terms of physics, mathematics, philosophy etc. Now this explanation can be understood by a conscious mind. So consciousness would be explaining itself to itself therefore would not be explaining anything, because any explanation would do as long as it looks nice aesthetically. I mean a real explanation would have to come from a mind that is operating outside consciousness or an ALIEN mind that would be looking down on our mind as a machine. We will never know consciousness because we are consciousness, we would have to get out of our own minds. To understand consciousness as you guys suppose there must first be consciousness and this is the flaw of it all.

I think that everything could change if the world economic structure changes so radically. We had Japan, Europe and US , now we will add china, india and a few others and what will happen? I don't believe in the theory that there will be more "advanced" work for the richer countries, this isn't true, doesn't seem like scientific research is being increased in us, europe or japan. Truth is, we all really don't know what jobs there will be, if there really will be any. Most I see are really crappy(call centers??) sales , etc. I think we should maybe build a few billion homes around the world and that may really be productive, but no one wants to because it goes against the interests of dominating forces wolrdwide. Everyone feels richer if their house is "worth" more but it is really just an illusion. Expensive homes mean less wealth for everyone in the long run. We will have to deal with a billlion workers worldwide who will work for 300 or 400 dollars a month and that will change things!

Problem may be restated as this: can the world end up to a point of overproduction so that everything becomes a commodity and humanity ends up into an egualitarian society without even noticing it? If all production and technology increases and improves with all the world population we may end up into a communistic like society without noticing it. I often read that the car industry has EXCESS CAPACITY. Why not just let them keep on making as many cars as they can and so the same in all industries ? We can end up having a super glut of everything and everything becomes free.

I am thinking more in terms of a possible "technological singularity" in the sense that even though no one notices but the potential for unlimited industrial production from one massive country could overthrow all the market rules and create free goods for everyone. If you add advanced production methods, authoritarian chinese governmet and 500 million workers you can flood the world with goods and change the economic rules. You would achieve "communism" without ever NOTICING IT!

I was reading here and there of how much chinese production in various industries continues to increase (textiles, TV sets etc). Could this actually be a clever way of indirectly creating world wide communism by overproducing everything and letting the prices get lower and lower worldwide ? Since they are a closed society with enormous manpower they could eventually virtually out compete almost everyone in every field. Imagine if they started exporting cars, furniture at the same rate of their textile industry! They could always prove that their communist system can produce unlimited goods for everyone therefore proving that capitalism is not the future ?

From around 1930 to 1970 there was an enormous amount of technical and economic progress in the west that then slowly diffused through the world. Bear in mind this all occurred with only about 300 million relatively wealthy people between US and Europe. I mean in a few decade (after the war) entire nations were rebuilt homes were built by the millions all over the place the progress was truly enormous. The last 30 years seems as if we have all gotten so much poorer. Housing is harder and harder to get, jobs are harder to get and this is in a more advanced world with maybe 700 million wealthy people. We went to the moon in that historical, cultural time when everything seemed possible and I guess we were all really much richer at least pyschologically. This historical period is getting gloomier, there is low growth economically, alot of progress we thought would be never occurred because the technical problems were underestimated. Then we have alot of crappy politicians burning billions for crappy wars, we have environmental damage etc. We won't be on mars in this century NO WAY.

It is probably something similar to a hologram in that even a small piece of the whole always generates a good approximation of the whole. To really scientifically find out what consciousness is requires DIRECT MANIPULATION OF OUR NEURAL CIRCUITS. Now very few scientists will ever want to manipulate their own neural wiring to see what the effects are and even if they did, how would they be sure that they are observing the effect without the effect modifying the observation ? It will therefore remain a difficult mystery until we start changing our mental circuits directly and maybe implanting some chips to control what is happening.

Anything is defined in terms of another thing. Everything is system; what is inside the box is defined in terms of: 1) box; 2)inside; 3)volume;4)meaning etc. That is why atoms probably DO NOT EXIST. They are defined in terms of a complex system of instruments, math formulas, interpretations, billions of neurons conceiving the atom etc. The whole system is what renders all kinds of philosophical or fundamental problems so intractable in the end.

Even with a fixed objective reality, our decoding of that reality is arbitrary in that it is described in a language, mathematical and not, is described in terms of time, we use our memory in a certain way etc. Does the alien mind has the concept of "conclusions"? If not then what ? Do they organize their thoughts in a sort of linear time as us ? Do they break up the pieces of perception like we do ? Do they consider sound and sight separate or are they mixed ? There are so many possibilities ...

In fact I think true metaphysics doesn't have any "social" value as the most interesting experiences become completely subjective. It is not really a science and you cannot communicate the results anymore. Some philosophers in the past have reached this conclusion. It is pure invention at its maximum ...

Imagine a species that evolved having as fundamental to their mind partial differential equations. They would use this mathematics without ever noticing it, hence they may not even know they had this ability. In this case mathematical physics would mostly all be solved automatically for them. We could say this species has a more evolved mind but we know they are using PDEs as the fundamental logic element in their mind. Now that would be a case where a less evolved mind knows more than a more evolved mind. So an insect maybe knows more than us ? This would also represent a "hidden layer" (like in the thread hidden layer in the universe) to this alien mind. In general we could say that the science a species produces is dependent on the obstacles it has to overcome. If they had everything available to them, they would never even know science exists. If they had some capabilities but not others, those capabilites they had would be taken for granted (I am thinking of a species that had our CPUs already evolved in their mind). The combinations are endless and the problems are quite strange and far fetched.

Yes a reality seems to exist independent of observers. At least our mind percieves this. I don't think this independence of reality changes things much because, it is everything that comes after that (mind seeing, interpreting etc) that creates anything meaningful. This is closely related to the thread "is there a hidden layer ?". Maybe you would need a superset of all minds to find what is constant in all the sciences... Anyways it is quite abstract.

Correct. And in fact this is where metaphysics is different from science, thoughts become more abstract, incoherent and it becomes more of an experience. I agree, all reasoning breaks down, but then you can force any solution, "metaphysical assignment". Of course what I just said is not true (or is it ?) ..................

The real problem is not 1+1 but if a differently organized mind even has the concept of one or any mathematical concept at all. Maybe they would use a completely different logic, maybe this mind doesn't have the concept larger or smaller or sees discrete entities, and maybe it could still be very intelligent and complex. It is quite abstract, but the only way to start discovering would be to directly start modifying our neural circuits; I don't think there are many scientists who would want to start modifying their own brains... Another similar problem that came to thought was, if another species evolved having complete control over their environment and a near infinite degree of manipulation of reality and had all this without having evolved through scientific investigation (maybe innate with instinct) they would not ever know that there is a science and formulas because they would never need them ... I think this is an even stranger situation ...

Yes, it is really hard to get out of logic, you are right. But if we force ourselves out some way we can imagine a contradictory item that is both true and false even though this phrase and language ends up breaking down completely. But this is what distinguishes philosophy from other activites. Find the very limits of reasoning.

Yes, sorry about that. A post that is closely realted to this is the "is science arbitrary ?" under metaphysical threads. Actually the different minds there are like the universe having hidden layers. These topics are quite abstract and are not questioning our science but the system Mind + Universe.

An even stranger item would be a partially contradiciting item. Say A=13 and A=17 but A not equal to 12. This would be a contradictory item that has some exceptions. A is also a tree and the moon but not the letter "W".