Popcorn Sutton

One of these days you might pull the blinders off your glasses and realize that something needs to be done. I'm doing my part in pointing out the flaws (which are easy to see), giving my experience as evidence, and proposing alternatives that don't have to do with genocide, eugenics, and throwing humans in the trash. I think that we can all agree that technology is quickly making our jobs obsolete and until we get that personal fabricator, we are going to need to seek alternatives. This country was founded on freedom and independence. We've come to the conclusion that freedom is a false premise (in the physical sense), and what we once considered as freedom has vanished or is vanishing very quickly (also thanks to technology). That leaves us with independence. I don't know of a single peer of mine that has it. Theres a problem here and it needs to be addressed.

I'm just saying that we should have either 1) some extra money in our pockets, 2) some additional incentive to be productive (at least theoretically) without the need to have a job because those are vanishing very rapidly now a days, 3) a monetary system that reflects our values, 4) another monetary system on top of the one we have (one that is not based on gold, but based on human experience because after all, that is our most valuable asset), or 5) a complete redefinition of what it means to be "rich" or "poor". Your experience- n = n + 1

I'm not sure if I'm fond of this description, I might have a better explanation now, but regardless, this is the citation. http://www.lingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6668&start=15 I don't think that time is a dictionary anymore either, I think it is a tuple. I think that this type of equation is more accurate to the brainmind computation, which I described partially in the linguistics forum link. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/79578-my-equation-is-more-complicated/?view=getnewpost Ok, I might be a little naive here. I'm reading a study right now that makes similar conclusions as my own, but it's a completely neurophysiological approach. It's not algorithmic at all, it's purely descriptive. I attempted to be specific in interdisciplinary terms while describing a theoretical computational algorithm that would sufficiently simulate neurophysiological activity at a mental level. The two approaches are similar in a general sense, but they differ. Forgive me for citing myself. Here is the study I read. Www.jneurosci.org/content/29/41/12748.full

Thats the thing, it's alot easier for a computer to compute this type of equation because the unit of knowledge is a variable that does not take equal values. It might look something like this- U = 'I don't.' T = (I don't, ('I don'tIdkI don'tI don't knowI don'tI don't speak that', (friends, 't', (math, 't', (numbers, 't', (algebra, 't', (counting, 'I can teach you.')))))) M = ('I':1, ' can':36, ' teach you':328) It's context sensitive and entirely personalized. One user can meet a new friend 20 times an hour if they wanted to. It might actually look like this- U = y(o) T = y(u,'y(u)') M = y(u|t) Kinda looks like a string theory to me. Lolll Emerging units = y(m) If m > u, output = [y(m), 'm'] All variables are subject to inequalities, so m =/= y(m) It's a different density (in most cases). I call the bottom part pattern recognition. It's kind of like the universe is boiling. T is a self referring variable.

I want to teach a class.

Waitforufo, I'm not going to listen to pessimism. I worked very hard to get the degree that I have. I did a lot of reading and even more writing. I've never attempted to get published, but part of me knows that people would love to read my work in a journal. I know that my contributions have been invaluable and have interdisciplinary implications. Just the other day I asked one of my friends, "Have you ever heard of a unit of knowledge?" (I coined that term). He said "yes, but the problem is that it's so vague." And I responded with "that's the beauty of it, it's a variable for a variable. That type of object has never been presented in the history of mankind until now, and the thing about it is that if you believe that the mind is part of the body, and that you have knowledge, then you must believe that there are physical bits of knowledge contained inside of you." This bit of information is literally being taught at every university that I know of now and I've heard it being talked about by very respectable intellectual people. Leanord Suskind almost said it in one of his lectures on statistical mechanics. Part of me feels, with a good deal of confidence, that statistical mechanics would not even exist if I never shared my ideas. The truth is that you can get my general philosophy online for free, you will not be able to find it in scientific journals (unless it is plagiarized), and you will not find it in a library. As Chomsky says, it's amazing how the fundamental question has been ignored for this long ("what is language?"). I did not ignore this question, I gave a very sensible answer to the question and proposed an argument that no one has been able to refute. People may have been hesitant at first to adopt this type of philosophy, but seriously, it has been adopted at least tacitly. Truth is, I'm a punk, I've done my fair share of kicking and screaming on a very vast scale. If I didn't try to explain my ideas, then science in general would be that much slower or behind in it's philosophy and computation. I didn't study much math, but since I seriously concerned myself with the one thing that I've always loved in an intellectual sense, I've pioneered (I hate that term) a new type of math. I literally took math and made it compatible with cognitive science (psychology, linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, etc.). I gave hope for unification of these sciences. I provided an equation that is one square inch that gives the general understanding of how to acquire cognitive capabilities in mechanical terms. This information is free if you know what you're searching for. However, when it comes to the actual logic and the actual math that goes into the computation, I guarantee you that you will never find anyone as specialized as I am. I made a program that will literally acquire any language, even dolphin. Some people are skeptical, and Chomsky would even say that it's a failure, but he knows that that is by the standards of the science that came before my generation, and it is besides the point. He says, what do we learn from this endeavour? "Nothing, maybe a little around the margins." It's true, my lifes work literally boils down to the biggest list that mankind has ever been able to contemplate. It's a list that is so large and so complex that it's entirely useless to contemplate, and if you try to look at the thing your computer will crash (and I'm sure that even the worlds best supercomputer would crash). Just because you can't look at it doesn't mean that it's not useful though. It's accessible instantaneously. The computer does not need to search through every item on the list to know whether the point of interest is in the list. The military has benefitted greatly from my philosophy. I've heard them use my terms themselves. All of this is irrelevant, but I think that anyone insightful in these areas knows the truth. My name is kept silent, and I kind of like it that way, but I also wish that people knew that the very basis of their technology relies on my philosophical insights. Where do I come in though? When will I be rewarded for what I have done? Part of me really wants to believe that I am a modern day Newton, but the other part of me says that I'm nothing but a schizophrenic (whatever that means). I've taught classes large enough to fill a lecture hall in my time. I've presented my ideology in plenty of classes. Suspicious things have happened in my presence that no one wants to acknowledge. Ever since I started talking about these things, my classes have been audited, my professors say that someone is like a "baby crying in the forums". I talk to a professor of mine and say that I'm paranoid, he's like "why? What would PROMPT you to say that?" Hence, another one of my terms are being used... prompting. I will help where I can because I feel that I am able to provide the insight that others simply do not think about, and I've even done it here in these forums with regards to the plague of spam that we all encountered. It doesn't happen anymore. I hate to seem like I'm self aggrandizing, but seriously, where do I come in here? Will someone not take me under their wing at least for graduate studies? Can I go back to school for computer science? Can I get the grant for my research that these people keep calling me about? I can make a computer speak dolphin for gods sake. Where do I come in? Where is my place in society? People love to speak with me, people love to speak about my ideas, but people don't want to hire someone with just a bachelors degree who didn't get the degree in computer science or computational linguistics. I'm very confident that I can write that program that will have general intelligence, and not only in English, but in any language that it encounters.... yes, even dolphin. Don't tell me that my degree will never provide me with a middle class job, I'm searching every day for that job and when I get it, I will cherish it more than anyone before me. I think that I can be the key employee for your business, you will have to insure my life because that's how valuable I could be for your business. The real question is, does the job exist? I can't tell you how many professors of mine have simply told me, "you're doing something different." The field that I concern myself with didn't exist. I call it computational linguistics, but it's actually cognitive science (a science that I also feel bases itself on my philosophy). It's just kind of ironic that when these professors from Stanford, MIT, and other schools with people that seriously concern themselves with work like my own (and write about it, or post videos of their classes on youtube) do not release the videos of classes that are concerned with my philosophy. There was a Stanford cognitive science class posted on youtube where he was going to teach the next class on the freedom of will, the class was never put on the internet. Leonard Suskind himself almost had a slip when one of his students asked "[what exactly are you talking about?], "A unit of..... Well, let's just call it a bit of information." Yup, there it is. There is the reconciliation that I need. It makes me happy to know that I've been useful, but can you make use of me as a person? Will you let me have some independence? Enough said. I'm an unusual person. I might even call myself a freak to some extent. The very first book I got was "the handy science answer book." I've concerned myself with science since I was a wee little boy, and I've been contemplating it ever since. I can't even count how many languages I've studied, and I've found commonalities in all of them and I've proposed a reasonable answer to the fundamental question, what is language. Language is one type of unit acquired through sensory mechanisms, it is equal to any sequence of occurrences, and it is entirely grounded in a constellation of other cognitive capacities. Please excuse me for being such a childish philosopher, independence, I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT! Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. A unit of knowledge is a variable that does not take equal values. It is a zero dimensional point of interest.*

Well, my interpretation of this particular use of entitlement is the question of whether the people who make all the money are actually entitled to that money. Like I said before, there should be a cutoff point on how much any given person is able to make. So one priveleged person comes up with a good idea, should they literally be showered in money every day for an accomplishment that happened years ago? They should be taking their money and showering us with it, like a big thank you. It's very hard for people my age and in my area to get a job that will let them be independent. I'll be the first to say this, I'm absolutely miserable living where I live. I can't go a single day without being treated like a stupid worthless good for nothing person. I get told to do something at least 3 times every hour. I have no independence whatsoever and can't even speak without the anxiety of the people I live with overhearing something. I can't even talk about the things I love. We are all miserable, to put it lightly.

Good news (for me at least). I just saw a commercial about the financial crisis we are in and at the end they said "[if we want to solve this problem], we need to have a serious discussion about entitlement." Glad to see that this message is being heard. Can we get the change we need now? I'm not talking about pennies either.

I came out with an equation for cognitive acquisition some time ago. I'm not sure if the actual math exists yet but here is the updated equation. U = y(o) T = (y(u), 'y(u)') M = P(u|t) U is a unit of knowledge Y is any positive whole number including zero T is time '' is a string M is meaning P() is probability of ... In light of my recent enlightenment, I know that time is better off as a tuple (not a dictionary), which makes alot more sense to me for dispositional purposes, and that is why I rewrote the equation that I have worked so hard for for all these years.

I don't know until you post them.

I'm sorry I don't have access to 24 hour news channels most of the time. If you guys can post videos I'd appreciate it.

Moderators have to moderate waitforufo, if they didn't, things could get out of hand and cause something that we really don't need. I respect them at the utmost. You were being very specific with your attacks. They were misrepresentations and they could be dangerous. I used to laugh at the thought of switching around Obama's catch phrase, "change we need". I used to say "change we need? Lol, we need change!" And then I would scrounge up all the pennies from under the couch and in the washer in hopes that I could put a dollar in my gas tank or use it to wash my clothes.

I don't know you guys personally, but we are letting them let us die. I'm almost wanting to call it genocide. Economic genocide.

That's not entirely true Phi. I believe that the distribution of wealth should reflect our desire for productivity. With this in mind, productivity is at an ultimate low. We have to face this problem. I said, in the thread link that I posted, that if we were to redistribute the wealth equally, productivity would be at an ultimate high. Every average joe would have the chance to succeed. I do believe that we should give the particularly insightful few a chance to make some money and distinguish themself from the rest. But seriously, we need to have a cutoff point in earnings. We cannot let one person soak up all of the assets when we have 300,000,000 others left in their ungenerous and unthankful wake. We are the ones to give them the money, why can't we at least have some incentive to spend our money? Why can't we have a system where we feel like we are important? Reality is that we, all of us except for the entrepenuers, are expendable. There is nothing that prevents our authoritarian bosses from terminating our employment. We can be the best at what we do, but if we make one measly mistake, whatever it may be, that gives our boss the incentive to terminate our employment, and "good luck in your future! We don't care what happens, you can die for all I care." Meanwhile, you get an interview and it just so happens that you weren't the president in the past, you don't have the experience they need, you don't know how to do the fifty things that their company requires, in fact, you can't even get a retail job! Why? Because people are "equal opportunity employers" or whatever else the reason may be. I think that because I'm an ethical person, I don't steal, I'm not a drug user, I'm not a narcissistic asshole, aren't these good qualities? I'm nice, I'm humble, I scored extremely high on an IQ test (right up there with the most intelligent people in the world), why do I "deserve" to live this way? Broke, unemployed, rejected, on the verge of fighting for DISABILITY. I'm perfectly capable of doing these jobs! I think that I'm a desirable person! I'm left here wondering "whats wrong with me?" What gives me happiness is the occasional youtube video or news clip that gives me the comfort of knowing that I'm not the only one... I'm not the only one by far. My counselor told me that it only takes 3% of the population to make that immediate change that is necessary, we don't have that. We are scared. We are beaten into submission with words, and they do hurt. As for the freedom of speech, some things are better left unsaid. It's tough to live a decent life when the people around you are hellbent on doing unlawful things. No, I don't want us to have freedom of speech. I know that freedom is a false premise, and a lot of others know that as well. I actually think that I am responsible for this whole rejection of the freedom of will, which is actually a rejection of freedom in general, it's not physically possible. We are being spyed on, why not take action to the extent that we can.

I'm going to refer you guys to a previous thread of mine. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/75871-on-replacing-the-voting-system-for-a-quiz/ I really do think that we need to ignore this whole right vs. left scheme we have going. A counselor of mine once told me that the current presidential lineage all have British royalty in their blood, I don't have a source for that bit of information, and I do partially believe that (if it's not just BS) it's completely irrelevant. I've proposed a system of taking essays instead of votes so our elected candidates can literally relate to most of what our citizens believe. They will be the most significant candidates ever elected and I know that our GDP will only rise from this type of electorial system. My friend told me that these ideas of mine are just too impractical, that they will never happen within our lifetime. I would urge you guys to really consider this type of election system because I really do not see any way out of this predicament other than that. What type of person would I be if I just threw out the every day pity me argument. I propose solutions because that is the type of person that I am. I really would urge you guys to consider this, even if it is contradictory to your current employment. We say that we live in a democracy, but the only type of democracy that I see is a system of benefits that we could potentially receive for our hindrances. That is what the democracy has truly given us. Other than that, we get a nice tax refund at the end of the year, but after I was trained in finances, I found out that the goal is to receive nothing from tax returns and pay nothing either. We are overpaying, and when we get the refund, we finally get the chance to indulge. We don't have the training to get by in todays society. The intellectual few really don't have the opportunity to prove themselves. I'm afraid to release my name because of my previous experience with forums when i did release my name. I can't even feel comfortable with reaping the benefits of having an occasional reference for fear that I will get paranoid. I already know that my phone is tapped, I practically know that my local military has saved my life. I know things that other countries would kill to silence or acquire, but what options do I have? All I can do is apply for the very few jobs that are in my field (my interest is mainly Linguistics and Epistemology) and hope that they don't look at my experience and say no. I've been rejected by countless employers and a few of my friends who I cherished with all of my heart. Why though? I'm poor, I'm broke, I have a few unhealthy habits. It's just not productive to be around these types of people, right? Well, after the years of separation, I see these people who I used to cherish and where are they now? They are broke, unemployed, and now they have the anxiety of losing half of their old friends when they decided that they just didn't need me anymore. What was I really good for anyways? I think that I have some pretty valuable ideas, and when I do my research, I see just how much significance my ideas have. They've penetrated society, they are talked about amongst the worlds most respected intellectuals, I am reminded every day when Nuance comes on tv with their speech technology just how important and valuable my ideas have been. All these years, I talk and share my ideas generously because I know that they are significant for science, for society, for survival, and for the evolution of the human race. It just pisses me off knowing what I've done for people and I get nothing in return, not even a single reference. The thing is, I don't really mind about not getting the reference anymore, after my experience of making myself known on these topics, I actually prefer that people keep my name to themselves for the sake of safety. Truth is, I am dying, I do have some things wrong with me that need attention, but what can I do? I was supposed to get a measly check of $190 from unemployment today, but the money just didn't get into my account. I'm broke, what can I do? I spend my time writing these things with the hope that people will listen and use it as evidence. I hope that people discuss my ideas and that they can be significant and be the backbone of the change that we were promised. Really though, I've given an answer on these topics. It's called Scientocracy. If we implement it, then we will know exactly what our priorities are and we can act on them and solve those problems very quickly. What else can we do? We waste our time talking about Republicans and Democrats and what they have done in the past to support the argument of why we shouldn't support them. We delude our children into thinking that these things are reason enough to vote for what we believe. In reality though, I don't know many people that vote. In reality, voting is a hassle. You don't get paid for it and you can literally wait for hours. Why do people do it though? They do it for the same reason that I share my ideas, they think that it will help. One x in a box is literally going to help in their minds. They don't even know the beliefs of the candidates they are voting for! Our candidates and elected officials NEED to know our priorities. How can we even call our nation a republic if all we do is vote for friendly faces? People who don't even take a stance on the things that we consider significant. Take abortion for example, we were taught that that was a very significant thing to debate. Really!? Abortion!? How about wealth distribution? How about lowering the cost of health care? How about making it so we don't need to pay that copay when we go see our doctor? We make it illegal to not have car insurance, I've spent thousands of dollars on my car insurance and have some stuff wrong with my car. Why can't I get it fixed though? I've spent so much money on my insurance when I could've been insuring myself and easily fixed my car and even bought a nice new car several times by now. I can't afford a $200 deductible. How about healthcare, I need my medication but I can't get it unless I, or someone who cares for me, spends $80 to get the prescription. Seriously!? Give us some slack! Insurance is one of the biggest scams of all time! These things need to be dealt with. The past is past, lets focus on recovery.

I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable with releasing my age. I have a bachelors degree in philosophy with a concentration in linguistics. I'm just saying that when you look at the actual distribution of wealth, it's not fair to most of the people who are living in our system. If we distribute the wealth equally and annually, we would all be making $50,000/yr. I'm looking at getting a job for $30,000/yr if I get lucky. So if you look at it that way, anyone who is making over $50,000/yr is technically stealing money from other people. I hate to put it that way, there should be at least some incentive for people to be productive, but the way it is right now is not fair.

I guess I must've been born at the wrong time. This country was founded on freedom and independence. I have neither and I'm in whats considered to be a good position in todays society. I have a degree and a clean record.

I think that we need to specify what the brain is actually doing. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only person who has literally described step by step what happens from when the hairs of the inner ear vibrate to when we have a positively charged burst of electrical activity sweep through our cells. Protons have more mass and therefor have a higher chance of carrying biological matter.

We don't all have guns. I am a pacifist, and while I do have a Bear Grylls pocket utility, I only use it when it is useful for something. I assume the same about people with guns though, although guns really only serve one purpose. This argument is relevant to the topic because of the mafia principle but I'm going to leave it aside for the time being. You can't be honest when you're telling me that the wealthiest 1%, who carry most of the money in the country, really earned their money. The wealthiest 1% own more than half of the stock. You can't really be telling me that those people who invest their money and literally own 50% of the stock have earned their money. Their investments grow exponentially, and by investing a large amount of money, they are just soaking up all of the assets. Most of us can't even afford to invest $50. $50 is the minimum amount required to invest in IRAs at Primerica. Primerica offers a 12% return on your investment, so if you understand the rule of 72, you'll know that it takes approximately 6 years for your money to double at 12%. So the wealthy people, who are able to invest large portions of their money, are able to watch their assets grow exponentially over time. Do you seriously think that they earned that money? Wrt happiness, let me personally tell you how difficult it is for someone to be truly happy when they are stuck with all their bills, the bills will get paid whether the money is there or not, they are afraid to see a doctor because then they have more bills, in the meantime they have to live day by day knowing that something is wrong with their lungs, their liver, their heart, their brain, their mind, and/or their gallbladder, whatever it may be. They just peed or threw up blood and they know for a fact that something is wrong with them, but they are afraid of having an extra bill to take care of, so they wait. What do they wait for? They wait for "the opportunity" to get a job that will pay them anything between $7.50 (plus taxes and union fees) and $15 if they get lucky. That's $30,000 a year at most. Next time you look at they 99% of people in the country who are struggling to get by and drowning in debt, why don't you also look at the clothes they're wearing. Keep a list of the number of pants they have, the length and width of the pants (to see if they fit), and their shirts. Ask yourself, how many garments do they actually have? Do you think that they have the time to get more clothes? Half of my wardrobe is work uniforms that I can't even use anymore. Do you really think that I have the ability to go to the store and buy a shirt that is priced at $200? That's what makes someone attractive right? A shiny shirt. Look, the people who have "earned their money" literally earn as much money in one hour as it takes one of their employees to work an entire month (full time) to raise. So what you're saying is that the people who sit in their office, talk on the phone, laugh and play with their colleagues, and look at spread sheets all day, are literally working 8 times harder than their employees who do the heavy lifting, who do the labor, who destroy their backs and dislocate their shoulders all while putting a fake smile on their face and shaking the hands of their customers and their employers, who go home at the end of the day not knowing if they will have their job in the morning because one customer, one miserable lousy customer, gave them 0's on a survey. I used to be the third best repair technician out of 90 others, but I lost my job, which was giving me indecent wages to begin with, because one customer didn't like that she had to reschedule because I was having too much anxiety on the job and couldn't put on a happy face after my district manager told me that I was a loser and that I wasn't going anywhere in my life. Tell me again what you are trying to say. It really is a tragedy.

We're in a predicament. We are broke, we are unemployed or at risk of losing our jobs, and we are incapable of investing a large amount of money to get even richer. Most of us... all the people I know at least, are in debt. The people collecting our debt don't get the "denied" feature of taking out the money if it's not there. Our debt literally requires to be paid and will be paid even if the money is not there. Not only that, but the bank (my bank) charges a thirty five dollar overdraft fee for every overdraft. I saw a recent video about the wealth distribution. They said that they showed the actual distribution of wealth (which made me tear up), but I don't think that what they showed was REALLY what the wealth looks like. If they did, they would need to add a new axis extending downward to account for the negatives. In light of this, here is an alternative. Newspeak, goodthink, crimespeak. This is how the wealth should be distributed. For every new sequence of evidential thought, tge person gets one more significant point. Treat significant points as dollars. It gives people an incentive to act at least, rather than just allowing ourselves to get sick and be afraid of increasing our debt. Our economy would be much more productive. "But how about the mafia?" Let the leaders lead anonymously. Monitor all data. Tag the crimespeak as disaster prevention priority.

I don't think I have to explain myself much further on this topic. You are using a different approach, which is minimalist. I call myself a maximalist. By drawing the distinction I am not saying that things are unpredictable and I am not saying that they are predictable to any given person, I'm just saying that if our knowledge were sufficiently maximal, the predictions would approach and eventually become 100% probable. You proposing the method of narrowing down a bit to whether it is even or odd is a categorical fallacy. It's an abstract approach to intelligence and it has no basis in reality. It's not that these conceptions are not able to be manifested, just that they are emergent properties of the brain and capable to be externalized. When it comes to externalization, we have to consider all of the other knowledge that emerged but just didn't have the strength in numbers to be externalized. A theory of mind cannot be based solely on subjective assumptions and should not be a rule-based approach. There definitely are laws of nature that constrain our freedom, and assuming this means that you must also assume that the mind does not deviate from these laws. We have approximately 10 billion neurons, our neurons each have their own system which is connected to other systems. Every neuron is useful to some extent. When a neuron is activated, information is prompted and becomes recognizable, this much is necessary. What is not necessary is for our cells to have charts and graphs monitoring the trajectory and contact between every particle that goes through the cell. Why would our brains need that information? They don't, unless it comes to a scientific endeavour. The theory of everything proposed by Einstein turns out to be insufficient when it comes to the actual process of recognizing and prompting information. In this sense, BF Skinner had a much more accurate hypothesis, even though that one is mathematically and logically insufficient as well.

For the purposes of computationality and sufficient replication of the mind, one must assume a simple, efficient, deterministic view of the universe. If we start postulating things like "quantum indeterminacy" and that the cat is both dead and alive, we cannot account for the flow of nature, the information that is obviously present, to base our assumptions and make rational, and well supported, predictions. Whether it is a computer (which turns out to be capable of making predictions that are unforeseeable by trained human specialists), or a human making the predictions, the predictions are verifiable by circumstance. Statistical mechanics cannot even be done without basing its assumptions on known deterministic phenomena. The point is that by accessing what is known, we can utilize the information (to the extent our knowledge) to make practical and verifiable predictions. I, personally, could care less whether the predictions are made by a computer or a brain, in fact, I prefer that a computer makes the predictions, especially if the computer has a list knowledge which greatly exceeds the number of cells in our brains. The brain can only be so dense, and for that reason it has a limited capacity. Theoretically, if you have a computer and the right process to analyze a corpus, you can keep adding memory and the process will continue to analyze the data. It could literally contain, and store, all data by all humans as long as the hard drive has the ability to store more data. Look, when you talk abut free will, you make the assumption that a lot of others have made before you. It has to do with choice. Well, it actually doesn't have to do with choice, not in my opinion. It actually has to do with location. I define information as changes in the position of the universe. By this standard, to assume that things are free is a false assumption. Here's a simple experiment to verify whether you have free will or not. Take two tennis balls, throw them at someone with one racket, and observe whether the person with the racket is able to replicate the racket in order to hit both balls simultaneously. This would be the true definition of chaos and randomness. If any particle in the universe had the ability to clone itself and place itself in any location at any given moment in time with any trajectory, then there is a free will. However, since this possibility does not exist, I also have to assume that randomness, and chaos, does not exist because it cannot exist. It's obvious that things are predictable. A meteorite does not simply appear 10 feet off the ground with an exact trajectory which is sufficient to blow up the planet. You can go ahead and believe this illusion because you may not have any reason to believe otherwise, but as a scientist and an engineer, I cannot assume the free will because it would be like surrendering to stupidity. Sam Harris says something along these lines, "[You're golfing and you miss a putt. At that moment you say 'oh, I could've made that putt'. If you actually think about this statement, it's nonsense. Given the EXACT circumstances, the EXACT position of the universe in that moment, there is no conceivable way that you would've made that putt. If the universe were exactly the way that it was, you would have done the exact same thing]." Your point relevant to my position on the soul is a red herring. I said that for my purposes, I can safely ignore the soul. By ignoring the soul, I cannot make any assumptions as to what has or does not have one. You say "Im thinking of a number 1 through 10. Guess it." It doesn't appear without context. One can determine the result purely through knowing the position, the velocity, and the proximity of all factors that go into the decision. If all bits of knowledge are known, one can calculate the probability of a new and novel position of the universe, and more directly, of the most probable output, which is statistically significant and a likely prediction which is/will be verifiable by occurrence. The specification of all variables will eventually lead to a completely deterministic model of the universe. Statistics is currently the most promising approach for predicting events and delivering quality, trustworthy information without using the computationally inefficient method proposed by Einstein. This is not to say that GR will not be computational, it obviously is, just that it appears that it's not the type of computation utilized by our brains. Our brains do not measure information, they recognize it and they calculate predictions (which seems to be indistinguishable from actions and also seem to be a quantum effect in the sense that the information is entangled and prompted simultaneously).

You say that the other two are untestable, which is false. I assume that you're talking about the soul and the metaphysics of computers. The idea that the metaphysics of computers is untestable is false in my opinion. Now that there is a consensus that the free will is an illusion (and as reverse engineers of the brain it would be contradictory to assume that there is a free will), we can go about testing theories that involve brain activities computationally. As Chomsky says, not much is learned in this pursuit, maybe around the margins, but a lot of evidence is utilized (evidence concerning physics, biology, atomic and molecular science, chemistry, and other topics of the sort). I know personally that you can describe these processes (such as quantum entanglement) and make the computer carry out operations that sufficiently replicate this type of occurrence. It turns out that you can see just by looking at efficiency (whether the computer is able to process the instructions in a desirable time frame) whether you are on the right track, because we have to assume that nature is "perfectly efficient", and given this assumption, a computer should be able to carry out tasks within a desirable timeframe if they are true to natures efficiency. It turns out that you can have a MASSIVE memory, computationally, and it appears that regardless of the length of the list, by analyzing separate strings, you can efficiently access the list within the blink of an eye (even if the list has a length greater than 2846946483 units [of knowledge]). So, therefor, I have to assume that the metaphysics of computer science is an empirical endeavour. Not only is it empirical, it is necessarily deterministic; there is absolutely no possibility of making the system "random" or "chaotic" or "free" because these are notions that are non-existent in nature. They are unobservable. The universe is ordered (which I, as a computational linguist, would call "grammatical"). I will not comment on the soul any further than to say that the universe is expanding and one should consider the implications proposed by Krauss's argument, something from nothing. Our body has clear cut parameters, there are very distinct constraints that guide the flow of energy, and information, to be necessarily sufficient with respect to the body of the cell; the membrane that defines the parameters of our body. The soul, in my opinion, is also a real indefinite term, and for my purposes at least, I can go about theorizing and testing the metaphysics without paying even a moment of attention to the probability of having a soul. In my opinion, I define the mind (which one may call a soul) as a finite recursive process only operating to the extent that the system containing the process is not malfective. In other words, while mind == 0: perform theorized operation. In this sense, we can safely ignore the soul as long as our experiments sufficiently replicate observed behavior.

More recent speculation leads me to believe that time is actually a tuple. It makes sense because it takes disposition into account by remembering particular bits of knowledge which remain relevant to particular situations (ex. Learning to hate someone: prompt hatred). Computationally it looks like this. Time = hate('stfu you're stupid', stupid('what do you even know'', what do('what do you even know'))) It has a definition which consists of a large portion of variables that, when prompted, have correlated strings as well as another bunch of variables. All variables correlate with actual knowledge (like 'cow'). http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/79024-unarbitrated-time/

Qualia cannot be separate to brain states, not for the purpose of reverse engineering the brain. We have to assume that knowledge exists physically in the brain, we also have to assume that it is recognizable. Knowledge may move throughout the brain, but the system that recognizes the knowledge is much more stationary. I guess that qualia could be different at different moments, but the term itself is much too broad when we're trying to measure/discuss something that is necessarily precise. My point is that we need to identify something specific rather than tarry on real indefinite terminology. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/79425-specific-method-of-measuring-mind-activity/