Is it Impossible?

[foodchain]

Here is a little trick I developed learning about anthropology.

 

Try to think of something, anything, and when you do is whatever you thought of associable with anything you already possessed knowledge about?

 

The goal is to think of something you can not associate with any prior knowledge you have.

[NeonBlack]

is whatever you thought of associable with anything you already possessed knowledge about?

 

If it weren't, how could you think of it?

[foodchain]

If it weren't, how could you think of it?

 

SO you would say its impossible then?

[supernova]

Sometimes in my dream I see things that I never thought about before, aren't dreams connected to thought?

[fattyjwoods]

it's impossible

[MrSandman]

How about we associate the previous post to another.

 

I'll start

 

it's impossible

 

 

A common phrase used by those suffering from depression, and/or academic retardation.

[YT2095]

I can Think of one, but I don`t know the answer to it.

[fattyjwoods]

A common phrase used by those suffering from depression, and/or academic retardation.

 

ok go then, see if you can and see who's the "academic retard" now

[sciencenoob]

Of course you can & cant. In physics you can do a calculation and find out that there exists a loss of energy following a decay process and may that signifying the existance of a then unknown neutrino particle. Thats nothing you knew before, yet one had to be familar to the conservation of energy principle and the ideas surrounding quantum mechanics and 'particles'.

 

So then it may be no because everything you know is linked in different complicated ways. And if you were to be able to find something you cannot have known then you simply could not have computed it because your language skills lies in to the picture.

 

Really then it depends on your interpretation of what is meant by no prior link to your experience or knowledge, in which case really your question is simply a misnomer? Its unanswerable.

[blike]

Here is a little trick I developed learning about anthropology.

 

Try to think of something, anything, and when you do is whatever you thought of associable with anything you already possessed knowledge about?

 

The goal is to think of something you can not associate with any prior knowledge you have.

I asked this same question several years ago.

 

I don't think it's possible.

[Genecks]

I guess a squiggle would be a alpha sheet.

Hmm, darn.

[Physia]

I doubt you can think about anything you have no prior knowledge about, so I am going with 'impossible.'

[supernova]

I think it's possible if you train your brain for it, the brain is very powerful and can do amazing things, so I think it's possible.

[Mr Skeptic]

Here is a little trick I developed learning about anthropology.

 

Try to think of something, anything, and when you do is whatever you thought of associable with anything you already possessed knowledge about?

 

The goal is to think of something you can not associate with any prior knowledge you have.

 

Depends on what you count as "something" and "previous knowledge". From my knowledge of psychology, what is called priming demonstrates that people form all sorts of random associations with everything they know. Whenever you think of a word, you automatically think of multiple words that sound similar, are spelled similar, are used in sentences together, share some logical connection, etc.

 

If you had a thought but could not associate any previous knowledge with it, you would be unable to remember it or communicate it. Just another bunch of neurons firing and forgotten.

[foodchain]

Depends on what you count as "something" and "previous knowledge". From my knowledge of psychology, what is called priming demonstrates that people form all sorts of random associations with everything they know. Whenever you think of a word, you automatically think of multiple words that sound similar, are spelled similar, are used in sentences together, share some logical connection, etc.

 

If you had a thought but could not associate any previous knowledge with it, you would be unable to remember it or communicate it. Just another bunch of neurons firing and forgotten.

 

I did not know about that, thanks. My question is basically how I got my mind around the concept of cultural determinism, of which of late I basically equate with animal learning, what can further reduce of course. I don’t know of such a view is the correct of factual one but that’s why science exists, so people can test crackpot ideas:D

 

So the question is basically that. I will try to redefine for sake of clarity. Consciously thinking, in which you understand your thought such as a thought of needing to use the bathroom. Attempt to think of anything that you cannot associate with anything that you already know, such that the sky is blue or a fire engine is red.

 

I personally think its impossible.

[Fred56]

You appear to be asking about duality. I.e that there is no 'singular' thing that exists, because to exist, its non-existence must be possible. There is no 'thing', or notion of a thing, that can be considered "by itself'.

You can't be in a group unless there are "others" who are not in the group. I don't think there's anything we can consider that doesn't have an inverse notion...Of course I could be wrong. This 'principle' does seem to be unavoidable though. What sort of question do you think it poses about observation, for instance?

[Mr Skeptic]

I just thought of something else. What about babies? I believe you do start off with some knowledge, so it may be true for them too (that they always form links with previous knowledge).

 

I understand that babies go through a cataclysm of sorts when they learn language (that's one explanation for childhood amnesia), and form all their new memories based on that, eventually forgetting whatever they learned before age 2-4 years.

 

Not sure that was on subject, but I just wanted to throw it out there.

[foodchain]

You appear to be asking about duality. I.e that there is no 'singular' thing that exists, because to exist, its non-existence must be possible. There is no 'thing', or notion of a thing, that can be considered "by itself'.

You can't be in a group unless there are "others" who are not in the group. I don't think there's anything we can consider that doesn't have an inverse notion...Of course I could be wrong. This 'principle' does seem to be unavoidable though. What sort of question do you think it poses about observation, for instance?

 

The problem with this question is then you have a true linking of biological and physical thought having to occur, or a synthesis. Physics currently lacks any real investigation into the reality of organic evolution as it focuses more on less on universal constants and cosmic issues for example.

 

The base reality then of the question you ask has to combine evolution into physical theory as an explanation for human thought or that really of any particular organism and the development evolutionarily speaking of such biological function, such as the nervous system.

 

To make a hypothetical guess about the question you ask is because of such. Nothing in biology exists that does not communicate so to speak with natural selection to some extent. IF the evolution of the CNS was combated or eliminated by natural selection early on one has no guarantee that such would ever occur again. To induce this ray if you will into the gravity such has, eukaryotic life spawned fourth from prokaryotes. From basic genealogy such can be demonstrated on the concept of a genetic shift, which probably draws from the reality at hand such as plasmid behavior for instance, as a probability. So eukaryotic cellular life or differentiation has occurred for lack of better words only once from prokaryotes, in billions of years...

 

Prokaryotes also do not evolve past single cell, are they alive?

 

So in turn as natural selection in short means ecology, life is engaged with such. In all possibility being in bad health and feeling such is what really. This is beside the point but in the foundation of thought in an evolutionary sense such is intimately also tied to the environment, and as such so is our understanding. Thusly is a simple equation to why it exists, if offered a higher fitness value for such.

 

How this works physical then is tied to evolution on a scale from the molecular/cellular all the way up to ecology. Now trying to put this into physics equations is far from possible right now in my opinion. Thusly like chemistry such fields of study branched off from simply being physics due to complexity.

 

*Sorry I made a mistake in the above post. Instead of genetic shift, which is actually gene shift or really antigenic shift a term dealing with viral behavior I meant to use gene transfer. Just needed to clarify such for discussion.

[Fred56]

Hmm. You might need to explain what you mean by 'physical thought' -thought "emerges" from biology, we surely aren't the only lifeforms who can think or have a conscious notion of "self". Studies have indicated that some other animals (orang-utans, chimps, dolphins?) have a "theory of mind", because they react to their reflection in a mirror, for instance. A blue-green alga would not have anything like this (no neurons, in fact only chemical "communication"), but must have some sort of 'map', or it would not be able to respond (as it does) to external stimuli...

The concept of a model of the universe without life is interesting if you consider that a model needs to be 'remembered' in some consciousness.

[foodchain]

Hmm. You might need to explain what you mean by 'physical thought' -thought "emerges" from biology, we surely aren't the only lifeforms who can think or have a conscious notion of "self". Studies have indicated that some other animals (orang-utans, chimps, dolphins?) have a "theory of mind", because they react to their reflection in a mirror, for instance. A blue-green alga would not have anything like this (no neurons, in fact only chemical "communication"), but must have some sort of 'map', or it would not be able to respond (as it does) to external stimuli...

The concept of a model of the universe without life is interesting if you consider that a model needs to be 'remembered' in some consciousness.

 

 

Well what I mean by physical thought is that thought is physical, it has a physical basis typically being the brain for humans and I would imagine other animals also. I covered the point about other animals in regards to the idea of evolution being what lead to the CNS and brain, I thought you would understand that sorry on my part.

 

In reality of physics or the universe I have no idea what it means. Going from the idea that natural selection has basically aided to the greatest extent the extinction of huge numbers of species on up I cant really go along with any idea of something intelligent behind it. Its not only this but reality of life currently does not seem to support such a notion either. The physical reality as I understand it is life was a possibility that occurred. Now what this means I have no real ability to speak on, what it will mean for the future I don’t have any means to speak on either. I just know that thought as in human thought or related such as puma thought for whatever that is exactly is biological in origin thusly relating to organic evolution heavily via natural selection. So for a physical description one would have to understand this reality evolutionarily speaking from a cellular/molecular level all the way up to an ecological level. To transfer all of such into equations I am sure is possible but I don’t think such is possible at this point. So for a physics related answer that’s the best I can give. It is easy to study the evolution of the CNS to a certain extent without heavy prior understanding of biology really.

 

For example, without the extinction of the dinosaurs, I seriously doubt mammals would be where they are at right now, a huge and complex brain relativity speaking also did not seem to be prevalent in current understandings of dinosaur physiology, though the extent of dino intelligence is a disputed issue still, and how could you say it would be beneficial and spread through dinosaur population at any giving time from any specie? You run into ecology which when studied under biodiversity reflects just that in connection with natural selection.

 

Overall to induce intelligent anything I think falls outside the scope of what can be studied currently. Evolution and life on its own is an intense enough of an application to warrant its own field of many aggregate fields. Reality is truly complex and as such development of understanding is really slow for the most part. Natural selection and evolution and human thought is a perfect example of this, but the reality of natural selection as it impacts life is not something understood very quickly, you have to actually study life to see it, not an equation really at this point. Genetics has some equations that are decent for such a purpose but noting definite yet as the final answer to life I would say.

[DrDNA]

Hmm. You might need to explain what you mean by 'physical thought' -thought "emerges" from biology, we surely aren't the only lifeforms who can think or have a conscious notion of "self". Studies have indicated that some other animals (orang-utans, chimps, dolphins?) have a "theory of mind", because they react to their reflection in a mirror, for instance. A blue-green alga would not have anything like this (no neurons, in fact only chemical "communication"), but must have some sort of 'map', or it would not be able to respond (as it does) to external stimuli...

The concept of a model of the universe without life is interesting if you consider that a model needs to be 'remembered' in some consciousness.

 

hey Fred's back!

[Fred56]

Actually I've just been hiding...

[DrDNA]

LOL. I suspected that a newcomer or two might be you.....was I right?

[Fred56]

No, I mean hiding under my bridge, waiting for unsuspecting noo b's

[DrDNA]

LOL. Oh I forgot. You're a troll now. Say, I've always wondered if you guys have some kind of ranking system so the trolls with the most senority get the bigger bridges or is more like there's an open bridge and you just move under it?