Do computers dream of electric sheep?

[reverse]

As usual my brain has come up with an odd theory that I need to hammer out with other minds to see if there is any value whatsoever in it.

 

Starting point was the thought that all the complex equations devised hundreds of years ago to approximate reality are now finding an unintended use in making Computer generated films like Lord of the rings and so on.

 

Added to that the thought that many of these equations describe events that seem to exist outside out three dimensional world.

Call it Hyperspace.

 

So without going into the details of it.

It struck me as kind of funny that we might actually dream in hyperspace.

And that reason can not exist in hyperspace ( the rules are not the same as the physical world ) So dreams make no logical sense.

 

And the finally bit of humour comes from the loop of:

a film maker using these abstract formulae to express a dream or imagination so that we can see what he/she has seen in hyperspace.

 

Do we dream in hyperspace?

[Mokele]

Why would "hyperspace" have anything more than different formulations of our own rules, since it's a (possible) part of our universe, albeit usually inacessible?

 

Furthermore, even if it is "lawless" like dreams, that similarity does not necessarily unite them.

 

On an off-topic note, I'd like to say that I *love* the title of the thread.

 

Mokele

[BenSon]

On an off-topic note, I'd like to say that I *love* the title of the thread.

 

On a further off topic note that title was stolen from a book called "Do androids dream of electric sheep' Which was appropriated into the movie "Bladerunner" but thats a whole other kettle of fish....

 

In response to the original thread i would have to dissagree I think dreams are made up of what we sense in the real world and are just jumbled up. Just because equations predict phenomenon outside of reality that also predict things that happen in the real world dosn't mean that our dreams are these outer phenomenon predicted. See what i mean.

Dreams may be approximated in a similar sense and although seemingly random, are a part of the physical world and possibly not the "hyperspace' phenomenon predicted.

 

I hope i havn't missed the point completely (I have a habit of doing that ) Could you provide some scources for this stuff it sounds pretty interesting.

 

~Scott

[reverse]

Yep my original title was "computer dreams",

but I couldn’t resist the P K Dick Blade runner restyling.

Stolen! Some people might take exception to that.

but I’m not one of those people.

(I wont go down the side track of why you cant credit the variation to Mr Dick ).

I think he also did Minority Report and Blade Runner and Total Recall.

He might be dead now unfortunately.

 

This whole idea of an actual place called Hyperspace grew out of a thread a few days back.

the basic idea was that X was a line,

X squared was an area.

X cubed was a volume

and X to the forth power was a hypercube that existed for arguments sake in hyperspace.

 

What struck me was the way the math was able to link the three real dimensions.

 

The fact that a circle expanding in the “Area” dimension was mimicked by a proportionally growing line in “length” dimension , that’s significant.

 

The fact that the volume of a sphere grows proportionally in the “Volume” dimension mimicking a growing circle in the “Area” dimension is also significant.

 

So could math be a tool to let us look outside reality and get some shadow of what is going on in dimension four?

 

Apparently so.

 

A tool to look outside the confines of reality, that is some tool.

 

Was it the only tool I wondered?

Was there any other way we could look outside reality?

[BenSon]

Stolen! Some people might take exception to that.

but I’m not one of those people..

Good i realy didn't mean it in a bad way

[BenSon]

So could math be a tool to let us look outside reality and get some shadow of what is going on in dimension four?

 

Apparently so.

 

A tool to look outside the confines of reality, that is some tool.

When you look at it like that i do think that it is possible this "hyperspace" exists and may even influence our reality, but do I think that it is acessed in our dreams? No.

 

~Scott

[reverse]

because??

 

it might be difficult to test cause and effect because of the scrambling effect one might theoretically attribute to our hypothetical zone.

 

theoretically.

 

PS; wouldn’t it really Pi** you off to find out that in dimension 4,

there was some really simple number to relate the diameter of a circle to its circumference.

[BenSon]

Because? Well I think that our dreams are just made up of everything we perceive in reality and not linked to this "hyperspace". If however this other dimension is influencing our reality at all times then i can see that is possible to acess it while dreaming but only if we can acess it while awake.

But everything is relative is it not? so maybe everything we perceive as our wakeful reality is just a jumbled up version of our dreams and they are the real reality? That realy spins my mind...

 

~Scott

[reverse]

Grab the handrail.

 

It’s all just hypothetical at the moment.

 

Or should I say Hyper-theoretical.

 

So can we think of an experiment to test if there is any value in connecting the place where hyper cubes play out their rules and dreams form?

[tskaze]

I'd say no because your dreams exist in your mind, and your mind exists in/is (whichever theory you follow) your brain, and your brain exists in the universe, so your dreams cant exist both in and out of the universe.

[alt_f13]

I'd say no because your dreams exist in your mind, and your mind exists in/is (whichever theory you follow) your brain, and your brain exists in the universe, so your dreams cant exist both in and out of the universe.

 

Who said dreams weren't communicated to your mind by some extrauniversal phenomenon?

[pnaermao]

You mentioned a tool to be able to look out onto this universe and even into the shadows of a fourth dimension. Well, what if that brain is the tool. I believe Alt f13 is onto something. The brain itself is the tool that can look out onto this world. If the brain (or in this case, more particularly the unconciousness) has the ability to look out and "dream" of the fourth dimension, that could make sense. The concious "cultured" part of the brain is use to only thinking of three dimensions, so any input received in any manner of a fourth dimensional glimpse would then be:

A) Filtered through to a point that the mind can comprehend it

B) Misinterpreted to fit into what the mind is expecting

and C) Then again dismissed as society frowns upon dreams being anything more than random firings of neurons.

This is all based on the already (at least partially) confirmed idea that the brain filters all information given to it so that it really only sees what it can already comprehend. The brain is a huge mystery, 90% (or something close to it) being constantly unused, so maybe a fourth dimensional view (or a three dimensional view of activity in four dimensions) is only one of the possible abilities. Who can guess what else lies hidden behind layer upon layer of nerve cell.

[Mokele]

The brain is a huge mystery, 90% (or something close to it) being constantly unused

 

No, that's an urban legend. Actually *every* part of the brain is used for something. We just only use 10% at any given time (much less for most people).

 

Mokele

[pnaermao]

An urban legend? Thank you for telling me. I apologize then for making that statement, I now know better. For further clarification: Do we know what ever part of the brain does, or are there still sections that their functions remain unknown?

 

Regardless, the brain still acts as a filter for the information coming in through the senses. It has to, we are just not wired correctly to handle everything. Certain sensations, sounds, smells, and sights are pushed to the back of the mind when there are things that it is already focusing on. Your in a room and a butterfly flies by a window. Most of the time you wouldn't even notice it, because mainly you are focused on something going on in the room. But when your bored, those secondary sensations are now brought up to the fore front. You notice the butterfly, the way the seat feels against your body, your breathing, and many other things. Maybe the brain is just so focused on the obvious 3D world that the majority of a 4D world remains unnoticed. Only under certain cirumstances when the brain is nearly seperated from the world (Sleep, Near Death Experience, maybe comas? This is just an idea, so I haven't looked into comas yet.) would things be seen. Then filtered again slightly by conciousness (read my last post).

 

Does that make sense? I'm rereading it and it sounds a little haphazard.

[Mokele]

Do we know what ever part of the brain does, or are there still sections that their functions remain unknown?

 

From what I understand, the answer is "yes and no". We understand what the broad parts of the brain do (like occipital lobes of hearing), but we're still figuring out the specifics of "this small cluster of neurons in this part of the occipital lobe is respobsible for this type of auditory signal analysis"

 

As for the 4-D world, the question arises that, if it's there, why can't we detect it? (And if it's not detectable, directly or indirectly, it's not science) Or, if we can (as you postulate, if I read right), and it does contain information, why haven't we evolved to aquire more of this valuable information, and why haven't other animals done so as well? I'm not saying it's not possible, only that simpler explanations are more likely, especially given the lack of empirical proof for this added dimension that cannot be explained in other ways.

 

Mokele

[bascule]

The problems with studying the microengineering of the brain lie in the fact that it varies so much from individual to individual thanks to the brain's ability to reorder and rearrange itself and that multiple functions are implemented in the same location and the overlaps make decoding brain function rather confusing. Combine this with the fact that there's a hundred billion neurons to consider and you have yourself a rather difficult problem...

[Mokele]

Not to mention that, AFAIK, the technologies that we have which can measure brain activity in a living being while it is performing a task (fMRI, PET scans) lack the resolution to examine such small structures accurately. However, I hear this is being worked on.

 

Mokele