More on the Speed of Thought
PPRuNe Enigma
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Well if you want to get all metaphysical about it, and you aren't interested in scientific things like the ions and the membranes, then why bother talking about 'speed' at all?
Speed is after all a physical phenomenon, defined as distance divided by time.
Light would take less than a nanosecond to cross from one side of the brain to the other. As I've said, neuron firing rates are much much slower than this.
So go on, please tell us what two events within the brain do you think are separated by less than a nanosecond ?
Speed is after all a physical phenomenon, defined as distance divided by time.
Light would take less than a nanosecond to cross from one side of the brain to the other. As I've said, neuron firing rates are much much slower than this.
So go on, please tell us what two events within the brain do you think are separated by less than a nanosecond ?
Icarus, the article which you provided a link to was essentially an essay on why modern neuroscience is “misguided.” It suggests that “Instead of trying to explain consciousness in terms of matter and energy, perhaps we should be trying to explain matter and energy in terms of consciousness.” Forgive me for assuming that you were sympathetic with this point of view.
As for me “lowering the tone” of this discussion – I would prefer to call it bringing things back down to earth. Scientists are in the business of trying to explain human psychology in terms of physiological processes. This has been and will mostly likely continue to be a productive enterprise and one which I’m glad to be involved in.
A cautionary note – thought experiments and introspection are not the best way to go about determining how the mind works. Intuitions and common-sense notions about how our minds process information are frequently wrong and often extremely misleading. Let me offer an example. Vivid autobiographical memories often feel like they have a photographic quality. When we recall (think about) a significant event in our life it typically feels like we a retrieving a snapshot of what we experienced at the time. However, experimentally it can be demonstrated that this is not the case. Such memories are actually reconstructions recreated each time they are accessed, and they integrate some stored information about the event in question with more recently acquired information. Consequently autobiographical memories are rather malleable and easily distorted. This is why eyewitness testimony is often so unreliable. Also it’s worth noting that there is little relationship between how sure someone feels that a memory is accurate, and whether it actually is. Our intuitive understanding of our own memory is faulty.
Another example, people will often generate totally plausible accounts of why they behaved in a particular way in a particular situation that are complete fabrications. It often feels like we know why we behaved in a particular way but in reality we have absolutely no idea – it’s all post hoc theorising. Our intuitive understanding of how we make decisions is often wrong.
For these reasons, and many others, trying to come up with general theories of cognition and consciousness that satisfy our intuitive knowledge about our own minds is a fairly pointless exercise.
As for me “lowering the tone” of this discussion – I would prefer to call it bringing things back down to earth. Scientists are in the business of trying to explain human psychology in terms of physiological processes. This has been and will mostly likely continue to be a productive enterprise and one which I’m glad to be involved in.
A cautionary note – thought experiments and introspection are not the best way to go about determining how the mind works. Intuitions and common-sense notions about how our minds process information are frequently wrong and often extremely misleading. Let me offer an example. Vivid autobiographical memories often feel like they have a photographic quality. When we recall (think about) a significant event in our life it typically feels like we a retrieving a snapshot of what we experienced at the time. However, experimentally it can be demonstrated that this is not the case. Such memories are actually reconstructions recreated each time they are accessed, and they integrate some stored information about the event in question with more recently acquired information. Consequently autobiographical memories are rather malleable and easily distorted. This is why eyewitness testimony is often so unreliable. Also it’s worth noting that there is little relationship between how sure someone feels that a memory is accurate, and whether it actually is. Our intuitive understanding of our own memory is faulty.
Another example, people will often generate totally plausible accounts of why they behaved in a particular way in a particular situation that are complete fabrications. It often feels like we know why we behaved in a particular way but in reality we have absolutely no idea – it’s all post hoc theorising. Our intuitive understanding of how we make decisions is often wrong.
For these reasons, and many others, trying to come up with general theories of cognition and consciousness that satisfy our intuitive knowledge about our own minds is a fairly pointless exercise.
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Icarus gave a splendid explanation of the collapsing wave principle.
The attraction of this and the subsequent many worlds theory (Everett, and the rest) is that it can make possible virtually all of the myths and legends of all religions and philosophies, including ghosts, past lives et al.
The two debates going on here are actually quite seperate (and I may have been responsible for a sidetrack) but as I detected a hint of sarcasm from more formally trained contributors, they would do well to remember that the basis of their chemistry is quantum mechanics!
The attraction of this and the subsequent many worlds theory (Everett, and the rest) is that it can make possible virtually all of the myths and legends of all religions and philosophies, including ghosts, past lives et al.
The two debates going on here are actually quite seperate (and I may have been responsible for a sidetrack) but as I detected a hint of sarcasm from more formally trained contributors, they would do well to remember that the basis of their chemistry is quantum mechanics!
TR3 - did you read my first posting about the relevance of this topic to aviation? Sure it's a tenuous link but we're having a bit of fun here. 
Haven't you got anything better to do than try to spoil our fun by posting messages asking for this thread to be closed down? If it doesn't interest you why not just read a different thread?
Haven't you got anything better to do than try to spoil our fun by posting messages asking for this thread to be closed down? If it doesn't interest you why not just read a different thread?
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TR3, just how many of your 53 posts over 6 weeks have been to ask a moderator to close a thread? This is not the first time I am seeing these comments from you.
The subject is relevant as Stagger rightly points out; it may have taken a turn towards matters scientific, but then, if one asks how IRS/INS work, you are also going to get answers based on math/physics, the same as we are getting here, only we are moving away from contempory Newtonian Physics and into Quantum Theory etc to provide/postulate explainations.
If it is too deep for you, take Staggers advice and read another thread or the Beano.
The subject is relevant as Stagger rightly points out; it may have taken a turn towards matters scientific, but then, if one asks how IRS/INS work, you are also going to get answers based on math/physics, the same as we are getting here, only we are moving away from contempory Newtonian Physics and into Quantum Theory etc to provide/postulate explainations.
If it is too deep for you, take Staggers advice and read another thread or the Beano.
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Hmmmm
Philosopher/Scientists or Scientist/Philosophers is where we are here.
At the risk of boring TR3 to death (his "back" button must be dysfunctional amongst other things) may I quote Stephen Hawking from his “Brief History of Time.”
"Now, if you believe that the universe is not arbitrary, but is governed by definite laws, you ultimately have to combine the partial theories into a complete unified theory that will describe everything in the universe. But there is a fundamental paradox in the search for such a complete unified theory. The ideas about scientific theories outlined above assume we are rational beings who are free to observe the universe as we want and draw logical deductions from what we see. In such a scheme it is reasonable to suppose that we might progress ever closer to the laws that govern our universe. Yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come to the right conclusions from the evidence? Might it not equally determine that we draw the wrong conclusion? Or no conclusion at all?”
I would be careful not to fall for the empirical or deterministic approach, Einstein, whose work provided the foundation for quantum physics would have nothing to do with the child of his research. Most of the great hypotheses and theories that underpin our modern science were the result of mind experiments, and moments of great inspiration, only able to be verified decades later when the technology was available.
Copernicus, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Kant, Heisenburg, Hawking the list goes on and ALL of them swimming against the tide of what was known.
Were those theories/hypotheses philosophy? They could not be what we now call “science” as at the time nobody could then prove/disprove or reproduce the results other than through mind games with each other.
What has this got to do with the speed of thought, I dunno but I’ve got an open mind on it.
Religion, Voodoo, witchcraft, the occult call it what you will, but I believe we are all connected with the universe somehow and therefore with each other. As Icarus suggests the "speed" of thought may in fact be for all intents and purposes instantaneous across the "universe" whatever tha may be.
Empirical study may well tell us what is, and maybe how it is, going on from a mechanical or deterministic viewpoint with the measuring tools we currently have at our disposal but I am with KIFIS, it doesn’t yet tell us the whole story.
Philosopher/Scientists or Scientist/Philosophers is where we are here.
At the risk of boring TR3 to death (his "back" button must be dysfunctional amongst other things) may I quote Stephen Hawking from his “Brief History of Time.”
"Now, if you believe that the universe is not arbitrary, but is governed by definite laws, you ultimately have to combine the partial theories into a complete unified theory that will describe everything in the universe. But there is a fundamental paradox in the search for such a complete unified theory. The ideas about scientific theories outlined above assume we are rational beings who are free to observe the universe as we want and draw logical deductions from what we see. In such a scheme it is reasonable to suppose that we might progress ever closer to the laws that govern our universe. Yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come to the right conclusions from the evidence? Might it not equally determine that we draw the wrong conclusion? Or no conclusion at all?”
I would be careful not to fall for the empirical or deterministic approach, Einstein, whose work provided the foundation for quantum physics would have nothing to do with the child of his research. Most of the great hypotheses and theories that underpin our modern science were the result of mind experiments, and moments of great inspiration, only able to be verified decades later when the technology was available.
Copernicus, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Kant, Heisenburg, Hawking the list goes on and ALL of them swimming against the tide of what was known.
Were those theories/hypotheses philosophy? They could not be what we now call “science” as at the time nobody could then prove/disprove or reproduce the results other than through mind games with each other.
What has this got to do with the speed of thought, I dunno but I’ve got an open mind on it.
Religion, Voodoo, witchcraft, the occult call it what you will, but I believe we are all connected with the universe somehow and therefore with each other. As Icarus suggests the "speed" of thought may in fact be for all intents and purposes instantaneous across the "universe" whatever tha may be.
Empirical study may well tell us what is, and maybe how it is, going on from a mechanical or deterministic viewpoint with the measuring tools we currently have at our disposal but I am with KIFIS, it doesn’t yet tell us the whole story.
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Grainger, whilst I would agree that velocity = distance/time, these days the term speed is used to define 'rate(s)'.
My PC CPU has a Speed of 750MHz but it doesn't travel any distance (well I guess not, I am yet to open the box and look whilst it is turned on). What about the measurement of the speed of decay in a radioactive isotope (half-life), no movement required there either.
I suggest speed is better defined as 'a rate of change' in these circumstances; and perhaps that could be applied here with thought, a rate of change of something in the mind.
[ 20 August 2001: Message edited by: Icarus ]
My PC CPU has a Speed of 750MHz but it doesn't travel any distance (well I guess not, I am yet to open the box and look whilst it is turned on). What about the measurement of the speed of decay in a radioactive isotope (half-life), no movement required there either.
I suggest speed is better defined as 'a rate of change' in these circumstances; and perhaps that could be applied here with thought, a rate of change of something in the mind.
[ 20 August 2001: Message edited by: Icarus ]
TR3 - I have in fact been away on a trip for the last three days!
Now I like these discussions as much as the next guy
I think that you are confusing the time between two different events with travel of an object over time.
Tutorial 3: Faster Than Light Travel explains some of the aspects of trivial faster than light travel for furthur reading.
Now given that, you are free to chase this discussion in ... hmm.... Non Air Transport Issues. PPRuNe's forum for "News and issues not relating to air transport but still involving aviation."
Now I like these discussions as much as the next guy
I think that you are confusing the time between two different events with travel of an object over time.Tutorial 3: Faster Than Light Travel explains some of the aspects of trivial faster than light travel for furthur reading.
Now given that, you are free to chase this discussion in ... hmm.... Non Air Transport Issues. PPRuNe's forum for "News and issues not relating to air transport but still involving aviation."
