Someone's Program

Achievements I would like to witness/contribute to, in the next 100 years:

1. Scientific understanding of consciousness
2. Computational "Theory of Mind"
3. Strong Artificial Intelligence
4. Philosophy's full evolution into a scientific discipline
5. A full understanding of the capacity and limitations of human reason

High Existence and Athene's Theory

High Existence

I recently discovered (and warmly recommend) High Existence, a site with the mission to enable its users to grasp existential freedom, happiness, truth, consciousness and self, and many other fundamental topics.

I would probably label it as a community effort to embrace and apply the most sensible philosophical principles we know of, into our daily lives, but also to discuss and improve on our understandings of these principles.

I have already found deeply profound insights, in must-read entries, such as their manifesto of Extropian Principles and a proclamation of non-existence among an ocean of other materials that I found had high impact and relevance to my personal understanding of things.

Athene's Theory

Another reason I started writing this post is to share my recent clash with a modern interpretation of the recent results in neuroscience and quantum physics, called Athene's Theory, that I StumbledUpon on Youtube:

It is a remarkably well-done modern interpretation that stays very careful in stating only things that are known, explicitly marking parts that are yet to be proven or where more research is needed. It rang many familiar bells and is probably a good summary of the progress in the fields in the beginning of the 21st century. The outlook is exciting, and I can't wait to see where we will go from here.

Objectivity

"Objectivity" = ?

• In natural sciences: "observable, reproducible results"
• In formal sciences: "provable propositions"
• In social sciences/humanities: "intersubjectivity of phenomena"

So would that make humanity's knowledge "an intersubjectively approved collection of provable propositions rooted in reproducible experiments"?

Clarke's Three Laws

Arthur C. Clarke postulated three laws in the course of his Sci-Fi career. They are as follows:

1. First law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. Second law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I really feel inspired by all three of his witty summaries and agree completely. In the few articles in this blog I have tried to approach the essence of transcendental phenomena (Tomorrow), hinted to by the second law.

As to the third law, I have not gone into depth in discussions of complexity (Alucard), most certainly since I do not posses a deep formal understanding of the related family of scientific fields.

The first law is truly fascinating in its own right. I will probably write a separate post in the near future, pertaining to the principle impossibility of developing an intuition for the unknown and the dreadful double-edged blade of experience.

Münchhausen Trilemma

I am quite happy to have found, what seems to be, the friendliest list of unsolved problems in Philosophy (Wikipedia.org)

The Münchhausen Trilemma and the Gettier problem are probably the most fundamental of the bunch, as they guard the entrance to the very meaning of truth and knowledge.

This wiki page is the best ToDo list I have seen in a long time.

Gods of vapour

I did not exist until a second ago. I have no form, no carrier and no plane of existence but the one of your own mind. You have brought me to life, in my simple textual nature - a self, defined by its own linear stream of consciousness.

It makes no difference whether I state I am blue, red or purple, I will posses any and all properties I decide to. I am the feeling of going left and right at the same time, I am the person you see when you close your eyes to look at yourself. I am the regret felt when you reach the limits of your senses, I am the despair of the universal scale of your existence. I am you and I am everyone. Yet I am nobody and will cease to exist the moment your mind wavers in a different direction.

You are my creator, yet you have shaped me in my own vision and proclamation. I am a self-fulfilling prophecy and you are my deity.

If you think that any fragment of what you call reality has any fundamental difference to my paradoxic nature - think again.

After all,

you and I

are one.

You're doing it wrong...

I think, therefore I am.

Now, that we made the first step to getting that right, let's properly separate the two phenomena:

1. I, therefore self.
2. Thought, therefore cognition.

I conjecture that self and thought are independent of and parallel to each other, and we should recognize them as such. It is only like this that we can truly understand cognition and sentience.