h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

and my reality is based on my experiences, so that Hamerhoff makes some sense to me, but understandably not to others.

I am now soooo confused!

The second coming left me a little, well, erm... Confused?

Amanda

Amanda
The second coming had a message. We have to responsible for our own actions our own deeds and not rely on books and prohesy and the words of others to tell us how to live and not to live.
Our conscious is the only God we have .

Thanks for that Annie.

I missed the first part you see and have had trouble fuguring out what was going on.
I see where you are coming from now.
I agree with it actually.

After all, religion is only books until someone proves otherwise.

"Consciousness is one of the most perplexing problems outstanding in science, and one that reflects on our very nature and relation to reality. Most approaches to the problem of consciousness see the brain as a computer, with neurons and synapses acting as basic switches, or "bits". In this approach, consciousness is thought to "emerge" as a novel property of complex computation. However this approach fails to adequately deal with enigmatic features of consciousness and more radical approaches may be necessary.

Quantum mechanics describes the seemingly bizarre behavior of matter and energy at microscopic scales, e.g. that of atoms and sub-atomic particles. At that level particles may be in two or more places at the same time (quantum superposition), and particles widely separated in distance may nonetheless be intimately connected (quantum entanglement). These properties are used in quantum computation which offers potential solutions to the enigmatic features of consciousness. However quantum computation is disrupted by interactions with the environment ("decoherence"), and neurons and synapses seem too large for delicate quantum effects.

But neurons may be far more complicated than mere switches. If we look inside neurons and other cells, we see highly ordered networks (the "cytoskeleton") comprised of microtubules and other filamentous structures which organize cellular activities.. Microtubules are cylindrical polymers of the protein tubulin arranged in hexagonal lattices comprising the cylinder wall. Cooperative interactions among tubulin subunits within microtubules have been suggested to process information, as in molecular scale "cellular automata". As the states of tubulin are controlled by quantum mechanical internal forces (van der Waals London forces), they may exist in quantum superposition of multiple states ("quantum bits, or "qubits"), and microtubules may be seen as quantum computers involved in cellular organiza
Sir Roger Penrose and I have developed a model of quantum computation in brain microtubules. The quantum computations are reduced to classical states by Roger's objective threshold related to quantum gravity ("objective reduction - OR") which links the process to fundamental spacetime geometry----the fine structure of the universe. The quantum computation is "orchestrated" by feedback from microtubule-associated proteins, hence we term the process "orchestrated objective reduction" ("Orch OR"). Despite intense criticism by scientific, computational and philosophical establishments (who apparently feel threatened), Orch OR remains a viable theory, and perhaps the only model of consciousness which is able to deal with the enigmatic features of consciousness and provide testable predictions. the key scientific issue is sustaining quantum states in the warm brain milieu, thus the "battle over decoherence". Many view the idea of quantum consciousness (and Orch OR in particular) as unlikely. But I view it as a "speck on the horizon", a paradigm that will eventually dominate our view of brain, mind and reality. Its the only approach which seems capable of tying everything together."

Follow that!

to annie:
holy crap! good god, woman! that was incredible!!
i am completely blown away!!!!!!!!!!!!

for me, the most elegant explanation for consciousness is that it is the flip side of the physical world.

you have the subjective and the objective running in parallel.
it would make sense to guess that there is a correlation between the 2. now, if we could better elucidate these correlations, we could come up with a set of laws of the subjective/objective universe, kind of like the laws that we have for the physical universe [gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force]

to manda:
do you have this yet?

petey out.

ether that or the meaning of life is 42
can i offer some anyone?

Yes peteY, I do have but not because of this.
I was driven home from work today with a migraine.
Feel a right wally, could not drive myself.
Don't feel too bad now, pain has mostly gone, but feel 'weird'.

Have to keep leaving the computer to make sure it does not come back.

TTFN

Amanda

manda

TTFN?

hey, i'm recording a bunch of Trigger happy tV. it rocks!

TTFN = Ta ta for now.
Good bye.

bye

toodle loo

i gotta go now to
bye all

The universe will die. The sun and other stars like it will throw out heat until they have no more energy to burn. The big bang threw everything outwards at a massive rate. As it gets bigger, so the gaps between matter get bigger and are filled with "dark energy". Instead of gravity pulling everything back down to a "big crunch" the dark energy accelerates the expansion process, pushing everything further apart faster and faster. In the end everything will be a cold, sad, blackness as the stars all go out, or are too far apart for us to see anything - but "us" will be long gone.

I wonder if this dark energy is what conscious is made of.
Just a thought.

Could be, but since we don't know what consciousness is, or what dark matter is, it's a very speculative presumption.

IF the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing, then it's older than we think. But dark matter was postulated because galaxies behave as if they are HEAVIER than they should be.

I await the "final cosmological solution" with interest, but little expectation that I'll be able to get my head round it.

Consciousness, like existence, is something of a given, only ever seen from the inside, never the outside, which is why these two appear as the big mysteries. They are ALWAYS part of the framework within which the details we call knowledge have to be placed.

Noggin

"it's a very speculative presumption."
yes it is

annie:
do you believe in the new theory about an ever expanding universe?
some reputable folks seem quite certain.

i never htought we'd know with such conviction during my lifetime.
mind blowing news to me!

isn't anything "dark", like "dark matter" and "dark energy" invoked just to make things work out. like we observe the universe expanding like it does, so "create" a repulsive force called "dark energy"...?

pete out!

annie:
do you believe in the new theory about an ever expanding universe?
some reputable folks seem quite certain.

i never htought we'd know with such conviction during my lifetime.
mind blowing news to me!

isn't anything "dark", like "dark matter" and "dark energy" invoked just to make things work out. like we observe the universe expanding like it does, so "create" a repulsive force called "dark energy"...?

pete out!

Pete
We may evoke the name 'dark matter ' but the matter itself is there.
We do not understand what it is at present. Like cavemen not understanding what fire is all about. But we cannot say; 'because I do not understand something it does not exist'.